David for King, Confession

We are in the sixth week of our series "David for King. For nine weeks this summer we are taking a look at the epic life of King David.  Nine weeks is not enough time to cover David’s entire life, so we are leaving out many interesting stories. We encourage, and challenge you, to read for yourself the story of David's life in your bible, which is in 1st and 2nd Samuel as well as 1st Chronicles.  God is looking for a king after his own heart and has become very dissatisfied with the current King, Saul, because Saul does not listen to God. So God has the prophet Samuel anoint David the future king of Israel. David becomes a warrior and is very successful. As his popularity grows, so does King Saul’s jealousy and envy of David.

Saul tries to kill David out of jealousy, but David escapes and spends 10 years of his life on the run from Saul.

Ultimately Saul is killed in battle and David becomes king. There are two major decisions David makes as king. Number one, he decides to move the capital of Israel to the city of Jerusalem. And number two, he brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant was a box that contained the 10 Commandments, the tablets given to Moses.  It was the most palpable presence of God to the people of Israel. David does this to show that he is going to be under God's authority, and he's going to worship God as he rules the Kingdom of Israel.

David makes many good decisions. He defeats his enemies. He is kind to the people. He continues to worship God.

But today we’re going to talk about some of David's mistakes. David had made mistakes before, but the more authority you have, the more your mistakes, failures, and sins affect other people. David does sin, but his real failure is in how he handles his sin.

For example, a king's job was to lead his men into battle, but David decides not to go to a particular battle. Instead he sends Joab and all his servants. David shirks his responsibility. And nothing really good happens when you shirk your responsibilities.

So David is bored because he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing. He's looking for something to do, something to entertain him. And there, lo and behold, he sees a woman bathing on the roof.  This was a common practice in that culture.

Women would prepare a bath on the rooftop because the sun would warm the water. The men were supposed to be out in the fields or in battle, so women would have had some privacy, but that's not what happens here.

David inquires about the woman, and he is asked, "Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite?"  In other words, Someone in David’s court puts up a big stop sign saying David, don't go there. Don't ask about her, she's someone's daughter, and most importantly, she someone's wife.” A big red flag is put in front of David, in a very tactful way, but David ignores it.

David brings her into his palace, has relations with her, and then sends her home.

Things get complicated, Bathsheba conceived and told David she was with child.  Now David has a decision to make. How does he handle this sin?

We can all admit, when we sin, we are greatly tempted to cover it up.  We also know in covering up, the situation gets worse. More evil is done in covering up a mistake.  We've seen this played out over and over again, haven't we? In the larger culture: from Facebook's Cambridge Analytica debacle to Boeing’s 737 Max Scandal, Golden Sachs to Roundup Weed Killer scandals, College Admission fraud to the abuse scandals in our own church, the cover-up winds up being as bad as the initial sin, YES?  When we hide our messes, we make a mess of our lives, our souls, and our hearts. And yet, we're very tempted to lie about our sins and mistakes.

David has a choice, admit his mistake, admit his sin, or cover it up? He chooses to cover it up. He first chooses to cover it up by bringing Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, home from the battle, and he tries to get Uriah to go home and be with his wife. But Uriah does not go home. He sleeps outside the palace. David asks Uriah, "why didn't you go home?" Uriah says, "I can't go home. My men are out in the field battling, I can't take advantage of my privileges as a husband when they're doing that."  So then David writes a letter to Joab, who was the commander of the Israel armies, and tells him to put Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him, so that Uriah may be killed. David orders Uriah's death to cover up his sin! Uriah IS killed along with some others.

So besides Uriah, others also die, all because David is trying to cover up his sin.

Let’s take a step back from our story for just a moment. For the last six weeks we have used David to highlight certain aspects of our Sunday biblical readings. Here is how David’s story highlights our readings today.  David has sinned and lied. We lie to protect our ego which is nothing but vanity. The first reading says: Vanity of vanities, All things are vanity! The second reading says: Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its false practices and have put on the new self, stop lying to one another. Furthermore,  David desires to possess Bathsheba. He is not satisfied with what God has given him, and he gets greedy:

The Gospel tells us today: Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions. Hmm. . .yes, David gets greedy.

You know. . . through all of this there is one person we have not heard from.  It is someone David was in constant communication with, but who is absent from this whole episode.  David - had - not - inquired - of - the - Lord. Prior to this episode, David always talks to God and listens to God.  David didn’t go to God as he had before because he knew he was wrong.

God was not happy with David, but David goes on with his life.  He takes Bathsheba into his home, and tries to go on as if nothing had happened. But David was a man of character.

Despite his sins, he was a man of character and leaders with character and integrity, don't just sin and go on as if nothing happened.  As a matter of fact, David writes: When I failed to declare my sin, my body wasted away through groaning all day long. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” (Psalm 32)

So God is not happy with David, and God knows David's not happy with himself.  Then God, in his great mercy, sends the Prophet Nathan to confront David. Nathan challenges David and gets him to admit his sin. Through Nathan, God says to David, "David, I don't get it. I protected you from King Saul. I've given you riches, and glory, and honor. I would have given you so much more. Why have you done this thing that was so displeasing?"

And David says, "I have sinned against the Lord. I am wrong."  Finally. . . finally David sets his vanity, greed, and hardness of heart aside and listens to God’s voice which is reflected in our responsorial psalm today: "If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."

Well. . .  Nathan tells David, there will be negative consequences as a result of your sin. Number one, there is going to be fighting among your children. Secondly, the child conceived in adultery will die.

David goes and prays. The child becomes sick, and David continues praying. But after a week, he hears the child is dead. So David gets up, washes himself, eats some food, and begins going about his day as normal.  His counselors say "David, we don’t understand.

Your child has died, and now you're just going on with your life?"  David says, "When the child was still alive, I fasted and I wept. I said, perhaps the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live, but now that he is dead, why should I fast?  Can I bring him to life again?" David still has trust in the Lord despite his sins, which are grievous (gree·vuhs).  David repents and returns to God.  He didn't get angry at God. David trusted that whatever God allowed to happen, God was still good, and God was still in charge.

Today we learn that instead of covering up our sins, we should admit them. We admit them first to ourselves, then to God personally, and in the sacrament of confession, and then to the appropriate people in our lives.

We see from David's story, if we are willing to admit things upfront we can save the pain that comes from a cover-up.  We see that when we admit our failures, and confess them to God, it brings peace to our hearts. Ultimately, admitting our sins and failures to God and the people around us, especially the people that deserve to hear it, builds trust.

We should also receive admissions of failure and sin from others with grace and mercy.  People don't come to us and admit their mistakes because they're afraid of our response.  If we create environments where people feel free to admit their failures, we'll have much healthier families, communities, a healthier church and world!  This is not easy.

It's hard to admit our mistakes and sins, and it's sometimes very difficult to meet people with grace and mercy when they fail or sin.

Please do not misunderstand me, this is not about excusing incompetence.  Even when people admit their mistakes, sometimes there might be restitution to be made or work to be made up.  For you may have made the type of mistake that requires you to do something to make up for it.

Here is the good news, when we admit our sins, admit our failures, confess our sins, we free our hearts and our souls.  We free ourselves to live as God's sons and daughters. And, not only does that feel great, but our world will be a better place when we make these commitments to be honest and forgiving with God and each other.