The Rev. Dayle Casey
The Chapel of Our Saviour
Colorado Springs, Colorado
June 17, 2007

Proper 6 - Year C
2 Samuel 11:26 – 12:15
Galatians 2:11-21
Luke 7:36-50

This morning’s Old Testament reading is one of the great stories of the Bible, and, like all good stories, it deserves just to be retold and heard. But so far this morning, we’ve heard only the end of the story.

What happened is this – you’ll remember it – how David, King of Israel, sent his armies out to fight the Ammonites, while he stayed home in Jerusalem taking his ease. And how one evening while he was enjoying a beer on the roof of the palace, David looked out over the rooftops of the surrounding houses, where, on one of them, he saw a beautiful young woman bathing.

So David asked his aide who she was. “Bathsheba,” he said, “the wife of Uriah the Hittite, your most trusted soldier and servant.” And David thought, “Aha! Uriah is away fighting the Ammonites!” So David sent for Bathsheba, and Bathsheba came to King David, and he slept with her, and she went back home. And then, some time later, Bathsheba sent David a note: “I’m pregnant,” it read.

Now David was in a fine pickle! Because, you see, this was back in the days when this would have been a real problem, back when adultery was a capital offense, even for the king.

So David began to think fast. What he decided to do was to call Uriah home and give him some time to spend with his wife. And then, when the child was born, Uriah would just think it was his child.

So David did it. He called Uriah home from the battlefield, and he wined and dined him his first day back. And he said to Uriah, “Uriah, you need a break. Go home now and spend the evening with Bathsheba.”

But back in those days, soldiers took a vow not to enjoy the pleasures of home while they were committed to battle for their king, so Uriah wouldn’t do what the king gave him permission to do. He wouldn’t break his vow. So he spent the night sleeping at the gate, and he wouldn’t see Bathsheba.

More fast thinking. “Well,” thought David, “maybe Uriah will do drunk what he wouldn’t do sober.” So the next day he wined and dined Uriah again, and this time David made sure that Uriah got good and drunk. But Uriah was a better man than David, and again he wouldn’t break his vow. Again he spent the night sleeping at the gate, without going to see his wife.

So David moved to Plan Three. He sent Uriah back to the front, and then he involved his general, Joab, in a plan of deceit and murder. He told Joab to send the troops into battle and to put Uriah right at the front of the lines, and then to withdraw all his other troops quickly, leaving Uriah exposed to the enemy. So Joab did this, and Uriah was killed, as David knew he would be. And Joab sent word back to David with the news of the defeat and Uriah’s death, and David sent word back to Joab not to worry about it, because, after all, “the sword kills one person as well as another.”

When Bathsheba heard about her husband’s death, she went through the prescribed period of mourning, and then as soon as the coast was clear, or as soon as David and Bathsheba thought the coast was clear, Bathsheba moved in with David, and she became his wife, and she bore their son. (All this really is in the Bible. I promise!)

“But,” say the Scriptures, “the thing David had done displeased the Lord.” And this is in the Bible as well. Are you surprised? Adultery, compounded by murder?

So the Lord spoke to his prophet Nathan, and he told Nathan to go and talk to David. Now I imagine that Nathan wasn’t pleased with this assignment, because David was the king, and kings sometimes got really upset with prophets who told them things they didn’t want to hear.

But Nathan did it. He went to David, who was sitting on his throne all high and mighty, puffed up big with his importance and power, and Nathan said to the king, “David, I want to tell you something. There were two men, one very rich, the other very poor. The rich man had lots of cattle and sheep, more than he could ever need. But the poor man had just one little ewe lamb, which was like a daughter to him. He had raised it on a bottle, and it used to sleep in his lap.”

“One day a visitor came to visit the rich man, and the rich man needed to extend hospitality to his guest, as good hosts do. But for dinner, instead of taking one of the lambs out of his own great flock, he stole the little ewe lamb from his poor neighbor, and he had it slaughtered and served instead.”

