When Heaven and Earth are Distinct

Readings from the Old Testament: 2 Samuel 11: 1-17, 2 Samuel 12: 1-15

Reading from the New Testament: Ephesians 2: 8-9

Dr. Matthew S. Brown

August 13, 2006

You may have heard an author, speaker, or preacher speak of thin places, a magnificent image used to describe those wondrous moments when it seems the veil that separates earth and heaven is so thin that one can almost see through it.

Those moments just after a child is born; a candlelight Christmas Eve service; the organ swells, a door opens and your eyes meet the eyes of the one with whom you will share your life; the ever so sweet pain of crossing the finish line of a marathon; the prayerful and meditative moment just before the day dawns; the doctor smiles and says the tests were negative; friends gathered to witness the sight of a particular shade of cloth on Final Four weekend; those inexplicable and surprising moments when you feel the sudden embrace of God’s loving arms.

Your heart swells, your spine shivers, your eyes moisten and for a few precious seconds you can’t tell where earth ends and heaven begins.

We relish, we treasure, we yearn for such moments, and yet we know there are many other moments when earth and heaven are all too distinct.

He sits on the edge of an ottoman, elbows to knees, closed fists holding the weight of his chin, heart tearing, eyes glazed, staring emptily at a spider’s web forming on a corner baseboard. Understandably he is speechless, for how does one articulate the death of a relationship? She stands at the room’s edge, arms folded, propping up a door jam, her eyes focused on the toes of her right foot as they slowly slide along the fringe of the oriental carpet.

The shouting, the tears, the he said/she saids have subsided, replaced by a most heavy and sad silence. Never having been in this situation, neither knows what to do next. However, there is no confusion about earth and heaven in this room.

In the name of religion, a rocket is fired, an explosive vest is assembled and then for a few moments all the work of death and destruction ceases for a time of appointed prayer. Across an ocean, just before she leaves for a church service, a columnist puts the finishing touches on another piece demeaning, attacking, and spitting a most poisonous venom at all who would disagree with her, so proud and sure is she in the claim that God is on her side. Two different nations, cultures, and religions, and yet, in both instances heaven and earth seem so far apart.

On a playground a child strikes another. There was no provocation, no instigation. He could and so he did.

A president, a senator, a celebrity, an athlete somberly and soberly steps up to a bank of microphones at a called press conference to read a carefully worded statement. What is advertised as a public apology is actually a laundry list of reasons why he or she is not really to blame for the words or actions that were “misinterpreted,” “taken out of context,” “blown out of proportion.” Fault, it is implied, should be distributed among some combination of management, media, political opponents, and the unnamed “they.”

As much as we yearn for those thin places where heaven and earth are indistinguishable, far too many of our days are fogged by sin so thick that heaven seems completely hidden.

Eugene Peterson says that “sin stories, after a while, tend to sound pretty much alike: virtually all sins ring changes on the theme of wanting to be gods ourselves, taking charge of our own lives, asserting control over the lives of others.” He suggests that since there are only a finite number of ways to do this, we should have a pretty easy time finding ourselves somewhere in this disturbing little mini-series in the middle of David’s life. He says the David story “is a plunge into the earthiness of our humanity.” (Peterson, Leap Over a Wall) Contained within the story are the themes we hear every day on the news or through the gossip pipeline. Conspiracy, murder, assault, adultery, deception, cover-up, avoidance of responsibility, excuses, callousness, consequence.

Walter Brueggemann says that this little narrative in 2 Samuel tells us “more than we want to know about David and more than we can bear to understand about ourselves.” (Brueggemann, Genesis)

At this point David is as powerful as David is going to get. He has reached a point in his kingship where hundreds, thousands will jump in response to his every whim. The boy who would go out to face the battle from which everyone else has shied away has now become the king who sends others out to face the danger. In fact, he pretty much sends generals, servants, courtiers, and messengers to do everything for him and in the process becomes the poster child for the old proverb that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

David loses his humanity as he begins to treat others so inhumanely. He seems to have forgotten that many of the soldiers he sends out will not return. He doesn’t even have a conversation with Bathsheba before he takes advantage of his power over her. He ignores Uriah’s honor and loyalty and courage and treats him solely as a threat to be eliminated.

In exercising his sovereignty over the lives of others, David is deciding to take over the role of God and he does it poorly, and the consequences of this effort will plague him the rest of his life.

