Aug 4, 2024

My friends, grace and peace to you from our Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

A mighty person misuses his power for his own self-centered ends, and then tries to cover up the consequences of his actions.  It’s a story that could be ripped out of today’s headlines.  But we’re not talking about some 21st century politician or religious leader.  Instead, it’s a 3,000-year-old story that says something timeless about power and sin and repentance.

Earlier in the summer, we read in First Samuel about the Israelites demanding that God give them a king.  God granted their desire, but through the prophet Samuel God warned them that kings use their power to become “takers”.  Samuel warned them that a king will take their sons to serve in his army.  That a king will take their daughters and put them to work.  That a king will take their grain and olives and wine and cattle for his own uses. 

And over the last two weeks, our Old Testament readings have shown us how devastating unrestrained taking can be.  To recap the story: King David, having noticed Bathsheba bathing on the roof of her house, has taken her – brought her to his palace where she was in no position to refuse his advances.  Then, having gotten her pregnant, he tries to cover it up by bringing Bathsheba’s husband Uriah back from the battlefront and enticing him to sleep with his wife.  But Uriah’s principles prevent him from anything of the sort while his fellow soldiers are suffering in the field.  So having failed to take Uriah’s integrity, David sends him back into battle, arranging instead to take his life.

When it comes right down to it, adultery and murder are only the end results of David’s most dreadful crime – his abuse of the nearly unlimited power to take that comes with being king.  It seems that in every era of human history, power and prestige facilitate patterns of abusive taking and indifference to the harm it causes. 

This week I started to wonder – why did our ancestors in faith pass this story down from generation to generation?  After all, King David’s a hero – a great warrior who united the tribes of Israel.  Our instinct is to worship our heroes – not to knock them off their pedestals.

I think one reason Scripture tells this deeply embarrassing part of David’s story is because it speaks to an important theological issue.  How does God respond when power is misused?  Where do we find hope in the midst of rampant taking’s devastating consequences?  And that, friends, is where Nathan comes into the picture.

God sends Nathan to confront David.  But what’s interesting is what Nathan DOESN’T do during this confrontation.

Nathan doesn’t scapegoat Bathsheba.  He doesn’t try to transform David from perpetrator to victim by suggesting that her moral character was at fault.  No, the story itself tells us she’s blameless by mentioning her name only once between this week and last.

Nathan doesn’t rationalize David’s actions.  He doesn’t try to justify David’s outrageous behavior by claiming, for instance, that Bathsheba’s marriage to a Hittite – a foreigner – somehow makes it all right to break God’s legal and ethical code.

Nathan doesn’t romanticize the story.  He doesn’t soften the harshness of David’s misdeeds by turning this into a love story.  The reality is that David has no interest in a relationship with Bathsheba, let alone marriage, until she becomes pregnant.  And even then, his preferred solution is to make Uriah the baby’s father. 

Instead, Nathan offers a word of judgment.  But he does so by telling a story that forces David to open his heart and see what’s happened through God’s eyes.  David sees that’s he’s sinned against the LORD.

Every Biblical story invites us to see ourselves as one of the characters.  It’s easy to want to be Nathan.  To point our fingers and force others to see their sins.  And it’s important for us to stand up to evil and sin.  But the reality is that more often than not we’re Davids.  Or at least his enablers.  We might not go around sleeping with people who aren’t our spouse and then killing someone to cover it up.  But how often do we fall into the temptation to scapegoat, or rationalize, or romanticize something that we know isn’t right?  Sometimes we need to hear a word of judgment.

It can be hard for us to hear a word of judgment from God.  Especially if judgment has been used against us in ways that aren’t life-giving, but death-dealing.  If others have used judgment to try to manipulate or shame us.  But let’s see that for what it is – just another example of humans abusing their power.

God’s judgment, on the other hand, isn’t intended to condemn us.  God’s judgment works like Nathan’s parable – it shows us how we fit into the story of the world’s brokenness.  God’s judgment helps us see what our taking does to others.  It convicts us not for guilt’s sake, but for the sake of change.

The good news this morning, my friends, is that our taking from each other is not the final word.  Being tangled in growing webs of sinfulness is not the final word.  Not even judgment is the final word.  Because God is always working to change our hearts.  Always willing to tell us a story that helps us see the world through God’s eyes.

As this story goes on, after judging David God forgives him his sins and reconciles with him.  The good news is that repentance makes a further word of life possible in the face of judgment.  So even when we’re mired in the consequences unleashed by the deadly powers of sin – our hope is in the reality that when we confess our complicity with the Davids of the world who misuse their power to take and reorient ourselves toward God’s Kingdom, our Compassionate and Merciful God is always ready to follow judgment with reconciliation.  Always.  Amen.