1 & 2 Samuel Mercy in a Merciless World
Reading: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13
Preacher: Joshua Taylor
The Olympics this year have been unusual for lots of reasons. But what caught my eye recently was a story about a musician whose name is Keigo Oyamada, also known as Cornelius.
Oyamada was set to be the composer for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.
However, not long before the games begun some historical news surfaced about some interviews he gave in the mid-1990’s. In these interviews he boasted of bullying people with disabilities. This led to a public outroar and widespread criticism on social media.
In response Oyamada offered an apology.
He said: “I sincerely accept the opinions and advice I have received, express my gratitude, and will keep them in mind for my future actions and thoughts, I apologise from the bottom of my heart.”[1]
Upon apologizing the Olympic organizers initially committed to keep working with Oyamada. However, a few days later under public pressure they backtracked and accepted a resignation from Oyamada. Under great pressure Oyamada stepped back from his part in the Olympics. I imagine as a composer something he had been working on for some time and something he had been looking forward to.
In May, here in New Zealand there was another story about a businessman and beer brewer by the name of Dave Gaughan, who made racist remarks against Maori publicly on a social media account.
Again, there was a public outroar and Gaughan responded with an apology. He admitted and accepted that he was racist and noted that he was sorry and wanted to do the right thing even if it cost him. He stepped down from his role and spoke about how he wanted to work on his mental health.
In both of these stories we might rightly challenge the apologies and their sincerity. Were these men apologizing because they felt genuine remorse about their behaviour, or was it out of shame and public pressure, or perhaps in the case of the beer brewer cynical economic motives.
Also, let me say from the outset that I think both of these acts were deeply destructive and wrong. There is absolutely no excuse for bullying. There is also absolutely no excuse for being racist. Gaughan’s excuses that he worded things poorly and so on only add fuel to the fire. It wasn’t about how he said it, the comments Guaghan made were entirely and utterly racist. There is no “if” or “but”, these acts were simply wrong.
What interests me about these stories though, is the public pressure and shaming that happens around them.
In regard to Gaughan, the beer brewers’ story there were vitriolic comments everywhere. Most of them not PG enough for this sermon. But a couple for reference to note:
“This $%&* needs a public flogging”
“Throw him and his foul beer away entirely.”[2]
I wondered to myself – what is the way forward for these guys?
Is there any possibility of forgiveness? Is reconciliation part of our cultural imagination? Or are we simply baying for blood.
It seems that the pattern in contemporary society is to name and shame and destroy.
What we see on twitter or in the comments section of news stories is in many ways a digital version of the stocks and rotten fruit in the village square.
I’m currently reading Jon Ronson’s book on this topic. It’s called “So you’ve been publicly shamed.” In this book, Ronson, a journalist talks with people who have done terrible things and been called out in public and shamed – especially on social media. Ronson looks at the experiences of public shame and the effects it has had on people’s lives.
Commenting on the space we find ourselves in Ronson says:
“I favour humans over ideology, but right now the ideologues are winning, and they're creating a stage for constant artificial high dramas, where everyone is either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain. We can lead good, ethical lives, but some bad phraseology in a Tweet can overwhelm it all - even though we know that's not how we should define our fellow humans. What's true about our fellow humans is that we are clever and stupid. We are grey areas.” – Jon Ronson
Ronson touches here on a biblical understanding of humanity. We are both good and sinful. Made in God’s image and broken. Glory and dust.
To construct a world of pure heroes and villains leads to the divisiveness and social breakdown we are seeing unfold not just online but in real time.
All of this makes me wonder what the good news of Christianity is in all of this.
In a world that calls people out publicly simply for retributive purposes, can we speak words of both justice and restoration?
It seems to me, that Jesus took reconciliation and forgiveness very seriously indeed – inviting us to love God and love our neighbour, and giving his very life for the sake of our reconciliation with God and with one another.
And in today’s story from Samuel, we encounter a total blowout. If there was twitter when King David did what he did, if there was Facebook and Instagram and other forms of media like this – we can only imagine what the people of Jerusalem would be posting.
