Well, last week in our reading, the Israelites were on the cusp of the promised land, and they were looking back and reflecting on all the things that had happened and all of the people who had worked so hard to get them where they are.

But what happens when you get everything that you ever wanted? Well, usually we want more, right?

And the people wanted more. They wanted to be like their neighbors around them who all had kings. And God tried to dissuade them from this notion, saying, “No, no. You can all live together happily with me as your king.” And they said, “That’s nice, but we want one of us as king.” And so God reluctantly went along with their plan, and we find out today, in today’s reading, why that might not have been the best idea.

2 Samuel 11:1–5, 26–27; 12:1–9

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

It happened, late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare and drink from his cup and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.”

Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your bosom and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah, and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

These days, it’s generally meant as a compliment, but in today’s passage, it’s more of an accusation. Nathan says to David, “You are the man.” But he’s not laying flowers at David’s feet. He’s calling him to account for his egregious abuse of power.

David, we know, is a biblical hero, one of the most important figures in Israel’s history. The Gospel writers make sure they can trace Jesus’ lineage back to David. That’s how important and well-regarded he is: king of Israel, player of the harp, writer of Psalms, and so much more.

David’s story begins humbly. The youngest and smallest of his brothers, forgotten and dismissed by everyone, including his own father, David is the ultimate underdog. And the story of David and Goliath still stands today as the ultimate underdog story, right?

But the scene that we just read happens much later in David’s life and career. He’s been in power now for a long time. People love him. Enemies fear him. His servants will do anything for him. Even he is beginning to believe the hype. The power and endless praise have gone to his head. He has started to think that he deserves all of it, that he is superior, that they are lucky to have him as their king.

And his relationship with God shifts as well. Where he was once grateful and humble and eager to serve, now he speaks to God as if they’re on the same plane, the same status.

Then Allie Rosner Bass writes, “It happens one evening when David’s troops are out to war. Kings were supposed to lead their armies into battle. David, however, stays home and is taking a stroll on the rooftop of his palace. Perhaps a clue that something is already wrong.”

And from his vantage point on the roof, David sees a beautiful woman bathing and is determined to have her. The whole affair is reported matter-of-factly in a terse sequence of verbs: David sends for her, she comes, he lies with her, she returns.

And as if this is not bad enough on its own, David knows that the woman, Bathsheba, is married to one of his generals, Uriah. But that doesn’t stop him. Quite to the contrary, when Bathsheba confronts him with the consequences of what he has done, saying to him, “I’m pregnant,” David doubles down.

Instead of confessing his fault and seeking to make amends, he sends Uriah to the front of the battle lines with instructions for his troops to pull back and leave him stranded, essentially getting the enemy troops to do his dirty work for him.

When word returns that Uriah has been killed, David then brings Bathsheba into his house. To those looking in from the outside, this may seem incredibly generous and magnanimous on David’s part—to take this poor widow and her family and give them a home after what has happened to her husband, the war hero Uriah. But those who know what truly happened, including us, know David’s shame and guilt. He is a rapist, an abuser, a murderer, and a despot.

But here’s the real question we’re likely to miss if we’re too distracted by the bawdy and scandalous tale: Why does the Bible include this at all? It certainly doesn’t reflect well on David, one of Israel’s greatest figures and heroes.

“You are the man,” Nathan says to David, but he’s not offering a compliment. He has just told David a story about someone seeing something that didn’t belong to him, but he took it nonetheless. And upon hearing this in the abstract, David’s sense of justice is offended. How dare he do such a thing? Bring him to me so that I can set things right.

But Nathan says to him, “No, you are the man. It’s you, the wrongdoer. You have violated God’s justice. You assaulted Bathsheba. You killed Uriah. And you lied to the people, and you lied to yourself.”

It took Nathan telling David a story, supposedly about someone else, for him to see the truth. But do you get what that means about David? David still knows right from wrong. When he hears it in the abstract, he knows what justice requires. He just has become distant from it because of his power and his privilege.

