Highway 212 is transitioning, in some sections, from
two lanes to four lanes. Since I drive
this road at least five days a week, I am learning how to make good use of long
“stops” as road construction crews do their magic and create the new
highway.
One of the ways I spend my time waiting is to simply
observe the scenery. Harvest has
begun. There are hay bales everywhere,
and combines and the like. The fields
the farmers sowed are well organized—all one plant—corn, hay, sunflowers. However, the fields left to their own device
are a mess. They are weeds.
I am reminded of a story in the Old Testament, the Book
of II Samuel—the story of the time King David left the presence of God…and made
a mess:
It’s summer, and David decides not to go into war with
his army. After a nap, he moves out onto
the roof of the palace. From his rooftop
he can see a beautiful woman named Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop of her
home. He inquires about her, and learns
that she is married to one of his soldiers--Uriah.
He sends for her—and she conceives a child. She sends a note to David about the
conception. David moves her husband to
the front line of battle, has the other members of the line draw back—to insure
this man’s death. Here’s the rest of the
story recorded in II Samuel 11:26-12:13:
When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord…
Then the Lord sent Nathan to
David. And he came to him, and said to him: “There were two men in one city,
one rich and the other poor. The rich man had
exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man
had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and
it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and
drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from
his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who
had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man
who had come to him.”
So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.”
Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’”
So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.
Psalm 51 is attributed to David. The words in the NRSV that introduce the
psalm say, “To the Leader: A Psalm of David,
when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had been intimate with
Bathsheba.”
What does David want you and I to
know about sin (preferring one’s own will to God’s) and life with God?
I hear at least three insights:
First, God is approachable because
God is merciful.
Second, sin is a part of the human
condition. We are born “messy.” I wonder why?
Third, maturity seeks spiritual truth.
I’m going to
move quickly through the first two insights, and spend a little more time on
the third.
First, God is approachable because
God is merciful. It’s
not uncommon in a home where there are two adults raising children for one of
the adults to be the bad cop, meaning quick to anger, while the other parent is
the good cop, the one who is slow to anger.
In Psalm 103:8 the author declares that “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in
love.” In the Parable of the
Prodigal Son we are introduced to God who “sees us, the wasteful ones, far off
in the distance, having exhausted our hearts in petty pleasures, returning
home---and beats us to the end of the driveway, arms open wide.” In other words, we can count on God being a
“good cop” and a “forgiving parent.”
God will work with us. We can
always return to the conversation, and the conversion. Have you found that to be true? I think we all have. After all, we are still in a relationship with
God—and we’ve all taken our turn as the wasteful child…more than once.
Second, sin is a part of the human
condition. We are born “messy.” It’s how we grow. As
12th century anchoress and author Julian of Norwich puts it, “I once
asked Christ why sin wasn’t left out of the creation. It causes so much pain.” The answer that came back to her surprised
her, “Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all manner of things will be
well.” God doesn’t shame or blame or
send wrath, Julian learns. God
nurtures. We forget. We try things God’s way and then we get
negligent and try it our way. Hopefully,
every time we try things our way we get the proper feedback so that we return
to God. Every time we realize that we
can, in fact, return to God our hearts are stretched in love. We remember where home is—what it feels
like. Home is with God; with
compassion—not with the Ego; with self indulgence. We become better people—we become God’s
people.
Third, maturity seeks spiritual
truth. I want to offer a definition of
maturity through the spiritual lense. A mature person is a loving person.
A mature person is someone who has removed themselves from being the
center of the universe and returned God to that powerful position. A mature person is someone who lives from
their heart—in touch with human need, like Jesus.
As the life of David teaches us, and
our own lives, most people don’t live from their hearts for a great length of
time without a huge struggle. We give our hearts to
God and then we take them back, correct?
One month its prayer and devotion to God—the next year we put our head
down and plow through life on our own terms.
It’s only after we mess up and hurt, and mess up and hurt that we begin
to say to God, “OK, maybe I’ll try things YOUR way,” or “Take me as I am and
make of me what, by myself, I cannot” AND “Help me, I am making myself and
everyone around me SICK.” In alcoholics
anonymous we hear, “We honestly admitted we were powerless over alcohol and
sincerely wanted to do something about it.
In other word we admitted we were whipped and had a genuine desire to
QUIT for good.”
When we invite God into our pain one
of the first things God MUST do is help us name what ails us.
God will lift up the hood and look around, noticing what motivates
us. Is it God, or is it something else
like envy or fear or me, me, me, me?
In her book The Cloister Walk,
author Kathleen Norris tells a little story about how sneaky the ego is.
Norris became quite famous after she wrote the book Dakota: A Spiritual Autobiography a story about
finding prayer and presence in Lemmon, South Dakota (she inherited the family
farm.) Norris’ book had a lot of people
waking up the fact that we are shaped by geography—some of us would say the
mountains are our spiritual home, others the dessert, or the plains, or the
beach. As the book rose in popularity, Norris was treated to two years worth of
book promotion, which meant traveling.
Norris has a
sister who is, as she writes, “borderline.”
Deprived of the oxygen she needed at birth, her sister Becky struggled
with loneliness “in ways you cannot imagine,” states Norris. “But she had her own intelligence and I came
to respect it.” One day Becky sent
famous Kathleen a note that read, “Dear
Kathy, I feel hurt because you wrote a book and I didn’t. Happy for you and I try read your book but I
was bored with it. Mom and Dad and
everybody talking about it. I feel left
out but it will pass. Hope you
understand how I feel about your book. I
telling you how I feel and I starting to cry while I write this letter. “
What a
laugh! Her book was boring! Kathleen Norris writes, Becky was “calling me
back to the things that are important in life.”
And then she quoted a dessert mother, “It is impossible for us to be surrounded by worldly honor and at the
same time bear heavenly fruit.”
Jesus
observes, “We cannot serve two masters.”
Simply put, God wants to bring us back to what is
really important: God---love,
helpfulness, patience, kindness, simplicity, forgiveness, justice and peace, a
balanced life. And God will wrestle us
to the ground for spiritual truth, or spiritual integrity- having a high regard for God AND
acting on that regard.
Within, of course; on the
inside—because our actions flow from what we treasure. Jesus didn’t say, “Where your heart is, there
will your treasure be.” Jesus said,
“Where your treasure is, there will your heart, your effort, be.” The older we get—the wiser we get—the more we
want God, correct?—and the less we want all of the other stuff. Why is that?
Power, status, and wealth are short-lived and empty…but we usually have
to give these things one more try…until we are tired of ourselves…and hungry
for God.
So many
people paid a heavy price for David’s indulgence—Bathsheba’s husband, Bathsheba
herself, the son she bore David. David
was sick—sick for what he had done.
“Create in me a new heart,” David says to God with great expectation. Not because he deserves God’s help—but
because healing is what God does, and because spiritual truth (integrity)
benefits EVERYONE. We might hear David’s
prayer to God in psalm 51 like this, “Give me YOUR heart.”
How do you
think God does that? Now this MIGHT be
worth talking today around the tables.
How does God create new hearts, loving hearts, in us?
Prayer: God, there is an obvious beauty in following
you. We see your beauty in Christ. Can your beauty live in us? Create in us a new heart. Amen.
(This sermon was preached by Reverend Dana Keener at Central Christian Church in Billings, Montana on August 2, 2015.)
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