David and Bathsheba. Setting and context
Last week Lucy unpacked the first half of the story of David and Bathsheba and she highlighted for us the gravity of David’s sin. He took what wasn’t his to take. He broke at least three commandments – he coveted another man’s wife, committed adultery, and then followed it up with murder.
David is exposed for us in this story as a leader abusing his power in malicious and scheming ways.
The second half of the story begins today with the opening words that what David has done “displeased the Lord.”
And so, God sends Nathan the prophet to confront David.
Nathan the prophet confronts David.
How do you tell a king, the most powerful man in Jerusalem and all of Israel that what he has done is wrong and that he needs to seek restitution, and as well as that point out that he will be judged by God.
Nathan doesn’t just blurt it out. In a master class display of speaking truth to power, Nathan draws David in with a story. He paints the picture of what has happened by telling a parable.
This story highlights the wealth and power of the rich man, and the vulnerability of the poor man. It shows the callousness of the rich man who takes his poor neighbour’s lamb to use for his own sake.
We might notice that the verb “take” is used once again here as it was last week. Samuel warned the people of Israel that the kings would take their daughters and sons and put them to his use.
David had “taken” Bathsheba. There is no sense of her agency in this story. This wasn’t’ an illicit romance or an affair, it was an abuse of power, there was no consent. David raped Bathsheba.
The story Nathan tells highlights the injustice of it all.
When David hears this story about this fictional man he exclaims in righteous anger – this man deserves to die! There is no moral ambiguity. What this man has done is wrong!
And in what is an incredibly risky and prophetic moment, Nathan turns to David, and he says: “You are the man.”
Just imagine that moment.
Imagine the tension in the room when Nathan turns and points the finger at David.
In the words of Nathan, David discovers what the writer of the Hebrews puts so eloquently, that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
(Hebrews 4:12-13)
Though David has tried to cover up his sin, God has seen it all and has exposed it.
Nathan then goes on to speak as a prophet, sharing the word of God with David.
God reminds David of all he has given him. And yet, David desired to take more!
This is a sombre picture of what has been described by many theologians as the very heart of sin – our desire to reach out for more than we have been given. Our desire to reject and spoil God’s good gifts to us and greedily seek our own selfish desires.
David stands condemned.
Up until this point David not only has been deceiving the people around him. He has also tragically been deceiving himself.
How easy this is to do. Self-deception is sometimes easier than facing the pain of our own destructive and sinful behaviours.
David, in one of his songs, in Psalm 32 describes how this feels saying:
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. (Ps 32:1-4)
David knows that to hold in his sin to himself, to leave it unconfessed and to let the guilt simmer is agonizing.
And so, he confesses.
In the presence of Nathan, he says: “I have sinned against the Lord.”
(v 13)
The response is short and to the point.
There are no excuses and no qualifications.
I don’t know what your experience with apologies is, but my experience is that the more words I use the clumsier and more unhelpful the apology is.
What is required is a heart that is willing to not only say sorry but one that is truly repentant (willing to change).
David reflects further on this experience in one of his most famous Psalms of confession when he says:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin! (Ps.51:1-2)
and…
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Ps. 51:10-12)
David confesses.
Then, Nathan says: “The Lord has put away your sin”
David is forgiven by God.
Yet he still faces the consequences of his sin.
God tells him that his wives will be unfaithful to him, and his child born to Bathsheba shall die. These are hard pronouncements for us to hear – and we may wonder, and we may question them – but these are the consequences, and the brokenness that flow from David’s sinful actions, and we too can see all around us the consequences that flow from our sin and the sins of those around us.
David goes through the horror of God’s judgement upon him. He faces great loss and pain because of his decisions. There is a cost to his actions.
Yet God’s mercy still remains. David won’t be cast off and God will be faithful to him.
In the second half of the story we meet Solomon who is born to David and Bathsheba. This child is a sign of the continued blessing and promises made to David and his family.
Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann points out the significance of this saying:
“The child’s name is Solomon, derived from šalom (shalom). He is loved and treasured by Yahweh. The placement of Solomon’s birth in the narrative is stunning. Solomon is born so close to the sordidness, still within the echo of the prophetic lawsuit. Nonetheless, life begins again for this family. This God has an amazing capacity to work more life at the border of death, to act in promise-keeping ways (cf. 7:12) just when the promise seems exhausted. The account of David and Bathsheba is a tale of alienation and judgment; in its midst, however, are gestures of grace made by Yahweh. This birth is marked by Yahweh’s love, not anger”[3]
Here we see the gracious mercy of God toward broken sinners like David, and toward broken sinners like you and me.
The Christian gospel at its heart proclaims the outrageous mercy of God. The possibility of forgiveness in an unforgiving world.
This forgiveness is costly though.
The death of Jesus on the cross stands at the centre of the story because God decides to take the consequences of our sin – which is death, upon himself.
The outrageousness of this should shock us.
The bible teaches us that sin leads to death. This is God’s judgement upon sin. God’s judgement isn’t about simple punishment or as in the popular imagination the idea that God wants to smite us for doing bad things.
God’s judgement is about justice. It is about setting things right.
When we see sin, we naturally recoil at it. Twitter gets in a storm and comments in news stories swirl with anger because we want justice.
However, our justice is distorted and broken and falls short so often because we ourselves are part of the problem. Each of us are broken sinner.
The justice of God, however, is good. Jesus is the true judge who comes not to condemn the world but rather to be our representative and substitute.
Karl Barth puts it well, saying:
“[Jesus ] gives Himself…to the fellowship of those who are guilty [of evil-doing and enmity against God], and not only that, but He makes their evil case His own. He is above this fellowship and confronts it and judges it and condemns it in that He takes it upon Himself to be the bearer and representative, to be responsible for this case, to expose Himself to the accusation and sentence which must inevitably come upon us in this case.”[4]
God, in Christ takes upon himself the consequences of our sin.
As we look at the cross, we see the judgement of God poured out on sin, and at the same time the mercy and love of God.
Our judgements upon sin are always flawed, and often inflate guilt and shame. The judgement of God upon sin is merciful and hopeful and aims at us being reconciled and healed.
Living the Story…following in the way of Jesus in an unforgiving world…
The invitation for us today is to be a people who follow in the way of Jesus – who live as forgiven sinners and offer forgiveness to others. Who take seriously the prayer Jesus taught us “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
We learn a lot about forgiveness and mercy as we contemplate the story of David today.
Nathan
Nathan highlights the how to offer prophetic challenge, rebuke, and critique. He shows the importance of being able to speak the truth in love to one another.
In a world full of condemnation, twitter pile on’s and public shaming – when we look at Nathan we see a role model for relationship and truth speaking. We do need to speak out for justice, we can learn from Nathan a lot about how to do it.
David
David illustrares repentance and the possibility of forgiveness from guilt, shame, and sin against God and our neighbour. When we wrestle with the sin in our life and the weight of it, David’s story reminds us of the possibility of hope and a fresh start in Jesus Christ.
Bathsheba
Bathsheba is largely silent in the story. Bathsheba has been victimized by sin. Not all sin that disrupts and brings brokenness is through our own doing. As well as being perpetrators, we experience being victims of sin. In Bathsheba’s pain and loss the question of justice and the possibility of healing for the victim is raised. God’s justice upon sin is particularly good news for those most broken by it. The Bible promises that one day every tear will be wiped away, and that God can bring healing and wholeness to the broken.
In all of this, as we live out of the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ we are reminded of the possibility of forgiveness in an unforgiving world.
And for that we can be truly thankful.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/19/tokyo-olympics-composer-keigo-oyamada-resigns-after-admitting-bullying-disabled-classmates
[2] Cited on twitter threads in relation to this story.
[3] Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching: First and Second Samuel. Sourced on Scribd.com
[4] Karl Barth, quoted in Justyn Terry “The Justifying Judgement of God” in Anvil: Volume 22 No 1 2005.