This
sermon is part of a series I did for the Deer Creek Charge on the story
of King David. I won't post the whole series, just parts of it. I hope
it gets you interested in the story from 1 and 2 Samuel to check it out
for yourselves!
2
Samuel 11:1-15, 27
(Common English Bible)
In the spring, when
kings go off to war, David sent Joab, along with his servants and all
the Israelites, and they destroyed the Ammonites, attacking the city
of Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
One
evening, David got up from his couch and was pacing back and forth on
the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing; the
woman was very beautiful. David sent someone and inquired about the
woman. The report came back: “Isn’t this Eliam’s daughter
Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers
to get her. When she came to him, he had sex with her. (Now she had
been purifying herself after her monthly period.) Then she returned
home. The woman conceived and sent word to David.
“I’m
pregnant,” she said.
Then
David sent a message to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So
Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked about
the welfare of Joab and the army and how the battle was going. Then
David told Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”
Uriah
left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him.
However, Uriah slept at the palace entrance with all his master’s
servants. He didn’t go down to his own house. David was told,
“Uriah didn’t go down to his own house,” so David asked Uriah,
“Haven’t you just returned from a journey? Why didn’t you go
home?”
“The
[Ark of the Covenant] and Israel and Judah are all living in tents,”
Uriah told David. “And my master Joab and my master’s troops are
camping in the open field. How could I go home and eat, drink, and
have sex with my wife? I swear on your very life, I will not do
that!”
Then
David told Uriah, “Stay here one more day. Tomorrow I’ll send you
back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day. The next day David
called for him, and he ate and drank, and David got him drunk. In the
evening Uriah went out to sleep in the same place, alongside his
master’s servants, but he did not go down to his own home.
The
next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. He
wrote in the letter, “Place Uriah at the front of the fiercest
battle, and then pull back from him so that he will be struck down
and die.”
But
what David had done was evil in the LORD ’s eyes.
2
Samuel 11:26-12:13
(The Message)
When Uriah's wife
heard that her husband was dead, she grieved for her husband. When
the time of mourning was over, David sent someone to bring her to his
house. She became his wife and bore him a son.
But God was not at
all pleased with what David had done, and sent Nathan to David.
Nathan said to him: “There were two men in the same city--- one
rich, the other poor. The rich man had huge flocks of sheep, herds of
cattle. The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he
had bought and raised. It grew up with him and his children as a
member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and
slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him.
“One day a
traveler dropped in on the rich man. He was too stingy to take an
animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor,
so he took the poor man's lamb and prepared a meal to set before his
guest.”
David
exploded in anger. “As surely as God
lives,” he said to Nathan, “the man who did this ought to be
[hanged]! He must repay for the lamb four times over for his crime
and his stinginess!”
“You
[are] the man!” said Nathan. “And here's what God,
the God of Israel, has to say to you: I made you king over Israel. I
freed you from the fist of Saul. I gave you your master's daughter
and other wives to have and to hold. I gave you both Israel and
Judah. And if that hadn't been enough, I'd have gladly thrown in much
more. So why have you treated the word of God
with brazen contempt, doing this great evil? You murdered Uriah the
Hittite, then took his wife as your wife. Worse, you killed him with
an Ammonite sword! And now, because you treated God with such
contempt and took Uriah the Hittite's wife as your wife, killing and
murder will continually plague your family. This is God
speaking,
remember! I'll make trouble for you out of your own family. I'll take
your wives from right out in front of you. I'll give them to some
neighbor, and he'll go to bed with them openly. You did your deed in
secret; I'm doing mine with the whole country watching!”
Then
David confessed to Nathan, “I've sinned against God.”
Nathan
pronounced, “Yes, but that's not the last word. God
forgives your sin...”
Psalm
51:1-12
(Inclusive Bible Translation)
O God, have mercy on
me!
Because of your love
and your great compassion,
wipe away my faults;
wash me clean of my
guilt;
purify me of my sin.
