Small Sin, Large Grace
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle B
Object:
This pericope is in two parts. First there is the testimony of Nathan against David. A little trap is laid about another man who has stolen a lamb. David answers without self-consciousness. Nathan has to tell David, "You are the man who has stolen the sheep." "You are the one who should be punished." We are reminded of that wonderful part of the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our sins -- debts -- trespasses -- as we forgive those who sin against us." David indeed has stolen the wife of Uriah from him. David has not tamed his lust toward Bathsheba.
The second part is the divine judgment against David. He does take Bathsheba as his stolen wife. She does bear a son. The son dies. First, David receives the judgment of his dear friend Nathan. Then he receives the judgment of his God. In that judgment he loses the coveted son of the beautiful woman for whom he has been willing to commit murder. While I find it impossible to imagine that every child that dies early is a kind of punishment from a cruel God, this particular punishment seems quite well connected. It does seem that it would be way too cruel to Uriah if his wife were to bear David a son.
Is there any hope for David? After his sin and his retribution? Of course -- we will see the hope and see how it unfolds as these stories continue. But for now, we must stay close to the punishment. There is no way around it but through it. We may try to go for the "big" picture and think of this act of murder and adultery as too small for God's attention. We will be wrong. But that won't prevent us from trying.
Sometimes when I rise to preach, I think I will rise to say one word -- galaxy. Then I will sit down. I might add another -- cosmos. Then I will sit down again. My awe -- as in awesome -- in the size and grandeur of the world in which my small soul seems to be awake is so large that I can't imagine trying to convince you that anyone is really important. David was, after all, a little man in a big world. Why would a universe this large and fertile and big bang ongoing need protoplasmic or genetic repetition? Why would it care about what we do to each other? We live. We die. The universe continues. David just can't be that big a deal.
The very problem that causes me to want takes a premature seat -- that the world in which we are awake is awesome and awe filled -- keeps me standing. Why would a world this grand not create a myth of resurrection and ongoing life? Why would a world this grand not really care about a man as small as David, a life as little as Uriah's, a beauty as inconsequential as Bathsheba's? Is such a myth more amazing than an orchid or a bumblebee? Is it more amazing than a Long Island woman with three facelifts and a whole lot of bling bling? Is it more amazing than a man who loved the heck out of crystal meth but manages to get unaddicted to it? Why would a world so fab not also create doubly fab myths about itself? Why would a world so large not enlarge human being and doing as well? Why would a cosmic world not worry about a small man? The greatness is large enough to include both -- a transcendent and an immanent God, a God far away and a God close by, a God who cares about what David did to Uriah and a God who cares about far-off stars.
By myth of resurrection and caring about both large and small life, I do not mean untruth. I mean something so true that it keeps repeating itself. Myth, to me, is fact plus. It is fact plus interpretation. Facts are myth "lite." Myth is not something untrue so much as it is something truer than true -- it is the density or DNA of the fact. Myth is something so true that it keeps repeating itself, as do the resurrection stories. Christians are not the only ones to come up with cockamamie ideas about human significance and rebirth, as you know. So let's admit that the preacher could be seated after breathy repetitions of the words "cosmos" or "galaxy," but that instead she will remain risen, as an act of praise to the human spirit.
You see, David comes back from this horror. He manages a new and useful life after his double insult and injury. He manages to have new life. He is a living example of resurrection before Jesus ever went to the cross.
I went to St. Mark in the Bowery's Good Friday Blues Service. A man sang with a voice as robust as Paul Robeson's, "Jesus just left Chicago for New Orleans," and it brought me straight to tears. Why? I have no real idea. I just know that songs don't die and New Orleans doesn't die and Chicago doesn't die and that the blues aren't dead yet. If the blues aren't dead, I can stay standing here telling you about the blues not being dead yet. I can also claim some hope for the likes of David and the likes of you and me. That is important news.
Even more important is the news about David. He gets a second chance. He rises from the grave of his lust. We, too, can have a second chance, no matter where our lust or foolishness has left us.
