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Rev. Paul Tellstrom Irvine United Congregational Church “David and Bathsheba, and the Loaves and Fishes” copyright 2006 Paul Tellstrom July 30, 2006 Scripture- 2 Samuel11:1-15 John 6:1-21 word count: 1,986
Great King David: giant-slayer, kingdom-builder, musician and writer, harpist and dancer, husband and father, finder of God’s throne, and the leader of the feast. The psalms show him to be an author and a poet, the story of the slingshot and Goliath is one of the first Bible stories we learn, and through Joseph, Jesus comes from the line of David. We remember David so well, so kindly, so respectfully. And then this story pops up. He’s nothing but a creepy peeping-Tom, staring secretly across a rooftop at a nude woman in her bathtub. And that’s the least sordid part of the story. After checking her out in a way that would get him arrested in most states, he then checks her out through some people he knows, who tell him that her name is Bathsheba. He sends for her. David is a king, and no-one says “no” to a king, so Bathsheba comes over. She is married to Uriah the Hittite, one of David’s soldiers who is off fighting one of his battles for him. Bathsheba is also at a time during which the holiness codes say that she is unclean, and cannot be seen. But David still calls for her, and she comes. David sleeps with her, and boom—she’s pregnant. Here’s a problem going downhill fast. Now, David has to cover for his adultery. Here’s a plan: he’ll call Uriah home from the battle, and get him to sleep with his wife, and that way, Uriah will think he’s the father. So he gets Uriah to travel through enemy lines only to have what must have been inane conversation—“So, Uriah, how’s that battle thing going for you? Say, you have a house here, don’t you? Why don’t you spend the night at your house with what’s-her-name?” Scripture also hints that David even sent a little housewarming present along to Uriah and Bathsheba’s place. Something nice from Harry and David’s, or maybe some romantic scented candles, or that wine with the kangaroos on the bottle. But Uriah is loyal to David, so when he leaves that night, he sleeps on David’s grounds instead, so that he can help guard the Ark of the Covenant and David. When David finds this out, although scripture doesn’t say he literally smacked his forehead, or banged his head into a tent-post, you just know he did something of the kind. He asks Uriah why, why, why, he didn’t go home to Bathsheba, and Uriah is astounded. To Uriah, duty comes first. Apparently he likes being in battlefields, so he couldn’t even think of being in his cozy house in a comfy bed with his beautiful wife, eating tasty food and drinking wine. “No, no—I’ll just sleep in this field on my one night home,” proclaims dim Uriah. Which makes me just have to stop here and say that Uriah sounds a bit peculiar. Who wouldn’t take the opportunity just handed to you to say, “Well, you know, I didn’t want to go home from battle to make love to my beautiful wife, but the king made me. You know how he is when something just gets into his head.” So, David tries the plan again, and tells Uriah to stay around one more night and they’ll party like its 999 BC. David pours out the wine, and Uriah woops it up. At this point, other men might rush home to slap too much Aramis behind their ears and do Barry White impersonations for Bathsheba. Not Uriah. He falls asleep on a couch at David’s place with the equivalent of a lampshade on his head. Well, this is enough for David. Uriah is one big schlemiel. No, worse than that, let’s just send this schlimazel off to battle and make sure that he gets set up to die. Uriah dies, and Bathsheba is now David’s problem. I like the young shepherd boy David better. I remember him best with the slingshot, or years later, dancing up the street ecstatically in front of the ark. Frankly, this David is an unsavory ass. From seeing Bathsheba on the rooftop to sending Uriah to battle, how many laws or commandments did he break? 1. Peeping Tom 2. Coveting another man’s wife. 3. Breaking a holiness code by seeing her. 4. Coercion 5. Adultery. 6. Avoiding paternity. 7. Bearing false witness, through setting up Uriah as the father. 8. Murder. That’s quite a lapse in judgment. When you think about getting what you want despite the cost, the cost often comes back to bite you in expensive ways. When David turned inward to satisfy his selfish longings he brought himself and everyone around him down. This is no longer the same boy who could slay giants with a slingshot. That’s true of other things as well. If you want to live in a society that puts you and your needs at the center and ignores the poor or marginalized, and you continue to find ways to cover for it, it will surely come back to you. If you start a war on false pretenses and continue to cover your tracks or shift your justifications for every new predicament, or if you attack your neighbor in such a way that more children are killed than soldiers (all of which is happening right now) the world will not judge you well. The sin starts out small, usually built on an idea that your needs are more justified than your neighbors, and unchecked, the problem will compound itself as it did with David. You are guilty of looking outward at the world in terms of what it can give to you. The I-Thou relationship towards the world shifts to Me-it. The story of David and Bathsheba is paired with a completely different story that propels a different set of ideas. The miracle of the loaves and fishes presents an ancient worldview that is hard for us moderns to understand because, I think, we are too caught up in facts and no longer open to finding truth in metaphor and story. You know the scripture. A large crowd is coming towards Jesus and his disciples, and Jesus asks if they have