Sermon: Power - 29 July 2012
[Lectionary Readings for 29 July 2012]
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 12
2 Samuel 11:1-15
11:1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
11:2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful.
11:3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, "This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite."
11:4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house.
11:5 The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, "I am pregnant."
11:6 So David sent word to Joab, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent Uriah to David.
11:7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going.
11:8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house, and wash your feet." Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king.
11:9 But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.
11:10 When they told David, "Uriah did not go down to his house," David said to Uriah, "You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?"
11:11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing."
11:12 Then David said to Uriah, "Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day,
11:13 David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
11:14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
11:15 In the letter he wrote, "Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die."
John 6:1-21
6:1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.
6:2 A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.
6:3 Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples.
6:4 Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.
6:5 When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we do buy bread for these people to eat?"
6:6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
6:7 Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little."
6:8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him,
6:9 "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?"
6:10 Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all.
6:11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
6:12 When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost."
6:13 So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
6:14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."
6:15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
6:16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea,
6:17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.
6:18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.
6:19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified.
6:20 But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid."
6:21 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.
Sermon Text:
I found this week's lectionary passages odd. And I wondered as I was preparing the sermon - what does David, Bathsheba and Urial have to do with the five loaves and 2 fishes.
Then I wanted not to preach on David, Bathsheba and Urial since i have done so before - and I also wanted not to preach on the five loaves and 2 fishes because Su-Lin preached last week on the feeding of the five thousand so fantastically I would just be rehashing her sermon "Blessed to be Broken to be Given."
Really - What has adultery and murder have to do with the feeding miracle?
I thought, perhaps, I should just focus on the feeding miracle and perhaps take a different approach from Su-Lin. But David, Bathsheba and Urial kept coming back. Again, we read of scandals in the papers. Again, another person offered sexual favors to advance their career, or gain some benefit. Who should have not slept with who for whatever the reason.
Before you read into what I say some value judgment, I want to clarify - I am calling it out as what I see it - i am not going to blame, or assign fault as who is the guilty party in the different scandals we read about. This is a systemic issue where men - and it is always men, in this unfair and unjust world dominated 99.9% by men - rule and control the rules of the game. The story of David and Bathsheba is a good reminder of what is happening.
I have spoken many times - whether on the pulpit, or in small groups - about my disapproval of David. I don't read about David's life and end up with the feeling that I want to be like him. I read about David's life, and I want NOT to be like him. I read the books of 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Samuel as propaganda. And I often wondered about how God could have found special favor with this particular man.
To me, David is a reminder of how we can fail, and fail epically.
To me, David is a reminder of how we can think too highly of ourselves, think because we are God's chosen, we can do no wrong.
To me, David is a story of the power of self-deception - how we can convince ourselves we can do whatever we want, even when it violates the very heart of the commandment to love. That we can do wrong things for the right reasons and think that is okay. It is not.
To me, David is a story of how flawed we all are and how we are all equally capable of doing the wrong things.
To me, David is a reminder of how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and how we are to be wary of power.
I read the scriptures through the lens of Jesus. I wonder what God is trying to tell us through Jesus, through His life and His ministry.
I wonder what God is trying to tell us, when Jesus came to this earth not as a prince, not as royalty, not as a high priest, - but a poor carpenter's son.
[read more]
In the language of our worship today we use words like "Jesus you are King," "Lord," "Majestic," "The riches of your love," "Beautiful," "Glorious." I invite you to take a step back and think about it.
Our language we use reflects the values we have, and often what we seek, what we desire is projected upon Jesus (and even God). I am not saying Jesus isn't Lord, I am not saying God isn't majestic, I am not saying Jesus isn't glorious. What I am saying is that we need to be conscious of the words we use and how it shapes our reality and our understanding, and how it can obscure other things we do not want to think about.
Think about it. There must be some reason why Jesus wasn't some royalty or born in the family of some high priest. Jesus' life as a peasant is not something glamourous, something that is not valued or respected by society in general. Now, as in the time of Jesus, society holds those in power, those with wealth (usually wealth and power are correlated) in higher regard, and those without, as disposables.
That is not God's perspective. It is through the life and ministry of Jesus that I see God as the One who is concerned with justice - not the retributive kind of justice that is all about punishment but a distributive kind of justice where all people are fed, all people are loved, all people are taken care of. This God is a God who loves us equally. And this is the core of our beliefs as Free Community Church - First Realize Everyone is Equal.
