David and Bathsheba - Part Two

Power Dynamic

Voice of power

Powerless

God’s Voice

David - Bathsheba - (God)

David - Uriah - (God)

David - Bathsheba - God

David - Nathan/God

Nathan - David - God

God’s voice stands up for the powerless

A Broken System

David supposed to be the man after God’s own heart, the one who came from powerlessness, listens to God’s voice, and anointed with power.

But he falls short

Only in Jesus

Only in Jesus is this made complete

Powerless -

Listening to God

filled with God’s power

All three in the Garden of Gethsemane.

What does this mean for us?

We find ourselves in all three places: powerful, powerless, in harmony with the voice of God, but never, consistently, all three at once. And when we think we do, when we think we can fill all three of htese roles, that’s when we get ourselves into real trouble. When we believe that we speak for the powerless, speak with the voice of God, and ct to preserve our own power, then the church becomes a destructive force in the world, instead of an invitation to recolnciliation, transformation, healing and wholeness.

When we think we have it all together, that we’re right, and everyone else is wrong, then we’re in a dangerous, dangerous place.

When we believe that we are right, and everyone else is wrong, then our power becomes a weapon that we feel justified in wielding against anyone who stands in our way.

Self-righteousness is the well-worn pathway to abuse of power.

The temptation, when we’ve abused our power, is to try to retain control, but the only path to freedom and forgiveness is to let go of our place of power, and render ourselves powerless.

We see this desperation to retain power all around us in our world.

We are afraid of powerlessness, afraid of letting our own brokenness show, and so we take the high ground, presuming for ourselves a place of power, presuming for ourselves the voice of God.

But God’s voice, consistently, speaks out on behalf of the powerless.

Philippians 2:5–7 NIV

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

This is doubly hard when genuine evil has been done. When we see the wrongness of someone else’s actions, then we cannot help but become outraged, right?

Like David, when Nathan brings David the story of the rich man and the poor man’s ewe. We stand in our chairs, arms extended in outrage, veins pulsing in our necks.

What do we do, when we find that we have been pointing and shouting in the mirror all along?

“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners.” - Miroslav Volf

Instinct to protect ourselves at all costs.

PS Otago

Comments from people during the week

Violence around the world this week

Athletes at the Olympics becoming the focus point for outrage and hate. Nevermindf the facts, the accusation itself justifies our outrage.

How can we break free of the cycle of ever increasing umbrage?

How can we break free of the temptation to self-destructive self-defence?

Only in the cross of Christ.

“No one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion — without transposing the enemy from the sphere of the monstrous… into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness.”

Let’s be clear, I’m not using this as an excuse to sweep the sins of our church under the carpet. I’m not trying to produce some kind of false equivalency, “We’re all the same deep-down, so let’s just move on” to erase the suffering of survivors of abuse.

David’s sin against Bathsheba and Uriah wasn’t washed away and squeaky clean. There were generational consequences - shouldered disproportionately by those without power - the son who died, Bathsheba herself, Davdi’s wives who became objects of men’s competing lusts.

But I am saying that each and every one of us knows what it is to be powerless in the face of another’s sin.

Each and every one of us has abused the power we have over another.

In Christ we see the fruitlessness of clinging to that power.

Each and every one of us has ignored the voice of God

In Christ, his face turned toward us, we hear God’s voice callin us to a better way.

Each and every one of us has been given the gift of forgiveness

in Christ, crucified, died, risen again.

We don’t fight the abuse of power by upping the stakes, by overwhelming force. We won’t solve the problems of the world by proving that I’m right and you’re wrong (by force when necessary, and let’s face it, it’s always necessary)

We fight the abuse of power with humility, with gentleness, with love.

We fight the sinfulness of this world, of ourselves, by finding ourselves in the broken, healing, self-giving love of Christ.

Amen