Know thyself
Commentary
While this famous Greek maxim is attributed to any number of ancient Greek
philosophers, including the great Socrates, according to the ancient historian Plutarch,
"Know Thyself" was originally the admonition inscribed on the sun god Apollo's
Oracle of Delphi temple in ancient Greece. Plutarch should know, since he was once one
of its caretakers.
Located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, the Oracle of Delphi stood at the crossroads of the ancient world. Greek legends said that Zeus, the chief Olympian god, released two eagles, one in the east and the other in the west, and where they met he threw a sacred stone marking the center of Earth. This happened to be Delphi.
For thousands of years, according to this legend, the Sacred Stone of Delphi was zealously guarded by a fearsome snake named Python. But Apollo killed Python and made Delphi the home of the Muses -- creatures who inspired artists and writers. These Muses informed the priestess of Apollo (called Pythia in honor of the great Python) who was then able to respond to the specific questions brought to her by mere mortals.
Most oracles given by way of the swooning Pythia could be interpreted in several ways. King Croessus wanted to do battle with Persia, but consulted first the Oracle at Delphi. "If Croessus makes war against the Persians," he was told, "he will destroy a great empire." Confident that he was blessed by the gods, Croessus went to war, and was resoundingly defeated; the "great empire" he destroyed was his own.
In Plato's biography of his master Socrates, the Apology, a man named Chaerephon goes to the Delphic Oracle to ask if any man is wiser than Socrates, and is answered in the negative. No one, not even Socrates himself, believes this. And that's why the most famous remembrance related to the Oracle is the inscription over the temple's entrance: "Know Thyself."
In the ancient world and now, this seems nearly impossible. The inner world of the self is not easily penetrated. We lie to others and are deceptive with ourselves. The story of David in today's lectionary readings reminds us of the truth of Jeremiah's invective, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (Jeremiah 17:9). The epistle and gospel readings remind us that insight, stability, and focus can return to our lives only when we become connected to Jesus. His perspective mirrored back at us helps shape how we live.
2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
Why was David so obtuse? Why could he not see the evil in his own heart, while remaining righteously indignant about the failings of others? This story plumbs the depth of the human mystery. We are not what we seem. We cannot be what we hope. We have beams in our eyes, as Jesus put it, and yet do not realize that we are blind, even as we look for the specks of dust in others' vision equipment.
C. S. Lewis captured the tension of Truth and Lie, of Light and Darkness in spiritual combat in his space trilogy about Venus. The planet Mars, in his tale, is populated by an ancient race of God's creatures who never gave in to the lure of evil, and remain holy and just. Earth, as we know, has fallen under the domain of the dark shadows, and the Great Creator has posted warning signs around it in space. It is off limits to other races, quarantined until the end of time.
Venus, though, is a neophyte planet with a more recent "paradise" story of creaturely development. A newly formed pair similar to Earth's Adam and Eve dance about in innocent delight.
The evil power in the universe will not leave any divine masterpiece long unmarred though, and he sends a vicious Earth scientist named Weston to introduce sin on Venus by way of attempting to corrupt its Lord and Lady. In a countermove the Great Creator sends an ambassador of his own to Venus. The universe holds its breath as the future of this bright world hangs in the balance.
In these novels, Lewis pictured the tension in every human heart. We are surrounded by dark powers, yet long for the light of redemption and love. One man grew up in a "religious" home, and was forced to go to church all the time. Yet, the message of religion was dark and foreboding. His father ruled with a heavy hand, and the righteousness of the church was ugly, demeaning, and joyless. As soon as he was able he left home, got married, started a career, and raised children.
Now, however, he goes to worship services only because his wife thinks that it is important for their children. Yet, he is full of anger at his father, and that rage is vented at the church that demanded, scolded, forced, and twisted him when he was younger. He shakes his head and his fist at the vengeful and mean-spirited god of his parents' religion. It has become a problem of identity for my friend. He can never serve the god who dwells in the shadows and cruelly vents meanness and pain. Yet, he will never find the truth of his religion until deception's shadow has been sent packing by the illuminating glow of grace "coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows," as James puts it in his New Testament letter.
