In the spring, the time when kings
go to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and the people Israel with him;
they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. David stayed in Jerusalem. Late
one afternoon, David got up from his couch and was walking about on the roof of
his palace; he saw from there a very beautiful woman bathing. He sent someone
to ask who she was. He was told “She is Bathsheba, a daughter of Eliam, the
wife of Uriah the Hittite.” David sent a messenger to bring
her to him, and he lay with her, even though she was purifying herself after
her period. She returned to her home, but later discovered she was pregnant,
and sent a message to David. David sent word to Joab, “Send me
Uriah the Hittite.” When Uriah came, David asked how Joab and the people fared,
and how the war was going. He said to Uriah, “Go to your home, wash the dust
off your feet.” Uriah went out, David’s gift to him a homeleave. Instead, Uriah
slept in front of the king’s house with all the servants, and did not go home. When
David learned that Uriah did not go home, he asked, “Why didn’t you go home,
after such a long journey?” Uriah replied, “It is the Festival
of Booths. The Ark, and Israel and Judah remain in booths; Joab and the servants are camping in the open
field; shall I then go home, eat and drink, bed my wife? As you live, and as
your soul lives, I would not do that.” So David said , “Stay
here today too. Tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem. The
next day, David invited him to dinner and got him drunk; he went out to lie on
his couch with the servants, but he did not go home.
In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and had Uriah
deliver it. In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line where the
fighting is worst, and then leave him, so that he will be struck and killed.”
Then God
sent the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan told a story. “There were two men in a
city, one rich, the other poor. The rich man had many herds; the poor man had
nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He raised it, and it became
a family member like his children; it would eat the small amount of food he
could give, drink from his cup, cuddle with him, and was like a daughter to
him. The rich man had company and did not want to use one of his own herd to
prepare for his guest. He took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that instead.”
David became angry at this and said to Nathan, “As God lives, the man who has
done this deserves to die; he shall repay that lamb fourfold,
because he did such a thing with no conscience.” Nathan said to
David, “You are the man! The God of Israel says this: I anointed you king over
Israel, I rescued you from Saul; I gave you his house, his
wives and everything he owned; I gave you Israel and Judah and brought them
together; and if that was not enough, I would have given more. Why
have you turned your back on God and done this evil? You have killed Uriah, and
taken his wife as your own.”
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“I danced on a Friday when the world turned black,
it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back,…”
What if a movie were made of our lives, but in order to sell the movie, our most embarrassing and humiliating sins were published in graphic detail! Let’s say you read in the Church Newsletter that a video of your steamy life will be shown during coffee time! Would you be there to watch??? I don’t think so. We want our best side in the viewing eye.
The Bible gives us two totally different portraits of David. One is in 1st Chronicles, Chapter 11 where the story of David the great king is told. In this portrait, the story of David is recorded much like those wonderful paintings of military heroes, in full uniform, a Napoleonic conqueror, a spiritual national icon with no failings at all!
The other portrait of David is in today’s text from Samuel. This is the person who, as a boy, had courage to kill an enemy, who as a man and king was not afraid to dance in front of the Ark of the Covenant, all the way into Jerusalem, who loved God and was a just and honest man. This is also the dancing king whose wife Michal saw him dancing with abandon, and despised him. There’s a picture of David’s life right there – a marriage with no love. He had all of Saul’s wives, concubines, possessions – and became a king. This is the stuff that movies are made of - a man caught in his most sinful, and humiliating person.
In this story it’s spring and time for the armies to go out and beat on each other. So David’s army is out in the thick of battle. Even though David should be, he isn’t. He is the military leader, but he isn’t there – I noticed even when reading Chronicles that the names of the leaders who won the battle for David are given. Instead of being with his troops, David is back in Jerusalem-withdrawing from the action. It’s been suggested that the enormous success has gone to his head, and instead of recognising the role of God in this dance he has perhaps abandoned his faith, begun dancing to a different tune.
