Proper 12b 2024; 28 July
2 Sam. 11:1-15; Ps. 14, Eph. 3:14-21; John 6:1-21
Sometimes the light switch just gets turned off.
We flip the switch.
The light goes out.
Who we were before is over.
That young man who shot our former president, Mr. Trump, injuring and killing those around him.
It’s like the light suddenly went out. He wasn’t like most other mass shooters.
The light was there, then it wasn’t. He went dark.
Have you ever known someone like that? Who suddenly turned off the light? Seen their eyes hollow out?
Have you ever turned the light off? Its hard to find the switch to turn it back on.
King David.
The light goes out.
Who he was before is over.
His story up to now has been heroic and inspiring, but that changes today. He finally has a moment to himself, other people are off fighting the war, and he is alone with himself, and he just isn’t up to being alone with himself. It turns out, of all the enemies David has vanquished, his greatest foe is himself.
“It happened, late one afternoon…”
That’s how the story starts, and he quickly falls into the pit, into the darkness. He falls, and then he falls again, and again, carried by the relentless effects of his decisions.
He is eclipsed.
The King who is to shepherd and protect the flock of Israel, becomes the predator who preys upon the sheep. The leader who serves becomes an abuser of power.
Privilege is a responsibility, not an entitlement. David forgets. His amnesia consumes him and all those around him.
How many commandments did he break?
The first was coveting, coveting his neighbor’s wife.
The second was probably a form of sabbath breaking, Bathsheba was going through the rites of purification after her period, a time where her body has a sabbath.
The third was stealing, he stole Bathsheba.
The fourth was adultery.
The fifth was bearing false witness, by deceiving and manipulating Uriah.
The sixth was murder by engineering Uriah’s death.
The deviousness and betrayals involving all of these things dishonored God’s anointing him as king, thus taking the Lord’s name in vane, the 7th. He used his anointing for his own vane purpose.
He arguably broke the remaining three commandments by elevating himself as the arbiter of life, and his parents were not honored by any of this.
He broke all ten so quickly.
The light went out.
The story has changed.
This story is simply awful, and it has fascinated us for thousands of years because it touches on so many things.
We should say up front that Bathsheba was raped. Though plenty have tried to blame her for David’s abuse of his privilege. The people who do that are the people who read scripture without listening to scripture. The people who turn morality into something immoral.
The biblical account and the tradition of faith, do find some redemption in this dark tale. David and Bathsheba do Mary, there are traditions that there was affection in that marriage. Their first child only lived a week, they had several more children, including Solomon and Nathan, both of whom Jesus is descended from, according to Matthew and Luke.
The Messiah, the Christ, this is his family, and they are crazy messed up people.
We are in good company.
David’s story is fraught and tragic from here on, but God’s blessing still follows him. God’s unabashed love and adoration of David is part of the irony of the story, and it is the offering of hope to all of us when the light switch gets turned off.
There is only one commandment. God’s Law, the teaching, the Torah, the one thing, is love.
Love God with everything we are. Love other people with everything we are.
The Ten Commandments are more than rules to not break, bad marks accumulating on a scorecard. They are evidence, symptoms of bondage to sin, and the God of the Decalogue is first above all else the God who breaks the chains of bondage.
The one commandment, to love, the decalogue draw an outline of what love is not, like crime scene tape around an absent body, they show the empty place without love.
We study the commandments in the Catechism class, and all the commandments, especially the two concerning adultery and murder, are about attending to our hearts, to our wills, to where our decisions and actions come from.
Adultery and murder begin way before they actually happen, with hearts that are not attended to, with hearts that are indulged with using others rather than searching out how to serve.
This story bids us attend our hearts and to grow our hearts with the the passionate love of God poured into the world in Jesus, the Christ, the one with the crazy family, who is risen, who is Lord.
The Apostle Paul’s letters are largely about that project, especially today’s reading from Ephesians, the project of being rooted and grounded in the love that is Jesus, and having faith in that love that is flooding the world.
And that inner being that is being rooted and grounded in Jesus, it is more than just our own personal faith, it is the life of being church together, that everything about how we go about being church is rooted, grounded, and designed to make that love known and seen right here, right now.
Keep the light turned on.
That is what Grace is good at.
Let’s keep doing that together.