Most of our lives we struggle to see more clearly. Like David, life gets lost for us, often, in the shadows. Grace breaks through, now and again, when prophets like Nathan become windows of insight and illumination. And those are the moments we have to hang onto in order to regain our sense of self. Knowing ourselves is often painful. But there is no truth without full truth, and this truth will reveal in us many lies, little and big.
Ephesians 4:1-16
This passage begins with a kind of literary stutter. Paul had actually begun these ideas at 3:1, and then got sidetracked in his thinking as he felt the need to affirm his apostolic authority and mission. Now he starts over with one of the most concise and powerful statements of ecclesiology in the New Testament.
The big themes are these: Jesus is Lord of the church and we all participate in it through him by way of baptism, community, and lifestyle. At his coronation Jesus began distributing gifts to citizens of his realm, members of his ecclesiastical body. These gifts equip all to serve in an interdependent missional community, but we function best when responding to those who possess leadership gifts.
The entire passage is dense with theological implications, and rich with homiletic metaphors. Since Paul wrote this letter and the one to the Colossian church at the same time, it might be helpful to read Colossians 3 as a complimentary background when exploring the richness of the church's link with the ascended Christ.
Moreover, this would be a great Sunday to sing "The Church's One Foundation." No other hymn captures so well the actual words of this passage and also so much of its theology.
John 6:24-35
Food is a very big part of our lives. Hunger can be a time clock ticking inside, regulating the hours of our days with calculated passion. Or it can be a biologic need, demanding fuel stops on our restless race. Even more, hunger functions as a psychological drive, forcing us to crave chocolate when we lack love, or driving us to drink, drugs, and sex. But deeper than all of these things is our search for meaning beyond the drudgery and repetition of our daily activities. It is the spiritual need each person has to know that she is not alone in this gigantic and sometimes unkind maze of life.
Hunger is what the writer of Ecclesiastes means when he said that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men" (3:11). Hunger is the pilgrimage of the soul. In other words, the old adage is true: "You are what you eat."
Life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak. And still we want more.
Then a word comes to us from heaven. In part it is a word of judgment against us: Since you are what you eat, take a look at what it is that you are consuming. If you eat garbage you become garbage. If you feast on pornography, as Ted Bundy said in his dying confessions to James Dobson, you become filthy. If you think that wealth can satisfy the cravings of your soul you will become a calculator and a penny-pincher. If the adoration of the community feeds the hunger of your psyche you refashion yourself into a code of law and ethics, toeing the line without compassion. If another high is what it takes to get you through the stomach cramps of another day you will shoot up or smoke up or pop some more or tease yourself with illicit sex, and end up becoming a bag of used chemicals and a bottle of cheap thrills.
You are hungry and you are what you eat. The cravings of your soul will not be stilled. A meal will reset the alarm of your biological clock. Food will keep your hungry body going. Potato chips and a soda will stop the munchies for a while. But what are you eating for your soul?
John remembers the beauty and simplicity of what Jesus told people one day: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty" (John 6:35). Through the symbolic nourishment of spiritual depth and richness, something satisfying begins to grow inside. Tasting the things that make heaven shine and earth blossom we begin to find the values and goals and visions and dreams of God giving shape to our lives.
Augustine knew this as he reflected on the spiritual character of our race. "Man is one of your creatures, Lord," he said, "and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you."
What are you eating today? Tomorrow and next week those who are close to you will know whether there was any eternal nourishment in your diet. Know thyself!
Application
Some years ago, a major research firm conducted a survey to determine what people would be willing to do for $10 million. The results were astounding. Three percent would put their children up for adoption. Seven percent would kill a stranger. Ten percent would lie in court to set a murderer free. Sixteen percent would divorce their spouses. Twenty- three percent said they would become prostitutes for a week or longer.
Most astonishing was the category at the top of the list. One-fourth of all surveyed said that they would leave their families for $10 million.
Everyone has a selling price at which he or she will step over a line of conduct and allow someone else to dictate the terms of behavior. It might be $10 million or it might only be one more bottle of wine. It might be a night in the spotlight or a night in bed. In Shusaku Endo's powerful novel, Silence, the missionary priest Rodriguez steps over the line when torture exceeds what his soul can bear, and he desecrates an image of Jesus. We all have our selling price.