Bass writes, “The story presents a cautionary tale about the dangers of power. David, securely ensconced in his palace and confident of his absolute authority, sees something he wants and makes it his.”

And the prophet Samuel had warned of this when the Israelite elders first came asking for a king. A king, he said, will take your sons for his army and your daughters as his servants. He will take your fields and your vineyards and your cattle and your sheep. That’s from 1 Samuel, chapter 8. Now Samuel’s warnings appear to be coming true.

In other words, this is actually less about David and his character and more about the fact that the people wanted to have a king like the other nations. God’s warning about how power can corrupt even the purest of people is at odds with the people’s desire to cede their agency to someone else. They don’t want the responsibility of governing. They want someone else to tell them what to do.

While attractive for the short term, over time things erode and temptation becomes too great. You start to believe the hype. People want to do things for you. You see an opportunity, and you look around and you ask, “Who’s going to stop me?” And not just that: “Who will even call me out on what I’m doing?”

No, they’ll praise me and tell me that I deserve it and that exceptions are made for the great ones.

And for the rest of us, we start off innocent as well. But then comfort starts to kick in, and we say things like, “Well, you know, too many cooks in the kitchen doesn’t really work,” or, “Someone has to take charge. Leaders lead, and the rest of us follow and obey.”

But soon disobedience starts to get called disloyalty, and we become afraid to speak truth to power. What will it cost us if we do? I don’t need a target on my back, thank you very much.

And soon it becomes easier to believe that those in power just operate from a different set of rules from the rest of us. “It’s not fair,” we might say, “but it is the way that it is.”

Now, unless you think that I’m starting to talk about current events from a purely partisan perspective, I do admit that I see this playing out in today’s politics. But—and I mean this sincerely—if your takeaway from today’s sermon is, “Mark was right, and those people really need to shape up and do better,” then I dare say you missed my point.

My point is that I think this is precisely why Scripture tells us this story about our beloved David—heroic David, humble and faithful David—because even he, even the very best among us, is not immune to this warning.

We are all David. We are not all Bathsheba and Nathan.

Let me put this another way. One of John Calvin’s most misunderstood teachings, perhaps even more than predestination, is that of total depravity. I know—Calvin sounds like such a fun guy, right?

When Calvin writes about total depravity, he doesn’t mean that each one of us is completely unredeemable or that some are wholly despicable, but that all of us—each and every one of us—are capable of depravity.

We’ll talk about this more next week, but we can’t simply divide humanity into sinners and saints. Rather, each of us is both at once. We are sinners capable of sainthood, and we are saints who sometimes sin.

So, what difference can all this make for us here and now?

Well, if you didn’t know, early voting started here in Maryland. If you don’t already have a plan to vote on or before November 3, please go home this afternoon and make one.

While it’s definitely not my job to tell you how to vote, I can and do urge you to use your voice. Like Bathsheba, like Nathan, use your voice. It can and does make a difference.

Engage politically. Research issues. Vote your values. Vote for people, not parties. And remember, you are voting for people, not demigods. No one is perfect. Everyone can and may be corrupted by power.

Regular people are rarely our enemies, and we should be much more suspicious of those who want to convince us that they are than of those regular people.

“Voting isn’t marriage; it’s public transport,” writes Paul Tambyah. “You’re not waiting for the one who’s absolutely perfect; you’re getting on a bus. And if there isn’t one going exactly to your destination, you don’t just stay home. You take the one going closest to where you want to be.”

And to this I would only add: Don’t just vote at the polls. Don’t just vote every couple of years. Vote consistently and intentionally with your time, your talent, and your treasure as well. Vote every day for the kind of world that you want.

But perhaps more important and fundamental than that, make sure that the world that you want at least in some way resembles what Jesus called the kingdom of God, which will stand when all other kingdoms have fallen: a kingdom where justice and mercy work in harmony; where all sin is held to account; where power is told the truth in love; and where every voice not only makes a difference, but it makes the difference.

To God be the power and glory and honor, now and always.

Amen.

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