Pentecost 9, Proper 13, Year B, 8/2/09
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a; Ps. 51:1-13; Eph.4:1-16; John
6:24-35
We’ve been spending time
these last weeks learning about David.
And last week we heard the story of David the
sinner.
David, Bathsheba, Uriah were
the key players in David’s series of sins.
The lust, the adultery, and
then the lying and the outright murder of Uriah to try to cover up the first
sin.
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord…
That verse sets the stage for
the part of the story that we hear today.
Which is basically David’s
judgment.
At God’s calling, Nathan the
prophet goes to David.
His job is to get David to
see his own sin.
Now, up to this point we’ve
had no indication that David thinks he’s gotten off track.
When Uriah dies, David just waits for
Bathsheba to dry her tears and brings her on over to his house to be his wife.
We have no record of David
feeling regret for any of what happened.
Nathan takes the tact of
telling David a story in which the bad guy is clearly, selfish, sinful, and
unjust.
When David hears the story and gets irate about the
horrible rich guy who takes a poor man’s lamby to feed his company, Nathan
pulls the trigger.
You are the man, Nathan tells
David.
The bad man.
Nathan shows David no mercy.
He gives David a full rundown
of the anointing and blessing on his life from God.
And then he contrasts that to
David’s selfish, evil behavior.
Keep in mind that David is a
powerful, powerful man who has just had someone killed to try to make himself
look good.
Nathan is walking on thin ice
with David.
But he goes on and tells
David that there are consequnces that will come down on him because of what
he’s done.
…the sword shall never depart from your house, for you
have despised me…
Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against
you from within your own house…I will do this thing before all
The light bulb comes on for
David and he finally says…I have sinned against the Lord.
Now I get the idea of
consequences as judgment but there is a part I have trouble with.
That’s the idea of God
bringing trouble in David’s house as punishment.
We aren’t going to hear the
next juicy parts of this story so let me give you a Reader’s Digest version.
David gets to live, but the
baby dies…I don’t like that part.
David fasts and prays when
the baby gets sick, but it dies.
Then there is a whole
complicated thing between David’s other kids.
His son Ammon has a thing for
his half sister Tamar.
So he pretends to be sick and
David sends her to take care of him and he rapes her.
Which of course brings shame
on her and then he doesn’t want her anymore.
So his half brother Absalom,
who is Tamar’s full brother, hatches a plan to get revenge.
Absalom waits two years and
then sets up a banquet, gets Ammon drunk and has him killed.
Then Absalom runs away and
ends up trying to overthrow his father David as king.
But he ends up dead, not
king.
Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against
you from your own house.
David’s house sees a good bit
of serious trouble.
But why would God cause an innocent
baby to die and cause all these other people to do such horrible things to each
other just to punish David for his sin?
I cannot answer that question
well for you.
We can try to sort through
what this story means in terms of God bringing punishment and judgment on us in
this life for our sins.
Or we can think about it like
disciplining us.
Or we can think about it in
terms of cause and effect…consequences.
Because we know that there
may be consequences in this life for our sins and our failures.
We know that our choices and
the choices that others make can and do have consequences for people who have
no control over those choices.
We don’t like it, it doesn’t
seem fair.
But that is the way that life
works.
We tend to get stuck guessing
and wondering where God is in the consequences equation.
Does God punish us in this
life for our sins?
Does God punish innocent
people that we love for our sins?
Does God want us to suffer on
and on as punishment for sin?
It seems like those things
are true for David.
And can we talk about
Bathsheba for a moment?
Sure she was part of the
whole adultery thing.
Although we have to wonder a
little bit about her actual choices in the matter what with the huge power
differential in their relationship, David being King and all.
But she ends up losing her
husband and her baby.
One night on the King’s couch
and she’s in for a lifetime of suffering.
That seems harsh.
Where is God for her?
And now we are standing on
the slippery slope of judgment.
This is where we can so
easily find reasons for limiting our faith and building up a low grade distrust
of God.
Do you ever find yourself
saying or thinking…my God would never…
My God would never make
someone die.
My God would never make an
innocent child suffer.
My God would never be unfair.
Except that we know and
experience all kinds of things that seem unfair.
Why did David and Bathsheba’s
baby have to die?
I don’t know.
But I do know that we can’t
understand God from hearing this one story.
There are plenty of other
places that tell us that punishment will not fall on the children or the
children’s children of a sinner.
Why all the violence and
hatred and scheming among David’s children?
I don’t know.
But there are plenty of
stories in the Bible where good parents have wild kids and where wild parents
have good kids.
The same as today.
Don’t get stuck in this part
of the story.
I’m not saying that you
shouldn’t ask questions about God’s nature and about what God is up to.
Just the opposite.
I would love for all of us to
spend lots of time in prayer and study trying to understand those very things.
But most of us aren’t doing
that.
Instead we draw conclusions
about what a fair and loving God should or shouldn’t do…
Instead of focusing on what a
fair and loving God would like us to be doing.
Because in all of this David
the sinner does have the moment that makes him beloved by God.
David turns to Nathan after
he gets his earful and says something simple and powerful.
I have sinned against the Lord.
David the king spoke with
great humility and made his confession.
David reached the point where
he did not make excuses for himself.
He didn’t try to rationalize
or deny or sugar coat what he had done.
David had that moment of
clarity that God is God and that he is not.
Have you ever found yourself
struggling or even angry at God for the way your life is going?
Where is God you may ask
yourself?
Why are these things
happening to me or to my family?
Is God punishing me?
Now when life is going great
do you ask yourself those same questions?
Where is God in my happiness,
my success, my sense of peace?
Why are all these good things
happening to me or to my family?
Why is God rewarding me?
Are you willing to make your
confession to God…I have sinned against the Lord.
Not in the “Oh, I’m such a
crummy person…I can never be good enough” kind of way.
Really, I think that can be
such a stall tactic for us.
A way to avoid getting real
with God and turning ourselves over to Jesus.
Do it in the King David way.
I see my sin before me and I
turn my eyes to the Lord.
Will God punish you in this
life?
I hope not, I really don’t
like the sound of it, but I can’t say for sure.
I have not unraveled the
mysteries of suffering in this life.
We can see in David, though,
something more than warrior, king, poet, sinner.
David was a man who could be
humble and who could confess his sinfulness.
It took a bit of prodding,
but he got there.
Are you willing to do the
same?
To listen and look around you
and to finally be honest about the sin in your life.
We all have something in our
lives that we try to pretend isn’t really sin.
Are you willing to finally
see it?
With no excuses, no denial,
no rationalizations.
To be willing to deal with
consequences in your life without blaming God for punishing you.
Will you humble yourself and
say…Lord I have sinned against you.
Life won’t magically be
smooth sailing but God will honor your confession and your humility.
And there is a certain
freedom that comes with confession, from finally being honest with ourselves.
So your homework for this
week is first to finish reading the story of David.
You’ll hear more about
Absalom next week.
Your second bit of homework
is to open your heart and mind to confession of your sin.
Like David, will you say…
Lord I have sinned against
you.
That is life changing.