Our selling price is linked to our identity. But do we really know who we are? The stronger our sense of who we are the higher our selling price and the deeper our character. There are, however, several identities that each of us wears.
The first is the identity we receive from others. We get our looks and temperament from our parents. We garner our tastes and styles from our culture. There is even something mystical about us that we receive as a gift from God, unique to our personalities. Paul talks at length about these spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14.
Poet John Masefield understood that when he reflected on how it was that he started writing and rhyming. One day he picked up a volume of Geoffrey Chaucer's works and was gripped by the art of the lines. Masefield couldn't put the book down. That night, he read until a whole new world opened for him. By the time morning broke, said Masefield, he had finished the entire book, set it down, looked at the dawning day and quietly said, "I, too, am a poet." And so he was.
A second identity we have in life is the one we make. In the drama, The Rainmaker, the main character is a con artist who calls himself Starbuck. He travels from town to town during the Dirty '30s scheming to get people to pay him to bring the rains for their parched fields.
Young Lizzie Curry catches his eye and they spar with building passion. But Lizzie is no fool and she challenges him to come clean with her about his true name. It can't really be Starbuck, she knows.
Starbuck admits that he was born a "Smith," but asks, "What kind of name is that for a fellow like me? I needed a name that had the whole sky in it! And the power of a man! Starbuck! Now there's a name -- and it's mine!"
Lizzie tries to contradict him, telling him he has no right choosing his own name and giving up his family heritage. Yet he will not capitulate quickly. "You're wrong, Lizzie," he says. "The name you choose for yourself is more your own name than the name you were born with!"
Starbuck is on to something. Much of what we see in people around us has to do with what they have made of themselves. When an English nobleman named Roberts was having his portrait painted, the artist asked him if he would like the lines and creases in his face smoothed over.
"Certainly not!" he objected. "Make sure you put them all in. I earned every single wrinkle on my face!"
He was a man who knew the identity he had made.
There is also a third and deeper human identity. It is the identity that transforms us from what we were to what we are becoming. The poet saw a friend clearly when he wrote:
And there were three men went down the road
As down the road went he:
The man they saw, the man he was,
And the man he wanted to be.
The person we each want to be when we find our truest selves in God is larger than either the identity we have received from others or the one we try to create. So we must truly know ourselves. Anything that sullies us by trying to define us on terms less than God's grace limits our best self.
Someone has suggested a powerfully illuminating analogy. When a ship is built, he said, each part has a little voice of its own. As seamen walk the passageways on her maiden voyage they can hear the creaking whispers of separate identities: "I'm a rivet!" "I'm a sheet of steel!" "I'm a propeller!" "I'm a beam!" For a while these little voices sing their individual songs, proudly independent and fiercely self-protective.
But then a storm blows in on the high seas and the waves toss, the gales hurl, and the rain beat. If the parts of the ship try to withstand the pummeling independent from one another each would be lost. On the bridge, however, stands the captain. He issues orders that take all of the little voices and bring them together for a larger purpose. By the time the vessel has weathered the storm sailors hear a new and deeper song echoing from stem to stern: "I am a ship!"
It is the captain's call that creates the deeper identity. So, too, in our lives: minor stars in a world of glamour try to sing Siren songs pulling bits and pieces of us from the voyage of our lives. Those who hear the captain's call are able to sail true and straight.
Alternative Application
While any of the three passages for today are extraordinarily "preachable" in and of themselves, few pericopes compare with 2 Samuel 12 in terms of narrative punch and homiletic application. It might be unpacked by itself through several homiletic moves (a la Buttrick):
* How would a "successful" middle-aged businessman like David get himself caught in this trap?
* Why does he think he can get away with it?
* How can David be so blind to his own moral failure?
* What are our possible responses to challenge?
* What happens to us when the prophetic word breaks through?
* How does repentance change us?
* Where is God's grace in this whole episode?
