Hopeless/Hopeful

Part 2 of the story…

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13          When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. 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. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: 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. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan said to David, “Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.

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You know, you could almost get so caught up in the salacious tale of David and Bathsheba and Uriah that you forget about God – sort of like David forgot about God.  But suddenly, out of nowhere, we hear, “The thing that David had done displeased the Lord.”

The thing that David had done displeased the Lord.  So the Lord sent the prophet Nathan to handle the unpleasant task of confronting the king with his guilt.  Here is where Nathan wins my vote for Prophet of the Year.  It’s impressive to watch him approach this task so artfully.  “Let me tell you a story, your majesty,” he might have said, then unfolded a little parable about a rich man who stole from a poor man his one beloved little ewe lamb. 

David is arrested by the tale, although he doesn’t recognize himself in it.  This is surprising, because it is so obvious to you and me and everyone we know that he is the man.  Perhaps Nathan caught him at a bad moment – busy with important administrative tasks, reading reports, signing papers, adjudicating cases, or whatever was needed that day – and he was only half-listening to Nathan’s story at the start.  But I don’t think so.

I think David had buried his guilt so deeply he couldn’t find it.

He had lost his moral compass some time ago, before he spied the bathing Bathsheba from his rooftop, before he sent for her and claimed her as his property, before he orchestrated the accidental death of her husband, and before he added Bathsheba to his harem and put the whole sordid episode behind him.  It had been quite some time since David had examined his sinful nature.

I recall a conversation with a Lutheran pastor, who said a member of his congregation came to him pointing out what he considered to be important changes in the new revised Lutheran order of worship.  He said, “Pastor, perhaps you weren’t aware of this, but we no longer need to have a weekly confession of sin.”  And the pastor replied, “Oh, yes we do.  We do.”

It had been too long since David had examined his sin, and the results were tragically evident.  It is a failure we are all prone to, because facing the guilt of your sin feels uncomfortable. 

We had a conversation at the roundtable this week about when it’s hard to admit your own guilt.  It came up that children never want to admit that they did something wrong.  The conversation brought to mind one of the old jokes among my cousins: “Kiku did it.”  Kiku was the dog.  Who knocked the lamp over?  Kiku did it.  Who spilled the milk?  Kiku did it.  Who wrote with crayons all over the living room wall?  Kiku did it.  Anything that had been broken, anything that had been left out of place, anything that Mom was angry about – Kiku did it.

It’s cute, the way children do it.  But when we get older we become more skillful at shifting the blame onto someone or something else.  We don’t just say, “The dog did it.”  We come up with more convincing lies.  So convincing we, ourselves, believe them.

David believed in his own innocence.  He had convinced himself he deserved to have Bathsheba as his own.  He convinced himself that Uriah had brought his death upon himself by his failure to go along with the plan. 

There are people who live their whole lives this way, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, because they can never see their own guilt, can never empathize with another.  We call them sociopaths.  But most of us don’t have a psychological disorder.  We just have our human condition to blame – something we all share.

Like David, you and I might occasionally paint ourselves into a corner and find the easiest way out is the morally wrong choice.  We might even be fully aware that there is another way, a better way, but find it to be unbearably hard.  We might even consider taking this other way for one agonizing moment.  But ultimately we find that it’s easier to commit the sin, justify it to ourselves and everyone else as a necessary evil, and go on from there.  This is not an entirely conscious process, of course.  If it were, we would have to feel our guilt.

And guilt is an extraordinarily uncomfortable sensation.  Believe me, I know.  My mother was pretty good at laying on the guilt, God bless her.  She came by it honestly; it’s a family trait.  I have been known to do it myself.  So, when it comes to guilt, I am quite familiar with the experience.  Perhaps you are too. 

Guilt is so uncomfortable we try to escape it before we even know what we are doing.  We begin looking for scapegoats, like Kiku.  Or the boss who makes unreasonable demands.  Or the spouse who doesn’t give us what we need.  It isn’t hard to find a scapegoat to justify our misdeeds.

In the case of David, he had constructed such an elaborate justification for his actions it was almost impenetrable.  But Nathan found a way in with his beautiful little parable about the rich man who stole a little ewe lamb.  It is masterful, a rare example of the parable in the Old Testament.  It helps us to appreciate why Jesus used the parable so frequently as a teaching tool.  Its power is in the way it sneaks up on the listener and penetrates before she has a chance to get her defenses up.

Everyone should have a Nathan, standing by to say, “Let me tell you a story,” then follow up with, “You are the man!”  No one really wants a Nathan, but we all should have one.  It’s the medicine we need to keep from becoming a force of evil.

Evil. Now that’s a strong word – even stronger than sin.  But all of us are capable of evil, because all of us are guilty of sin and every one of us is tempted to cover our sin with lies.

Scott Peck was a psychiatrist who wrote a lot about spirituality and mental health, and coined the phrase “blessed by guilt.”  For guilt becomes the means through which we find our way to repentance, and repentance opens the way for us to make amends for our sin.  And be a force for good.  And bring a little bit of healing to the world.  And kick down the force of evil just a notch.

After this affair with Bathsheba and Uriah, things never completely right themselves for David and his family.  As Nathan says, the sword never leaves his household; the story of David becomes marked by tragedy.  One can’t help wondering how things might have turned out differently if David had stopped at some point and checked himself.  What if he had not turned to Plan C and arranged for Uriah’s death?  What if he had not tried to weasel out of his responsibility for Bathsheba’s pregnancy?  What if he had never sent for her and lay with her?  All of our lives are full of “what if” questions; dwelling on them doesn’t change them. 

But the act of examining our errors may teach us one thing:  when we find ourselves being offered the blessing of guilt, we should accept it as the gift that it is.  Jesus Christ makes it so. 

We are hopeless sinners – this is true.  But we are not without hope.  By the grace of God, through the atoning work of Jesus Christ our Lord, we find forgiveness of our sins and an invitation into a better life.  In our baptism we are washed with the waters of forgiveness, and in the bread and the cup we are fortified by the power of the Holy Spirit to repent, to bring healing to our lives and the world.

May you be assured of the love of God, which can overcome even the greatest sin.  May you open your hearts in the acknowledgment of your true need.  And may you receive God’s grace in its fullness.