2 Samuel 11-12
Psalm 51
David and Bathsheba
Up to this point we have been looking at David as a model for our own lives. He is the man who is “after God’s own heart.”
Those of you who know the story of David know that this story was coming and you would remind me that we shouldn’t always see David as a model – he is far from perfect. “Far from perfect” is a vast understatement. In this story, it almost seems like the David we have been reading about has been replaced by some monster. The truth is he hasn’t, and maybe the reason the story is so horrifying is because it reminds us that we all have the potential to be a monster. David has become that monster, but I think that even in this story, David becomes a model to us.
David definitely doesn’t begin as a model, nor is he a model for most of the story. In the beginning of the story, David is “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” We usually say that phrase when someone is caught up in something and hurt through no fault of their own. Jane Kreeba was just shopping on Younge Street and was caught in the crossfire and gunned down. David, on the other hand is there by choice – “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.”
That first verse tells us that David was already on a slippery slope – and the slope gets steeper.
David should not have been in Jerusalem, he should have been with his troops in battle against their enemies. I think that the first verse reminds us that we are most prone to temptation when we are not where we are supposed to be. If David gets lost in this chapter, not being where he was supposed to be is his first steps toward getting lost.
What are your first steps toward getting lost? Being in the wrong part of town, not being at home? Sitting in front of the computer when you should be asleep or with your family? Stepping into the group of gossips at work? Climbing up onto the (metaphorical) judge’s seat when you should be sitting in the advocate’s seat? Where is the most dangerous place for you? For David, it was being in Jerusalem when he should have been on the battlefield.
For David, it was more than just not being where he should be and being where he shouldn’t be; it points to a shift in David that has happened in David. He has gone from the hands-on king of the people who was a servant of God and a leader among equals to an aloof king who sends people to do his bidding. He goes from a servant of God to a king playing God.
The funny thing about when we say that someone is playing God, the God that they are playing looks nothing like the God of the Bible. The god that we play is a god that controls everything and sends everyone to do his dirty work. The God of the Bible is best seen in the personality of Jesus – who call his disciples friends, who takes the job of the lowest slave and washes their feet. The reason that David was called “a man after God’s own heart” was that he had the character of God – he was a king of the people; fighting side by side with them, mourning with them when their was loss, celebrating with them when there was a celebration. Our God is the God of Immanuel – “God with Us,” and to be a god-like king is to have the character of God – the servant king, the king who is with his people, not just over his people.
Name people who are “acting like God.” Serving, not lording
David was not just in the wrong geographical location; he was in the wrong headspace.
Verse 2-4
David is up on the roof, looking over the city and he sees a beautiful woman bathing on her roof. We aren’t told how long he looks, but we know he certainly didn’t turn away to give he her privacy. His look was stealing her privacy, his lust was stealing her innocence, and as we find out soon, his enjoyment of her beauty was stealing what only her husband should have. He sees her beauty, and he wants her.
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you – Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah
So, just as he sent someone to fight his battle, he sends someone to find ouit about her. The word comes back that she is Bathsheba, and she is married to Uriah the Hittite.
I think that when we are sliding down that slippery slope of sin, there are often a few foot holds, a few handholds along the way where we can stop our selves, and get off the slide. This is the big one for David – she is a married woman, end of story, she is not available; lucky Uriah, God bless them, but a relationship of any kind with me is out of the question.
But David doesn’t stop himself, he is the king acting like a god, and kings send for things and they take them. This is exactly what he does, he sends for her, and he takes her into his bedroom, and then he sends her home.
A month or so later, Bathsheba does the sending, she sends a very short message: “I’m Pregnant.”
David knows that people can do the math – Uriah has been away at war, there is no way that the child is his. Sooner or later one of the servants will talk about the visit to the palace, and their secret tryst would be not so secret. Who would follow an adulterous king?
David sends word to his general Joab; “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” David is in deep, but he could stop the slide – he could come clean to Uriah, beg his forgiveness and take the punches. But he doesn’t – a scheme is a better way out. Uriah comes to him, David asks for news about the battle, and then sends him home on leave. He sends a gift to follow him home, maybe to assuage his guilt a little.
