You’ll remember the old fable called "The Emperor’s New Clothes". In that story there is a crafty tailor, who persuades the emperor that he can make a suit of clothes out of a magic fabric, a fabric which can be seen only by the wise and intelligent. Stupid people, foolish people supposedly cannot see this fabric. "Surely, your majesty, you would want me to make you a suit out of this very special cloth?"
The emperor, as you recall, cannot see a thing, but he is too proud to admit it. So he commissions a new suit, and, when the tailor returns, proceeds to put on the nonexistent garment and parade down the main street of his royal city.
Well, here goes the emperor, prancing proudly along, dressed in exactly nothing. But not only is he too proud to admit that he cannot see these imaginary clothes -- because, remember, only the stupid and foolish cannot see them; but also the entire population of the city is drawn up into the farce. They also are too proud to admit that they don’t see anything. Or maybe it is that they have learned that it’s better to tell powerful people exactly what they want to hear. Whatever the reason, everybody lining the parade route cheers and comments on the emperor’s new clothes.
But there is one child, one sweet, innocent, unspoiled child, who just won’t pretend. Just has to tell the truth. "New clothes? But the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes!"
The world desperately needs people who will tell the emperor he isn’t wearing any clothes. People who will tell the truth. Persons who will have the courage to voice their convictions and speak their minds, even when it isn’t the ambitious thing or the popular thing to do. The world, especially the world we know in Washington, needs people to tell the truth.
My thesis this morning is that you and I can get the courage to tell the truth, even to people in power, if we will become persons of prayer. Prayer power tells the truth to people in power.
David, King of Israel, had done a terrible thing, an unspeakable thing. He had seen the wife of one of his army officers and had decided that he liked what he saw. The woman Bathsheba became an obsession with him, and he used his royal position to have his way with her.
That wasn’t the end of the matter, either. Not only did David defile Bathsheba; and not only did he father a child by her; but then he conspired to have her husband set up for death. Uriah, David’s loyal soldier, was simply wiped out. And David the king thought he had managed it all and could now just coast along without any challenge.
Obviously there were some people who knew what he had done. David’s general Joab had carried out the setup. Some of Joab’s soldiers had participated in the ambush. The messenger who brought David the news about the battle had to have been in on the plot. There were plenty of people who knew what David had done. But how many of them spoke out? How many of them told the truth to the man in power? Not one. Not one. They all chose to see the emperor’s new clothes.
But out in the countryside there was someone else. Beyond the fawning courtiers and the tight-lipped soldiers there was a man named Nathan, whom they called a prophet. Nathan had been associated with David for a long time, and yet Nathan had always been independent. Nathan had not asked for, nor had he been given command of a garrison of soldiers. Nathan had only one command, and that was the command of his own mind. Nathan had not asked for nor had he received some fancy title or some prestigious post in the palace; he wanted only one title, and that was prophet. God’s prophet.
So one morning, just as David was congratulating himself on how well he had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes, in walked Nathan, God’s prophet. He had come to tell the truth.
Nathan had determined to tell the truth. His strategy is interesting. He might have blasted King David to Kingdom come, telling him of his gross sin. Or he might have soothed the king and assured him that, after all, everybody understood, and it would be all right by and by. But instead, Nathan told a story. Essentially its point is that the emperor had on no clothes!
“David, let me tell you about a man in your kingdom, who was very rich and had all he could want. But he looked out one day and saw a poor man, who had only one little ewe lamb. Just one. Nothing else. But the rich man, who had flocks and herds a plenty, just reached out and took the poor man’s one little lamb. What do you think of that, King David? Is that fair? Is that justice?
With the hook thus baited, David bit down hard. "Why no, that is not fair. That is wrong. Who is the man? Bring him to me. I will execute justice. Who is this selfish thief, Nathan?"
In one of the great dramatic moments of all history, Nathan the prophet, clad in a modest goat skin, thin and hungry from his journey, lifted his long finger and pointed it squarely at the bosom of the king: "You are the man!”
It isn’t easy to tell the truth to persons in power, but if you are a person of prayer, you can do it and you must do it. Like Nathan, if you sense that God has called you, God has empowered you, then you can and must speak the truth.
I
Nathan’s ability to tell the truth is rooted in his relationship to God. If you were to go back to the 7th chapter of II Samuel, where Nathan is first mentioned, you would find that he had already stood up to the king. You would discover that David had wanted to build a temple in Jerusalem, more likely as a monument to himself more than as a house of worship for God. Nathan stood up to him then. Nathan said No. Nathan said, "Thus says the Lord ... you will not build this house."
And if you were to delve even further in that 7th chapter of II Samuel, you find the reason for Nathan’s courage. You would find that the text says that Nathan heard God’s word and saw God’s vision. The prophet heard God’s word and saw God’s vision.
I am arguing this morning that when you hear God’s word and see God’s vision, you will have the courage to stand and tell the truth. When you know what is right and what is wrong, and when you are in a dynamic, living partnership with God, you will have courage born out of prayer because you have had the courage to pray.
It works something like this. Prayer, after all, is standing and telling the truth to almighty God. Praying is telling the truth to God Himself. Well, if you have stood in the presence of the almighty, everybody else is a comedown, right?! If you have been able to tell the truth to the creator of all things, it should be a picnic to speak the truth to a mere king or president, to a mayor or governor, a teacher or a principals, to spouses, parents, anybody! The courage to tell the truth to people in power over you comes out of the courage to pray and stand in the presence of the one who has all power.
Friends, as Christian citizens, we need to be telling the truth to people in power. They need to hear from us. There are times when our emperors wear no clothes, and it would be best if they were to hear it from us who, like Nathan, take our cues and our courage from our relationship to God and not from either fears or ambition.
