The subtleties of power and temptation
Commentary
There are few texts in the Bible or illustrations from the lives of public figures that more aptly describe the maxim that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" than this chapter. After following the innocent shepherd boy on his journey of integrity to the throne, we find ourselves almost wishing that this story had not been told. But it had to be told, not only because it bears out what can happen to a man as great as David, but also because it is an all-too-poignant reminder of what we see played out in our own lives and in the world around us. It is the story of the Fall.
As much as we may want to focus on David's act of adultery and the Hollywood-style details of the account, the key to the whole episode may be in the phrase in verse 1: "But David remained in Jerusalem." Until now he had been in the thick of every battle. He had been one with his army, fully engaged in the quest to secure the nation. Now that he has attained some measure of security and has consolidated his authority over all twelve tribes, David relaxes and lets down his guard. Though he does not know it, this is the most dangerous time of his life. The boy who fought lions and took on the feared Philistines doesn't seem to realize that the greatest danger he will ever face will now come to him through the subtleties of his own sexual desires. One of the greatest deceptions of power is that it leads David to think he can have whatever he wants.
The story also illustrates vividly the stark difference between lust and love. David has never met Bathsheba when he first sees her. He only knows that she is attractive to him. There is no long-term relationship culminating in intercourse as the seal of a permanent relationship and as the sign of a lifetime of fidelity. It all happens very quickly. But its consequences, for David and Bathsheba and her family and the nation, will go on and on.
Assuming that he is still in control and can manage any circumstance and predetermine its outcome, David proceeds immediately to "fix" what is going wrong. But he is in for one of life's most difficult lessons: namely, that sin and injustice can not be patched up or glossed over. The man in control has lost control. It is a sad, disheartening picture that emerges from this text.
Ephesians 3:14-21
This lesson is also about power. But the power of which Paul speaks is exactly what David forgot. The power is in the One who "is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or think." To get at the point of this text it is important to note that what immediately precedes it -- verses 2-13 -- is actually an interlude. In typical Pauline fashion (assuming he is the author), he goes off on a tangent and then returns to his main theme, which, in this case, is the unity between Jew and Gentile which only Christ can bring about. That makes the phrase "from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name" a key expression. Until now Israel has been God's special people, chosen through Abraham to be a blessing to all families of the earth. Now through Christ God is calling all peoples to be members of one family of faith.
The prayer that follows in verses 16-21 is one of the most intense in the New Testament. A.T. Robertson notes that "nowhere does Paul sound such depth of spiritual emotion or rise to such heights of spiritual passion as here." To be "strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit" calls attention to the tragedy of the life of David in today's Old Testament lesson. He had all of the power and authority a person could ask for. But in the search for that pinnacle of external power he had neglected the inner fortifications that could have spared him such grief.
The phrase "that Christ may dwell in your hearts" means literally to "make his home" in your life. Paul has been an occasional visitor in the churches in and around Ephesus. That is not how he wants them to think of Christ. When Christ comes, he wants to stay, to "be at home" with us.
The same idea is conveyed with the expression "rooted and grounded in love." Like the good soil in the parable of Jesus, so the believer is seen as a tree that stands tall in the wind and rain because it is deeply rooted in the soil of a durable relationship with God in Christ. It is a life with more than one dimension. It has "breadth and length and height and depth."
The conclusion of this text has been described as "the dizzy heights of the Christian experience." The words take off. One has the feeling that this is as far as one can go with mere human language. To praise God is to stand in awe and wonder, failing to find that expression which will say it all. This comes as close as we can imagine.
John 6:1-21
The feeding of the multitude marks a turning point in all four Gospels. The popular response to Jesus has been growing to the point where he seems almost at a loss to know how to handle it. From this juncture and on, the ministry moves away from the north and from the Sea of Galilee and toward the south and Jerusalem. The entire shape of Jesus' ministry changes as he becomes less and less the One who heals and feeds and more and more the one who will suffer and die. Whereas until now many have been awestruck by his power and authority to do miracles and to command the attention of the crowds, now he will begin to challenge the powers that be and suffer the consequences.
