This week we have two very different texts from our Old Testament and New Testament. On the one hand, we have the story of David and Bathsheba and God’s anger at the sinful actions of David. On the other, we have a much more loving view of God that forgives. However, I think we need both stories in order to get the fuller picture of what is going on.
In case you don’t remember the whole story of David and Bathsheba – essentially, it went like this. David was roaming his palace – being a pretty poor military leader actually. He was at home living it up while his men were out fighting and dying in battle. It’s late afternoon, and he goes out on the roof of his home, which was naturally higher than any other house in all of Judah – and he spies a woman taking a bath. Deciding he must have this woman, he summons her, sleeps with her, and gets her pregnant. His private little escapade is now about to become extremely public.
So David scrambles to try and cover up his little indiscretion by telling Uriah the Hittite to come home and sleep with his life. But being a good soldier – he will do no such thing. He wasn’t about to come home and sleep with his wife when his fellow comrades in arms were out still fighting the good fight.
So, David’s solution: summon my hit-man Joab and have the guy killed, but make it look like an accident. Then he can marry Bathsheba and his private little indiscretion never has to be made public.
Now if this story has the ring of familiarity to it – it should. Perhaps no one was actually killed as a result of their indiscretions, but we are no strangers to public figures doing much the same thing – their private gaffs becoming public fodder. Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, Jesse James – the names change, but the story essentially remains the same.
And we all sit and ask the question, “Why?” These guys had EVERYTHING going for them. They were successful. They were rich. They were powerful. They were on top of the world… and then… they go and do THIS?
And that’s God’s reaction to David as well. I gave you everything – a kingdom, money, women – all that you could possibly desire, and if you had wanted more, I would have given you more. But you had to go and do THIS? Why, David? Why did you do it??
When asked that same question – Bill and Tiger’s response was fairly simple – because they could.
But here’s the rub with these kinds of actions. Lives are destroyed. Families are ripped apart. People get hurt. These are the consequences of our sinful actions. It’s not just us getting embarrassed, but our sins actually wind up hurting other people. And the repercussions continue to affect our families, friends and loved ones.
God’s promises to David are not revoked… but there will be consequences to David’s actions.
Many people interpret the fact that God states that the sword will never leave David’s house as a curse of some sort. I say it’s simply God acknowledging what the repercussions of his sin are going to cause. David is supposed to be a role model for his children. They learn from his actions. They see what he does, and follow suit.
It’s no wonder then that assassination and ambition are the lessons his sons learn later in life. That one – just like his father – will take whatever he wants simply because he wants it. His son learned that lesson well. Amnon, David’s son, rapes David’s daughter, Tamar. One doesn’t have to question much where on earth Amnon learned that just taking a woman you lust after is okay. This of course angers David’s other son, Absalom – who eventually winds up killing Amnon because David refuses to take any action against Amnon for this crime. Later, Absalom tries to overthrow David and is killed by David’s hit-man – Joab. The same man David sent to kill Uriah the Hittite. I hope you are able to see the irony here.
To David’s credit, he doesn’t try and justify his actions. He seems to recognize his depravity. He does not try to explain. He does not protest the judgment. He says simply, "I have sinned against the Lord." Perhaps David realizes, not only that he has done something evil, but that as the anointed one of the Lord, there is no such thing as a strictly personal action or a personal sin, one that has nothing to do with his public role as God's anointed king.
Because our sins are never private sins. They have repercussions that extend into our families, our friends, and sometimes even our livelihoods. This is why God despises sin so much. Why God cannot stand it when we do these things because of the harm it causes. God will not allow this boundary between the personal and the private to be maintained. The "personal sin" has a "professional" and public consequence.
And I think it is therefore extremely important we recognize how God feels about our sinful behavior before we jump into the gospel text. Perhaps we don’t commit quite the major gaff that David did, our actions aren’t resulting necessarily in someone losing their life.
But we need to recognize how God feels about sin and it’s not something we can just gloss over. Which is what we tend to do these days. “Well, everyone sins, so who cares? Let it go.”
God cares – that’s who. God takes our sin extremely seriously. We try to justify our sinful behavior by measuring ourselves against other people. “Well, what I’m doing isn’t as bad as what they’re doing – so really, I’m ok.”
And in essence, this is sort of what Simon the Pharisee in our gospel lesson for today thinks. Compared to the sin of this woman who comes in and washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and hair – Simon thinks he’s doing pretty okay on the God-scale of worthiness. He is apparently “worthy” of having dinner with the Son of God – but not this woman. Her sin is too great in comparison.
