Scripture Lessons: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15 Gal. 2: 15-21 Luke 7:36-8:3
Have you noticed that sometimes what feels like bad news actually turns out to be good news?
For example, your doctor tells you that you have cancer. That feels like very bad news. Then your doctor says your kind of cancer is very treatable, that you are fortunate to have discovered it early, that there is an excellent chance of full recovery. You go through surgery and chemotherapy. It is painful and difficult. Ten years later you look back and give thanks that the discovery of cancer actually saved your life, brought you closer to God, and made you a more compassionate, generous and patient person, even though it sounded like bad news when you first heard it.
Sometimes God’s words and actions in the Bible feel like bad news to us, but when we allow them to touch and change our lives, they can lead to life-giving experiences of God’s forgiveness and healing grace. Our greatest failures can actually lead us to greater love, deeper gratitude, and a closer walk with God.
In our generation, many churches and preachers seldom talk about sin for fear of offending people. We all like to hear that we are good people and that God loves us. God certainly does love us. And one of the ways God loves us is by confronting us, by holding us accountable when our attitudes, words and actions are not right, not consistent with the way God created us to live.
If we look at the way human beings treat each other in this country and around the world, it is clear that we are not loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. There is too much violence, too much poverty, too much injustice and dishonesty, too many hate-filled words. We are not living the way God created us to live.
Because God loves us, God does not want us to continue our destructive patterns of living in our homes and schools, our businesses and communities, our environment, and even our churches. God wants us to be aware of how far we are from God’s loving plan for our life together on this planet. And God wants us to change our sinful ways so that we embody love for God and all our neighbors, even our enemies.
If you and I honestly want to grow closer to God, we will find that God often confronts us with things God wants us to change. Often we don’t like to be confronted with what is not right in our lives.
How would you respond this morning if Jesus looked you in the eye and confronted you about one thing in your life right now that displeases God? Don’t think about what’s wrong with other people. What would God point out that needs to be changed in your life and mine?
Some people fear God's accountability. They think that God is angry when God holds us accountable. Actually, God's accountability is part of God's love and respect for us. God cares about us. God made us for a purpose. That's why God expects us to live up to character of Christ, to the values of God's Kingdom. God wants us to be all we were created to be. God's accountability is part of God's love. God's loving mercy is always part of God's accountability.
Let's look at God’s loving accountability and mercy in the story of David and Bathsheba. King David had seen his neighbor Bathsheba bathing, as he walked on the roof of his palace. He had her brought to his palace and they committed adultery. (In our society, we would have called it an affair to make it seem more acceptable. The Bible is more honest. It was adultery.)
A few months later, Bathsheba sent a message to David telling him that she was pregnant with his child. Then David spoke to his military commander and had Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, put on the front line where the fighting was fiercest, so Uriah would be killed. Now David was guilty of both adultery and murder.
Many kings, politicians and wealthy people have done what David did. But that was no excuse. God is not pleased with any violation of his commands to love God and our neighbors. No one is exempt from the standards God has woven into the fabric of human relationships.
So God sent Nathan the prophet to hold David accountable for his behavior. Nathan told a story of a rich man who had many flocks and herds, but when a guest stopped by for a meal, the rich man took the only lamb which a poor neighbor had and killed it to serve the rich man’s guest. Like a good judge, King David, thinking that it was a true story, said: “The rich man ought to be killed and ought to return four lambs to the poor man.”
In one of the most dramatic moments in the Bible, Nathan pointed a finger at David and said, "You are the man. God blessed you with riches and wives and you stole Bathsheba from Uriah and then had Uriah killed.”
Notice David's response. "I have sinned against the Lord." He was immediately honest before God. No excuses. Would you and I respond like David did if God confronted us about something in our life this morning?
Then notice God's mercy. God spared David's life, even though David himself had said he deserved death… and even though adultery and murder were punishable by death in those days. Oh there were consequences! David and Bathsheba's first child died. But in God's mercy, their second child was Solomon who became one of the greatest Kings of Israel. Even though David’s behavior toward Bathsheba and Uriah were wrong, because of his honest confession, and honest desire to be faithful to God, God forgave David and blessed his inappropriate relationship with Bathsheba.
Sometimes all of us stray from the kinds of attitudes, words and actions God expects of us. Then, out of love, God holds us accountable for not living according to his purposes for us. When we are confronted with our disobedience, if we honestly admit our failures and ask for God’s forgiveness and help, God shows us mercy and forgiveness. Like David, our sin and honest confession can actually draw us into closer relationship with God.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus continues this theme by both confronting and showing mercy during his visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee. Simon invited Jesus to dinner so he could test Jesus and see if he was a true prophet from God. Soon a prostitute from the neighborhood came into the house and knelt at Jesus' feet, weeping, drying his feet with her hair, and anointing them with perfume. In the ancient world, whenever you visited a home, the first sign of hospitality was to wash the guest’s dirty feet. The woman did this out of great love and gratitude for Jesus. Simon had not shown this kind of love for Jesus. Simon was completely focused on judging whether Jesus was a true prophet or not. When the prostitute anointed Jesus, Simon began to think, "Obviously, Jesus is not God's prophet. If he were, he would know this woman was a filthy sinner and he would not allow her to touch him and make him unclean."
Jesus confronted Simon’s attitude in the same way Nathan confronted David’s actions, by telling a story. Jesus said, "A banker forgave the debts of two people - one owed five-hundred days’ wages, the other owed fifty days’ wages. Which person would love the banker more?" Simon answered, "The one who had been forgiven the greater debt." Jesus said, "You're right. And that is what is going on with you and this woman right now. The woman knows she is has a lot of problems and needs. She knows she is a flawed sinner. She also knows that God loves her and has forgiven her. So out of love and gratitude to God, she is demonstrating a deeper love for me than you have.”
As a man who has studied the Bible, you think you know and practice God’s ways, you think you are better than others, and so you only need a little help and forgiveness from God. Since you don’t think you have to be forgiven much, you don’t love others very much. The truth is, you are very judgmental and critical toward me and toward this woman, and toward many people in your life.
Jesus is saying that it’s only when we know how imperfect we are and how much we have been forgiven by God that we are able to love and forgive others, who are far from perfect. Those who are forgiven little, love little; and those who are forgiven much, love much. Jesus asks us this morning, “Are you and I more like the imperfect but forgiven and loving prostitute, or are we more like the judgmental, distant Pharisee?”
The truth is, all of us are less than God wants us to be: in our relationships with God and with our neighbors, in the way we use the time, energy, abilities, and resources God has given us. Because God loves us, and wants us to embody in our lives the way of life for which God created us, the Jesus way of life. God regularly confronts us, like God confronted David and the Pharisee in today’s readings, to make us aware of ways in which we are less than God wants us to be.
I wonder what one thing in your life or mine might God want to confront us about this morning.
Let’s close our eyes and in the silence, be aware that Jesus is here with us, right now. Be aware of the love Jesus has for you.
Now let’s invite Jesus to tell us what one thing in our life might God want to confront us about this morning, and invite us to honestly confess and ask for forgiveness so we can be more fully the loving people God created us to be in our daily lives and relationships.