Many believe that this incident happened at the time when crowds were moving toward Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover -- and thus the large crowd. Passover is like a Jewish Fourth of July. It was, and is, a time to remember God's mercy to the nation in the past and to look forward to God's blessings for the future. Messianic hope ran high at this time. The fact that Jesus refuses such popular notions and sends the crowd away is an aspect of the text that is often overlooked. He is not interested in their hopes and dreams for a popular deliverer. For them, a Messiah who refuses to be king cannot be the Promised One. Enthusiasm will flare up again briefly at the time of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but then will die away again very quickly.
Given the fact that the account is actually written long after the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is not surprising that many expositors see eucharistic and eschatological elements in the story of the feeding. The miracle worker who fulfills old covenant expectations by feeding the masses will soon be the Suffering Servant of the Lord who will give his body and shed his blood for them. The One who some -- including the disciples -- think will free them from the domination of Rome will soon be the One who will promise to sit with them at the banquet in a kingdom to come.
When linked with the previous chapters, it has been suggested that the emphasis in this part of John is on God's gift in Christ. In chapter 3 the gift is new life that comes as one is born anew. In chapter 4 the gift is the living water which alone can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. In chapter 5 the gift is the Son himself who is sent by the Father to give life and make judgments. In chapter 6 it is the gift of the living bread.
Suggestions For Preaching
This is a good Sunday to address the relationships between power and temptation. It is evident in the account of David and Bathsheba. But it is also at the heart of the Letter to the Ephesians where the believers are urged to see that the source of their lives is not in themselves but in surrender to the will and purpose of God. And in the Gospel lesson the disciples are frustrated that they cannot address the needs of the crowds who have come to hear Jesus. The miracle of the loaves and fishes is Jesus' way of helping them to begin to understand that the secret to the unfolding Kingdom is in dependence on God rather than themselves.
Jonathan Edwards preached about the contrast between our search for self-gratification and the unending search for a deeper relationship with God. The latter, said Edwards, is a quest in which believers "may to their utmost indulge their hungering after righteousness, and after the Word of God, and after all spiritual pleasures. They may indulge those appetites as much as they will in their thoughts and in their meditations and in their practice. They may drink, yea, swim in the rivers of spiritual pleasure ... We ought to take all opportunities to lay ourselves in the way of enticement with respect to our gracious inclinations." (Jonathan Edwards, "Spiritual Appetites Need No Bounds," For All The Saints, Delhi, NY: ALPB, 1994, p. 56.) If David had stayed on this course his life, the history of Israel might have been quite different. And so it is with us and those to whom we preach on this day.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
2 Samuel 11:1-15
In the logic of a sinner, once a man has a place to sleep -- a house is best but relative safety will do -- a couple of other needs take priority. One is a good fight; the other is women, the plural being emphatic.
One season doesn't have a lock on testosterone-induced conflict, but verse one still rings beyond the text, describing larger realities: "It was the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to war...." T.S. Eliot said it another way, "April is the cruelest month...." Somehow, when life starts to stir, when the earth opens to receive its seed, when there is beauty in the bud and the land grows curvaceous with promised bounty, men start looking for a fight.
As the kings went, so go the male CEOs, presidents, captains and their ilk, and along with them faculties, church councils and sandlot baseball teams. It is as though, with all that surging life, something has to spill.
It's best, of course, when a man can have it by proxy. So David, who won his stripes on Goliath, later Saul, and then the Philistines, has come into his power now and can stay at home, keeping track from a safe distance. Naturally, in the predictable perversity of such a circumstance, he seeks the roof. There he can survey not only his domain but himself in power, managing all that spreads below him.
Maybe it was as innocent as the text suggests. Perhaps, older now but still definitely capable of some sprint-induced reconnoiters, he knew bath time across the street. Either way, the seasonal battling well under way, David found opportunity to follow testosterone's syllogism to its second conclusion.
Undoubtedly when the truth of what transpired began to grow with her, David blamed Bathsheba. "What business did she have, anyway, bathing on the roof like that? She must have known my habits and trapped me, freshly fertile as she was. What was I supposed to do? After all, a man is a man."
And a sin is a sin, no doubt about it. Though David could conduct his warfare from the distance, there was no proxy available with Bathsheba. Even her husband proved too pious for David's plans. So attempting to cover once more what he should never have uncovered, David had to make sure that Uriah got buried another way, in battle and then in spring's warming earth.
