Hunger

This is a heads up.  Eat a good breakfast Sunday because the sermon is going to be about hunger, and if you are like me, all it takes is someone talking about hunger to get my stomach rumbling...or is that grumbling?

Our lessons are the story of David and Bathsheba (see two previous posts) and Jesus feeding the 5000.  Now I know why I chose the 2 Samuel story of David for the Old Testament text.....it is just too good a story to miss.  But it wasn't clear how that story connected in any way to Jesus' feeding the 5000.  (And to tell the truth, the lectionary folks didn't intend it to.  2 Samuel is the alternate OT text).

But then the word struck:  HUNGER.  What we want, what we need, and where it all leads us.  For some it leads to Jesus and God.  For others, it becomes a great abyss into which we fall. 

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled."  Mt5.6

The writer of 2 Samuel tells us "But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD and the LORD sent Nathan to David."  2 Sam12.1    When the prophet comes a-callin' at your door, be prepared to repent.

That's what we are talking about Sunday, but it certainly is a good topic for conversation all week.

Sex and the Sinner, part 2

Penn State removed the statue of Joe Paterno from the entrance to their football stadium.  They pried the brass plaques off the wall which listed his winning seasons. 

The one often referred to as "Joe Pa" proved to be a flawed individual who was anything but a responsible Pa to the young men being abused in the Penn State locker room.

His was a sin of omission; a failure to do what needed to be done.  It was a failure to protect the powerless, and for a person of faith, a failure to live an ethical life.

Both the university and the NCAA took away from Joe Paterno, now deceased, that which he apparently valued more than the lives of those young men: his record as a football coach, and with it his place in history and his reputation.  Of course his family is devastated; they will be carrying the shame he has avoided. 

In the story of David and Bathsheba, the child born of David's power grab of Uriah's wife, was struck ill and died.  At least that young man was spared the humiliation of forever being known as 'the one' - the living example of David's sinfulness.  His life was cut short but he was spared the shame that would have been his. 

David repents wholeheartedly, apparently.  But the damage was done.  A life was taken.

The irony of having the David and Bathsheba story on the week when Penn State begins to bear the consequences of its shameful behavior is not lost on me.

Neither is the fact that lives were taken - and all for the sake of football.  Sex and the Sinner, a modern saga.

Sex and the Sinner

I have chosen the alternate Old Testament text for Sunday:  2 Samuel 11.1-15, the story of David and Bathsheba.

For those who aren't familiar with this lurid tale (one of several equally lurid tales in the Old Testament), King David catches a glimpse of his neighbor's wife bathing in the courtyard of her house, sends for her, lays with her, causes her to get pregnant, and eventually has her husband killed in order to hide his infamy.

See?  You don't have to buy the National Enquirer to get this stuff.  It's right here, and it's a story about the most honored of Israel's kings.  In fact, YHWH promises that an offspring of David will always sit on the throne.  [You can see where the title Son of David is important when applied to Jesus.]  Throughout the Bible, we watch God using flawed, sinful individuals to bring about God's will.

In this story, we have the perfect storm of lust and power; not unusal then nor is it unusual now.  Wrong then; wrong now.  It is ironic, however, that this lesson coincides with the announcement of the NCAA penalties against Penn State and the removal of the Joe Paterno statue from the front of the college stadium. 

There are many ways to talk about this story.  Here is the first.  Sin lies deep within the heart of every single one of us (and some of us, it is not so deeply seated).  Power / prestige often functions as the accelerator to sinful behavior.  I am speculating when I say that King David was so full of himself he had little space to consider the other.  He chose to respond to the announcement of an imminent birth of a child with the order for the imminent death of the husband. 

Never found yourself in that position?  Really?  Never thought you were in the right and you had the power to make the other person agree with you?  Your child?  Your spouse?  At work?  At the check-out?  Desire and power, a volatile combination.