Lectionary 11/Pentecost 4 Year C June 16, 2013
Luther Memorial Lutheran Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
2 Samuel 11:26- 12:10, 13-15 + Psalm 32 + Galatians 2: 15-21 +
Luke 7:36-8:3
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Whenever I have the opportunity to preach with my parents and extended family present, I am always glad. I think most preachers are – somehow happy to acknowledge with thankfulness the faithfulness with which they were raised by their fathers and mothers and others who were significant to the faith journey. I know that I am. But you know, when we follow the assigned lectionary readings, we don’t always get the texts we would choose for the occasion, regardless of what and when that might be. For instance, I would not have chosen this reading from 2nd Samuel! Who really wants to work through the terrible story of King David’s adultery with their parents in the pews?
I am reminded, though, that my mother, like Donna here and many of you, was a Sunday School teacher for many years. And it’s in Sunday School that we first hear the stories of those who people who enact the faith story, the familiar Biblical characters whose stories we continue to hear. We learn of Noah, and how he built the ark despite God’s being less than forthcoming about why exactly he was to do this. We learn about Moses and how he was entrusted with bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promised land. We learn of Mary, who faithfully heard the message of Gabriel. There are cool songs and fun Sunday School activities about these characters, too.
But what we don’t learn in Sunday School is that each of these people have more to their stories. Noah, so glad to get off of the ark, went on a drunken bender – running around without his clothing and eventually passing out in front of his children, who were, according to the story, the only remaining people on the planet. And Moses doesn’t even make it to the promised land himself. And Mary, at one time in the life of her son, even wonders if he is mad.
Now, some might say that hearing about the rest of the stories in Sunday School would be less than helpful, that we want to be able to hold up these people as examples of the fruits of faithful living. But I believe that there is merit and deeper understanding in knowing that God uses broken people to further the Kingdom.
The same is true then, when we consider David. David is best known as the unlikely King, the youngest, most gentle son, the slayer of giants. The songwriter and shepherd. But in our reading today we enter into the text in the aftermath of the rest of David’s story.
The verses leading up to our first reading today spell it out: David had been walking out on his rooftop in the midst of a great war in which he was commander. While walking he caught a glimpse a few rooftops over of Bathsheba, wife of one of his generals, bathing. He determined that he should have her, had her brought to him, and soon she was pregnant with David’s child. David sent for her husband Uriah to come home and be with his wife, so that David’s deed would not be known, but Uriah was too loyal to David to leave the battle. Rather than being found out, David sent Uriah to the front lines of the battle where David knew Uriah would be killed.
And today’s reading from 2 Samuel picks up the story line from there.
In our culture, we tend to name David’s sin as that of taking another person’s wife, but the truth is, when we look at this text carefully, he had already done this….it would not have been unusual in the culture of David’s time for a man, especially a powerful one, to have many wives, some of whom would have already been the wives of another. Chapter 12, verse 8 notes that it was God, in fact, who gave David the wives of David’s masters.
David’s sin was much more complex than that – he had lied, he had murdered Uriah by having him sent to the front lines of battle, and then, he had taken what was not his to take, Bathsheba, who was still in mourning, and yet, as a woman, and therefore simply property, had no say in the matter.
This is not the story of David that we learn in Sunday School. It’s hard to imagine writing a song around this story or creating a take home sheet with these characters all in a row. David the lying, cheating, murderer and Bathsheba the victim of his longing for power, Uriah the faithful soldier David sacrificed and Nathan the prophet.
This story of David and Uriah and Nathan and Bathsheba is paired in the readings for this day with the story from Luke of the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair. The writer of Luke’s Gospel identifies her only as “a sinner.” And it’s tempting to draw that parallel – to note that just as David was a sinner, so too, this woman is a sinner. But that doesn’t work when you hold these two stories up against one another. The better comparison is between David and the Pharisees, who were the leaders in the church, just as David was the powerful leader of a nation. In both cases the ones we would expect to have the greatest level of wisdom and insight do not understand what is taking place. Their eyes are blinded to what is playing out before them. And in both cases, it takes stories, parables, to help them see their own guilt and acknowledge the broader narrative that is taking place around them.
We have no shortage of story tellers in our world today. Bloggers, reporters of all kinds, writers, and even preachers. We get multiple viewpoints on almost every situation. And yet, I consistently learn the most from the most surprising places. I learn from the kids here at Luther Memorial. From the bold statements of faith of our younger children to the very faithful, yet doubt filled questions of our teenagers. I learn – we learn – that faith is something that has feet – and that what we do in our daily walking around lives is how we bear out our faith.
When David, who had been entrusted with so much by God and by his people failed to live out his faith in his living, God sent Nathan, to hold his sin before him. I believe that Nathan chose to tell David this story of the powerful man who took the poor man’s lamb because Nathan knew that David was not going to listen to words that began with condemnation. It took a story to tell the story. And David was convicted by the punch line spoken by Nathan “You are the man!”
In similar fashion, the Pharisees could not imagine why Jesus was allowing this woman, who was known publicly as a sinner, to weep and kiss his feet and create such a public spectacle. And Jesus tells them the story of the forgiveness of debts. And the punch line in this story convicts Simon and the other leaders of the church “But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” For Jesus, a sign of living faithfully, was how well one was able to love others. All others. Even those we are told are not deserving or worthy of love – even this woman, who in her gratitude for Jesus’ grace and mercy, wept at his feet.
Taylor and Jonathan, as they finish their High School careers, are embarking on a new part of their journey. In another way, each of us, with each new day, do the same. We step into the day with the chance to live out our faith. To make those decisions that reflect who we are following. Some days, like David and Noah and Moses and Abraham, we will make colossal mistakes. We will hurt people and very often they will be the people we love the most. We will take advantage of folks, and make poor decisions, and misuse what has been entrusted to us. And some days, we will be so sweetly and acutely overwhelmed by the wideness of God’s mercy that we can only fall at the feet of Christ and weep. But the story that surrounds us is one of love – always about love. The love we show to all people, regardless of who they are and how comfortable we are – and the love with which we are loved, by the God who created us and claimed us and calls us beloved children.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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