But Uriah doesn’t go home! “My men are sleeping on the cold hard ground,” he says, “How could I go home to my wife?”
Uriah is beyond loyal to his men and to his king. This was the way that David once was, honoring his comrades in arms above everything but God. Now Uriah, a foreigner, was showing David up in loyalty.
For the next two nights, David has Uriah at his table and he gets him drunk, but even drunk, Uriah has more integrity that David had sober. Uriah won’t go home to his wife while his men were in the field, but David had no trouble sleeping with Uriah’s wife while he was in the field. David has gone a long way in the wrong direction.
Once again David had a chance to stop the slide – the ruse wasn’t working, time to ‘fess up. But he sinks even deeper.
Uriah is listed as one of David’s mighty men. In 2 Samuel 23 there is a list of David’s mightiest, most loyal men – 37 in total, even though they were called the thirty, at the end of the list, there is a punctuation mark – Uriah the Hittite – He had been with David from the beginning, when David was a teenager on the run from the wrath of King Saul. Uriah, even though he was a Hittite was loyal to the end. He had been valiant in battle for David, done great deeds that the women would sing about, he woulf live or die for his king. David sent him back to the front with a letter to Joab: Place Uriah where the fighting is fiercest, and abandon him.
Joab, unlike Uriah and the David we thought we knew, loves this type of cloak and dagger intrigue, and he does the deed – he lets the Ammonites execute Uriah for David. Joab sends a messenger who reports the failure in battle, and punctuates his report by telling David, “Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
David replies to Joab: “don’t let this thing appear evil in your eyes, the sword will kill one man as easily as another…”
David has gone from being the servant king to being the mafia Don.
After the appropriate time of mourning, David sends for her again, and takes her as his wife.
David sits back, breaths a sigh of relief, and thinks, “That went alright”
But, it says, “this thing was evil in the eyes of the Lord.”
Read 12:1-12
This hard word is grace – David has gone so far from God that he can’t find his way back. He has forgotten who he is. God comes and says “where are you David? It’s just like God coming to Adam and Eve and asking them where they are. God knows where they are – It’ David, It’s Adam, It’s Eve that are lostr and they don’t know it.
Being Nathan:
There are times when we are called to be like Nathan and call a friend back frfom the wilderness of sin. Nathan loves David & he loves God, and this is why he goes to David – out of love, not judgementalism, not wrath, but to call his king back to God, to call him back to where he should be.
John Perkins sons – “who are you? You look like my brother, but you aren’t acting like him!”
Galatians 6
1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Nathan speaks to David out of love, and he speaks to him with God’s words, not his own, and he speaks in a way that David will hear and listen.
We must speak the same way to our friends.
And finally, this is where we need to be like David – David hears Nathan & he confesses and repents, he stops playing god and returns to being the Servant king.
David could have continued down the path – denied the wrong, it’s easy for a leader to do, “I am not a crook.” – Nixon, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” – Clinton. Many kings to come would have no trouble silencing the prophets that exposed them, David could have done the same – but he doesn’t – he ‘fesses up, he embraces the hard word, and admits his guilt.
There is also a huge difference here between David’s response to the prophet, and Saul’s.
Saul’s sin seems so much smaller – he offered a sacrifice to God when it wasn’t his place to do so. When Samuel comes and says, “What have you done? Because of this God has left you, and so have I.” Saul’s response is, “Okay, I screwed up, but can you still come and worship with me so that the people don’t know that anything is wrong?” Saul never knew how blessed he was by God’s presence – he didn’t shed a single tear to lose Him.
David, on the other hand, is shocked by his own sin, and the possible ramifications in his life. The cover up ends, he doesn’t care who knows, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Is his response. Next week we will look at David’s full confession in Psalm 51, in it he begs God not to take his Holy Spirit from him. The reason David repents is because he is terrified of life without God.
Repentance is not as much about the sin as it is about restoring relationship with God.
We will all sin – non of us are perfect – hopefully our sin will not be adultery and murder like Davids. But how we deal with that sin is the important point. Do we humble ourselves and confess and repent like David? Or do we walk away from relationship and live without God?
When our Nathan comes to us, my hope is we respond like David and repent.
