Scripture: 2 Samuel 11:22 – 12:15
Sermon: Confronted by a Burning Love
Topics: confession, sin, love, Nathan
Preached: July 30, 2006
Rev. Mike Abma
Preamble to the Reading of the Passage
On this rather hot and steamy day, the Lectionary Old Testament Lesson is the rather hot and steamy story of David and Bathsheba.
In case you are a little fuzzy about the details of that story, let me simply set the stage for you.
David was at the height of his career.
He had weathered the hatred of the former King, Saul.
He had been crowned king of Judah, then King of all Israel.
He had established Jerusalem as his new capital, and even brought the ark of the covenant within its walls.
And lastly, he dreamed of building the Lord a majestic temple.
But the Lord, through the prophet Nathan, graciously said no. It wasn’t David who was going to build the Lord a temple. Instead it was the Lord who was going to build David a house, a dynasty, a kingdom that would last forever.
The Lord also promised never to take his steadfast love from David.
Things never looked so good for David.
But then things began to unravel.
It was spring time, time for the army to march out to protect the borders.
But David stayed home.
Bored one late afternoon, he spots a beautiful woman bathing.
After that, the story is strung together through the repetition of one verb – the verb to send.
David sends someone to find out who this woman is,
Then he sends for Bathsheba, takes her, sleeps with her,
Then Bathsheba sends David that message that she is pregnant.
To cover up his deed, David sends for Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to come home for some R and R. But Uriah is too loyal to his fellow soldiers and never sleeps at home with his wife.
So David sends a message to his general Joab to place Uriah at the front of the battle then abandon him there so that he will be struck down and die.
We pick up our passage with Joab sending David a message about what has happened.
TEXT 2 Samuel 11:22 – 12:15
22 So the messenger went, and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. 23The messenger said to David, ‘The men gained an advantage over us, and came out against us in the field; but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. 24Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall; some of the king’s servants are dead; and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’
25David said to the messenger, ‘Thus you shall say to Joab, “Do not let this matter trouble you, (more literally, do not let this matter be deemed evil in your sight) for the sword devours now one and now another; press your attack on the city, and overthrow it.” And encourage him.’
26 When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. 27When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, (again, more literally, was deemed evil in the sight of the Lord)
121and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, ‘There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. 2The rich man had very many flocks and herds; 3but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meagre fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. 4Now there came a traveller to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.’ 5Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; 6he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.’
7 Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; 8I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. 9Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. 11Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbour, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. 12For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’ 13David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Nathan said to David, ‘Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.’ 15Then Nathan went to his house.
SIN AND OUR PENCHANT TO AVOID RESPONSIBILITY
In this lowest point in David’s life, he manages to commit all 7 of the 7 deadly sins:
It starts with Sloth – his army rides out to fight and work, but David lounges at home, takes afternoon naps, and ends up bored with nothing to do.
It moves to Lust – he sees Bathsheba and burns with desire for her.
It then moves to Greed – he will have her, no matter what.
Then Envy – why must she be married to Uriah?
Then Gluttony – he eats and drinks to excess, all to get Uriah drunk and to
cover his guilt.
Then it moves to Anger – why did Uriah have to be so honorable?
Why wasn’t he cooperating with his cover-up plan
And lastly Pride – David says to Joab, “Do not let this matter be deemed
evil in your sight?
How could it not be deemed evil? Who did David think he was, God?
But that is the way it is with sin.
The less we are paying attention to God, the more we act as if we are god.
In short — the more “us,” the less “God.”
Far from the light of God, we are blind and we don’t see sin very clearly.
And, truth be told, we don’t want to see it.
We want to live with the illusion that everything we do, say, and think is perfectly normal, reasonable, and harmless.
That is the subtlety of sin.
It isn’t only that we fail to recognize sin as sin.
We often even don’t feel it is very sinful while doing it.
Take what happens to David.
Do you think David felt a sinner when he was with Bathsheba – if
anything, he felt like a lover.
And do you think David felt like a sinner when he heard that Uriah was dead –
Again, he probably felt that this is what it means to be a king – you sometimes
have to make the tough decisions all kings need to make.
Like David, there is no end in our ability to deceive ourselves.
We are all excellent deflectors, deniers, evaders, excusers.
And if we are not making excuses for ourselves, there are often people around us who make them up for us:
For example, parents who defend their kids no matter what, and deny that
their son or daughter would ever be capable of saying or doing such a
thing;
Or team coaches wanting to win, who turn a blind eye to cheap shots and
dirty play (and who sometimes even encourage it);
Or military leaders who will defend the actions of their soldiers, even
refusing to call torture “evil;”
Or political leaders who will defend the actions of certain countries, simply
referring to the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians as the cost of war
— for the sword “now devours one, and now another.”
We live in a culture that gives us a lot of help in denying, defending, and rationalizing our wrongdoing.
Even the venerable and prestigious Oxford University Press seems to be working to eliminate the concept of sin from our modern minds and hearts.
The Oxford University Press has recently brought out a series of 7 books – one for each of the seven deadly sins. The irony is that, with the exception of anger, none of the traditional seven deadly sins is treated as either deadly or even sinful.
The book on pride proclaims that pride is not bad but good, even great. Pride means I AM SOMEBODY!
The same is true for the book on Lust. Lust isn’t bad but good. Despite its bad press, we all know lust is not only useful but essential.
Greed also is not bad but good. Without greed, our economy would grind to a halt.
And so it goes.
Sin is spun in such a way that bad becomes good, and wrong becomes right.[1]
But it isn’t only secular people who do this.
We religious people are just as good at this as anyone else, maybe better.