While care should be taken not to dwell overmuch on sexual improprieties to the exclusion of other sins in dealing with this passage, it is also important to be open and frank about the insidious and pervasive character of sexual sinfulness in our culture. Men try to recapture waning youth through sexual encounters; women fantasize about lost loves when husbands are overly occupied by business and careers; porn is extremely accessible and a shortcut quick fix to our emotional desires. We do not know ourselves. We need friends and mentors and religious leaders like Nathan who can love us with prophetic sternness in order to recover something of what God intended our best selves to be.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 51:1-12
Forgiveness. It's the Christian buzzword. We talk about it a lot. It is bandied about more than almost any other Christian idea, but it is seldom practiced. It is like the bicycle that sits in the garage and is never ridden. Yet the truth is that forgiveness is amazing. If you've received it, you know. There is nothing quite like it, and this psalm endeavors to claim that turf.
This isn't the forgiveness that accompanies everyday living, though we need that as well. This is deep. This is forgiveness that greets unthinkable wrongs. This is mercy that can come only to the undeserving.
Most people, in the wake of a misdeed, try to wiggle out of consequences that loom on the horizon. Not so in this case. Here, we have someone who has come to grips with the depth of their brokenness.
"I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me " (v. 3).
From the quicksand of denial, this writer rises and makes this simple and clear confession. "I messed up, God. I really did it this time, and I need your forgiveness." How often do we see such candor? Instead of this simple, contrite plea, we are too often hosed down with self-righteous posturing and what has come to be known as "plausible denial." In other words, it doesn't have to be true, it just has to seem believable.
Here in this incredible psalm is a lesson that pierces the fact of our sinfulness and calls us to confession. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most powerful martyrs and theologians of the twentieth century, felt that the Protestant community needed to reclaim the confessional. In his underground seminary in war-time Germany, he taught students to hear one another's confessions, understanding the power of this kind of clarity and truthfulness.
Bonhoeffer was on to something. In our Protestant tradition we have trivialized confession to the point where it feels like we're in the interrogation room with God, admitting the wrongs we've done. But it's more than that. Authentic confession isn't about admission of errors and missteps, it's about truth-telling (v. 6a). It's about coming clean and saying the truth, not merely about what we've done, but about what is in our hearts, and finally, it is about where our true allegiance is to be found.
When we enter into this kind of confession, the healing is profound. We experience what feels like a new spirit and a clean heart (v. 10). We find that like God's grace, forgiveness is indeed amazing.
Located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, the Oracle of Delphi stood at the crossroads of the ancient world. Greek legends said that Zeus, the chief Olympian god, released two eagles, one in the east and the other in the west, and where they met he threw a sacred stone marking the center of Earth. This happened to be Delphi.
For thousands of years, according to this legend, the Sacred Stone of Delphi was zealously guarded by a fearsome snake named Python. But Apollo killed Python and made Delphi the home of the Muses -- creatures who inspired artists and writers. These Muses informed the priestess of Apollo (called Pythia in honor of the great Python) who was then able to respond to the specific questions brought to her by mere mortals.
Most oracles given by way of the swooning Pythia could be interpreted in several ways. King Croessus wanted to do battle with Persia, but consulted first the Oracle at Delphi. "If Croessus makes war against the Persians," he was told, "he will destroy a great empire." Confident that he was blessed by the gods, Croessus went to war, and was resoundingly defeated; the "great empire" he destroyed was his own.
In Plato's biography of his master Socrates, the Apology, a man named Chaerephon goes to the Delphic Oracle to ask if any man is wiser than Socrates, and is answered in the negative. No one, not even Socrates himself, believes this. And that's why the most famous remembrance related to the Oracle is the inscription over the temple's entrance: "Know Thyself."
In the ancient world and now, this seems nearly impossible. The inner world of the self is not easily penetrated. We lie to others and are deceptive with ourselves. The story of David in today's lectionary readings reminds us of the truth of Jeremiah's invective, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (Jeremiah 17:9). The epistle and gospel readings remind us that insight, stability, and focus can return to our lives only when we become connected to Jesus. His perspective mirrored back at us helps shape how we live.
2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
Why was David so obtuse? Why could he not see the evil in his own heart, while remaining righteously indignant about the failings of others? This story plumbs the depth of the human mystery. We are not what we seem. We cannot be what we hope. We have beams in our eyes, as Jesus put it, and yet do not realize that we are blind, even as we look for the specks of dust in others' vision equipment.