And we aren’t even told exactly what this woman has done to be labeled a “sinner.” Most think she probably was a prostitute of some sort – hence why all the men seem to know what her sin is. They’ve no doubt contributed in their own way to her sinful behavior. Prostitutes normally become prostitutes because they see no other way to support themselves.
But here’s what I find so fascinating – the grateful attitude of this woman. She doesn’t come in trying to justify why she’s sinned. Very much like David, she doesn’t attempt to give Jesus her tale of woe or explain away why she’s done whatever she has done. Instead, she falls at the feet of Jesus and starts to cry. Because she knows how God feels about her sin. She knows He hates it. He despises it. Yet – he has extended the graceful hand of forgiveness to this woman. And she takes it in. Totally undeserved forgiveness.
And how do we respond to God’s forgiveness? Jesus hits on an interesting point – for those of us who “sin a little” – we seem to take it for granted. Because we don’t feel as though we really even need it all that much. After all – they’re just “little” sins. We’re basically good people. We don’t do things that are all THAT bad. We come to church, say our confession of sins, and move on. We rarely throw ourselves down at Jesus’ feet and cry over our sins.
But Jesus points out, even our little sins need to be forgiven by God, but if we don’t view them as being all that big – we tend not to respond to God accordingly. “Those who are forgiven little, love little.”
Now this is not a call to go out and do something horrible so that God can forgive you, you can be extremely grateful, and then go be a more loving person because of it. As Paul would say, do we sin all the more so that grace may abound? By no means. The problem is – people who are forgiven little, usually don’t think they really needed to be forgiven in the first place.
Jesus is just pointing out a reality. Because we don’t necessarily view our sins as major as other people’s sins, we tend not to be as grateful for that forgiveness. We tend not to SEEK the forgiveness we are all in need of because we don’t take them that seriously.
We tend to think our “little sins” are of no consequence.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Rather, this is how sin deceives us. It starts by making modest proposals. It presents itself as a harmless indulgence, posing no immediate danger. This was the case with King David. It all began with lust and a desire to have Bathsheba. The consequences of this one "little sin" were enormous.
Imagine if David's initial temptation to look at Bathsheba had revealed its final goal by saying something like this: "David, my plan is to begin by getting you to lust after this woman, then you will commit adultery with her, get her pregnant, murder her husband to cover it up, resulting in the death of the child. This will sow the seeds of rebellion in your own children as they watch you bring untold misery on your household, and ultimately – your little lustful sin will tear the kingdom apart." Knowing this, do you think David would have said, "Surely one more look won't hurt"?
The little sins need to be dealt with as much as the big sins do – in much the same way baby cobra snakes need to be killed. Baby cobra’s bites are just as poisonous as the adult – but people don’t necessarily take them as seriously because they’re just little things. But they also grow up to be big snakes. And we have learned all too well the dangerous nature of snake bites in the past few weeks, with one of our own members suffering the effects of a rattle-snake bite.
The nature of sin does not change simply because we are Christians. God still hates it. It's still dangerous. It's still poisonous. It still bites! Even the “little” sins. And just because we’re forgiven doesn’t mean we can go about condoning other people’s sins – saying they’re no worse than I am. Maybe not – but both should be in throwing themselves at Jesus’ feet.
Stop the little sins before they grow up to be big sins. Stop the lust before it grows up to adultery. Stop the anger before it grows up to murder. Stop the desires before they grow up to addiction. Seek forgiveness before the little sins have the opportunity to wreak chaos in your life.
Because let’s face it – few of us are inclined to go out and commit most of those “big” sins. We sit there, much like the Pharisee, thinking we are not in need of forgiveness. We aren’t as “bad” as other people. We try to not name the sin in our lives because really – in comparison, are they that bad?
Answer – yes. They are. But because we don’t recognize them as such, because we tend to let them slide by – we have a hard time even acknowledging sometimes what actually IS a sin. If it’s not hurting anyone that we can see – then it must be ok, failing to realize what future repercussions those sins may have in our lives and in our society.
That is what is so remarkable about this woman in the gospel. She acknowledges her need for forgiveness. She makes no attempts to justify her actions. Doesn’t point fingers at other people and go, “they’ve done worse.” She owns up to her own sinfulness. She lays down at the feet of Jesus and awaits his judgment upon her.
And he forgives. She is restored, put back in a right relationship – but let us not forget that the forgiveness was a necessary element. She had done something that required God’s forgiveness. We all do things that require God’s forgiveness, that require us to throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus and cry out – “I am a sinner. I need forgiveness.”
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