Loading...A Sermon for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost - August 1, 2021
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a, Psalm 51, John 6:24-35
A few years back there was a television show called Dirty Jobs, hosted by Mike Rowe, with whom I share no traceable family tree connections. It was all about, as the title suggests, dirty jobs like well digger, crawfish catcher, rooftop copper worker, sludge remover, snake wrangler, oilfield roughneck, and road kill remover. If there were an ancient Israel version, It would be called Risky Jobs, and it would have today’s ninth episode of our Summertime Saga about the monarchy of Israel as one of its feature stories. Have I mentioned that a monarchy was not the Lord’s idea?
The risky job that is today’s episode is to be the prophet to the king. Just ask the prophet Nathan, who had to face the challenge of what to do when God’s message is unflattering to the king. That is the predicament in which we find poor Nathan. King David has strayed far afield from the kingship as a servant of God’s covenant with Israel, using it instead for his own selfish desires.
How is Nathan to deliver this message? There is every chance the king may not take it well, and may take out his irritation on Nathan. Nathan decides to set the stage with a story about a rich man and a poor man. The rich man has many flocks and herds, while the poor man has just one little ewe lamb that he saved up to purchase. The lamb is more of a pet than livestock, and Nathan says it even becomes like a child to the poor man. Even back then, pets could become part of the family. It happens that one day the rich man has a guest. He is honor bound to show proper hospitality, which includes a meal, but he does not want to draw from his flocks and herds to provide it, so he snags his poor neighbor’s beloved pet and serves up a batch of lamb chops for his guest. How will David respond to this story? Thankfully, there is still some heart within the king, as his angry feeling toward the rich man conveys. David says the rich man deserves to be punished severely, and certainly should repay the poor man four-fold for what he has taken.
Now comes the point of highest risk for Nathan, as he must tell King David, “You are the man. Now hear what the Lord says to you, O King. ‘I made you king of Israel. I protected you from Saul. I’ve given you so much, and I would give more. Why have you turned from me to do evil? You killed Urriah with an Ammonite sword. You took his wife as yours in order to cover up your affair with her. Now, here are the consequences of your actions. The sword will never leave your house, and infidelity will continually plague your family.’”
How will David respond? Will he be defensive? “I’m the king and I can do what I choose!” Or, will David take the risk of being vulnerable before the Lord. David chooses the risk, the vulnerability of contrition. “I have sinned against the Lord,” a declaration that is the beginning of an act of repentance that becomes Psalm 51, known as David’s prayer of confession that follows the great moral downfall of the affair with Bathsheba and murderous dealings with her husband, who was one of David’s most loyal men.
The risk for David, in the face of such grave sin, is that God may withhold forgiveness, may withdraw the covenant promises. God may choose to start over by anointing a new king, and the house of David becomes a footnote in history. But, God remembers his covenant faithfulness and preserves the house of David, even though there are serious consequences to be endured. Even so, the covenant holds, and from the house of David comes one upon whom God the Father has set his seal, the one who is the bread of life.
There is another risk-taker in this episode, and that is God himself, who bestows free-will upon the human creature, which opens up the risk that the human creature may choose to follow a different path than that of the Lord. But, there is also the hopeful possibility
that the human creature will remember its true source and be drawn back on to the path
where spiritual hunger and thirst are continually satisfied from great stores of grace.
Seminary professor Thomas Troeger tells a story about a visit to a European cathedral where God’s risk bears hopeful fruit amidst a tour group.
Cameras were flashing in the cathedral. I was standing next to a stone effigy of some monarch who lay on the lid of his tomb and stared confidently upward. . .All around the royal sepulchre tourists were poking their fingers in guidebooks. Several leaned their heads back to survey a deep blue stained glass window. . .Gazing frozen from the walls were medieval burghers posing as saints. One of them was pointing his finger in his own guidebook and looking as if he had discovered something much more worthy of attention than the birthdate of the duke who gave the altar. Amidst the click of cameras and the shuffle of feet on stone a voice broke the air over a perfectly modulated sound system, loud enough to catch everyone’s attention but soft enough to sound
conversational in that cavernous space. We were welcomed to the cathedral and reminded that “this is above all a house of prayer,” that living congregations continued to worship here, and that we were invited in Christ’s name to join them. Then the voice announced we would have a brief prayer. We were asked to be still while an intercession was offered to God. . .Several people looked shocked: Prayer?! There followed a simple, powerful plea for the ill, the homeless, the hungry, the mentally disturbed. After the Amen, the click of the cameras began immediately, although when I looked up I noticed several people were still praying. Perhaps they were seeing what the saint had been pointing to in his book for centuries: the force of Spirit in the heart of
faith, the depths of reality, the visionary power of belief to take stone and wood and sand and lead and reshape them to the glory of the primal source from which they came, the rhapsodic conviction of unseen mysteries that guided the stonecutter’s hammer, the mason’s chisel, the carpenter’s plane, and the glass maker’s iron. [Thomas Troeger, “The Integrity of Form and Faith in Liturgical Art.” In Robert Webber, ed. The Complete Library of Christian Worship, Vol. 4. Music and the Arts in Christian Worship. (Nashville, Starsong Publishers, 1994), p.523]
A prophet who dared speak God’s uncomfortable word to a king; a king who came to his senses and said, “I’m sorry”; several people who were still praying. That’s why God continues to take the risk with us.
Matthew Rowe+
