2 Samuel 11:26-12:13; Ephesians 4:14-16; August 4, 2024; Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Yeah, I didn’t necessarily want to preach this one either. Another murky bit of scripture. But it’s a good reminder that in this life we don’t get to choose when a river of ick will come our way. Just ask those poor Olympians who had to swim in the Siene the other day. Yuck!
The terrible events from last week’s text with David spill over into our narrative today. Remember that he just had Uriah killed so that he could sleep with and steal Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife.
Walter Brueggemann, the famous theologian, famously criticizes David saying, “He conducts himself as though he is an autonomous potentate above the law (from his work, Theology of the Old Testament).”
But no one is above the law…right, my friends? For one day, both the law and justice will find us all, if not in this life, then certainly in the one to come.
But is that true? Will justice consequently be served in this life or the next as a result of our actions?
I wonder.
For it seems down here at least that we are thrust into a world where we encounter a different reality. Where some people get served papers while others get off scot-free; and where some who never even deserved papers in the first place get thrown away and locked down without a key.
Plainly, there is too much injustice in our world. Certainly, in this world where Vladamir Putin walks free while children, who are fighting cancer of all things, die in a hospital not because of their illness but because he ordered another air strike on Kyiv.
Elsewhere today the Gaza death-total is now up to 39,000. And the Lancet medical journal now estimates that adding indirect deaths, caused by factors like disease and hunger, might mean that the death toll is actually somewhere near 180,000. One hundred and eighty thousand people. Dead.
Yes, there is terrible injustice in this world, and too much of it, and you don’t need me to act like Walter Cronkite to tell you that.
What then is justice? And where is it? Is it something real? Will it ever be? Is it bound in the courts of law, perhaps? Is it found in a police report, maybe? Is it delivered by a verdict announced by a judge and jury? Surely, we all know these can’t be true, not always at least, and certainly not recently, the way things have been going anyway.
Is justice then something perhaps more simple in appearance, like, screaming at wrongdoers on the street as Nathan did David, yelling “you are that man!”? There, I told him! Is justice then simply tarnishing names on social media and in local papers? Is that good enough? Ruining someone’s reputation? Is that justice?
Or should justice be something more consequential even than that; something more physical, with real, visible, and tangible results?
And is any of this what we as Christians should be hoping for? A consequence-based faith? A consequential version of justice? An eye for an eye, and all of that? Meeting violence with vengeance, retribution, and penalty?
Is that what justice is? Is that what we want?
I’m reading this terrible book right now. Ugh, just terrible. A slog and brutal read. Written yet by the famous Daniel Defoe, it’s titled “A Journal of the Plague Year” – a historical document, somewhat fictionalized as Defoe imagines the notes he would have written during the bubonic plague known as The Black Death, which killed 100,000 in London alone out of a population of just 460,000 (worldwide estimates are of course unconsciously higher). It’s been argued by literary scholars that Defoe used his uncle’s first-hand account for his book, and on page 52, of my version at least, he writes the following, which captures a popular theology of the day:
“I looked upon this dismal time to be a particular season of Divine vengeance. I went home grieved and afflicted at the abominable wickedness of men, not doubting however that they were being made dreadful examples of God’s justice.”
Is that then how it works? Is that right? Is that the lens in which we should view this world? That God is the author of vengeance and dismal times? That we are made the dreadful examples of God’s justice, such that if illness or plague, or covid-19 finds us, that all of our suffering is to God being angry with us? Is that it? Is that justice? Man, if it is… then I’m not so sure I’d want to worship God. Or at least, a God portrayed as that.
Moreover, is it just me, or does it feel like too often the consequences of justice are only felt by a few (and typically the non-rich)? And also, doesn’t it all feel sort of random? Like, why should he be let off the hook, while she on the other hand suffers? You know, things like that. Doesn’t it just seem like this world is in over-supply of injustice against the innocent, and in under-supply of justice against the oppressors?
It’s a tale as old as time, I guess. For here, in our text, we find no different. For rich King David also seems to escape justice while those who are more unfortunate suffer again needlessly and wrongfully. For example: “Thus says the LORD: I will raise up trouble against you [David] 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.” 2 Samuel 12:11
Is that justice? Is that how it works? It can’t be… Not where the innocent are made to suffer worse simply because of their proximity and relation to the offender. Why would God say this?
Especially when, on the other hand, the offender gets off the hook: “The Lord has put away your sin [David] and you won’t die (2 Samuel 12:13).”
How can this be? In God’s Word and in God’s world no less? How can the formula be so screwed up and so brutally unfair to poorer people like these women here in Samuel.
So, what then is the Lord’s justice that we name and pray for in church? Are we to reference this text in that prayer? And if not, which text then should we reference?
Or is it something that is beyond the text and maybe something eternal, such as… that justice is the Hell that awaits David, while Heaven is promised for the wives? Would that be better? Would that be justice, in the end, where the wrong are punished and the innocent saved?
Maybe. Probably.
But scripture, at least, is unclear on this point. In some places, that seems to be the result, while in other places, it’s not. And here in our text, it’s definitely not the case. For as you’ll remember, “The Lord puts away his offending sin and David is freed from the judgment of death.”
So where do we go from here?
All of this, like so much of life seems so terribly unfair, doesn’t it? Especially for David to just get off scot-free like this… but let us remember that Nathan’s words against him, at minimum, seem to have an effect. They seem to break him and humble him, and ultimately begin to change him. And perhaps then, that is justice, somewhat? That which changes us?
For here, David changes from the authoritative potentate and humbly and meekly confesses, “I have sinned against the Lord (though, he conveniently leaves off that he also sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba too).”
He says, I have sinned against the Lord. He lowers himself and confesses. And then he spends the rest of his life mostly repenting.
And wouldn’t it be great if people today did that too? If they too fessed up and repented from the things they’ve done?
Imagine if say, Putin, Netanyahu, and Hamas, just like came together and said, “you know what, we’ve f____ it up and deserve God’s wrath?” Wouldn’t it be great if they just admitted that in unison and screamed unironically “we are that man!”? “We deserve death. We repent!”
Wouldn’t that be great? Not saying that anyone should forgive them, but wouldn’t that be great? And wouldn’t it be great if we too said that. If we too had a come-to-God moment, confessing as one, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Wouldn’t that, in the end, be the most right and just response?
Yeah… I know, my friends… another punishing sermon. Two of the last three from this pulpit have been short on answers and long on questions, but that’s sort of how it goes when confronted with these difficult texts and living with eyes wide open and feet on the ground. With a faith that seeks understanding rather than claiming it as fact.
I so wish I could live to see a world where injustice is corrected. I so hope to see a day where justice is really served. But then I’m soon reminded that I would likely be on the receiving end of that justice too, vengeance even, perhaps.
So maybe then… maybe it’s better to simply take refuge at this table, and over there at that water, where the Spirit provides new opportunity for new life, where we can be changed, where Christ’s sacrifice of love is justice incarnate. Justice enough, for each of us. From the worst of us to the best of us.
After all, that’s one of the scandals of this gospel. That there might not be justice, or more appropriately, judgment. Or that if there is, that it’s already been paid for, and we are all already forgiven.
Thanks be to Christ.
Amen.