any food to feed them with. Andrew seems to remember that there is a boy walking about with a basket containing five loaves and two fish. Jesus, instead of wondering why Andrew looks into other people’s baskets, (which is a reasonable question) asks his disciples to get all five thousand people to sit down. Jesus gives thanks, breaks the loaves, and distributes the food. Afterwards, they take the leftovers and fill twelve baskets. When he tries to leave, the people want to make Jesus, David’s descendant, a king. Instead of wanting to be a king, Jesus escapes—off into the mountains he goes, and then later he walks across the water towards the disciples’ boat. Miracles surround him. Joseph Campbell says that the heart of the spiritual quest is the rapture of being alive. In finding that place of rapture, we become transformed. Miracles will occur in the act of transforming, and (according to orthodoxy) occurs when/as/because an entity reaches a purified state. The miraculous does not occur because of a directive of grace as when Christ transformed loaves and fishes. But in hearing the story for our own journeys, the miraculous occurs as a feature, a side-effect, of attaining a new state—and the holy person becomes transformed him/herself. Instead of looking out, as David did, to pluck from life with a sense of privilege what pleased him, miracles surround the holy person who looks within to what it is inside him/herself that will promote the greatest good; bounty for the sake of all and not for self. The miracles are around us when we believe in our greatest consciousness and become transformed. Our outward journey (mission) is determined in part by the gifts discovered in the inward journey (meditation). The story of the buried talents is the story of how seriously God considers the matter of unused gifts. This is what psychiatry calls “unlived life,” which takes its terrible toll in the words, “even that which you have will be taken away.” We no longer get strength in our stories because we do not hear what it is that they are saying to us. Once a story feels implausible, once we discover that fact-checkers cannot validate it, we abandon it, just as we abandon our rituals, because we do not believe in the factuality of the stories our rituals act out. We have become dependent upon facts. We are factual fundamentalists unable to hear truth in poetry. And that is a shame. We are dwelling in the mind of David, not in the realm of Jesus, and the examples are all around us. We feel David’s entitlement to everything that surrounds us. We consume more, pollute more, lust after more, spend more, want more, and kill more—but we are never satisfied in our corporate life as a people who naturally feel entitled to take what is not ours and to cover our tracks with lofty language. The miracles surround us when we are finally transformed, and the transformation can only come when we can devote ourselves to the greatest good, and then actually believe that our actions can work to bring that good. It is a part of working with God to bring about God’s realm in the here and now. Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or not, you are right.” In other words, it begins up here in the knowledge, and down here in the heart; this belief that you can make a positive difference in the world. You have more power that you know, and our stories back that up with the truth they point to. Miracles come when transformation has taken place. Miracles are needed today all across the Middle East. Jim Rice is editor of Sojourners magazine, and he talks about Israel and Lebanon, but I think we could also draw parallels to our own involvement in Iraq. Here’s how he says we can start: Be consistent in denouncing the violence of both sides—especially when it is deliberately aimed at civilians. Pray for the emergence of new political leadership on both sides— both of which seem bereft of creative, courageous, moral, or even pragmatic leadership. Challenge any religious voices that seem utterly one-sided, completely neglecting the suffering and legitimate grievances of both sides. Pray for new ways for Christians and our churches to join our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters in finding real and practical solutions for a just peace in the Middle East where two states can live with security and democracy. And pray for better solutions than endless war to solve the real threats of terrorism in our world, because if we fail, all of our children will be at risk. Miracles are needed—we have the ability to end hunger, but we don’t do it. We have the ability to clean up our environment, but we refuse to see the signs. We have the ability to provide health-care, but we won’t. We continue to stare across rooftops at the next beautiful thing we want, and make plans to both take and justify what we need. Miracles can happen, but only after transformation has taken place, only after we look within and finally agree to work for the common good. And that consciousness, that Christ consciousness that miracles surround with loaves and fishes, is here in the example of Christ and the way that Christ points to. That consciousness is here in this room, perhaps in each one of you. We are not individual Christs, but imitators of Christ, each of us followers of a way that points to life. “Whether you think you can or not, you are right,” said Henry Ford. I leave it to you to answer for yourself.
Scripture for Sunday, July 30, 2006 Proper 12B
2 Samuel 11:1-15
John 6:1-21 1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3 Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5 When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” 10 Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. 16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.
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