When David heard this, the Scriptures tell us, he burned with anger, and in righteous indignation he stood up and said to Nathan, “Where is this man? As surely as the Lord lives, that man deserves to die! Go find him, and bring him to me! We’re not going to have that kind of shameful behavior around here. He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

And Nathan said to the king, “Look in the mirror, David. What do you see? You are the man, David.”

And it’s at this point that we can understand why it is that the Scriptures tell us that David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and how David walked in the ways of the Lord. For one thing about David, scoundrel and crumb bum that he was, one thing about David was that he was not afraid of the truth. So when Nathan said to him, “You are the man, David,” it’s at this point that we begin to see David’s mental eyelids rolling open. We begin to see the light dawn in the king’s mind and heart as he looks at the truth about himself, and considers Bathsheba and their son and the body of his faithful servant Uriah. And David said, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said, “And the Lord has put away your sin.”

Now are you surprised?

“Oh, there will be consequences,” said Nathan, “but you will not die. The Lord has put away your sin and laid it on another.”

What do you see when you look at yourself, and when you look at others? This is the question Nathan asked David. And it’s instructive how often we find this question in the Bible, so we shouldn’t be surprised to find the very same question in this morning’s Gospel reading as well, another of the great stories of the Bible.

A pharisee named Simon had invited Jesus to his house for a meal, but Simon offered Jesus no hospitality. He offered nothing from his own fat bank account. No water for Jesus’ dusty feet, no kiss of welcome, no oil for his head. And when a sinful woman showed up at Simon’s house, Simon let her do it for him. He let her offer the hospitality that was his own responsibility. But he was demeaning and contemptible about it, because when Simon looked at this woman, a woman of the streets with a terrible reputation, he saw nothing but a miserable creature, someone unworthy of companionship with himself or with Jesus. And he was quick to say so: “If Jesus were a prophet,” he said, ”he would know what kind of woman this is who is touching him, and he would send her away.”

And Jesus asked him, “What do you see, Simon, when you look at this woman? A sinner who deserves only exclusion and contempt? Or do you see a sister, a fellow child of God in need of forgiveness and love? This young woman has washed my feet with the only means she has, her tears, whereas you didn’t even offer me any water for my feet. She has dried my feet with her hair; you didn’t even offer a towel. You didn’t anoint me with oil, but she has anointed my feet with precious myrrh, with the earnings of her life. What do you see when you see someone who loves as much as this?”

“Let me ask the question another way, Simon,” Jesus added. “Two men were in debt to a moneylender. One owed the moneylender a million dollars. The other owed him ten dollars. Neither man had the means to pay what he owed; both of them were flat broke. So the moneylender said, ‘Oh, well,’ and he forgave them both what they owed him. Now, which man will love the moneylender more?” “The one who was forgiven more,” said Simon. “Right,” said Jesus

“So what do you see, Simon, when you see a sinner who loves much?” And Simon said, ”Someone who has been forgiven much, I suppose.” “Right again,” said Jesus. “And what do you see when you see yourself? I tell you, Simon, this woman’s great love proves that her sins, many though they are, have been forgiven. The Lord has put away her sins. But where little has been forgiven, little love is shown. What about you? Who do you see when you look at yourself?”

And there’s the difference between Simon and David.

We human beings make an awful lot about the differences among all our various religions, among the different beliefs and practices of Christianity and Judaism and Islam and Buddhism, and all the others. We even kill for these differences.

But there are, you know, really only two faiths in the whole world. There is the faith of Simon, the faith of those who see in themselves no need or fault, nothing lacking, those who see themselves as self-sufficient, who see themselves as right with God because they have kept themselves above the riffraff of the world. They may not love much, but by God they don’t owe anything to anyone either!