That struck me while reading some of the Jewish commentaries on this passage. The Jewish Talmud holds David in such great esteem it can hardly bring itself to accept how heinous David’s sins are. The result is that the Jewish Talmud downplays David’s sins so that, technically, they were not transgressions of the Torah at all.
For example, it explains that David’s adultery with Bathsheba was not technically adultery.
When soldiers left their wives, they apparently gave them conditional divorces, so that, if they were missing in action, and their body was never recovered, their wives would be able to remarry. So, technically, Bathsheba could be considered an unmarried woman when David took her.
The Talmud also speculates that David somehow recognized that Bathsheba was his divinely intended mate.
The Jewish Talmud also explains that David’s murder of Uriah was not technically murder.
First, the Talmud notes that technically Uriah was guilty of insubordination in not obeying David’s command to go home. Insubordination made one liable for the death penalty.
The Talmud then notes that technically David was not guilty of murder – Uriah was killed in battle by the sword of the enemy, not by David’s sword.[2]
The Talmud wants to keep the illusion that David was practically sinless.
Isn’t that the same illusion we all want to live with?
So we all develop an uncanny ability to justify, excuse, rationalize and whitewash our behavior. We all end up whispering into our own minds the same words of David: “Do not let this matter be deemed evil in your eyes.”
CONFRONTING EVIL WITH A BURNING LOVE
Our whole passage turns on the last verse of chapter 11 and the first verse of chapter 12.
The last verse is written to go directly against what David had said in verse 25.
David had said, “Do not let this matter be deemed evil in your eyes.”
But the last verse burns with God’s truth – the thing that David had done
was deemed evil in the sight of the Lord.
Also, where chapter 11 is full of David sending people and messengers here and there,
chapter 12 begins with one more use of that verb send.
But this time it is the Lord who sends Nathan the prophet to David.
Something new is happening.
But what was Nathan to do?
The philosopher Kierkegaard once wrote that an illusion can never be destroyed directly.
It can only be removed by indirect means.
Nathan knew this.
He knew that if he came to David ranting and raving, pounding a pulpit, crying “You sinner, you miserable sinner” David would have found a way to defend himself.
David was a fighter, a survivor.
David was like Captain Kirk of the starship Enterprise.
If David faced a frontal attack from anyone, even a prophet, all his defensive shields would be up immediately.
Nathan knew he had to take an indirect route.
He knew he had to take a way of weakness rather than strength.
He had to take the way of a parable rather than a tirade.
The parable Nathan told was of a rich man and a poor man.
The rich man, who had everything, stole the one and only treasure of the poor man.
The parable was a little like a Trojan Horse.
Nathan told this parable of great injustice and parked it at the gate of David’s heart.
David found his passions stirred by this parable.
He became livid about the injustice in it.
He opened his heart and let the parable in.
Why did he let it in?
He assumed it was someone else’s story.
He assumed it was someone else’s sin.
And so he shouted, “This man deserves to die!”
Listening to a sermon about sin, any sin, leaves us wondering, “Who is the
sermon about?”
Some of you may be thinking this is a sermon about President Clinton.
Others may be thinking it is actually a sermon about President Bush.
Or you may be thinking it is a sermon about someone else with whom
you have
an axe to grind:
say your brother,
your boss,
your mother-in-law.
But this sermon isn’t about Clinton or Bush.
It isn’t about your brother, or boss, or mother-in-law.
This sermon is about you and me.
You are the one it is about.
I am the one it is about.
We come to church, many of us week in and week out,
to meet Jesus.
Jesus is the Prophet.
And Jesus is also the parable.
Jesus is the one who comes to us in weakness not strength,
He is the one who comes full of truth and grace,
exposing out illusions.
He is the parable made flesh and dwelling among us:
the one made poor for our sakes;
the one who gave up the only thing he was left with – his life.
the innocent one who had his life torn away by the guilty.
We said of him, “He deserves to die!”
But we are the ones, the guilty ones, who deserved to die.
Jesus, then, is the Prophet and the Parable who parks at the gate of our
hearts,
week after week.
When this parable breaks into our hearts,
he will ravish us with his burning love –
a love of judgment and a love of mercy.
So often we think the flame of God’s love is either one or the other —
God is either all judgment or all mercy.
But the flame of God’s love is one flame that burns with
both judgment and mercy.
It is a flame of judgment in that it burns off all that entangles,
and all that ensnares,
and all that enslaves.
It is also a flame of mercy in that refines us so that,
without our deserving it at all,
we burn brightly with the holiness of Christ.
The most hopeful words anyone can ever utter are these:
“I have sinned against the Lord.”
These are the words that open our hearts to the burning love of God:
a love that is painful, for it purges away what is impure;
but a love that is merciful,
for it puts us back on the royal road of redemption.
The story of our passage, and the story of our lives,
is filled with sin, some of it very great sin.
But no matter how great, sin is always eclipsed by God’s steadfast love.
The story of our passage, and the story of our lives,
is filled with misery, the consequence of sin.
But no matter how great the misery,
it is never the main event — the majesty of God’s mercy always steals
the show.
Clear-eyed Christians have always been able to see both these truths and have striven to see both these truths.
Perhaps that is why, when St. Augustine lay dying on his bed, he had all 7 of David’s penitential psalms inscribed on his ceiling (Psalms 6,32,38,51,102,130,143).
Each of these 7 psalms are prayers that cry, “Lord have mercy, for I
have sinned.”
Each of these 7 psalms assure those who pray them that that they have
been forgiven.
As he lay dying, these were the last words that Augustine wanted before his eyes.
Words that burn with the truth that we are miserable sinners,
But words that burn with the even brighter truth that in Christ,
we are forgiven and made alive.[3]
May just such prayerful words keep us close, very close,
to the burning love of Christ on the cross.
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