It is altogether too predictable. The good Lord, however, did not just say, "Boys will be boys." Instead, as David and Bathsheba struggled to extricate themselves from webs of consequence, God continued to work out another syllogism, this one driven by graciousness and fidelity -- especially to sinners.
As much as we may want to focus on David's act of adultery and the Hollywood-style details of the account, the key to the whole episode may be in the phrase in verse 1: "But David remained in Jerusalem." Until now he had been in the thick of every battle. He had been one with his army, fully engaged in the quest to secure the nation. Now that he has attained some measure of security and has consolidated his authority over all twelve tribes, David relaxes and lets down his guard. Though he does not know it, this is the most dangerous time of his life. The boy who fought lions and took on the feared Philistines doesn't seem to realize that the greatest danger he will ever face will now come to him through the subtleties of his own sexual desires. One of the greatest deceptions of power is that it leads David to think he can have whatever he wants.
The story also illustrates vividly the stark difference between lust and love. David has never met Bathsheba when he first sees her. He only knows that she is attractive to him. There is no long-term relationship culminating in intercourse as the seal of a permanent relationship and as the sign of a lifetime of fidelity. It all happens very quickly. But its consequences, for David and Bathsheba and her family and the nation, will go on and on.
Assuming that he is still in control and can manage any circumstance and predetermine its outcome, David proceeds immediately to "fix" what is going wrong. But he is in for one of life's most difficult lessons: namely, that sin and injustice can not be patched up or glossed over. The man in control has lost control. It is a sad, disheartening picture that emerges from this text.
Ephesians 3:14-21
This lesson is also about power. But the power of which Paul speaks is exactly what David forgot. The power is in the One who "is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or think." To get at the point of this text it is important to note that what immediately precedes it -- verses 2-13 -- is actually an interlude. In typical Pauline fashion (assuming he is the author), he goes off on a tangent and then returns to his main theme, which, in this case, is the unity between Jew and Gentile which only Christ can bring about. That makes the phrase "from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name" a key expression. Until now Israel has been God's special people, chosen through Abraham to be a blessing to all families of the earth. Now through Christ God is calling all peoples to be members of one family of faith.
The prayer that follows in verses 16-21 is one of the most intense in the New Testament. A.T. Robertson notes that "nowhere does Paul sound such depth of spiritual emotion or rise to such heights of spiritual passion as here." To be "strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit" calls attention to the tragedy of the life of David in today's Old Testament lesson. He had all of the power and authority a person could ask for. But in the search for that pinnacle of external power he had neglected the inner fortifications that could have spared him such grief.
The phrase "that Christ may dwell in your hearts" means literally to "make his home" in your life. Paul has been an occasional visitor in the churches in and around Ephesus. That is not how he wants them to think of Christ. When Christ comes, he wants to stay, to "be at home" with us.
The same idea is conveyed with the expression "rooted and grounded in love." Like the good soil in the parable of Jesus, so the believer is seen as a tree that stands tall in the wind and rain because it is deeply rooted in the soil of a durable relationship with God in Christ. It is a life with more than one dimension. It has "breadth and length and height and depth."
The conclusion of this text has been described as "the dizzy heights of the Christian experience." The words take off. One has the feeling that this is as far as one can go with mere human language. To praise God is to stand in awe and wonder, failing to find that expression which will say it all. This comes as close as we can imagine.
John 6:1-21
The feeding of the multitude marks a turning point in all four Gospels. The popular response to Jesus has been growing to the point where he seems almost at a loss to know how to handle it. From this juncture and on, the ministry moves away from the north and from the Sea of Galilee and toward the south and Jerusalem. The entire shape of Jesus' ministry changes as he becomes less and less the One who heals and feeds and more and more the one who will suffer and die. Whereas until now many have been awestruck by his power and authority to do miracles and to command the attention of the crowds, now he will begin to challenge the powers that be and suffer the consequences.
Many believe that this incident happened at the time when crowds were moving toward Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover -- and thus the large crowd. Passover is like a Jewish Fourth of July. It was, and is, a time to remember God's mercy to the nation in the past and to look forward to God's blessings for the future. Messianic hope ran high at this time. The fact that Jesus refuses such popular notions and sends the crowd away is an aspect of the text that is often overlooked. He is not interested in their hopes and dreams for a popular deliverer. For them, a Messiah who refuses to be king cannot be the Promised One. Enthusiasm will flare up again briefly at the time of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but then will die away again very quickly.
