God-Denial

Proverbs 10:2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 16, 21, 24, 25, 28, 30, 32

 

The preacher was on a roll. He wasn't going to mince words: "People of God, sin is the enemy! So just take your marijuana cigarettes and your cocaine and throw 'em in the river! Take your beer and your tequila and throw 'em in the river! Take your demon rum and malted Scotch liquor and throw 'em in the river! Do this, people of God, and believe in our Lord Jesus Christ." Thoroughly spent, the preacher sat down. Then the song leader stood and announced the next hymn: "Please turn in your hymnal to #16, 'Shall We Gather at the River.'"

 

What is sin? What is righteousness? What does it mean to ask these things in our confused world today? Is sin a concept we can redeem, or has it been hopelessly muddled by the kind of preaching found in the joke I just told? Is sin a concept we have moved beyond in our culture as we have learned to psychologize all our actions and attitudes so that we are not really responsible for our own selves? In the words of the Book of Proverbs, we might ask, "What is wickedness? What is righteousness?"

 

Proverbs tells us that, "When the storm has swept by the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever." And again, "The prospect of the righteous is joy, but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing." These proverbs do not so much define for us what is righteous and what is wicked, but they do point us to a basic truth of all of Scripture; namely, righteousness is its own reward. And likewise, wickedness is its own reward. While righteousness may not lead to a reward in any conventional monetary sense, it gives the spiritual gift of joy that cannot be taken away easily. The storm comes, and joy remains. A loved one dies and somehow we make it through. Life becomes crazy and somehow we find the strength to stand firm. Likewise, what the wicked desire, though they may receive it indeed, it is never what they expected: wanting and having are two different things. The gift of wickedness is a mirage: we think it will quench our thirst but when we get to where we want to go the oasis is still ahead; we must continue our search for the living water that will sate our parched souls. Wickedness is a mirage, its promise never matching its fulfillment, its means never fully reaching its end. Nowhere do we see this in the life of David more than in his dealings with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12).

 

It's spring. David's army has gone to raid some neighboring tribes to plunder some loot, according to the custom of the times. But David stays behind. At this point in his life he is well established as king and doesn't need to prove himself in battle. And besides, these aren't important wars being fought, just some border skirmishes. But in his withdrawal from battle do we see a withdrawal from life, a withdrawal from robust energy and - dare we say it? - a living faith in God? Is staying at home, for David, the sign of a sickness of the soul? We don't have to wait long for an answer.

 

 

One afternoon, while walking on the palace roof, positioned so that he can see into the courtyards of nearby houses, he sees a woman bathing. She's extraordinarily beautiful. He sends for her, takes her to his bed, and then discards her, sending her home. Her name is unimportant to David; it happens to be Bathsheba. Her husband, Uriah, is off fighting in the army. A month or so later Bathsheba sends word to David, "I am with child." David, good at dealing with problems, handles this one by sending for Uriah and giving him a month's leave. David expects Uriah to spend some time with his wife, but Uriah doesn't cooperate. Uriah is a loyal soldier and doesn't feel good about enjoying the rights of marriage while his fellow soldiers are roughing it in the battlefield. So he sleeps on David's porch. David solves the complication to his strategy by sending him back to the army camp with a letter for General Joab that instructs Joab to place Uriah in the thick of the battle where he most certainly will be killed. This plan works, at least for David. Joab sends word back that Uriah has been killed. After the time for mourning is complete, David sends for Bathsheba and marries her.

 

David surprises us here. This is not the David we have come to know and admire. This is a different David, not the example of saintliness we want him to be but an example of humanness too much like ourselves. We aren't prepared for such a David. What begins as a lustful whim develops into a monstrosity. How does such sin happen? As with most sins, gradually, unnoticed but not unseen.

 

The narrator of 2 Samuel skillfully draws us into an awareness of what is going on with subtle repetition of a seemingly harmless, innocent word: send. We realize that there is nothing immoral about the word; however, once we notice what is happening, we see that the word signals David's descent into depravity. By following the use of this one word, send, we can trace David's descent from love and obedience before God into calculation and cruelty toward others. Verb by verb, we watch David remove himself from compassionate listening and personal intimacy with others to a position of distance and then neglect and finally abuse.

 

The passage begins with the curt phrase "David sent Joab to war;" it picks up momentum when "David sent" to inquire about Bathsheba; the plot thickens when "David sent" and got Bathsheba. That these sendings are a ruthless exercise of power becomes clear when "David sent word to Joab, send me Uriah the Hittite.' And Joab sent Uriah to David." After he had accomplished his cover-up, "David sent for Bathsheba again and married her."

 

We have talked in the past about Martin Buber's distinction between "I-Thou" relationships in which we treat the other as a person and "I-It" relationships in which the other is an object to be used, to be done with, to deal with as our personal wishes see fit. Well, this is David immersed in I-It dealings. Bathsheba, Uriah, even Joab are pawns to be sacrificed in a game of chess that David has no intention of losing. They are nothing to him. But in the calculation of their nothingness, David loses his soul. David forgot the basic, fundamental truth about our humanity, and it cost him everything.