C. S. Lewis captured the tension of Truth and Lie, of Light and Darkness in spiritual combat in his space trilogy about Venus. The planet Mars, in his tale, is populated by an ancient race of God's creatures who never gave in to the lure of evil, and remain holy and just. Earth, as we know, has fallen under the domain of the dark shadows, and the Great Creator has posted warning signs around it in space. It is off limits to other races, quarantined until the end of time.
Venus, though, is a neophyte planet with a more recent "paradise" story of creaturely development. A newly formed pair similar to Earth's Adam and Eve dance about in innocent delight.
The evil power in the universe will not leave any divine masterpiece long unmarred though, and he sends a vicious Earth scientist named Weston to introduce sin on Venus by way of attempting to corrupt its Lord and Lady. In a countermove the Great Creator sends an ambassador of his own to Venus. The universe holds its breath as the future of this bright world hangs in the balance.
In these novels, Lewis pictured the tension in every human heart. We are surrounded by dark powers, yet long for the light of redemption and love. One man grew up in a "religious" home, and was forced to go to church all the time. Yet, the message of religion was dark and foreboding. His father ruled with a heavy hand, and the righteousness of the church was ugly, demeaning, and joyless. As soon as he was able he left home, got married, started a career, and raised children.
Now, however, he goes to worship services only because his wife thinks that it is important for their children. Yet, he is full of anger at his father, and that rage is vented at the church that demanded, scolded, forced, and twisted him when he was younger. He shakes his head and his fist at the vengeful and mean-spirited god of his parents' religion. It has become a problem of identity for my friend. He can never serve the god who dwells in the shadows and cruelly vents meanness and pain. Yet, he will never find the truth of his religion until deception's shadow has been sent packing by the illuminating glow of grace "coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows," as James puts it in his New Testament letter.
Most of our lives we struggle to see more clearly. Like David, life gets lost for us, often, in the shadows. Grace breaks through, now and again, when prophets like Nathan become windows of insight and illumination. And those are the moments we have to hang onto in order to regain our sense of self. Knowing ourselves is often painful. But there is no truth without full truth, and this truth will reveal in us many lies, little and big.
Ephesians 4:1-16
This passage begins with a kind of literary stutter. Paul had actually begun these ideas at 3:1, and then got sidetracked in his thinking as he felt the need to affirm his apostolic authority and mission. Now he starts over with one of the most concise and powerful statements of ecclesiology in the New Testament.
The big themes are these: Jesus is Lord of the church and we all participate in it through him by way of baptism, community, and lifestyle. At his coronation Jesus began distributing gifts to citizens of his realm, members of his ecclesiastical body. These gifts equip all to serve in an interdependent missional community, but we function best when responding to those who possess leadership gifts.
The entire passage is dense with theological implications, and rich with homiletic metaphors. Since Paul wrote this letter and the one to the Colossian church at the same time, it might be helpful to read Colossians 3 as a complimentary background when exploring the richness of the church's link with the ascended Christ.
Moreover, this would be a great Sunday to sing "The Church's One Foundation." No other hymn captures so well the actual words of this passage and also so much of its theology.
John 6:24-35
Food is a very big part of our lives. Hunger can be a time clock ticking inside, regulating the hours of our days with calculated passion. Or it can be a biologic need, demanding fuel stops on our restless race. Even more, hunger functions as a psychological drive, forcing us to crave chocolate when we lack love, or driving us to drink, drugs, and sex. But deeper than all of these things is our search for meaning beyond the drudgery and repetition of our daily activities. It is the spiritual need each person has to know that she is not alone in this gigantic and sometimes unkind maze of life.
Hunger is what the writer of Ecclesiastes means when he said that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men" (3:11). Hunger is the pilgrimage of the soul. In other words, the old adage is true: "You are what you eat."
Life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak. And still we want more.
