Down to Earth
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, ‘There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meagre fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveller to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.’ Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.’
Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’ David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Nathan said to David, ‘Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.
I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again this week—I really do love being able to find some comic relief in the Bible; I so appreciate being to find some humor in such a difficult and sometimes troubling sacred text. After last week’s really rough story of violence and misogyny, (though I don’t deny that those themes exist in this passage too), I literally laughed out loud when, after Nathan tells David this parable about a selfish rich man (which David interprets as an actual legal scenario Nathan is laying out for him), David exclaims, “the man who has done this deserves to die! Of course!” I’m picturing Nathan’s eyes bulging in anger at David’s complete obliviousness, his face turning beat red, shaking in absolute frustration and rage, “YOU ARE THE MAN! I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU, HOW DO YOU NOT GET IT?”
Last week, I talked about how David, despite being an overall good leader, and not an inherently bad person, got a little too comfortable in this newfound life of power and luxury. He let a gross sense of entitlement take over, he let his power and privilege go to his head, leading him to abusing his power, assaulting Bathsheba, and spurring a whole tragic chain of events. So last week we had David’s entitlement and violence on display; this week we have pure obliviousness. David is so blinded by how good he’s had it recently, blinded by his power, that he believes he can do no wrong. So when Nathan tells him this incredibly obvious parable about a rich man hoarding his wealth—in this case his livestock—and taking a poor man’s treasured and only and beloved ewe instead of one of his many sheep, it goes right over David’s head, he doesn’t see the connection to him deciding to force himself upon another man’s wife when he has a harem at home. (Now before we get deeper into this sermon, I want to say here, this is where taking historical context into account is necessary. It is problematic, and frankly, disgusting that this author of this passage is comparing wives, women in general to sheep and property, but unfortunately, as we touched upon last week, those were the norms of the day. We can and should hate this aspect of this story, we can and should wrestle with it, and taking a deep dive into the sociopolitical norms of the time is for another sermon, or for an academic paper—but this week isn’t the week for that; but as someone who considers herself both a Christian and a feminist, I wanted to just say that, because that’s a big elephant in the room for me). Anyway, back to the task at hand—we have Nathan now having to spell out the moral of the story for David. He tried being gentle and creative in telling David how badly he messed up, how selfish he truly was. When that doesn’t work, Nathan lets him have it, he’s done being gentle and indirect. (As another aside, I think some of us passive-aggressive, guarded New Englanders could learn a thing or two from Nathan’s direct frustration here). Nathan points out that David had everything any man could possibly want—he had anything and everything that was legally available to him, why did he have to go and do this horrible thing? Why couldn’t David be satisfied with the life he was given?
With all this talk about hoarding wealth, about never being happy with an already over-the-top privileged life, I couldn’t help but think of this billionaire space race—men, in my view, who are seemingly oblivious to the plights and needs of the everyday person, who spend their time and wealth exalting themselves and trying to make supposedly great strides to explore other worlds when the one we’re on now is quite literally burning. I think about David’s obliviousness, I think about today’s billionaire’s glorifying themselves at the expense of the poor, I wonder if it’s inevitable—if when you get to a certain social class in life, when you get to a point of unimaginable wealth or power, you forget what the average person feels. It seems that once someone gets to a point in life of extreme privilege like this, maybe he or she can logically understand a story like the parable Nathan tells David, but when you’re so far removed from the real-life struggles of the everyday person it’s nearly impossible to put oneself in someone else’s shoes.
How did we get to this point? How did we get to a point in which a handful of the richest hold more wealth than millions upon millions of average folks. How did we get to a point in which people become so powerful and so wealthy that their empathy and understanding of the real world virtually disappears?
I’ve said it before, that I really struggle with these parts of the Bible—parts in which it’s implied that God directly intervenes by punishing wrongdoers. Here we have the prophet Nathan speaking on behalf of God, that the sword will never depart from David’s house. That David will have his wives taken, that David will not die, but there will be trauma and pain ahead for him and his family. No matter how despicable David’s actions are, I continue to struggle with God directly intervening in such an aggressive fashion, it seems to go against the unconditional love that was promised just a few chapters ago.