For I am aware of my
faults,
and I have my sin
constantly in mind.
I sinned against you
alone,
and did what is evil
in your sight.
You are just when
you pass sentence on me,
blameless when you
give judgment.
I was born in sin,
conceived in sin---
yet you want truth
to live in my innermost being.
Teach me your
wisdom!
Purify me with
hyssop until I am clean;
wash me until I am
purer than new-fallen snow.
Instill some joy and
gladness into me;
let the bones you
have crushed rejoice again.
Turn your face from
my sins,
and wipe out all my
guilt.
O God, create a
clean heart in me,
put into me a new
and steadfast spirit;
do not banish me
from your presence,
do not deprive me of
your holy Spirit!
Be my savior again,
renew my joy,
keep my spirit
steady and willing[.]
Sermon:
Famed
preacher Barbara Brown Taylor points to this story of David, Uriah,
and Bathsheba to counter the claim that the Bible is a wholesome
guide to family values.
And when I realized that this Sunday was the actual Sunday before
school starts, I thought, hmmm, this story doesn't fit well with back
to school, child-friendly themes. But I thought it was a part of
David's story that was too important to skip over. Early in the
summer, you talked about a young David's trust in God through the
story of his anointing and of his defeat of Goliath. The last two
weeks, we talked about David dancing with all his might before God
and we spoke of how he wanted to build God a house, but God decided
to build David a house instead. I have been careful to point out that
David is flawed, but we haven't focused on any particular story that
illustrates his sin. And this is the big story. In fact, the bible
tells us in first Kings chapter fifteen verse five that David
was faithful in all things except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
And so a sermon
series, even a short one like this one, on David, is not complete
without looking at the story of David, Uriah, and Bathsheba. But I
think it is a story that does more that just disprove the idea that
the bible is a wholesome guide to family values. It also shows us
that even when we sin in big ways like David did, God still loves us.
God does not leave us. God asks for repentance and then forgives us
completely. And so this service, our scripture readings, our songs,
our prayers have been about inviting us into that part of the story.
It isn't about us wallowing in our sin, wondering how God could ever
forgive us, no--- David didn't do that. It is about recognizing the
truth of our lives, and trying to make things right, with the promise
that God is beside us.
So let us pray:
Patient Teacher,
Guide us through
this difficult story this morning,
difficult for so
many reasons
including the
fact that it reminds us too much of our own battles with sin.
May your presence
with us show us the way to your abundant grace. Amen.
Many
of you know the tradition that says David wrote most of the Psalms we
find in the bible. Psalm 51 in particular is linked to the story we
read earlier of David, Uriah, and Bathsheba, thought to have been
written after David recognized his sin. And the language of the psalm
is certainly what I picture the David who danced before the Ark of
the Covenant writing. When he asks for forgiveness and a clean heart,
he isn't just asking for peace, or for a removal of guilt. Be
my savior again, renew my joy,
we read. David is asking for the return of joy, that joy he knew so
well that really defined his relationship with God.
Because
this joyful relationship with God is nowhere to be found in our story
this morning. We see David waking up in the morning, not full of the
presence of God, as he may have been that morning he decided he
wanted to build God a house, no. Rather he wakes up in the morning
plagued by what inspirational author Max Lucado calls “altitude
sickness.”
He says that David has been too high too long, too powerful for too
long. He has become the kind of guy who no longer wakes up in the
morning full of gratitude and joy for what God has done for him. He
has begun to think too much of himself, and he has begun to take for
himself. He no longer sees the need to be with his own men in battle,
and not because he's had a change of heart, wanted peace, but because
he wants to lounge about at home instead, napping and doing as he
pleased.
We all start to get
this complacent at times. Now, it doesn't always mean that we then
sin quite as grandly as David did, but it does open us up to some
poor life decisions. We start to forget to trust God, the way young
David trusted God when he fought Goliath. We start thinking that we
are self sufficient. We may forget God's presence alongside us--- our
forgetting doesn't mean that God is no longer, there, however. It
just means that we are prone to doing things as though God is not
beside us.
