2 Samuel 11:1-15
Psalm 14
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-21
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
There is something that scripture does that is both disturbing and reassuring; it shows the heroes of the faith, the people of God, with all of their warts. Today’s Old Testament reading is the prototype. David is known as a man after God’s own heart. The second and one of the greatest kings of Judah , he is the recipient of the Davidic Covenant, God’s promise that David will always have a descendant to reign on the throne of Judah .
Today, we learn of David’s unsavory side. We read that even David can be led by his urges and do something so deplorable that he is willing to do things even more horrible to cover it up. Lies and murder, adultery or sexual assault—David’s acts without apology. This is the great King David. This is the King of Judah.
In Second Samuel, a book that records the works of the King of Judah, this is the sort of thing that would hardly be recorded to glorify the king. This would be like President Nixon writing about Watergate or President Clinton writing about Monica Lewinsky for the history books. It is hardly likely, yet this is what scripture does with all of its heroes. Scripture points to the warts and scars of the heroes of the faith. In scripture we read about David and Bathsheba. In scripture we read about Paul persecuting the church. In scripture we read about Peter’s denial of Christ in the wee hours of the day of Christ’s crucifixion.
In a letter to Mandell Creighton dated April 5, 1887, Lord Acton wrote, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”[1] This certainly applies to David in this reading. There are many places where he broke from his responsibilities to the kingdom and the people in this passage.
We learn that it is springtime, the time of year when the Kings lead their armies into battle. Then we learn that David stays in the splendor of his great palace while Joab wages the war in Rabbah. Considering what is written in this story, I imagine it’s a very hot day in the city of David . It’s so hot, that the city is living on the roofs of their homes. This wasn’t uncommon, in fact the rooftops served as an extra room, a patio. Can’t you just see this, David laying out on some sort of 11th Century BC chaise lounge, with some sort of 11th Century BC deck umbrella covering him from the setting sun, while the evening breeze washes over him? It’s positively decadent.
David awakens and takes a stroll on the rooftop where he sees a beautiful young woman bathing herself on a distant rooftop. Like a voyeur with the world at his beck and call, he asks someone to find out about her. A trusted advisor answers, “Isn’t that Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” David really doesn’t care who she is, or whose daughter or wife she is, he is smitten. And with absolute power, he can do something about being smitten.
Bathsheba is called to the palace and the royal bed chamber. If we are to take scripture at its word, in a minimalist sort of way, she spends one night before leaving. If we are to consider human nature and the biology of the human body, she spends closer to two weeks in the bed chamber of King David. Bathsheba stays long enough in the palace to be with David until she becomes pregnant.
In this piece David is written as a lothario taking this war off to stay at home and Bathsheba is faceless. In fact, this story is so vague that it is silent about whether she is a willing partner in adultery or if she is coerced into this relationship by the king. In the meantime, Uriah risks his life on behalf of David and the kingdom.
Uriah—here’s a man with integrity. The Hittites were a race of warriors, so Uriah is a mercenary. As with any mercenary, he is in the war for the money. But his concern is not with his purse alone. Uriah is a god fearing man; his name even tells the world “the Lord,” Yah, “is my light.” David, the chosen one of the Lord is Uriah’s earthly king and Uriah serves the Lord and David. Uriah is the “flame of the Lord” in David’s kingdom.
Well, David is in a bit of a pickle. The wife of the “flame of the Lord” is pregnant and the husband Uriah cannot be the father of the child. Unless David acts swiftly, this isn’t going to look good on his performance review. So David calls Uriah back to Jerusalem , ostensibly to hear about the battle, but in reality, he does this to cover his shameful actions. Uriah doesn’t bite.
David invites Uriah to go home and spend some time with the family; to go home and wash his feet. Some time ago, the BBC and ABC had a television show called “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” In this show, the cast would improvise scenes around various games and settings. One game was called, “If You Know What I Mean.” The object of this game was to take ordinary sounding phrases and make them sound risqué by tacking on the phrase “If you know what I mean.” So when David invited Uriah to go home and wash his feet, David didn’t really mean go wash his feet… “If you know what I mean.”
But Uriah would have none of this; instead Uriah stays with the slaves. This thwarted David’s plans, David’s cover-up. Between Levitical code and personal faithfulness to King David, the battle, and his comrades in arms, Uriah refuses to go home and partake in the pleasures of home while the battle rages. Uriah stays with the slaves and other servants of David, faithful to all.
Uriah explains it this way in verse eleven, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
Uriah swears his fidelity to the kingship of David, and David tries to get Uriah drunk so he would go home and wash his feet, if you know what I mean. Uriah remains faithful. Finally, David writes an order to Joab that seals Uriah’s fate. Uriah is so faithful that he delivers his own death sentence. A fate which is executed in verse 17, Uriah is killed in battle with many other troops. Uriah is faithful to the law, to the custom, to his King, and to the Lord. David is faithful to his urges and his desire not to get caught.