 

 

The basic, fundamental truth of our humanity is God. We are redeemed by God. We are blessed by God. We are provided for by God. We are loved by God. Sin is the denial or ignorance or avoidance of this basic, fundamental truth. Sin is the word we use to talk about doing wrong or missing the right, but sin is not essentially a moral term. Oh, I know it is that: a sin is something we do, some thought that we have, some action or attitude that misses the mark. But before sin is any of this, it is something much deeper and more profound. Before sin is a moral term, it is a spiritual term, a word to help us talk about our God-denial, our God-ignorance, our God-avoidance.

 

David's problem with sin was a problem with God. David had forgotten God. After years of living a life of prayer, David stopped praying. After years of putting his faith on the line each and every day, David retreated into the safety of his own power. After years of seeing the God-life in those around him, David began to treat people like pawns. David forgot God and it led him into the sin of replacing God with himself, with his own will and desires.

 

The irony of David “sending” others to do his errands must be seen in the light of the gospels.  The Greek word apostoleo, from which we get the word “apostles,” literally means “to send.”  The apostles, Peter, James, John, Paul and the others, literally were “sent ones.”  It belongs to God alone, through his Son, to send.  God sends us out to love. God sends us out to speak truth. God sends us out to live as his people, but David usurps the role of God. David forgets God and then believes his own myth.  And David sends.

 

David himself recognized his sin was first and foremost against God when, after being confronted with what he had done by his friend and pastor, Nathan, he prayed the prayer that we call Psalm 51: "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is wrong, O God!" David understood that God had receded into the background, and David had stepped front and center. The more David, the less God. The less God, the more David could pretend to be God toward Bathsheba, drawing her into his clutches. The less God, the more David could pretend to be God toward Uriah, slaughtering Uriah to cover his own shame.

 

The subtlety of David's sin is that it didn't feel like sin when he was doing it, it rarely does. Instead, David's sin felt godlike, maybe even religious. Certainly it felt fulfilling and satisfying. David didn't feel like a sinner when he sent for Bathsheba; he felt like a lover - and what can be better than that? David didn't feel like a sinner when he sent for Uriah; he felt like a king - what can be better than that? Somewhere along the line David had withdrawn from a life of worship and prayer and service: adoration of God had receded to the point that all David could see was David. And that, my friends, was his fundamental problem. And that is also our fundamental problem.

 

 

 

The basic, fundamental truth of our humanity is God. We are redeemed by God. We are blessed by God. We are provided for by God. We are loved by God. Sin is the denial or ignorance or avoidance of this basic, fundamental truth. When we forget God, we lose our way with one another. David did it with Bathsheba, Uriah and Joab. We do it in our own way with family and friends, neighbors and strangers. We have the same problem as David even if it manifests itself with different symptoms. Hopefully, our God-avoidance does not lead us into adultery and murder, but we know it will lead us somewhere we don't want to go: "When the storm has swept by the wicked are gone...the hopes of the wicked come to nothing."

 

 

Our God-denial is usually more subtle than David's, but when it is there, our I-Thou           relationships falter. When we forget God is at the center of everything, the clerk we encounter stops being a child of God and becomes just a clerk, someone to deal with efficiently, politely if possible, but rudely if necessary. When we forget God is at the center of everything, our colleagues and customers stop being those people whom God has put us on this earth to serve, and they become people we use to get and to gain our own end. When we forget God is at the center of everything, our families stop being God's most precious gift to us and become just another responsibility we have to deal with. Can you imagine that?

 

I can. I wish I could say that I couldn't, but that would be a lie. I can! I can imagine living my life as if I am in control. I can imagine living my life as if other people are here for me, as if I am at the center of things. I can imagine living as if the people I encounter can be placed in their little, neat category: clerk, friend, secretary, state hospital resident, spouse, parent, colleague. I can imagine putting people into these little, neat boxes because then I can deal with them more efficiently, then I can conveniently forget what is most true about them: the truth that they are children of our Sovereign Father in Heaven. I can imagine this because I do it all the time. I, too, am David.

 

But the good news of Jesus Christ is that there is no Christian doctrine of sin. The Christian doctrine is not "sin." The Christian doctrine is "sin and grace." Christianity never talks about sin without also talking about God's love and mercy through his Son Jesus. So I, like David, can pray to God: "Restore unto me, the joy of your salvation and renew a right spirit within me." This is good news, folks, because it means that when we forget our awareness of God, when we get too full of our awareness of our own self, when too much of us and not enough of God leads us to treat others in ways that lead to brokenness and misery and pain, well, the story is only half over then. The rest of the story is about God coming to us to restore us to himself, to restore our awareness of him, to restore our fullness in him, to give us the faith-eyes to see all those around us according to their deepest reality: that they are children of our Father in Heaven.

 

Such is the good news of Jesus Christ: after we fall, God picks us up. As the saying goes, "I'm not ok and you're not ok but we're both alright in the love and mercy of God." I will fall and you will fall, but we will both be made righteous in Jesus Christ, and "the righteous stand firm forever.. .and the prospect of the righteous is joy.”

 

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