I went back to read the passage from John several times when I prepared for this sermon. It is a passage I am pretty familiar with, and I would guess one that you are familiar with too. But often we are so familiar with how the story has been told by other people - through art, through paintings, through cartoons, through books - that we often don't see the nuances in the text.
I was struck on the third time I read the text when I came to verse 15. " When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself."
I sat up. Not only was Jesus not born into power, but here he clearly avoided power. Why? Could it be that if He wielded power like the other rulers in the world, the kind of power that dominates, the kind of power that seeks to control, he would have yielded to the temptation that the Devil tempted him with at the end of his forty days in the desert at the beginning of his ministry? That to wield that kind of power is, in a way aligning Himself with the Devil, with the evil systems and structures that perpetuate evil in the world?
What kind of power did Jesus represent then? How do we understand the power of God through Jesus?
The Power of God is liberating. It does not control or seek to control. It is empowering.
David commanded that Bathsheba is brought to him. We are not told of Bathsheba's consent. But that is because her consent is immaterial to him, and to those in power. All that is material is his power. That is power that the world understands. That is power the world is familiar with. That is power perpetuated and sustained by the systems and structures in the world.
Jesus on the hand, demonstrates a power that is invitational. "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" He asked Philip. He invited the disciples into the task of feeding. He invited us to join in and work with and cooperate with God in the work of salvation and transforming the world. The child with 5 loaves and 2 fishes accepted Jesus' invitation - even though the child knew how insignificant 5 loaves and 2 fishes was compared to 5000 hungry mouths. The child accepted the invitation and stepped forward. And the power of God - the power that is not power over, but power with - worked through the bread and the fish and multiplied.
Jesus could just have performed the miracle without the child's participation. He could have just performed a miracle on His own and fed everyone. But that is the kind of power the world understands. Is that the God's power? Because if Jesus had just fed the 5000, that would mean they would be always just waiting for bread and fish to be given to them. They would always be dependent on someone else, someone beyond us to do something for them. Perhaps that is why Jesus ran away when they wanted to make him King - because that would mean that they would not see that they themselves have to be part of the miracle, part of the work, and they would have to take part in the work. They will only see him as the one who gives them what they need.
Are we sometimes like that? Dependent on some higher power to do what needs to be done? Perhaps waiting for God? Waiting for the authorities? Waiting for the government?
The power to transform, redeem and save this world we live in is in our hands. We are empowered by the living God to do what needs to be done to bring about a just world, and break down the structures and systems of injustice where some have plenty and most go hungry, where some people are valued more than others. Remember, First Realize Everyone Is Equal.
God invites us to join God in the work of transformation, salvation and resurrection. We are called continue the difficult work of enlarging God's kindom - yes kindom not kingdom - it is a family, not an empire. It is enlarging the circle of love and inclusion and justice.
I always have an issue of how we distribute the elements theologically. Today we do it a little differently. I hope a little more reflective of the kind of vision God has. I do not believe that we just sit there and wait for the elements to be passed to us, but we come forward - we participate more actively with our minds, bodies and our spirits. So today, we are going to have 3 stations, and I invite you to come forward to partake of the communion.
Let us prepare ourselves for communion. Let us pray.
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 12
2 Samuel 11:1-15
11:1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
11:2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful.
11:3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, "This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite."
11:4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house.
11:5 The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, "I am pregnant."
11:6 So David sent word to Joab, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent Uriah to David.
11:7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going.
11:8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house, and wash your feet." Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king.
11:9 But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.
11:10 When they told David, "Uriah did not go down to his house," David said to Uriah, "You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?"
11:11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing."
11:12 Then David said to Uriah, "Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day,
11:13 David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
11:14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
11:15 In the letter he wrote, "Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die."
John 6:1-21
6:1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.
6:2 A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.
6:3 Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples.
6:4 Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.
6:5 When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we do buy bread for these people to eat?"
6:6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
6:7 Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little."
6:8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him,
6:9 "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?"
6:10 Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all.
6:11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
6:12 When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost."
6:13 So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.
6:14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."
6:15 When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
6:16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea,
6:17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.
6:18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.
6:19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified.
6:20 But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid."
6:21 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.
Sermon Text:
I found this week's lectionary passages odd. And I wondered as I was preparing the sermon - what does David, Bathsheba and Urial have to do with the five loaves and 2 fishes.