So David is walking on his palace veranda and there sees Bathsheba, taking a bath to purify herself. He sends for his personal servant to find out who she is. And the servant says:
“Isn’t this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah the Hittite?"
Now normally the answer would be - "this is so and so, the daughter of so and so and the granddaughter of so and so." The servant points out that she is the wife of someone. It’s a tiny but telling detail – the servant is saying as plainly as possible without losing his life, "Sir, the lady’s married."
But, she’s beautiful and he’s king and figures he can do as he wishes, so he sends for her, sleeps with her, discards her and sends her home. One could probably make a case for rape, since she would have no option to refuse. David does the dance of a king who is taken with himself, and whose judgment and sense of appropriate boundaries is now flawed.
About a month later Bathsheba realises she is pregnant and tells David. David gives Uriah a month’s leave, sure that they will unwittingly solve the baby problem. Uriah, however, is an ethical man who will not enjoy comfort while the men he commands are risking their lives on the field of battle; instead he sleeps in the servant’s quarters. Next, David gets Uriah totally drunk, but still Uriah insists on staying in the servant’s quarters. David knows that once it becomes evident Bathsheba is pregnant, Uriah is going to know the baby wasn’t his. In a final act of desperation, David sends Uriah to the battle with a letter for Joab, David’s military commander. "Put Uriah right on the front line," orders David. Within the hour, Uriah is dead. Bathsheba barely gets through the mourning period when David brings her to the palace and puts her with his other wives.
So that’s the portrait of David you won’t find in 1 Chronicles. A man who danced for and with God, reduced to doing a tap dance around having a husband killed because he just had to have the man’s wife. Instead of being a man of faith, David has begun to believe he is a god himself. Instead of dancing for God, now dancing into the bedroom having taken the wife of someone else just because he could.
Enter Nathan the preacher/prophet. David has no idea that he’s hearing a morality sermon; he’s not in a synagogue listening to a rabbi. Nathan tells this story about a rich guy with large flocks of sheep, who arrogantly takes the pet lamb of a poor neighbour’s family down the road, kills it and serves it up as the main entrĂ©e to his guests.
David is outraged that such a selfish and cruel thing could happen, and says the man should be put to death sentence. Nathan says calmly, "You are that man!"
With each word in Nathan’s story, David becomes more incensed until finally he hears real truth - You are that person. You! David’s dance has become upfront and personal. David is dancing with the devil on his back – and he didn’t know it till Nathan smacked him in the face with it – and story he could not deny. It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.
A gospel – good news is told in this story too. We’re created by God in God’s own image. But we are not God ourselves. Every time we lose the boundaries and think we are God, we have to dance with the devil on our backs – and it gets harder and harder. Dancing isn’t for joy or praise any more, it’s a dance of death. David started thinking he was God.
More David, less God. The more David behaves as if he is God, the less visible God becomes. David treats Bathsheba as if he is God, owning her and giving her no choice. He gives death commands to Joab, and acts as if he is God with Uriah, determining his fate.
David knew he was doing something wrong. Somewhere along the way he had stopped prayer and his faith life, he had stopped dancing the dance of life for God. He tried to cover his actions, and when that didn’t work, he got even deeper in and committed murder by proxy. Somewhere along the line he had withdrawn from commitment to God.
But there is grace, too. Nathan tells a story which makes David aware of God again. Psalm 51 is David’s God-recovery psalm. He learns that God never gives up on human beings. Our once-broken bones can dance again. Hear David’s words…..
"Create in me a clean heart, God, put a new and right spirit within me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit."
May it be so.
Sources:
1.
Deep Wounds in the Family a
sermon on David and Bathsheba, 2 Sam 11:1-15, 12:1-9
by Rev. Thomas Hall
by Rev. Thomas Hall
2. Psalm
51 vs. 10 and 12 paraphrase
3. Exerpt from "Lord of the Dance" by Sydney Carter.