Given the fact that the account is actually written long after the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is not surprising that many expositors see eucharistic and eschatological elements in the story of the feeding. The miracle worker who fulfills old covenant expectations by feeding the masses will soon be the Suffering Servant of the Lord who will give his body and shed his blood for them. The One who some -- including the disciples -- think will free them from the domination of Rome will soon be the One who will promise to sit with them at the banquet in a kingdom to come.
When linked with the previous chapters, it has been suggested that the emphasis in this part of John is on God's gift in Christ. In chapter 3 the gift is new life that comes as one is born anew. In chapter 4 the gift is the living water which alone can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. In chapter 5 the gift is the Son himself who is sent by the Father to give life and make judgments. In chapter 6 it is the gift of the living bread.
Suggestions For Preaching
This is a good Sunday to address the relationships between power and temptation. It is evident in the account of David and Bathsheba. But it is also at the heart of the Letter to the Ephesians where the believers are urged to see that the source of their lives is not in themselves but in surrender to the will and purpose of God. And in the Gospel lesson the disciples are frustrated that they cannot address the needs of the crowds who have come to hear Jesus. The miracle of the loaves and fishes is Jesus' way of helping them to begin to understand that the secret to the unfolding Kingdom is in dependence on God rather than themselves.
Jonathan Edwards preached about the contrast between our search for self-gratification and the unending search for a deeper relationship with God. The latter, said Edwards, is a quest in which believers "may to their utmost indulge their hungering after righteousness, and after the Word of God, and after all spiritual pleasures. They may indulge those appetites as much as they will in their thoughts and in their meditations and in their practice. They may drink, yea, swim in the rivers of spiritual pleasure ... We ought to take all opportunities to lay ourselves in the way of enticement with respect to our gracious inclinations." (Jonathan Edwards, "Spiritual Appetites Need No Bounds," For All The Saints, Delhi, NY: ALPB, 1994, p. 56.) If David had stayed on this course his life, the history of Israel might have been quite different. And so it is with us and those to whom we preach on this day.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
2 Samuel 11:1-15
In the logic of a sinner, once a man has a place to sleep -- a house is best but relative safety will do -- a couple of other needs take priority. One is a good fight; the other is women, the plural being emphatic.
One season doesn't have a lock on testosterone-induced conflict, but verse one still rings beyond the text, describing larger realities: "It was the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to war...." T.S. Eliot said it another way, "April is the cruelest month...." Somehow, when life starts to stir, when the earth opens to receive its seed, when there is beauty in the bud and the land grows curvaceous with promised bounty, men start looking for a fight.
As the kings went, so go the male CEOs, presidents, captains and their ilk, and along with them faculties, church councils and sandlot baseball teams. It is as though, with all that surging life, something has to spill.
It's best, of course, when a man can have it by proxy. So David, who won his stripes on Goliath, later Saul, and then the Philistines, has come into his power now and can stay at home, keeping track from a safe distance. Naturally, in the predictable perversity of such a circumstance, he seeks the roof. There he can survey not only his domain but himself in power, managing all that spreads below him.
Maybe it was as innocent as the text suggests. Perhaps, older now but still definitely capable of some sprint-induced reconnoiters, he knew bath time across the street. Either way, the seasonal battling well under way, David found opportunity to follow testosterone's syllogism to its second conclusion.
Undoubtedly when the truth of what transpired began to grow with her, David blamed Bathsheba. "What business did she have, anyway, bathing on the roof like that? She must have known my habits and trapped me, freshly fertile as she was. What was I supposed to do? After all, a man is a man."
And a sin is a sin, no doubt about it. Though David could conduct his warfare from the distance, there was no proxy available with Bathsheba. Even her husband proved too pious for David's plans. So attempting to cover once more what he should never have uncovered, David had to make sure that Uriah got buried another way, in battle and then in spring's warming earth.
It is altogether too predictable. The good Lord, however, did not just say, "Boys will be boys." Instead, as David and Bathsheba struggled to extricate themselves from webs of consequence, God continued to work out another syllogism, this one driven by graciousness and fidelity -- especially to sinners.
