The readings over the next couple of weeks make us deal with the nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts aspects of living our lives as followers of Jesus and God. They are not easy readings, some of them; they confront us and don’t leave us room to back away.
Last week after church, someone said to me: I was waiting for one thing in your sermon. I asked what it was. The answer: I was waiting for you to make the connection between the story of David and Uriah with the gospel reading about the feeding of the multitude. My answer: I wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole.
But today I am.
Since June we have been hearing from the Books of Samuel and the story of Samuel and then David. It would be far easier to ignore parts of it — such as what we have heard the past couple of weeks — but sometimes we have to enter into the tough places to be authentic.
Such is this morning’s narrative of David and Natan. The story of David and Bat-Sheva is considered the turning point in the Second Book of Samuel and it certainly is one of the greatest, if not most problematic, biblical tales. It is problematic because God seems supportive of a polygamous society (God gives David Saul’s harem) and now threatens to give David’s harem to another man. We have to deal not only with a distant social order but also with a strange deity.
Beyond that disconnect, tradition has always had a difficult time reconciling the important symbolic figure of David with the base way he appears in this story. Yet Second Samuel considers this story as the root of much that is to follow. Since part of our Anglican understanding of scripture is to look at everything without whitewashing it, we must also consider this story.
I won’t rehearse David’s adulterous raping of Bat-Sheva, but perhaps to clarify the reading we have just heard, you should remember that David has ordered Uriyya to be killed, since he would not sleep with his wife, Bat-Sheva. Uriyya, being a good Jewish warrior, knew that to do so before battle would make him unclean, and so he refused, thereby demolishing David’s alibi that Bat-Sheva was made pregnant by her husband and not by him.
Our reading starts with her learning of his death and David calling for her to come live with him. Life to seems to go on. But enter Natan — in Hebrew, ‘gift from God.’ He knows what David has done—the sin waged against Uriyya, Bat-Sheva, God and himself, David.
He doesn’t directly indict David; instead, he tells him a story. Since it’s a parable, David lets down his guard and doesn’t realise that the story is about him. He becomes outraged and calls for maximum punishment, death, for the man who killed his neighbour’s beloved sheep. Only then does Natan reveal to David that the story is about him.
David’s response is genuine, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ It is perhaps the first admission of weakness for this man who is God’s chosen, God’s favourite, God’s anointed. His words echo those of Psalm 51, a psalm of repentence, which we always say on Ash Wednesday.
Despite David’s calling for death for the slayer of the sheep, Natan — now the relayer of God’s gift — will assure David of God’s mercy and that God will not put him to death for his gross misdeed but God will put away his sin. The question is whether David can accept God’s generosity and learn from having received that forgiveness to extend it to others.
How does David react to this forgiveness of his grave sin? David, is not able to receive God’s gift of forgiveness, he can’t open his heart to it, despite having a messenger from God telling him of this gift. It will take him a long, long time to accept God’s gracious forgiveness.
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Martin Smith, formerly of SSJE, wrote in his classic book on reconciliation, ‘God’s forgiveness is not the reward for having changed one’s life, but the source and condition of that change. Persons forgiven by God can be expected to show by their behavior the new life they enjoy.’ [I loaned the book to someone four years ago, never got it back but it is his 1980s book, Reconciliation, Cowley Press, Cambridge MA.]
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Jesus never promised that this life of Christian discipleship would be easy. I think extending and receiving forgiveness might be one of the most difficult but life-giving tasks of a disciple.
Radical forgiveness, mirrors God’s absolute love for us. Forgiveness in God’s way means we respect one another. One example comes from Archbishop Desmond Tutu (who is slated to receive a Presidential Medal of Honor) who explains that in Ubuntu theology (that of his homeland), the word ubuntu speaks about the essence of being human: my humanity is caught up in your humanity because a person is a person through other persons. 'Ntu' means human being. In Ubuntu thinking, one sets great store by communal peace and harmony. Anything that subverts this harmony is injurious, not just to the community but to all of us, and therefore forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human existence.
‘Forgiveness is not pretending that things are other than they are,’ explains Tutu. ‘Forgiveness is the willingness to face up to the awfulness of what would require forgiving but foregoing the right to retaliate.’ Forgiveness ‘wanting to give others a chance for a new beginning.’
The question is: are our souls so hardened that not even a kind and compassionate God who forgives endlessly can touch us? And, are our souls so hardened that we cannot extend that same forgiveness to others?
What unites us all is God’s vast, unceasing mercy, a mercy so great that it forgives where no human being would ever be able to forgive. With that knowledge, we can take tentative steps toward forgiveness — against God, our neighbour and ourselves. I always add in that last word, ‘ourselves,’ because we just as easily hurt ourselves as we do others. We need to acknowledge that sin as well.
Part of forgiving lies in these six simple words: ‘Deal with it and move on.’ There are different ways of looking at forgiveness. Sometimes it’s forgiving, then living into the feeling, rather than waiting to be ready to do it. And sometimes forgiving entails a more careful, methodical approach. Whichever way we approach forgiveness, it must be a mainstay of our Christian journey.
On thing people in a twelve-step program do is write up a list of their resentments. It’s part of the fourth step of making a searching and fearless moral inventory of oneself — like the steps one takes before making a confession. Periodically doing this step can be useful for us too if seeking forgiveness and letting go is what we need in our life. You start off in the first column with the who. Then in the second, you write the what, what the person did to you. Some can go way back. Next, you look at what aspect of your life is being affected — self-esteem, pocketbook, ambitions, personal relationships, where you were hurt or threatened. Then you write about their part in it — this is where you need to spend the most time because it always involves you.
Then you go back to the list and acknowledge that those who have harmed you are also weak or have behaved inappropriately or have their own issues. As the Big Book says, ‘We avoid retaliation or argument,’ since we don’t treat sick people that way. ‘We ask Gd to show us how to treat them with tolerance, pity, and patience. We pray that Gd will do for them all the things we want Gd to do for us.’ These steps are essential for recovery or, in our terms, forgiveness, or these resentments will continue to dominate us.
But there is more:
We then list next to each name our role in what happened. We look for our own mistakes. Where have we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking or frightened? Where were we to blame? We do not take the other person’s inventory but our own.
Sometimes when it’s in blue and white on paper and ink, you realise that some resentments aren’t that important any more. Once you narrow it down the list to the ones that still have emotional power over you, then you pray your way out of them because that’s the only thing you can do. Sometimes forgiveness doesn’t come from within but from without, from God. It may come from your subconsciousness but it can just as much come from God. Offering up these discords through prayer is a helpful step for moving on.
These steps are very helpful, not only in identifying issues but moving beyond them. And that’s what we all want. Healing.
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Regardless of where you are — a David not able to accept God’s forgiveness or a Natan calling someone else to forgiveness — remember that God has loved you from before the beginning. That knowledge can carry you through a lot. As proof of that love, God has given us the Eucharist. So come, be fed, and rejoice in God’s abundant mercy spread out before you.
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