The president of the United States needs to hear from you. I do not have time to detail all of the issues which are before us as a nation. Just know that Mr. Clinton needs to hear from faithful people about Bosnia, about Somalia, about our nation’s role in peacemaking. Mr. Clinton needs to hear from some Nathans about health care and military concerns and quality of life issues; the list is very long. But we are going to have to have the courage to tell the truth. We will get it by standing in prayer before our God.
The mayor of the District of Columbia needs to hear from you. She needs to hear from you soon. A fellow pastor tells me that she is bound and determined to bring casino gambling to the nation’s capital. He says that she even sent him a message and asked him to back away from this issue. But my friend is a Nathan, and is committed to telling God’s truth first. The mayor needs to hear the truth.
Obviously I cannot take the time to develop the details of this theme. There are many issues out there and many officials who ought to hear from us. I just want to nail down this one reality: that prayerful people find the courage to tell the truth to powerful people. Prayerful people, who cultivate first their standing before almighty God, are not afraid to stand before anyone to tell the truth.
II
But now if you keep reading the story of the prophet Nathan, confronting the King with the truth, you discover something else very interesting. You discover that telling the truth works! You discover that when Nathan cries out to David, "You are the man," David crumbles. David says to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Simple, straightforward, honest, real: "I have sinned against the Lord."
What would make a man of power admit his guilt like that? Why was there no Watergate cover-up? Why no official denials, no carefully crafted explanation, no attack advertising? What did it take to get the king to admit, "I have sinned against the Lord"?
The key is that the king saw in Nathan compassion, despite the sin. David saw that Nathan was not abandoning him but cared for him, no matter what he had done.
Nathan said to David, "Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die." The prophet recognized that even the king in all his royal trappings was human, fearful, broken, just like the rest of us. And so, just as he had been quick to pronounce judgment, he was also quick to offer compassion.
When you and I tell the truth to persons in power, it makes a difference whether we demonstrate compassion and understanding for them as persons. If they can hear that we care about them and want them to succeed, they may be more ready than we suspect to admit their mistakes.
Let me contrast two snatches of presidential history. When Lyndon Johnson was president and was building a massive military presence in Vietnam, the conscience of many Christians began to hurt. One Sunday the president went down to Williamsburg for some event, and worshipped at Bruton Parish Church. The pastor of the church decided to take on his presidential visitor, and denounced American policy in Vietnam in no uncertain terms. After the service, LBJ replied in equally clear and unprintable terms. No remorse at all.
But by contrast, back when Harry Truman was president, he and his pastor, Dr. Edward Pruden, at First Baptist Church, got into a disagreement. When the president decided to establish diplomatic relationships with the Vatican, the Catholic Church, Baptist Pruden objected, and said so. The story is that Mr. Truman never again attended services at First Baptist Church; but that behind the scenes, quietly and simply, Dr. Pruden remained his friend, his confidante, and his counselor. That Vatican ambassador was not appointed.
The difference was compassionate caring. The difference was that one president had no sense of care from his prophet, but the other one had a Nathan who cared about him, even while he was telling the truth. Where there was compassion, the king heard and repented, "I have sinned against the Lord."
I nearly made a huge mistake recently. I wrote a letter, which some of you saw, to the mayor, to express displeasure and disappointment with the casino gambling proposal. I wrote it, however, only a few days after the mayor’s father had died. It was not until I had signed the letter and sealed it, ready to mail it, that I thought about her personal needs, and rewrote the letter to reflect some compassion and prayerful understanding. I cannot pretend that I’ve had an answer to the letter, much less that it will do any good. But at least before it was too late I remembered that persons in power are human beings, with feelings and motives, hearts and souls, like the rest of us. They can hear us if we pray for them and care for them as well as tell them the truth.
May I offer a personal word here to some of our members and friends? This church has often prided itself on embracing at least a few influential, prominent people. Older members like to talk about the days, years ago, when both the Fire Chief and the Police Chief were members here. Never had any traffic problems on Sunday! But today, too, we include people who carry significant responsibility in the school system, the city government, a county government, the courts, some institutions, an area neighborhood commission. I want you to feel from your church care, interest, support, faith. I want you to feel that we trust you; you trust us to pray for you and then to tell you the truth. Right or wrong, to tell the truth.
A friend of mine loves to tell a story on himself. When he first went to New York City as a student, he went over to tour the United Nations. Not finding any tour guides at the moment, he just gave himself a tour and found himself in the General Assembly hall, all alone. He looked up at that massive podium, where you saw President Clinton speak last week, where many presidents, kings, prime ministers, and other world leaders have addressed the Assembly. And since there was no one around to stop him, he just climbed up to that podium, surveyed the vast empty hall, imagined it full of the world’s great statesmen, and began to make up a speech.
To that empty room he spoke with passion about the imperative of peace. To rows of vacant chairs he thundered about poverty and hunger, about education and the environment. He did it all! And no one interrupted him, no one heard him. He did notice, of course, that there was a row of black glass panels along the upper part of the back wall, but he saw no evidence of anyone around.
His speech finished, and with imaginary ovations ringing in his ears, my friend made his way out to the corridor and this time hooked up with a tour group. Imagine his feelings when eventually that tour group was taken behind a row of black glass panels ... one-way black glass panels! How many tourists had seen him making a fool of himself on that podium!?
Sometimes, you see, it is not only that the emperor has no clothes. It is also that God’s people are exposed and look foolish. For they need to stand first in the hallways of heaven and then to speak, to tell the truth to real people, in the corridors of power.
