Sermon 7.1.18
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Re-intro sermon series — intro context for text:
Monarchy + prophets and kings.
Where we find ourselves in 1 and 2 Samuel...
Place: Promised Land
Time: Israel’s first kings (Saul, David, Solomon)
Context, I: the checks-and-balances relationship between Israel’s prophets and its kings that begins in these books and carries over into 1 and 2 Kings.
Other king-prophet duos in 1 and 2 Samuel: Saul and Samuel
Elijah and Ahab.
Elijah and Ahab.
Isaiah and Hezekiah.
The David-Bathsheba-Uriah love triangle.
Point #1: Up to this point, David has been the one doing the sending...
Point #1: Up to this point, David has been the one doing the sending...
The thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David.
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David.
Prior to this point in the story, David has been the one doing the sending...
Joab/army, people to B’s (2x), Uriah (2x), Joab, B.
Sending people to find out about Bathsheba.
Sending people to get her.
Sending for Uriah to sleep with his pregnant wife.
Sending Uriah back to war.
Sending orders that Uriah be put in harm's way.
Sending for Bathsheba after "the mourning was over."
Now God does some sending of God’s own…e.g., Nathan to David.
Now God does some sending of God’s own…e.g., Nathan to David.
[slide]
[slide]
2 Samuel 11:27-
When 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, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.
2 Samuel 11:27
When 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, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.
Sending the prophet Nathan to confront David.
Sending Joab to war.
sending Joab to war, sending people to find out about Bathsheba, sending people to get her, sending for Uriah, attempting to send Uriah to his now-pregnant wife, sending Uriah back to war, sending orders that Uriah be put in harm's way, sending for Bathsheba after "mourning was over."
Sending people to find out about Bathsheba.
Sending people to get her.
Sending for Uriah to sleep with his pregnant wife.
For Uriah to his pregnant wife.
Sending Uriah back to war.
Sending orders that Uriah be put in harm's way.
Sending for Bathsheba after "mourning was over."
In response, God does some sending of God’s own...
Sending the prophet Nathan to confront David.
Two points:
First, how God communicates with us (according to 1 and 2 Samuel):
Not just silence, but challenging people like this prophet whose name = gift.
More often, however, through challenging people, like this prophet whose name means “gift.”
God's confrontations often occur through the people who call us to account.
Application:
Consquently,
The importance of finding a balance, in our spiritual and moral lives, between peaceful, solitary, inwardly oriented disciplines and an openness to listening to prophet-gifts.
There are a lot of voices talking away out there.
Who are the prophet-gifts in our lives?
God's confrontations often occur through the people who call us to account. Who are the prophets in our lives? Do we recognize them as being sent to us by God?
And there is a renewed emphasis on the importance of silence for people’s emotional health.
At the same time,
Do we recognize them as being sent to us by God?
Second, God as the Real Sender in the Hebrew Scriptures, and how this concept of God shapes the text’s understanding of the fundamental attitude of faith.
Faith in OT ≠ sending, but receiving.
Listening.
Waiting.
Watching.
Application:
This as important reminder for our busy times, when people have a tendency to live like kings...
Not in the sense of ordering everyone around, but as if we are or have to be in total control of everything.
How might it change the rhythm/course of our lives if we were to practice a receiving faith?
Point #2: The mistake people often make:
Point #2: The mistake people often make:
The mistake people often make:
He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.
Truth needs to be told effectively for it to be of any value. It's not enough to be right. It's important to be effective. The mistake people often make: they think they've done their part if they tell the truth. They care more about their integrity and honesty than the effectiveness of their speech. The problem with this -- personal integrity is not more important that ensuring that harmful behavior change. (Or that people be persuaded to treat people differently.) Could it be that we like being right a little too much to care about doing what it takes to change other people's minds?
They think they've done their part if they “just tell the truth” without regard to whether this truth gets heard.
They think they've done their part if they “just tell the truth” without regard to whether this truth gets heard.
Why?
Because people often see truth-telling as a matter of their integrity and honesty...
As opposed to an obligation they have to the others.
(Also…it may be that we like being right a little too much to care about doing what it takes to change other people's minds.)
And yet, personal integrity/being right ≠ more important than doing our part to change harmful behavior.
The problem with this -- personal integrity is not more important that ensuring that harmful behavior change. (Or that people be persuaded to treat people differently.)
In this situation — who knows how many more people David would have hurt if Nathan hadn’t figured out an effective way to communicate?
[slide]
In our situation(s) — the importance of striking a balance between....
Honoring the truth — not sugar-coating things for fear of offending people.
And not allowing the Davids in our lives to tap into their bedrock values.
[Not allowing the David in our life to tap into their bedrock values.]
And the potential for effective communication to start feeling manipulative.
Point 3: David’s sin ≠ just that he was greedy or ungrateful.
Point 3: David’s sin ≠ just that he was greedy or ungrateful.
I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I 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. Why 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.
I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I 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. Why 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.
I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; 8 I 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. 9 Why 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.
David’s sin ≠ just that he was greedy or ungrateful.
“If that had been too little, I would have added as much more.”
David’s sin = that he took something away from someone else that only God should be allowed to take away.
David’s sin = that he took something away from someone else that only God should be allowed to take away.
[slide]
[slide]
Wives ≠ just wives in Hebrew Scriptures.
Wives = descendents, the passing on of a person’s name, life after death.
Application:
For the most part we are sensitive to the twin evils of materialism and consumerism and the ways in which they affect us.
Environmental damage.
Indebtedness.
The endless proliferation of desires that can never be satisfied.
The negative impact on our sense of self, e.g., the beauty industry.
The specter of indebtedness.
What we may not be as aware of: the impact our desire-driven economy is having on the Uriahs and poor men of this world — and their access to some of the most fundamental experiences of life.
The problem isn’t just desire, but what desire causes us to do to the less powerful.
Thomas Hardy and George Gissing’s novels: the trials of the poor in 19th-century England.
The struggle to be respectable.
To get an education.
To afford to have a family.
One of the main reasons why prostitution was so widespread in the 19th century in England: people couldn’t afford to marry/have families.
My question: could we be entering a new Victorian age in which our young people are being priced out of having a family?
Concession: I’m not saying that the most important thing in the world is family.
At the same time, I can see why family is so closely associated with God in the OT.
For many people, it is a major source of their experience of the sacred.
And that it is not right that something so fundamental — should seem so difficult to have.
And that this would be put at risk by our desires — is a sobering thought.
Point #4: There are a couple different ways of explaining why David is so quick to admit his fault --
Point #4: There are a couple different ways of explaining why David is so quick to admit his fault --
There are a couple different ways of explaining why David is so quick to admit his fault --
[slide]
[slide]
“I have sinned against the Lord.”
We could chalk it up to Nathan’s cleverness.
We could chalk it up to Nathan’s cleverness.
Or my preference — we could recall that this is also a story about the human capacity to acknowledge guilt and thus begin again.
Or my preference — we could recall that this is also a story about the human capacity to acknowledge guilt and thus begin again.
To remember
Just because David is a king...
AND has done a whole bunch of really bad things...
THE KIND OF THINGS that would leave someone invested in not admitting to having done anything wrong...
Does not mean that he is lost in this story.
There’s still something in him...
In the way that God has made him...
A person capable of being moved by a mere story of injustice...
Involving a guy and a lamb...
That enables David to repent his sin and to chart a new course.
Likewise, we too will never be completely lost, but instead always just one story or challenging friend away from admitting the things we need to admit about ourselves and taking our step forward into a new and better life.
Amen.