David and Bathsheba: How Deep Will God Go For Us?

A Sermon by Andrew Colman on 2 Samuel: 11 & John 6: 1-21

We have finally arrived. This summer, for the most part, we have been working through the story of David. A man we have witnessed act as an absolute moral exemplar with zeal for the law of the Lord that is so earnest it's hard to believe. But also a man who has already done spiteful and terrible things as he conquered the lands promised to him.

Chosen by God from a field tending sheep, fighting off the lions and bears to protect the smallest and most vulnerable to amassing more cedar and Gold than the world had ever seen in one place for the Lord's temple.

All done, as it is said, time and time again, by a man who was after God's own heart.

And then this—Walter Breugermann offers this thought in his introduction to the Story of David, Bathsheba, and Uriah.

"The writer has cut very, very deep into the strange web of foolishness, fear, and fidelity that comprises the human map. This narrative is more than we want to know about David and more than we can bear to understand about ourselves. We might wish the story about David could be "untold."

David's memory cannot be unwritten (though the writer of I Chron. 20:1–3 gave it a try), any more than our shared life with David can be undone."

David had remained in Jerusalem; another reasonable translation could be David /sat/ in Jerusalem while he sent his Joab, his right-hand man who was willing to do /anything/ for his King to fight another war with the Ammonites.

As he woke up from a mid-day nap and strolled about his rooftop, he looked over the city over which he was now King.

Not ruler or prince Nagid, but one who listened to those whom he led to learn what they thought and how he might lead them.

But as /King/, one who cared only for what he wanted. He had, after all, suffered at the hands of King Saul and bore it dutifully, and they fought battle after battle after battle. And now, finally, there was a little opportunity to rest - even though there were still some battles to be fought - that could be someone else's problem.

David had done enough, and it was time for him to enjoy his spoils.

So, instead of looking over the city of Jerusalem as a ruler concerned for those he led, as King, he thought only of what he wanted for himself.
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And so the story goes. David sent a messenger to find out who Bathsheba was, and even after finding out that she was the wife of one of his great warriors and seemingly the daughter of someone important in the court, he still sent a messenger for her.

It says in the text that she came to him, he lay with her, she returned to her house and became pregnant.

If that was not bad enough as a way of covering up what he's done, he called Uriah, her husband, back from the war and tried and tried to get him to sleep with his wife to make it look like he was the father of the soon to be child, Solomon.

In the book of Deuteronomy, there are laws that prevent soldiers from doing so - Uriah knew these laws and would not go and sleep in his own home, no matter how much David tried to manipulate him into doing so.

Uriah showed the same love and zeal for the law as David did in his early days, which must have kindled David's anger against him.

So, David had his man Joab send Uriah into battle, where he would surely be killed. And he was, along with a number of other soldiers.

Bathsheba waited until just after her time of mourning, went to David, and became his wife.

Mission complete—cover-up managed—the Son would appear to rightfully be David's. Bathsheba would eventually lobby David that this child should be his heir and would eventually become Solomon, the greatest King Israel would ever see.

He got away with it…

But as Walter Brueggemann puts it "Innocence is never to be retrieved. From now on, the life of David is marked, and all Israel must live with that mark.”

For God had seen the whole thing, and at the end of the chapter, it said that what David did was evil in the sight of the Lord. That is part of the mark that Israel will have to live with. That line, "Did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” will be heard time and time again throughout the book of King as the deeds of those kings are recounted.

———-—

This is one of the descriptive stories—not one that tells the way things ought to be done, but one that tells the story of the way things are.
This story is both a lens and a mirror— a way to see the world as it is and a way to see our own actions.

How many people of power through out the ages have abused their power to use others, like the messengers used to take Bathsheba, or like Joab to clean up eliminate a problem of their own making? Too many. This episode is a spotlight on all of those stories - By this story the pertetrators of abuse of power are seen, and the victims are not forgotten.

Now, few, if any, of us here will ever live out anything even close to this. But we will all, including myself, from time to time, will do things or take things we think we deserve that we don’t and perform magnificent acrobatics in justifying it to ourselves and others around us.

We are on this side of the fully realized Kingdom of Heaven, where we are all still touched by the Power of Sin.

———-—

But we also live in a world where a man named Jesus, Son of David, came and took what was woefully too little and created an abundance in ways we cannot comprehend.

Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”

One of the disciples said, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?"

Indeed, what are five loaves of bread in the face of thousands and thousands of people?
In the same way, what is each of us in the face of all of the problems of the world?

Maybe that's part of the story of David's fall. Through the power of God, he united a kingdom, David, in his love and zeal for God and the law, created a great nation—one where he could feed thousands and hundreds of thousands in abundance.

And then, through bleary eyes blinking after waking up from a mid-day nap while his armies were out fighting, he threw it away, doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

But God promised to bless the world through these people, that salvation would come through the line of David.

David did his worst—he really did. He turned his feast of plenty for hundreds of thousands into five measly loaves. But that is still not enough for God to pull away David or, Bathsheba or Solomon.

God promised his rectification, love, and peace for all through these broken people.

Again from Breugermann “David’s memory cannot be unwritten (though the writer of I Chron. 20:1–3 gave it a try), any more than our shared life with David can be undone.”

I think part of the reason that this utterly damning story about the Great King David was kept and not covered up itself, not swept under the rug, is because, in the end, the Bible is not primarily a story about David or Bathsheba, Uriah, or Solomon - it is first and foremost The Story about God and how God works through the most broken people and situation to bring goodness into the world.

God still worked through David, power abuser and murderer, to bring goodness into the world.  And if God can work through him, he can work through each and every one of us.

David's story was not unwritten or purposefully forgotten because it is both a story of rememberace of the abuse of power and of God's unrelenting goodness.

It is a story about God's unrelenting will that each one of us is changed from those five loaves into the meal for five thousand.

through his redemption,
through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us,
through the power of God's church surrounding us,
through each one of us standing with and for one another when we are most in need.

I, for one, am glad that this story was not unwritten—that it has been remembered with all of its darkest details— because it reminds us what abuse looks like and that it is evil.

And also because it speaks to how deep into the mire God will go to pull us out to continue to do his good work and, like David, sing God's praise.

Amen.