II Samuel 11: 1-16

Rewriting our stories I: Plot

What do think of that story of David and Bathsheba? A king takes his commander’s wife, impregnates her and then tries to cover it up by sending his commander home to his beautiful wife so no one will know. The plan backfires because the commander is an honest and loyal man. The king then makes sure the commander gets killed in battle. It is not a unique story I am sure. This kind of stuff still goes on.   I have been told that kings of Kauai would have the remains of their great leaders buried in the crevices of the towering and steep Na Pali coast. To lower the bodies and place them was risky but also a great honor. The story goes that kings sometimes had young men with pretty wives do the honor in the hope that some accident might befall them.   So is there any spiritual lesson to this story other than desire and greed which is at old as time?

You may also wonder, why is there a woman on the cover of the bulletin today. Okay, it’s Bathsheba. But then Bathsheba is not the main character in this story. She is just a prop, an object, a beautiful toy to be stolen. Aha, but that’s exactly the point. What if Bathsheba was the main actor in this play? What if she was the one in charge? What if there had been an Old Testament “me-too” movement? What is Bathsheba had had a chance to rewrite the story. Occasionally on television there are these programs where the same event is viewed through the eyes of woman and her male partner and the result is very different. Lauren Groff does the same thing in her novel “Fates and Furies (Riverhead Books, 2015).”

Friends, what if Bathsheba was able to refuse David and have legal recourse if she did. What if David had reason to fear the courts? The good part is that deep down in David there is a shred of conscience that leads to guilt and shame. He knows what he has done is wrong. But that’s where the goodness ends. The plot of the story now is: good man and bad king want the same beautiful woman. A marriage is destroyed. Evil wins. The plot could become: strong good woman hangs in there with brave husband and teaches greedy king a lesson. King becomes humble and loves his own wives more. Evil loses., except for that many wives thing.

Friends, our national story is unfolding so fast that we can hardly keep up with it.   Rewriting the national story is not as easy as people think. It is done in elections and they only come every two years and we are not so confident about our election right now. Economic power is another way but that takes a big group. But whoever is the main character will not fix what is fundamentally wrong with the country. There are others. There are other stories. the state story and the local story or grass roots story and a church story and a family story and an individual story.

Let’s start with the last one.   In psychology when people feel depressed or desperate sometimes a therapist asks a person what their narrative is. How do they view the story of our lives? What is the plot? Is it a narrative of hopelessness and powerlessness or is it a narrative of empowerment.? Will he or she throw up our hands and say: I surrender, or say “I see an inroad in. I see a place where I can make a difference..” There is a lot you and I must and can do to repair our communities. Just think of schools. What if one or two children take their eye off the ball because no one supports them when they are a teenager, they will suffer the consequences for a lifetime.   That’s why it is so important for a congregation such as this to ask: who do we need to reach out to? Who is falling by the wayside? Who is racked by stifling loneliness? When we see the opportunity will we take the chance to change the plot of our lives, plot of our church, the plot of our community, our state and yes our nation? Or will we be caught sleeping? Can the story be rewritten?

Friends, in the end the spiritual point of the David and Bathsheba story is the same as the point of all our stories: God is at work repairing the damage that we do, as heinous as the damage may be. There is grace whether we can see it or not. God’s plot is greater than and encompasses all plots. God May God give us the energy to keep rewriting the stories of our lives.