Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 13), 5 August 2018

2 Samuel 11:26 — 12:13a

Our text for today comes from the fourth major story cycle in the Samuel books.  This story cycle centers on David solidifying his power as king and the importance of the priests (Nathan in this case) to the proper running of the nation.  Earlier, Nathan plays a crucial role in reassuring David that God has great plans in store for him through his children. In this story, Nathan plays a crucial role in calling David to faithfulness to the God who made him king and who sustains him as king.  

The lectionary skips an important storyline in the intervening verses between last Sunday and this Sunday.  A quick summary for your congregation may make Nathan’s parable for this Sunday more understandable. Last Sunday, we heard the story of how David raped Bathsheba, and she conceived a child from the assault. What we did not read was David’s attempt to cover up his crime.  In the verses we do not read, David calls Bathsheba’s husband Uriah back to Jerusalem from the war Uriah is fighting on David’s behalf. David tries to send Uriah home to sleep with his wife, Bathsheba so that he can pass the child of his rape off as Uriah’s child instead.  Uriah proves to be too principled to go to the comforts of his home while his men are fighting and dying. Frustrated, David sends Uriah back to the front with instructions for his general, Joab, to contrive to make sure that Uriah dies on the battlefield.

The lectionary picks up at verse 11:26 where Bathsheba learns of the death of her husband.  She follows the specified mourning rituals. At the end of the mourning period, David marries Bathsheba, and she gives birth to a son.  But, in a turn that might not be surprising at all to you, dear preacher, God is not at all pleased with David. So, God sends Nathan to David with a message.  Nathan delivers God’s warning in the form of a parable. Nathan does this in a way that would appeal to a king, since, ostensibly, rulers are supposed to be concerned with justice and upholding the law.  Nathan begins by posing a question of fairness, drawing upon ancient hospitality practices. The rules of hospitality say that it is permissible to take an animal from your neighbor’s flocks to use as food for a guest (not your own family) so long as you do not have an animal yourself to use.  More than just a matter of honor, the rules of hospitality were essential; they could sometimes mean the difference between life and death for an ancient traveler. Nathan has David hooked. Nathan has appealed to David’s sense of kingly responsibility to act as judge and his sense of duty and justice.

David responds to Nathan’s story with swift condemnation.  The King enjoins fourfold restitution for the vulnerable neighbor and the death sentence for the esurient wealthy man.  In one of the more dramatic moments of the Bible, Nathan springs the trap on David exclaiming, “You are the man!” Nathan rattles off a terrible list of horrors to befall David and his descendants because of his crime.  David, convicted of the error of his ways, confesses his sin to Nathan.

The lection stops at this point.  Perhaps, that is a good place to end the reading for this Sunday.  However, it may be more satisfying to continue to the end of verse 13 where God relents from killing David because of his confession.

It might be helpful to talk about some of the disturbing things of this passage.  Your congregation may benefit from hearing you address Bathsheba’s voicelessness and nearly utter lack of personhood in this story.  She is merely a good to be transferred upon death. Speaking for God, Nathan reprimands David with the reminder that David has more than enough wives and the rape and murder committed by David characterized as greed.  Leaving Bathsheba, once again, as nothing but property. The passage cannot be sanitized. It is what it is. In the wake of the #metoo movement, this passage could be a helpful way to talk about how the women in your congregations may have had experiences of being silenced and mistreated at the hands of more powerful people.  It may be an excellent way to talk about how the powerful, even the powerful in the church, like Nathan, can have difficulty recognizing the full extent of their sin.

This text lends itself to addressing God’s call for moral leadership on the national level.  It clearly lays out the trap of greed and dehumanization the powerful can so easily fall into. God calls on those who have the privilege of leading to avoid this trap.  God reminds our leaders that they have enough, enough power, enough money, enough access to sensual pleasure. God tells our leaders that to take more is sin. To refuse to lead the people entrusted to them to the benefit of all of the people is sin.  

Process theological views of the reality of sin are often misunderstood.  Process theology is often accused of not taking seriously the reality of sin.  This is a mistaken accusation. Sin is indeed real. It has long-term and lasting effects.  In her essay, “The Mystery of the Insolubale Evil: Violence in Marjorie Suchocki,” Catherine Keller defines evil as, “violation; and more precisely, violation as a humanly avoidable brutality” [in World Without End: Christian Eschatology from a Process Perspective; Joseph Bracken, ed.; Eerdmans, 2005; p. 49].  She reminds us that sin is relational. It is relational not just between humans, but she says, ipso facto, part of our relationship with God.  Because our relationships with one another are also constitutive of our relationships with God, when we sin against a person, we also sin against God.  Here is some good news in this passage. When David sins against Bathsheba and Uriah, he sins against God. This passage lends itself to preaching an ethic of sin that recalls the humanity of Bathsheba.  God is violated because Bathsheba was violated. Because of God’s inextricable presence in Bathsheba, God gives her a voice. God insists on her humanity. God insists on the dignity and humanity of all people.  God insists that the powerful and those in power behave according to the blessing and responsibility given them.

