August 2 Proper 13
One of the highlights of summer camp is the variety show. We used to call these events ‘talent shows’, but there seems to be a trend towards truth in advertising at camp these days. So they’re called ‘variety shows’ instead.
The best entries in these events are not the elaborately choreographed dance routines or cabin skits, which always seem to last a few minutes longer than the funny material does. No, the best acts are elegantly simple. Like the one last year in which a camper named Jack sat on the edge of the stage, pulled his legs up behind his head, and told a nearly perfect joke about muffins.
This summer I have it on good authority that one of the most impressive acts at Camp Mitchell’s middler session was even simpler than Jack’s. A camper took his place on stage, and licked his own elbow. This is the reason we send our kids to camp.
Now, that camper wasn’t trying to make a broader statement about the human condition. But his trick does remind us that in some very ordinary, physical ways we don’t have access even to parts of our own bodies. Most of us can’t lick our elbows. Maybe this doesn’t sound like a great loss to you. But we can’t scratch that spot between the shoulder blades either.
Sometimes we realize suddenly that we can’t quite access part of ourselves. And sometimes it takes someone else to show us that we can’t.
We might say that King David had lost access to a very important part of himself, and he needed somebody else to show him that he had.
Last week David lost it completely. Fortunately our preacher had the good sense and manners to preach on the gospel lesson. But I don’t, so let me refresh your recently healed memory.
David saw Bathsheba bathing, fell in love, and committed adultery with her. And the story ended with David sending a letter to his captain with instructions about how to make sure Bathsheba’s husband Uriah dies in the next battle. Then our reader announced, “The word of the Lord.” And we all dutifully replied, “Thanks be to God!” At this point in the service I noticed a few of you looking a little shocked, as if the reader had just licked her own elbow. But you gave thanks anyway for this edifying tale of lust, deception, betrayal and murder.
This week we hear the rest of the story. And our “Thanks be to God” seemed a little more heartfelt.
The prophet Nathan confronts David with a parable almost as perfect as the muffin joke I still haven’t told you. It’s worth repeating:
“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, which 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.”
In four long but simple sentences, David is shown a part of himself he’d lost access to. It took someone else to show him just who he had become. Of course Nathan’s trick was to make David believe he was looking in on someone else’s life. Which only reminds us of just how hard it is to see ourselves sometimes.
This is clearly a parable of judgment. And since David is so thoroughly in the wrong, it’s easy for us to cheer Nathan on. We all see David’s deep flaws. Flaws made even clearer in a story about a poor man with a single lamb. Remember David, the youngest of Jesse’s sons, out in the fields with the sheep when the prophet Samuel comes looking for a king? David has lived both ends of this parable, which makes its judgment all the harsher.
But remembering the shepherd boy keeps David human in our imagination as well. We hold out hope that he can find access once again to an essential goodness that seems to have been lost as layers of power and wealth built up over the course of his life.
But here’s what still has to happen. David has to let Nathan show him what he’s seen.
In our culture nobody wants to be labeled judgmental or hypocritical. And since the pleasures of passing judgment on another person are real, it’s good to know that there is pressure to resist being a judge. But in our fear of letting one person judge another, we might be cutting ourselves off from something we need from one another. There are parts of ourselves that we just can’t see at times. And if we automatically undermine or dismiss the person who speaks something offensive to us, we’re the ones who stay blind, even if the other person’s a hypocrite.
Nathan wasn’t perfect. And I know myself well enough to know that if I were in David’s place my mind would immediately imagine all the reasons Nathan had no right to pass judgment.
In fact, if you’ll allow an anachronism, I might even quote Jesus: “First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” But don’t we always think the log’s in our neighbor’s eye?
We usually quote this line from Jesus to tell somebody else that they have no right to pass judgment on us. But the whole reason Jesus tells us to remove the lumber from our eyes—specks, logs, whatever—is so that we can see. I need you to see clearly. Because there are parts about myself I just can’t see.
There is a struggle going on in the Anglican Communion. And lots of different people will tell you just what it’s about. It’s about how to interpret the Bible, or about sexual ethics, or about structures of authority in the church. But all the presenting issues that make the headlines may not be what this struggle is really about.
The problem may be that everybody wants to be Nathan. Everybody wants to be the truth telling prophet. But the hero in the story is David. Because David lets Nathan show him what he cannot see.
For example, there are several African bishops who are pretty certain that they see clearly what the American Episcopal Church needs to do. And there are folks in the American church who just want to be left alone, saying that somebody from a distant culture has no business poking around in our affairs.
But I hope we’re still trying to forge a more difficult and fruitful way. I pray that we’re still trying to find a way to let each other see parts of ourselves that we can’t see all by ourselves.
We need to hear from people in Africa. People in churches that were planted in colonies of the British Empire. People of a long, painful struggle for recognition as full members of the human family with rights and opinions and dignity of their own. They will see things we can’t.
And maybe the bishops of a few African churches need to hear from people—to use a phrase from recent resolutions—whose lifestyle presents a challenge to the larger communion. Because we see people in some of those “challenging” lifestyles who are faithful, committed Christians, whose lives clearly bear the fruits of the Spirit.
Of course I present the debate through my own clouded vision. So the particulars are not the point. The main question is How can we all make David our example? How can we live in such a way that we allow others to look in on our lives and tell us what they see?
Here’s one more example. This one is even more local. Little Rock is trying to do better by its homeless. But when the old Job Corps building became available for possible use as a day resource center, factions began to form. They formed in part because that building will be given to the city for free. But that building is also in a vulnerable neighborhood. A neighborhood with too much crime, too many abandoned houses, too many unfulfilled promises already.
So before long, some defenders of the homeless were calling the neighborhood residents calloused and uncaring. And some of the residents, actually even a city board member herself, made bigoted comments about homeless people.
It’s the same old story. Everybody thinks that they’re Nathan. Nobody wants to be David. Nobody thinks that there might be parts of themselves or parts of their position that they can’t see.
But the long, strange story of the life of King David made a turn this week. And it turned in a hopeful direction for the simple reason that David let Nathan see him. Nathan’s trick was brilliant, of course. He got David to think he was looking at someone else’s life, when in fact he was finally looking at his own life through someone else’s clear eyes.
But David let Nathan’s trick work. He let Nathan show him what he couldn’t see for himself. And he was changed. Amen.