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2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
Psalm 51:1-13
Ephesians 4:1-16
John 6:24-35
I figured on a really hot day in church, it’s a good time to preach about sin. Kind of gets you in the mood, know what I mean?
Last week we heard the scandalous story of David and Bathsheba, of how David takes another man’s wife for himself, gets her pregnant, and then has that man killed to cover up his sin. As one parishioner gasped after the service, ‘I heard this story with new ears and realized – David rapes Bathsheba.’ Which is an entirely plausible way of understanding this story. And this is the chosen king of Israel, God’s own beloved – acting as a greedy, power-mad autocrat, using other people and destroying them in pursuit of his own pleasure. This is a long way from the David who heard God’s call through Samuel and was anointed king; a long way from the David who wanted to build a temple for God. It’s a horrific story. One of those times it feels absolutely wrong to say at the end of the reading, ‘The Word of the Lord.’
But today we heard what happened next – and now we really have heard the word of the Lord. God sends the prophet Nathan to give David a very stern talking to. But he has to be artful about this, especially now that he’s seen the depths to which David has sunk, the cruelty he is capable of. So Nathan tells a story. ‘A rich man with a lot of sheep stole the one sheep owned by a poor man – owned and loved and cared for by that poor man as his own child – just to slaughter it and serve it to his guests. What do you think should happen to him, O king?’ David responds immediately: ‘He deserves to die! What a horrible thing to do.’ ‘You are the man,’ says Nathan to David. ‘This story is really about you, O king.’ And to his credit, David immediately understands what Nathan is getting at. He could deny it; he could have Nathan killed for shaming him. But instead he responds, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’
David may be God’s chosen king, but God doesn’t respond, ok then, we’ll let this pass. Nathan outlines the consequences and repercussions of David’s sin, and those happen whether David is remorseful or not. You can’t damage and destroy people without it affecting you, particularly when those people are in your own family. The child that is born of this forced relationship dies, and David suffers terribly, and indeed, his family is later torn apart by fighting and power struggles. Somehow David finds his way forward with Bathsheba, and they have another child, Solomon, and she fights successfully for him to become king after David is gone. (We’ll never know how Bathsheba felt throughout this life she did not choose – but at least we know she makes it.) But it is clear that the happy delight of the young David who danced before the ark of the Lord – that is gone. He becomes a heavier, more tragic figure after this. In God’s mercy, he continues as king to a ripe old age, and on his deathbed, David tells Solomon, ‘Be strong, be courageous, and keep the charge of the Lord your God.’ David’s faith, David’s relationship with God, endures despite all the wrongs David commits.
David is just one example of the truly flawed people God calls to be patriarchs, kings, prophets, and teachers throughout scripture. It’s a bizarre list, when you really stop to think about it. We don’t usually tell the nasty parts when we read Bible stories to our kids. Because none of this is the way we are to act – obviously. Paul warns the Ephesians in the epistle today to ‘live lives worthy of their calling’ – not to act like irresponsible children but to be grown-ups, living for others and not ourselves, speaking the truth in love. It is a high and lofty calling, and so many of our biblical characters don’t seem to even come close. But it is still held out as the goal, the model, for us all – to live as Jesus did, fully living out God’s desire and intention for our lives. It is named as the goal so often that it almost seems as if we’re expected to do it. Not just admire it and say, gee, if only, but to live it. And yet we so often fall short. We so often fall into sin.
In our own lives, sin might be something as huge and hideous as committing adultery and arranging for murder. Anyone? But more often it’s something smaller – meanness, greed, deception. Smaller but in many ways no less damaging and destructive to ourselves and others, those we love and those we’ll never meet. We get too wrapped up in our own stuff to care for a friend or child or sibling in need. We waste our creation and take advantage of the poor so we can have the latest fashionable item we’ll wear only once. We’re careless with our speech and denigrate people who think differently from us. Small actions – lasting results.
Sometimes we get it when we’ve done something wrong. We hear the message loud and clear inside ourselves, sometimes even before we act, and we know too well how badly we have behaved. Other times we have to hear it from others to see for ourselves. It’s never easy acknowledging that we have done wrong, as individuals or as a community, culture, and nation. And it’s especially difficult to hear it from others. So difficult that often we just don’t choose to hear it at all.
We need our Nathans. Nathan says to David, you are the man. You are the one who committed this act. And David hears it. We need also to hear it: You are the man. You are the woman. You are the one who has done this. Until we acknowledge our wrong, we can do nothing to make things better. And things can be made better. Consequences to our sin follow, yes – that can’t be undone. But we can change, do better next time. We can reach out to make amends. Forgiveness too can follow.
God does not abandon David because of his sin. And God does not abandon us. If we can hear and acknowledge that we are the ones who have sinned, then we might also hear what God says next: I am still with you. Your sins are forgiven. And the sin is not the end of the story. When we can accept forgiveness from God and move on, then we are free to restore the relationships we have harmed; we are free to work for a better world; we are free to live again in harmony with God’s ways. We acknowledge our sin; we allow ourselves to be forgiven; and then we try to do better. It’s how we go on in our friendships and with our families: if we can let go ourselves of the hurt we’ve caused, accept God’s forgiveness for it, then we can truly seek forgiveness from the one we hurt. Freed of the sin, we can forgive and seek forgiveness from others. We can go the extra mile to renew and restore the love between people. All is not lost.
We will keep falling, try as hard as we might – and even beyond the individual things each of us has done and left undone, there’s the larger system of wrongs in our world that we just can’t escape. But there is always the promise of forgiveness. And there is always the possibility of new life. Acknowledging the sin of our fear and pain isn’t meant to mire us in despair. It’s what can allow for a new start. ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God,’ our psalm today reads. ‘Renew a right spirit within me.’ Over and over again we pray this, and God does renew us – allowing us to renew our world as well. Thanks be to God for that.