And this is what
David does. He sees a woman, decides he must have her. He's told that
she is married, and her husband is named as though David knows who he
is. But David takes what he wants, without caring about the woman,
her husband, or God.
The thing about the
bible is that we have all read it or heard the stories many times---
but often it is the interpretations that stick and begin to take a
life of their own rather than the text. This is why I keep naming
this as the story of David, Bathsheba, and Uriah, rather than David
and Bathsheba. While there is nothing wrong with interpreting--- we
must interpret scripture, we must try to make sense of it! That is
what we do in worship and bible study. But sometimes we don't ground
ourselves enough in the text. We allow our Hollywood sensibilities to
take over. That is how we begin to think of the story of David,
Uriah, and Bathsheba as a story of lust and seduction rather than
abuse of power.
One commentator I
read pointed out:
Interpreters have found a variety of ways to help us
forget David's sin in 2 Samuel....Some ...have blunted the bite of
sin by making this a tragic story of love. David
and Bathsheba, the 1951 film starring Susan
Hayward and Gregory Peck, [for instance] seems to say that whatever
happened wasn't really
sin, because they really, really needed one another. David was the
sensitive, reflective king who just wanted to be loved for who he
really was. Bathsheba was the lonely wife of an over-dedicated
soldier. They fell in love! Love can't be wrong, or at least not very
wrong. The event is remembered, but not as anything like a sin.
If this second interpretation has flourished in
modern times, a third has shaped readings of 2 Samuel in many ages.
It remembers the story in a way that attributes the seduction--- and
so the sin--- to Bathsheba. She was bathing on her roof, after all.
If the sin must be remembered, and remembered as sin, it can at least
be blamed on the woman.
Such interpretations happen over and over again in
movies and in popular books, trying to smooth over David's
power-hungry nature, and trying to make the story about sex rather
than about abuse of power. There are incredibly dangerous, especially
in a country like ours today where politicians try to define rape as
occurring only if there is brutal physical force. Let's not play word
games with women's lives, even women's lives way back in biblical
times. Bathsheba was the victim here, and David sinned against not
only Uriah, not only God, but also Bathsheba. And Nathan's
confrontation with David names him a sinner and Bathsheba a victim.
Nathan offers an interpretation different from our idealized
Hollywood love story.
But before we even get to Nathan, we have David
snowballing out of control in terms of sin. Like Ruthie and the Teeny
Tiny Lie, David's transgression against Uriah and Bathsheba does not
end with the one night with Bathsheba. Bathsheba tells him she is
pregnant. That is all the note says, but between the lines we read
that she will suffer, maybe even be stoned to death according to the
laws of Leviticus, if her husband discovers her pregnancy, after all,
he has been away at war and the baby cannot be his.
And so David devises a plan, bringing Uriah back home,
only to find that Uriah is a better man than he is. While David has
been home doing as he pleased the whole time, Uriah refuses to go to
the comfort of his own home even for one night, even after he is
drunk. Uriah reminds David of the other men living in tents on the
battlefield, and also mentions that the Ark of the Covenant, the
beautiful chest that symbolized the presence of God for the
Israelites, is there too. Uriah remembers God's presence. David does
not. And faced with this more moral man, David does not turn to God
for guidance as he would have when he was younger. Instead, he
arranges to have Uriah murdered.
Though our own sins are not on this scale, I think we
can recognize this cycle David is going through. How our own
disconnect with God continues to widen and widen. And yet David still
does not recognize his sin. He brings Bathsheba to his home to become
his new wife. This is not a David who says a create in me a clean
heart, but a David who says, well let's just make the best of a bad
situation.
But God sends Nathan, the prophet, to wake David up. God
is still with David, though David cannot feel God's presence anymore.