I began by talking about the heroes of the faith and their warts. And surely, these heroes are just as human and prone to sin as any other human being. The difference is while they may be the heroes of the faith; they are not the heroes of scripture. The hero of scripture is not just any human being. The hero of scripture is and always is the Lord, the triune God.
As promised last week, today we also heard the stories of the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walking on the water. Admittedly we are reading it from John’s gospel, not from Mark’s. That may seem a bit odd but that’s the way the lectionary gives it to us. Going from one gospel to the other gives us some differences, the biggest is the crowd wanting to take Jesus and make him king in John’s gospel. Other than that, there are no important differences between the stories that surround these readings other than their placement within Jesus’ ministry.
To be honest, for our purposes this morning, I don’t know how much it matters. In both there was more to come in the ministry of the Lord and that may be the point. Regardless of the rendering or placement, both stories show us that God is faithful. God’s plenty and abundance overcomes creation and feeds 5,000 men, not to mention any number of women and children, at the Sea of Galilee . God’s power over creation so complete that over what we consider dangerous circumstances, Jesus walks on the water. In danger and fear, God in Christ is present.
There is another story of the presence of God, this one in the dire circumstances of the German concentration camp Auschwitz . It is from the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel. During the hanging of a young boy, which the camp is forced to watch, the main character hears someone ask: “Where is God?” Where is God, indeed? Not heavy enough for the weight of his body to break his neck, the boy dies of asphyxiation, slowly and in agony. Along with the other prisoners, Wiesel files past him, sees his tongue still pink and his eyes clear, and weeps. Here, the story asks that question again:
Behind me, I heard the same man asking: Where is God now?
And I heard a voice within me answer him: ... Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows.[2]
Where was God in the midst of pain, suffering and despair? Where is God in the cold, and hunger, and the tortured body of boy hanging on a gallows at Auschwitz ? God is there, God is hanging on the gallows too.
God’s love is always with us and this isn’t to say that because God is present there will be no pain. In spite of the pain and because of the pain people inflict upon one another, God is present and God suffers as we suffer. God rejoices as we rejoice. And this love is greater than we can ever truly know or understand.
In our Old Testament reading, David is unfaithful to the nation by staying home in the springtime when the Kings went to war. David is unfaithful to the vows of others when he summons Bathsheba. David is unfaithful to Joab when he takes a valued soldier from the lines. David is unfaithful to the law when he connives a cover up to hide his infidelities. Finally he is unfaithful to creation when he has Uriah, the flame of God, snuffed out.
In our Old Testament reading, Uriah is faithful to the Lord and to the battle. Uriah is faithful to his King and to his wife. Uriah is faithful to his commander and his comrades in arms.
It is shameful to see David benefit under these circumstances and Uriah die betrayed by the ones he loves, but this is the way of people, not the way of the Lord. God shows the highest faithfulness to David in keeping the covenant. God shows the highest faithfulness to Uriah by suffering alongside him during his darkest hour. God is faithful to Bathsheba by giving her a son, Solomon, who will become the wisest of all of the Kings of Judah. God is ever faithful to the nation fulfilling the Davidic covenant in the chosen one, Jesus the Messiah.
God is faithful to us that he suffered death, death on the cross, that we may have eternal life. I do not pretend to understand this. Instead, I rejoice in the one whose power is at work within us. The warts of the people are outrageous, and God is faithful. In a world that is filled with pain and strife, God is faithful.
In a world where we abandon one another like David does Uriah, God does not abandon us. God is faithful. In a world where we come with blemishes, the Lord uses us as we are and by the power of his Holy Spirit makes us more than who we ever thought we could be. As John writes, Jesus knows what he will do, and as he did with his disciples on that hillside he will use us to do it.
God shares our suffering and God shares our joy. This is what makes God the hero of scripture instead of any person. God is eternal, God’s love is abundant, and God chooses to share this abundant life with us. God makes this choice not because we deserve it, but because God wishes to share this gift of grace with us.
Because of this, we are called to do what the people in John’s gospel did not do. John writes the people came, but they came on their own. We are not only to come, but we are to bring our neighbors with us. We are to share God’s gift with the world. Not because anyone deserves it, but because as the 5,000 were fed, there is plenty and we are called to take and eat. Taste and see that the Lord is good—and faithful. That is his vision. This is our mission.
[1] Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service. Washington D.C.
[2] Wiesel, Ellie, “Night.” New York : Hill & Wang, 1960 (page notation from Bantam Paperbacks edition 1982, pages 61-62).
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