Last year, after I left the Miami church I loved, I entered a period of what I can only call "a fertile void." Thank God a friend of mine gave me that expression. Maybe it will help you, too. I said to her jokingly that I was suffering from status anxiety and applause deprivation. I was suffering from a sense that maybe I was professionally dead. She said the Buddhists have a phrase for our transitional periods -- the fertile void. It is when we empty to fill. It is when we pour and spill and let go in order to create an openness to something new. I was hit one day that the fertile void is what the tomb is. It was empty. My own personal Easter observance could stop and start right there. I don't need Jesus walking next to me telling me I am going to live forever. I do need to believe that good can come from bad and full can follow empty. I do need the testimony that the "heavens opened" (schizo in the Greek) and that the curtain of the temple ripped (schizo again). These rents of the veil strike me as the way in which we rise. We have veils covering, protecting, distorting. When we rise from whatever death we have, we pull aside the veil. We open the tomb. David had to dive into a tomb, a tomb of judgment from Nathan and a loss of an infant son. He died, and then he rose.
Muslim women "slip scarf" when they want to both hide and reveal. When the tomb opens, we hide and reveal simultaneously important things to ourselves. David will have to forget and remember what he did to Uriah. He will never be the same.
I believe that sin like David's is very real. He was a man of great sorrow, great lust -- and great triumph. All of this, way before Jesus, mimics the life of Jesus. No, Jesus did not commit adultery or murder. But yes, Jesus was a man acquainted with sorrow. I used to add to the Eucharistic prayer a sentence, "Thou whom even nuclear holocaust cannot destroy." I believe that the cosmos will withstand both large and small human sin.
The stone on our own tomb is rolled away. We think the curtain between earth and heaven is permanent. It is not. We live as though the stones were real and they are not. I'll never forget my bike rides at an old zoo in Miami. They had taken all the bars off the cages. I laughed every time I saw those empty tombs. I was sure many animals would stay in those cages as though they couldn't get out! David had to go through more hell before he got to more heaven. Surely, Bathsheba was not happy once she had lost a child. Surely, she, too, was a part of the sin -- although it is hard to know what her choices really were. Could she have said, "No," to David? Probably not. Could she be a true lover to David afterward? Could she be a true wife? The sin, once committed, reached its long tentacles into the future.
So did the hope. There is hope for the renewal of broken relationships, just as there is hope for the renewal of David and Nathan's relationship, David and God's relationship, and even David and Bathsheba's relationship. The hard line is drawn for Uriah. Sin is not cosmic or too big to notice; sin is real. Real people lose real lives when we commit violence of any kind.
Nevertheless, and even so, God has a cosmic grandness, which allows resurrection to be as real as the myths that drive our lives. Even before Jesus' time on the cross, the universe was marked by a cosmic resurrection. David went on to enjoy it. That is good news for David and for us. Amen.
The second part is the divine judgment against David. He does take Bathsheba as his stolen wife. She does bear a son. The son dies. First, David receives the judgment of his dear friend Nathan. Then he receives the judgment of his God. In that judgment he loses the coveted son of the beautiful woman for whom he has been willing to commit murder. While I find it impossible to imagine that every child that dies early is a kind of punishment from a cruel God, this particular punishment seems quite well connected. It does seem that it would be way too cruel to Uriah if his wife were to bear David a son.
Is there any hope for David? After his sin and his retribution? Of course -- we will see the hope and see how it unfolds as these stories continue. But for now, we must stay close to the punishment. There is no way around it but through it. We may try to go for the "big" picture and think of this act of murder and adultery as too small for God's attention. We will be wrong. But that won't prevent us from trying.
Sometimes when I rise to preach, I think I will rise to say one word -- galaxy. Then I will sit down. I might add another -- cosmos. Then I will sit down again. My awe -- as in awesome -- in the size and grandeur of the world in which my small soul seems to be awake is so large that I can't imagine trying to convince you that anyone is really important. David was, after all, a little man in a big world. Why would a universe this large and fertile and big bang ongoing need protoplasmic or genetic repetition? Why would it care about what we do to each other? We live. We die. The universe continues. David just can't be that big a deal.
The very problem that causes me to want takes a premature seat -- that the world in which we are awake is awesome and awe filled -- keeps me standing. Why would a world this grand not create a myth of resurrection and ongoing life? Why would a world this grand not really care about a man as small as David, a life as little as Uriah's, a beauty as inconsequential as Bathsheba's? Is such a myth more amazing than an orchid or a bumblebee? Is it more amazing than a Long Island woman with three facelifts and a whole lot of bling bling? Is it more amazing than a man who loved the heck out of crystal meth but manages to get unaddicted to it? Why would a world so fab not also create doubly fab myths about itself? Why would a world so large not enlarge human being and doing as well? Why would a cosmic world not worry about a small man? The greatness is large enough to include both -- a transcendent and an immanent God, a God far away and a God close by, a God who cares about what David did to Uriah and a God who cares about far-off stars.