John 6:24-35

The Gospel text for this Sunday continues to describe Jesus’ interactions with the people of the Galilee region of Israel.  This section is part of the larger “signs” section of John. Signs and the signs Jesus performs are an essential part of John’s gospel because they help lead people to faith.  John’s emphasis on signs stands in contrast to Mark (which we left just two Sundays ago) where the people needed to have faith in order for Jesus to perform a miracle. In today’s text, the people have gone to some lengths to hunt Jesus down.  Even though five loaves and two fish had miraculously fed them, they still ask for a sign. What an odd question. At this point, what kind of sign could they still need?

Jesus seems to understand that there are levels of maturity in our relationships with God.  He seems to know that the people have not followed him because they understand the God that his signs signify.  He tells them he knows that they are here because he filled their bellies. Often, preachers like to put a lot of judgment in Jesus’ voice when they read this.  I wonder if we read him right when we make that interpretive move. Perhaps he is simply stating a fact. Perhaps the truth that it is near impossible to feed a person’s spirit when the body is starving is not lost on Jesus.  Regardless of what Jesus thought about these seekers, he does not waste the opportunity to help them come to a more mature understanding of what God is doing. He instructs them, now that their physical needs have been met, to turn to their spiritual needs.  The people ask a reasonable question in response, “What do we do to perform the works of God?” Considering that most of these people are probably good Jews, they may be looking for an answer along the lines of the Law of Moses. Jesus makes it simple: believe in Jesus (and presumably the things he teaches).   The people respond by asking for another sign, like when bread fell from heaven to feed the Hebrew people as they wandered in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. Once again, the people are asking after their bellies.

Jesus responds again, urging them to a more mature understanding, likening himself to the life-giving manna that sustained the people on their long journey through the wilderness.  Jesus himself has come down from heaven at the impetus of God. He gives life too, eternal life. Jesus finishes with the promise that like manna fed the body and staved off starvation that gnaws and kills, Jesus feeds the spirit and staves off starvation of the spirit leading to fullness of life.  It is easy to do he says; simply believe.

It is easy.  It is that simple.  This is an amazing word of good news for the seekers in your congregation.  Salvation comes to us not by following a set of stringent rules, knowing the magic words or accessing secret knowledge, not by being born into a select group of people, or engaging in complex behaviors or rituals.  Salvation is a gift, freely given, by God who loves us and wants the best for us. Salvation is God’s offer to us to invite us into right relationship.

This is also good news for your mature followers of Christ.  Belief is not a one-time thing; it is an act, one that we engage in over and over.  Like eating, we have to do it regularly. The better the food, the better our health.  The better our life of faith, the better our health. The starting point that we work from, salvation freely given in Jesus Christ, provides the foundation of our belief.  Mature Christians get to ask questions about what it means to believe in Jesus Christ. We come back to the foundational truth of salvation as a free gift and move outward from there.  If I am put right with God, freely, then what does that imply? It implies that I am loved by God just as I am right now, faults and sins, strengths and virtues, all lovingly accepted. The implication of that then is because God rectifies our relationship before I have done anything to change who I am, if I am loved even in my faults, then I have the strength and ability to change what should be in order to follow Christ more fully and develop the gifts God has given me to greater strength.  Put simply, for the mature follower of Christ, because we are forgiven, we strive to turn our selves and our lives to patterns that follow Christ. As we continue on a healthy diet of participation in the life of Christ, we do what we can in our small circle of the world to make it reflect the realm of God. Because we have the food that is Christ, we are not alone, and we are not powerless to effect change for good/God. For the Christian process thinker, because Christ is always with us in the aims God has for each moment, we have that food, that strength, that real presence of Christ in all that we do, if only we incorporate it into our becoming.

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Nichole Torbitzky received a doctorate from Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, CA and her Master of Divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Her current research investigates Whiteheadian notions of subjective form and the internal relations subjective form has on the ordering of eternal objects in the primordial nature of God. Torbitzky is an assistant professor of religion at Lindenwood University and teaches courses on World Religions, Islam, Indian Religions, History of Christianity, and Women and Religion.