Then a word comes to us from heaven. In part it is a word of judgment against us: Since you are what you eat, take a look at what it is that you are consuming. If you eat garbage you become garbage. If you feast on pornography, as Ted Bundy said in his dying confessions to James Dobson, you become filthy. If you think that wealth can satisfy the cravings of your soul you will become a calculator and a penny-pincher. If the adoration of the community feeds the hunger of your psyche you refashion yourself into a code of law and ethics, toeing the line without compassion. If another high is what it takes to get you through the stomach cramps of another day you will shoot up or smoke up or pop some more or tease yourself with illicit sex, and end up becoming a bag of used chemicals and a bottle of cheap thrills.
You are hungry and you are what you eat. The cravings of your soul will not be stilled. A meal will reset the alarm of your biological clock. Food will keep your hungry body going. Potato chips and a soda will stop the munchies for a while. But what are you eating for your soul?
John remembers the beauty and simplicity of what Jesus told people one day: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty" (John 6:35). Through the symbolic nourishment of spiritual depth and richness, something satisfying begins to grow inside. Tasting the things that make heaven shine and earth blossom we begin to find the values and goals and visions and dreams of God giving shape to our lives.
Augustine knew this as he reflected on the spiritual character of our race. "Man is one of your creatures, Lord," he said, "and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you."
What are you eating today? Tomorrow and next week those who are close to you will know whether there was any eternal nourishment in your diet. Know thyself!
Application
Some years ago, a major research firm conducted a survey to determine what people would be willing to do for $10 million. The results were astounding. Three percent would put their children up for adoption. Seven percent would kill a stranger. Ten percent would lie in court to set a murderer free. Sixteen percent would divorce their spouses. Twenty- three percent said they would become prostitutes for a week or longer.
Most astonishing was the category at the top of the list. One-fourth of all surveyed said that they would leave their families for $10 million.
Everyone has a selling price at which he or she will step over a line of conduct and allow someone else to dictate the terms of behavior. It might be $10 million or it might only be one more bottle of wine. It might be a night in the spotlight or a night in bed. In Shusaku Endo's powerful novel, Silence, the missionary priest Rodriguez steps over the line when torture exceeds what his soul can bear, and he desecrates an image of Jesus. We all have our selling price.
Our selling price is linked to our identity. But do we really know who we are? The stronger our sense of who we are the higher our selling price and the deeper our character. There are, however, several identities that each of us wears.
The first is the identity we receive from others. We get our looks and temperament from our parents. We garner our tastes and styles from our culture. There is even something mystical about us that we receive as a gift from God, unique to our personalities. Paul talks at length about these spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14.
Poet John Masefield understood that when he reflected on how it was that he started writing and rhyming. One day he picked up a volume of Geoffrey Chaucer's works and was gripped by the art of the lines. Masefield couldn't put the book down. That night, he read until a whole new world opened for him. By the time morning broke, said Masefield, he had finished the entire book, set it down, looked at the dawning day and quietly said, "I, too, am a poet." And so he was.
A second identity we have in life is the one we make. In the drama, The Rainmaker, the main character is a con artist who calls himself Starbuck. He travels from town to town during the Dirty '30s scheming to get people to pay him to bring the rains for their parched fields.
Young Lizzie Curry catches his eye and they spar with building passion. But Lizzie is no fool and she challenges him to come clean with her about his true name. It can't really be Starbuck, she knows.
Starbuck admits that he was born a "Smith," but asks, "What kind of name is that for a fellow like me? I needed a name that had the whole sky in it! And the power of a man! Starbuck! Now there's a name -- and it's mine!"
Lizzie tries to contradict him, telling him he has no right choosing his own name and giving up his family heritage. Yet he will not capitulate quickly. "You're wrong, Lizzie," he says. "The name you choose for yourself is more your own name than the name you were born with!"
Starbuck is on to something. Much of what we see in people around us has to do with what they have made of themselves. When an English nobleman named Roberts was having his portrait painted, the artist asked him if he would like the lines and creases in his face smoothed over.
"Certainly not!" he objected. "Make sure you put them all in. I earned every single wrinkle on my face!"
He was a man who knew the identity he had made.
There is also a third and deeper human identity. It is the identity that transforms us from what we were to what we are becoming. The poet saw a friend clearly when he wrote:
And there were three men went down the road
As down the road went he:
The man they saw, the man he was,
And the man he wanted to be.