By myth of resurrection and caring about both large and small life, I do not mean untruth. I mean something so true that it keeps repeating itself. Myth, to me, is fact plus. It is fact plus interpretation. Facts are myth "lite." Myth is not something untrue so much as it is something truer than true -- it is the density or DNA of the fact. Myth is something so true that it keeps repeating itself, as do the resurrection stories. Christians are not the only ones to come up with cockamamie ideas about human significance and rebirth, as you know. So let's admit that the preacher could be seated after breathy repetitions of the words "cosmos" or "galaxy," but that instead she will remain risen, as an act of praise to the human spirit.
You see, David comes back from this horror. He manages a new and useful life after his double insult and injury. He manages to have new life. He is a living example of resurrection before Jesus ever went to the cross.
I went to St. Mark in the Bowery's Good Friday Blues Service. A man sang with a voice as robust as Paul Robeson's, "Jesus just left Chicago for New Orleans," and it brought me straight to tears. Why? I have no real idea. I just know that songs don't die and New Orleans doesn't die and Chicago doesn't die and that the blues aren't dead yet. If the blues aren't dead, I can stay standing here telling you about the blues not being dead yet. I can also claim some hope for the likes of David and the likes of you and me. That is important news.
Even more important is the news about David. He gets a second chance. He rises from the grave of his lust. We, too, can have a second chance, no matter where our lust or foolishness has left us.
Last year, after I left the Miami church I loved, I entered a period of what I can only call "a fertile void." Thank God a friend of mine gave me that expression. Maybe it will help you, too. I said to her jokingly that I was suffering from status anxiety and applause deprivation. I was suffering from a sense that maybe I was professionally dead. She said the Buddhists have a phrase for our transitional periods -- the fertile void. It is when we empty to fill. It is when we pour and spill and let go in order to create an openness to something new. I was hit one day that the fertile void is what the tomb is. It was empty. My own personal Easter observance could stop and start right there. I don't need Jesus walking next to me telling me I am going to live forever. I do need to believe that good can come from bad and full can follow empty. I do need the testimony that the "heavens opened" (schizo in the Greek) and that the curtain of the temple ripped (schizo again). These rents of the veil strike me as the way in which we rise. We have veils covering, protecting, distorting. When we rise from whatever death we have, we pull aside the veil. We open the tomb. David had to dive into a tomb, a tomb of judgment from Nathan and a loss of an infant son. He died, and then he rose.
Muslim women "slip scarf" when they want to both hide and reveal. When the tomb opens, we hide and reveal simultaneously important things to ourselves. David will have to forget and remember what he did to Uriah. He will never be the same.
I believe that sin like David's is very real. He was a man of great sorrow, great lust -- and great triumph. All of this, way before Jesus, mimics the life of Jesus. No, Jesus did not commit adultery or murder. But yes, Jesus was a man acquainted with sorrow. I used to add to the Eucharistic prayer a sentence, "Thou whom even nuclear holocaust cannot destroy." I believe that the cosmos will withstand both large and small human sin.
The stone on our own tomb is rolled away. We think the curtain between earth and heaven is permanent. It is not. We live as though the stones were real and they are not. I'll never forget my bike rides at an old zoo in Miami. They had taken all the bars off the cages. I laughed every time I saw those empty tombs. I was sure many animals would stay in those cages as though they couldn't get out! David had to go through more hell before he got to more heaven. Surely, Bathsheba was not happy once she had lost a child. Surely, she, too, was a part of the sin -- although it is hard to know what her choices really were. Could she have said, "No," to David? Probably not. Could she be a true lover to David afterward? Could she be a true wife? The sin, once committed, reached its long tentacles into the future.
So did the hope. There is hope for the renewal of broken relationships, just as there is hope for the renewal of David and Nathan's relationship, David and God's relationship, and even David and Bathsheba's relationship. The hard line is drawn for Uriah. Sin is not cosmic or too big to notice; sin is real. Real people lose real lives when we commit violence of any kind.
Nevertheless, and even so, God has a cosmic grandness, which allows resurrection to be as real as the myths that drive our lives. Even before Jesus' time on the cross, the universe was marked by a cosmic resurrection. David went on to enjoy it. That is good news for David and for us. Amen.
