Friday, January 28, 2022                                            (today’s lectionary)
Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church
David and Bathsheba
David sent messengers to bring him Bathsheba, wife of Uriah. He had sexual relations with her and returned to her house. She conceived and sent David the message. “I am with child.”
Can anyone ever be so careless as David was “when he remained in Jerusalem?”
David wrote a letter to Joab, which he sent by Uriah. In it he directed, “Place Uriah up front, where the fighting is fierce. Then pull back and leave him to be struck down dead.”
Can anyone ever be so cruel as David was when Uriah proved himself a loyal soldier?
Well, I know it’s true, of course they can. We all can. Whether I know it or not, my words and actions can hurt others.
Against you, and against you only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight.
What? David, are you unaware of the damage you’ve done to so many peoples’ lives? Of course not, because Nathan will rub your face in that damage tomorrow. You sinned against many men and women, not only God. Why do you separate the “horizontal” sins against your kinsmen and family from the “vertical” sin against God?
Or do you?
John Piper puts words into David’s mouth: “I rejected God as my treasure. I scorned the word of God.” As we’ll see tomorrow, Nathan said exactly this to David. “Why have you despised the word of God?” Rape and murder cannot be minimized. In those acts, God is assaulted. And Piper says, “They are no less horrible because David says this: they are more horrible because he says this.”
Chad Bird points out that “within this confession, there is also a hidden beauty, a secluded comfort.” Weren’t there many people that refused to forgive David for his sins against them, which were not limited to those against Bathsheba and Uriah? Yes. But “just as confession is directed ultimately to God alone, so absolution is received fully and ultimately also, from God alone.”
For Chad, Psalm 51:4 used to trip him up. “Now it is my greatest delight. For as much as it may hurt that others refuse to forgive, Christ does not.” Chad reminds me that I only appreciate this fully “when it is a lived reality.” I often tilt toward self-loathing and even revenge-seeking when someone seems to withhold forgiveness for one of my own sins. Stop it! It’s God against whom I’ve sinned, and it’s God who forgives me, body and soul.
One more point: remember Matthew 25 when Jesus calls out the “goats” for not realizing that was inhabiting the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked ones and the prisoners in their lives (in my life)?
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.
It’s not just those other guys. It’s me too.
Against you, O Lord, against you only, have I sinned … this is how it is with the Kingdom of God.
 (2 Samuel 11, Psalm 51, Matthew 11, Mark 4)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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