And then there is the religion of grace and the faith of David, the faith of those who are deeply aware of their own need, deeply aware of their own faults and insufficiency, the faith of those who know that when all is said and done, they too live by the free gift of God’s amazing grace, and by nothing else, the faith of those who love much, because, when they look in the mirror they see one who has been forgiven much.

What other faith could possibly have been of any help to David? When he considered the rich man and that little ewe lamb, when he considered his own enormous sin, he saw that he was in debt so deep that he could never make it on his own. And he said, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

“And the Lord has put away your sin and laid it on another,” Nathan assured him. Because David was forgiven much, he could love much. He could do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and God could use him, sinner though he was, as his servant and king.

Although theologians have written volumes trying to explain grace, grace is really not so hard to grasp, because grace, finally, is not so much a subject we understand as it is a reality we experience.

Grace is being a sinful woman, and realizing that God loves you despite it all, and that, because of that love, you too can love much.

Grace is David’s being a rotten man, and finding out that God still wants him to be his servant despite it all.

Grace, as we find it in still another great story from the Bible, is your telling your father that you want him to give you what’s coming to you from the family savings and that you don’t care whether he drops dead or not, because you don’t really ever want to see him again, and then your taking everything your father gives you and moving as far away from home as possible and squandering everything on foolish living and before long finding out that you don’t have anything left to live on, and then going back home and telling dad that you have sinned against heaven and against him and that you don’t deserve to be his son, but having the gall to ask if maybe he could give you a job anyway,...

...only to find out that dad is so overcome with joy to have you home – because deserving to be a son isn’t, after all, what makes you a son in the first place – that he buys you some new shoes and a new suit and a new bow tie and throws a party for you and all his friends and neighbors just because you’re home and aren’t dead. That’s grace.

And grace is dad’s going out to find your older brother, who is sulking in the back yard, and dad’s urging your brother to come join the party to welcome you back home. But your brother is mad, because he’s always been the one who worked hard and did everything right, and the fatted calf has never been killed for him. Your brother is mad at you, but he’s especially mad at his father, and he says that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with any of it. And grace is dad’s saying to him, “Look at yourself son. What do you see? Everything here, everything I have, is yours, and always has been.” That’s grace, too, because, as someone has observed, ”some of us sin in our sinfulness, and others of us sin in our righteousness.” But whether the older brother, or Simon the pharisee either, ever see this, we are never told.

Grace, to bring it closer to home, is going to the bank to apply for a loan and hearing that, they’re sorry, but you don’t qualify for the loan. But there are a few grants left. That’s grace.

Grace, to put it where I live much of the time, is preaching a lousy sermon, one that you know is lousy because you haven’t prepared well, and then going home just feeling awful about it. And then, later that night, someone calls to thank you for saving her life that morning. That’s grace.

Grace is doing a terrible job as a father or mother, and the kids turning out to be wonderful people despite it.

Grace is being an unfaithful husband or wife, and finding out that the one you’re married to still loves you, not because of what you’ve done, but because of who you are. That’s grace.

Grace is being a good boy or girl and always keeping your room neat and tidy and doing your chores around the house and working hard and being a good student and making all A’s and being captain of the basketball team and president of the chess club, and then finding out that your parents love you anyway and your friends like you despite it all, not because of what you’ve done, but because of who you are. That’s grace.

Grace is the freedom and release of realizing that this whole business of life is not what we’ve thought all along. It’s not so much about me – about what I do or don’t do, about how right or good or successful I am – as it is about God, and about others, and about our relationships with each other. Grace is about forgiveness and love. It’s about our love for each other, and about our forgiveness of each other, because we realize that we have been forgiven, because we are loved.

Grace is seeing clearly. Grace is seeing yourself honestly, as you really are, and realizing that God loves you despite it all. Grace is realizing, when you’ve been forgiven much, that you are loved much, and that because of that love, you too are able to love.

Many though they may be, the Lord has put away your sins; they have been laid on another.

Now are you surprised?

What do you see?

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.