Sermon Tone Analysis

This week is the last week of advent, a season in the church calendar when we observe a time of expectation on the arrival of Christ’s birth.

This year at The Table we’ve set up a dialog b/t these attributes and the women on Jesus’ genealogy.

In Matthew’s gospel, he lists 5 women in a genealogy dominated by men.

We’ve been asking, how can these women teach us?

We began w/ a dialog b/t the advent attribute of hope and the life of Tamar.

Then we dialoged w/ Rahab and Faith.

Last week we looked at Ruth and the attribute of love.

And now we dialog w/ the story of Bathsheba and the attribute of Peace.

We will be looking at David and his role in Bathsheba’s life.

As we’ll read from 2 Samuel 11-12, you’ll see that the key to this story is David being an idiot.

He’s not doing what he was intended to do.

I think in these times, when we are not doing what we should be doing (not doing something you know is right) the result is chaos.

And as we consider the Advent attribute of peace, chaos and disorder are the antithesis.

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The Story

In 2 Samuel 11-12 we see the result of David not doing what he should have been doing.

Bathsheba was a victim of David’s passivity.

So as you read 2 Samuel 11-12 ask yourself: How did David create his chaos?

How did God redeem the chaos?

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army.

They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.

But David remained in Jerusalem.

This is a key verse of the passage.

As a king at this time – as David, the one who was a known warrior, known as being God’s warrior – his place was in battle.

“At the time when kings go off to war,” King David stayed home.

2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace.

From the roof he saw a woman bathing.

The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her.

The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her.

She came to him, and he slept with her.

(Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.)

Then she went back home.

“At the time when kings go off to war,” David had some free time, and got bored.

He took advantage of his power, and slept w/ another man’s wife.

5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

6 So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.”

And Joab sent him to David.

7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going.

8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”

So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him.

9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.

David is trying to cover up his sin, by trying to make it seem Uriah impregnated his wife.

But Uriah was a righteous man who knew his place, when David didn’t.

10 David was told, “Uriah did not go home.”

So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign?

Why didn’t you go home?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country.

How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife?

As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

You wonder if Uriah wasn’t thinking, “You need to be out there too.”

12 Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.”

So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.

13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk.

But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

David’s plan is not working, so it’s time for plan B.

14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest.

Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were.

17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.

18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle.

19 He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, 20 the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight?

Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall?

21 Who killed Abimelek son of Jerub-Besheth?

Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez?

Why did you get so close to the wall?’

If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’

” Joab is being tactful, saying, we lost a battle (we threw the fight) b/c of your command, and men died who shouldn’t have.

David’s sin had bigger consequences.

22 The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say.

23 The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate.

24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died.

Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”

25 David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another.

Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’

Say this to encourage Joab.” 26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.

27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.

But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.

David concludes plan B, and the results were the death of innocent soldiers, and a marriage based on a faulty foundation.

“At the time when kings go off to war,” David stayed home, got bored, and fell into sin.

He schemed, and families were broken.

Then the prophet Nathan spoke God’s truth to David.

12:11 The Lord sent Nathan to David.

When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought.

He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children.

It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms.

It was like a daughter to him.

4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him.

Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

8 I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms.

I gave you all Israel and Judah.

And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.

9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes?

You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.

You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’

11 “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you.

Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.

12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’