But you know, on the other hand—I’m human. I get angry. And a couple weeks ago, reading these unimaginably wealthy people exploiting their workers and going to space instead of paying their employees a living wage, I was sort secretly hoping for some divine intervention. I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but I wanted something, someone, some sign that these powerful people couldn’t ignore, something that would make them tremble in their spacesuits, something they would make them repent, make them sell their fancy toys, these rockets, and spread the wealth. Where is the voice of God? Where are the prophets yelling at these privileged and oblivious people?
There’s a song I always think about in times like this—a song by the indie band Purple Mountains, deceptively named Margaritas at the Mall—I say deceptively because for it’s a pretty fun title, especially for a song that’s about the lead singer David Berman’s—who tragically died by suicide not long after the release of this album—depression and crisis of faith; I always think about the chorus in which Berman asks, “How long can a world go on under such a subtle God? / How long can a world go on with no new word from God?”
I think of these two lines daily, and I just wish and hope and pray that God’s word gets less subtle, becomes louder to everyone, but especially those who have become oblivious to the plights of the poor and the underprivileged—especially to those who put their own greed and pride above lifting up those who suffer. The gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us has officially surpassed the gap of the gilded age, and I can’t help but wonder if these people are beyond hope, are beyond where David was. Despite David’s obliviousness, when Nathan directly explains to him that what he’s done is nearly unforgiveable, David is still able to hear it. “I have sinned against the Lord,” David plainly says. When he says this, I imagine tears welling in his eyes, I imagine a pit in his stomach, I imagine a deep feeling of guilt and regret, and I imagine fear, thinking about kind of sword will remain upon his house. I’m imagining true remorse in his realization that he has deeply wronged his people and therefore deeply wronged his God.
How do we get the powerful people in our modern world to understand that plights of the rest of us? How do we get the powerful in our world to repent, to realize that they’re doing so much more harm than good? How do we bring them back down to earth? If only it was as simple in making sure they had a wise prophet by their side with a direct line to God to tell it like it is. And if only it could actually be guaranteed that they would listen to those who try, instead of hearing what they want to hear, listening only to yes-men and sycophants.
I won’t only pick on the billionaires here (though I mostly will), we could all do well to listen a little closer to what God is saying to us, in this time. Surely we don’t have distractions as ridiculous as space rockets, but it all too easy to mute the voice of God these days. It’s all too easy to get comfortable in our own sometimes idyllic lives in this beautiful Vermont countryside. It’s all too easy to get a little too comfortable in our own respective privileges—whether those privileges be related to whiteness, whether they be economic, whether they be related to being straight or cis-gender. It’s easy to get a little too content and believe that we’re just fine, that we don’t have change our lives, that we don’t have to work to change the lives of others for the better. It’s easy to block the out inconvenient truths; it’s shockingly easy to block out the voice of God.
Don’t get me wrong, it is frustrating that we have to listen so hard for what seems like such a quiet and subtle voice of God. And it’s even more frustrating that it seems to be on us, the folks who don’t have the means, who don’t have the ear of the powerful, to somehow be the Nathans of the world and speak some sense into these people who have gotten lost in their own egos.
Later on in Isaiah ch.1, we hear that God is so angry at their people, angry that they continue to give offerings and participate in rituals, go to temple, but there is no genuine compassion. Their rituals are not backed up with the sacred action of good deeds.
Your new moons and your appointed festivals
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me,
I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.
Church, I genuinely believe that God never abandons us. I do truly believe that God’s love is unconditional. But I can’t help but wonder if we’ve fallen so far that God can’t stand to face us until we completely and sincerely begin working to make this earth as is in heaven.
As usual, it’s a tall order—to strive to listen to the muffled voice of God, to do everything in our power to make the powerful hear us, and therefore hear what God would have this earth be. We might not get the in-your-face, aggressive, divine intervention that we sometimes wish for in our weaker, angrier moments. But in our stronger, passionate moments, I believe we will be able to hear what God is saying to us. And I do believe that together we will spread that message in all the infinite ways we are able. Amen.