God is still there, calling David back, patiently, maybe even angrily
sometimes. God pursues us, will not let us go.
We talked a bit about Nathan last week because he first
appears with David to tell David that God does not want David to
build a house but will rather build a house, a lineage, for David.
Prophets in the Old Testament were always around trying to keep kings
honest, trying to prevent corruption. And David, for all his flaws,
seems to listen to Nathan. Of course, Nathan is smart. He doesn't
just come in, trumpets blaring, demanding David repent of his sin.
Too often when we have hurt another or hurt God, someone telling us
straight out causes us to be defensive, to shut ourselves up even
further away from God. Nathan doesn't come in pointing a finger at
David. Instead, he tries to bring David back to the time when David
was a young shepherd boy in love with God by telling him a story of a
shepherd.
It is this story that reminds us again this is no love
story. David has sinned. Bathsheba, the lamb, is the victim. Uriah,
the poor man, is the victim. But David doesn't see the parallels with
his own life at first. Something within him stirs, though, causing
him to passionately defend the poor man against the rich, even
calling for the death of the rich man for his selfishness. And so
Nathan looks at David, looks deeply into him and says with a kind of
power, whether or not was a quiet declaration or a loud denunciation:
You are the man.
A story followed by
four simple words. And David wakes up. He confesses right there: I
have sinned against God.
But the death sentence for himself that he himself has proclaimed is
not the last word. Barbara Brown Taylor writes:
God does not turn away
from us. God sends prophets to wake us up, to tell stories that show
us who we really are. If we are lucky enough to feel our hearts split
in two, then we may find that even the death sentences we have
pronounced on ourselves are lifted, because the recognition of sin is
the beginning of the end of it. The moment we know we are lost and
say so out loud, God can hear us to find us to take us home.
Like David, we also need to wake up from sin--- and like
David, we see that sometimes even after we have had powerful
experiences of God's love, we can forget and live as though God is
not beside us, hurting when we hurt others. But God doesn't give up
on any of us, not David, not any of us. God sends Nathans to wake us
up, to recognize our sin so God can hear us and take us home.
We read Psalm 51 today because it expands David's
realization that he sinned against God. You see the passion within
the psalm, the desperation of the writer to reclaim that lost
relationship with God.
O God, create a
clean heart in me,
put into me a new
and steadfast spirit;
do not banish me
from your presence,
do not deprive me
of your holy Spirit!
Be my savior
again, renew my joy,
keep my spirit
steady and willing[.]
David's is a story where we see him as murderer,
adulterer, and predatory king. But that isn't the first word, and it
isn't the last word. David is also a hero, beloved of God, and singer
of psalms.
It is a story that reminds us all that we have need of God's grace,
and that reminds us of the enormity of that grace.
We read the modern-language paraphrase called The
Message this morning when we read about David
and Nathan because I love how after David has proclaimed his sin,
Nathan says gently, channeling God's own love, “Yes,
but that's not the last word. God
forgives your sin.”
The story continues with grief, as God tells David that the child
will die--- which I cannot explain and certainly does not sound like
grace and forgiveness, but you need to know the story. But such a
continuation of the story reminds us that the consequences of our sin
do not always end when we repent. Creating clean hearts in us does
not release us from responsibility for old sins, but gives us the
ability to live anew and make new choices. And that's why we remember
that our sin is not the last word, even if the consequences from it
reach deep into the future.
No, God's
forgiveness is the last word, a forgiveness that renews our joy,
strengthens our spirit, and washes us clean to face the world anew.
Thanks be to God.
Let us pray:
Patient and Gracious God, we know there is a bit of
David in each of us, strong and faithful, and sometimes foolish and
deceitful. But we also know that you are a God of amazing grace and
love, who forgives our sins, and gives us the resources to avoid them
to begin with. Lord, Open our eyes to our mistakes, and to the ways
you love us into preventing them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