You’ve got to love Nathan, though, a member of the staff down the hall in the prophet department who shows the courage to speak the truth to power. Nathan is taking a tremendous risk here. Those in service of the king are most often heard speaking words of affirmation and praise, knowing that criticism or complaint could land them in a dungeon or worse, a grave.

But Nathan speaks as one who serves the Lord before he serves the king, and Nathan knows that though David has the power of life over him, eventually even the king must answer to God. And so, Nathan crafts an exquisite parable exposing the unjust actions of a rich man toward a poor man, knowing that it is so much easier for us to condemn others than to condemn ourselves. The story exposes the callous disregard of a person in power toward the life and household of another. And predictably, David’s anger toward the rich man in the parable is sparked and David is more than ready to render harsh and immediate punishment. David explodes, “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.”

Oh, but here it is that Nathan utters the four words that pro golfers love to hear but in this story, they are words that convict David and completely disarm him. “You are the man!”

David has just passed sentence on himself. David is forced to see himself as the person he has become, and it is not a pretty picture: Manipulative, self-involved, murderous, inconsiderate, captive to his worst impulses, ignorant of the worth of others.

The challenge for the reader, for us in this story is to consider the places in our lives where we have played the role of David and where we need to hear the word of Nathan. The misuse of power and the abuse of those around us. When have we manipulated situations to our advantage without consideration of the impact upon others? When have we callously disregarded the lives of others, ignoring their worth, their dignity, their rights?

As Brueggemann suggested, this story tells us “more than we want to know about David and more than we can bear to understand about ourselves.”

“You are the one!” Not words that we would want to hear, but words that time and again we need to hear.

Believe it or not, there is grace to be found in this story. O, David and others will have to suffer significant consequences for his actions, but there is hope to be found here because Nathan’s charges are not met with the denials that typically dominate our reactions to the exposure of our misdeeds. There are no false claims of innocence, no efforts to rationalize or offer excuse, no displacement of blame. David simply says, “I have sinned before the Lord.”

Did you ever consider that those are among the most hopeful words we can utter? For through these words we recognize our dependence upon God and God’s mercy. We stop trying to play God and acknowledge that when we have tried to play God we have failed miserably. With these words we finally confess that our hope is in God and not in ourselves.

As it is written in Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

It is the first step toward healing, the first step of recovery, the first step toward mending that which is broken in our lives. “I have sinned before the Lord.” When we finally see and acknowledge our sin, we can see the grace that sustains us and can lead us on the path to reconciliation. We must live with consequences, but we do not have to live without hope.

Lillian Daniel’s father was a journalist, covering among other things the Vietnam War, and so you can imagine that her childhood household held the memories of many vigorous debates on world issues. When she grew her father would sometimes visit her, and as with most occasions when parents and their children visit, there can be joy but there can also be stress.

Daniel says that one evening her father was sitting at her once clean kitchen counter, littering it with an explosion of newspapers, magazines, coffee cups – all teetering on the edge of chaos. When her father gestured to call her attention to something he was reading, “a cup went flying, spilling coffee onto the papers in a sticky mess. ‘I’ll get it,” he said, using a magazine as a mop.”

“No, Dad, it’s OK,” Daniel said, with a tone that indicated it might be time for him to leave. “I’ll clean it up after you’re gone.”

Daniel writes, “After he’d left I picked up the pieces of the broken coffee cup, mopped up the papers and pulled out the spray- on cleaner. As the fumes of disinfectant hit my nose and the counter shone again, I breathed a sigh of relief.”

She says, “That was the last time he drank coffee at our counter. I could not have known that I should have paid more attention that night, worried less about the mess and perhaps had him stay just a while longer.

My counter sparkles. But I want the mess back. I want to see the sticky rim of a coffee cup, mop up newspapers read and discussed and stamped with the date of a happier day.”

Yet, listen to this, “But I still have the hope of the table, where my brokenness finds its place in the open arms of Jesus and my eyes are opened in the breaking of the bread.” (Daniel, The Christian Century, 8/8/06)

You might remember that when we celebrate the sacrament I will say something along the lines of, “Those who feel they are self-sufficient and without sin should not participate. But Christ invites all who would recognize our brokenness and our dependence upon his mercy to come, taste, and see that the Lord is good.” Christ’s body was broken, so that we could be made whole.

When we take a hard and honest look with David in the mirror Nathan provides, we are taking the first step towards the reconciliation that God provides through Christ. And thus, a graceless story is transformed into a graceful word of hope. Amen.

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