Sermon on June 13, 2010
Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,
given by Rev. Stuart Schlegel
The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share Christ's love in the world. We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to others.
Sermon: We Are the Ones
Today, our Old Testament lesson is the familiar story of David and Bathsheba. I think most of us know this tale of King David’s passionate desire for his officer Uriah’s wife. Most of us have probably taken it as a stern condemnation of lust and adultery. In fact, though, I believe it cuts much more deeply than that.
Here’s how the story unfolds, Only its conclusion is in today’s reading, but it begins when King David sees his seductive neighbor Bathsheba taking a bath on her rooftop and is consumed with desire for her. Being king, he just simply sends for her and takes her to his bed. But she gets pregnant and this is a major problem because her husband Uriah has been away campaigning with David’s army. So David calls Uriah home, assuming he will sleep with his wife and then think the baby is his. But Uriah won’t break his military abstinence while his men are in battle. So David decides to do something much more drastic. He sends Uriah back to the front with orders that virtually guarantee that he will be killed straightaway. Uriah is killed and David marries Bathsheba. David, in short, stole Uriah’s life and his wife just because he wanted to. Kings could do that!
At this point, Nathan, the court prophet, steps into the picture and tells King David a little parable. There were two men, one rich and one poor. The rich man had many flocks and herds; the poor man had only one small she-lamb. But when the rich man wanted to give a feast, he didn’t kill one of his own sheep. He took the one from the poor man. Hearing this story, King David becomes outraged and responds that this is absolutely terrible. The rich man showed no compassion at all. David says he deserves death. And Nathan says, “You are the man.” He even spells out for David the meaning of his parable. He says, in effect, “Look, David, you are a very rich man. You got everything that was King Saul’s – his rule, his property, all his wives. But out of your greed, you have killed a man and taken what was his. You have thought only of yourself.
You see, lust and passion are not the main issues. It wasn’t just adultery or murder that upset things. It was not just passion that broke the law. It was irresponsible passion. It was desire that put self first and simply ignored the needs and rights of others.
I don’t want to say anything negative about passionate living. I believe that living with zest and verve and passion is a big part of what real living is all about. I believe we should all live our lives with lots of passionate energy, and I believe being able to do this is one of the most wonderful gifts of the Spirit. But passionate living goes tragically astray when it is so greedy and lustful that it ignores the needs of others and focuses only on self-gratification. That kind of energy diminishes a full, rich life and turns it into a story of selfish exploitation.
Now all this may sound perfectly obvious, but, in fact, I think it is far from obvious in our world and in our time. We live in a society that is virtually centered on self-gratifying passion, on acquisition, on me-first. My great-grandfather, the German patriarch of a large family in Pittsburgh, is said to have had a rule when pie was served at the family table. He would say, “First comes me, then comes me again – then comes you.” I grew up thinking that family story was sort of cute, but, you know, it wasn’t. It is getting to be the way of too many of us. And if we all think and act like that sort of German patriarch, life will certainly not be cute. It will be desperate and fearsome.
I fear very much that we have become a fundamentally destructive society. Our basic rule in these United States and in much of the modern world seems increasingly to be, “if I want it, I should have it. So, whether it is lust for oil abroad or for a high definition TV at home, we – our government, our corporations, and masses of our people – expend our power and our money way beyond our means as a way of life. We want; we want; we want. And all too often we want what we want, regardless of what that means to anyone else. David and Bathsheba and Uriah. It all produces a sort of frenzy of acquiring, of give me what I want and the devil take the hindmost. A person I know once told me, “There’s one thing I have learned in life – the big fish eat the little fish. David and Bathsheba and Uriah.
Ah, Nathan, we need you today! We need you to point your finger at us all and tell us, “You are the ones.” We have all to often gotten passionate living all wrong. We have allowed lust and greed and willfulness to go rogue. We need to hear the story of David and Bathsheba, or Uriah and Nathan, because we need to know, down deep, that passion gone right is com-passion. We are all in this life together, and the great and true mystery is that our lives don’t really grow richer by what we get, but by what we give.
And, so with our gospel story today – the hauntingly lovely tale of the sinner, doubtless a prostitute, who anoints Jesus’ feet with ointment and her tears. She didn’t have much in her life and she lived in a far from ideal way, but she loved much. And Jesus held her up before the well-to-do-and-oh-so-proper Pharisee, Simon, as an example of how to live. Not her profession and not her social graces – Simon was surely way ahead of her in these sorts of things – but her compassion. She is forgiven, because she loved much.
Friends, there is the key to a truly passionate life. Invest yourself in this world, not just your money. Reach out. Open up. Give ‘till it hurts. Don’t grasp for gain at someone else’s cost, as though you were some oil company writ small. You will be going against the grain of our culture, but our culture is deeply wrong. You will be somewhat “un-American” but you will be in harmony with what life is really all about. Do you believe that? It is pure faith to believe that. But if you do believe it, and if you try to live it out, then like the prostitute who wiped Jesus’ feet with her tears you will go in peace because your faith will have made you whole.
Amen.