The person we each want to be when we find our truest selves in God is larger than either the identity we have received from others or the one we try to create. So we must truly know ourselves. Anything that sullies us by trying to define us on terms less than God's grace limits our best self.
Someone has suggested a powerfully illuminating analogy. When a ship is built, he said, each part has a little voice of its own. As seamen walk the passageways on her maiden voyage they can hear the creaking whispers of separate identities: "I'm a rivet!" "I'm a sheet of steel!" "I'm a propeller!" "I'm a beam!" For a while these little voices sing their individual songs, proudly independent and fiercely self-protective.
But then a storm blows in on the high seas and the waves toss, the gales hurl, and the rain beat. If the parts of the ship try to withstand the pummeling independent from one another each would be lost. On the bridge, however, stands the captain. He issues orders that take all of the little voices and bring them together for a larger purpose. By the time the vessel has weathered the storm sailors hear a new and deeper song echoing from stem to stern: "I am a ship!"
It is the captain's call that creates the deeper identity. So, too, in our lives: minor stars in a world of glamour try to sing Siren songs pulling bits and pieces of us from the voyage of our lives. Those who hear the captain's call are able to sail true and straight.
Alternative Application
While any of the three passages for today are extraordinarily "preachable" in and of themselves, few pericopes compare with 2 Samuel 12 in terms of narrative punch and homiletic application. It might be unpacked by itself through several homiletic moves (a la Buttrick):
* How would a "successful" middle-aged businessman like David get himself caught in this trap?
* Why does he think he can get away with it?
* How can David be so blind to his own moral failure?
* What are our possible responses to challenge?
* What happens to us when the prophetic word breaks through?
* How does repentance change us?
* Where is God's grace in this whole episode?
While care should be taken not to dwell overmuch on sexual improprieties to the exclusion of other sins in dealing with this passage, it is also important to be open and frank about the insidious and pervasive character of sexual sinfulness in our culture. Men try to recapture waning youth through sexual encounters; women fantasize about lost loves when husbands are overly occupied by business and careers; porn is extremely accessible and a shortcut quick fix to our emotional desires. We do not know ourselves. We need friends and mentors and religious leaders like Nathan who can love us with prophetic sternness in order to recover something of what God intended our best selves to be.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 51:1-12
Forgiveness. It's the Christian buzzword. We talk about it a lot. It is bandied about more than almost any other Christian idea, but it is seldom practiced. It is like the bicycle that sits in the garage and is never ridden. Yet the truth is that forgiveness is amazing. If you've received it, you know. There is nothing quite like it, and this psalm endeavors to claim that turf.
This isn't the forgiveness that accompanies everyday living, though we need that as well. This is deep. This is forgiveness that greets unthinkable wrongs. This is mercy that can come only to the undeserving.
Most people, in the wake of a misdeed, try to wiggle out of consequences that loom on the horizon. Not so in this case. Here, we have someone who has come to grips with the depth of their brokenness.
"I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me " (v. 3).
From the quicksand of denial, this writer rises and makes this simple and clear confession. "I messed up, God. I really did it this time, and I need your forgiveness." How often do we see such candor? Instead of this simple, contrite plea, we are too often hosed down with self-righteous posturing and what has come to be known as "plausible denial." In other words, it doesn't have to be true, it just has to seem believable.
Here in this incredible psalm is a lesson that pierces the fact of our sinfulness and calls us to confession. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most powerful martyrs and theologians of the twentieth century, felt that the Protestant community needed to reclaim the confessional. In his underground seminary in war-time Germany, he taught students to hear one another's confessions, understanding the power of this kind of clarity and truthfulness.
Bonhoeffer was on to something. In our Protestant tradition we have trivialized confession to the point where it feels like we're in the interrogation room with God, admitting the wrongs we've done. But it's more than that. Authentic confession isn't about admission of errors and missteps, it's about truth-telling (v. 6a). It's about coming clean and saying the truth, not merely about what we've done, but about what is in our hearts, and finally, it is about where our true allegiance is to be found.
When we enter into this kind of confession, the healing is profound. We experience what feels like a new spirit and a clean heart (v. 10). We find that like God's grace, forgiveness is indeed amazing.