Then I wanted not to preach on David, Bathsheba and Urial since i have done so before - and I also wanted not to preach on the five loaves and 2 fishes because Su-Lin preached last week on the feeding of the five thousand so fantastically I would just be rehashing her sermon "Blessed to be Broken to be Given."
Really - What has adultery and murder have to do with the feeding miracle?
I thought, perhaps, I should just focus on the feeding miracle and perhaps take a different approach from Su-Lin. But David, Bathsheba and Urial kept coming back. Again, we read of scandals in the papers. Again, another person offered sexual favors to advance their career, or gain some benefit. Who should have not slept with who for whatever the reason.
Before you read into what I say some value judgment, I want to clarify - I am calling it out as what I see it - i am not going to blame, or assign fault as who is the guilty party in the different scandals we read about. This is a systemic issue where men - and it is always men, in this unfair and unjust world dominated 99.9% by men - rule and control the rules of the game. The story of David and Bathsheba is a good reminder of what is happening.
I have spoken many times - whether on the pulpit, or in small groups - about my disapproval of David. I don't read about David's life and end up with the feeling that I want to be like him. I read about David's life, and I want NOT to be like him. I read the books of 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Samuel as propaganda. And I often wondered about how God could have found special favor with this particular man.
To me, David is a reminder of how we can fail, and fail epically.
To me, David is a reminder of how we can think too highly of ourselves, think because we are God's chosen, we can do no wrong.
To me, David is a story of the power of self-deception - how we can convince ourselves we can do whatever we want, even when it violates the very heart of the commandment to love. That we can do wrong things for the right reasons and think that is okay. It is not.
To me, David is a story of how flawed we all are and how we are all equally capable of doing the wrong things.
To me, David is a reminder of how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and how we are to be wary of power.
I read the scriptures through the lens of Jesus. I wonder what God is trying to tell us through Jesus, through His life and His ministry.
I wonder what God is trying to tell us, when Jesus came to this earth not as a prince, not as royalty, not as a high priest, - but a poor carpenter's son.
[read more]
In the language of our worship today we use words like "Jesus you are King," "Lord," "Majestic," "The riches of your love," "Beautiful," "Glorious." I invite you to take a step back and think about it.
Our language we use reflects the values we have, and often what we seek, what we desire is projected upon Jesus (and even God). I am not saying Jesus isn't Lord, I am not saying God isn't majestic, I am not saying Jesus isn't glorious. What I am saying is that we need to be conscious of the words we use and how it shapes our reality and our understanding, and how it can obscure other things we do not want to think about.
Think about it. There must be some reason why Jesus wasn't some royalty or born in the family of some high priest. Jesus' life as a peasant is not something glamourous, something that is not valued or respected by society in general. Now, as in the time of Jesus, society holds those in power, those with wealth (usually wealth and power are correlated) in higher regard, and those without, as disposables.
That is not God's perspective. It is through the life and ministry of Jesus that I see God as the One who is concerned with justice - not the retributive kind of justice that is all about punishment but a distributive kind of justice where all people are fed, all people are loved, all people are taken care of. This God is a God who loves us equally. And this is the core of our beliefs as Free Community Church - First Realize Everyone is Equal.
I went back to read the passage from John several times when I prepared for this sermon. It is a passage I am pretty familiar with, and I would guess one that you are familiar with too. But often we are so familiar with how the story has been told by other people - through art, through paintings, through cartoons, through books - that we often don't see the nuances in the text.
I was struck on the third time I read the text when I came to verse 15. " When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself."
I sat up. Not only was Jesus not born into power, but here he clearly avoided power. Why? Could it be that if He wielded power like the other rulers in the world, the kind of power that dominates, the kind of power that seeks to control, he would have yielded to the temptation that the Devil tempted him with at the end of his forty days in the desert at the beginning of his ministry? That to wield that kind of power is, in a way aligning Himself with the Devil, with the evil systems and structures that perpetuate evil in the world?
What kind of power did Jesus represent then? How do we understand the power of God through Jesus?
The Power of God is liberating. It does not control or seek to control. It is empowering.
David commanded that Bathsheba is brought to him. We are not told of Bathsheba's consent. But that is because her consent is immaterial to him, and to those in power. All that is material is his power. That is power that the world understands. That is power the world is familiar with. That is power perpetuated and sustained by the systems and structures in the world.
Jesus on the hand, demonstrates a power that is invitational. "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" He asked Philip. He invited the disciples into the task of feeding. He invited us to join in and work with and cooperate with God in the work of salvation and transforming the world. The child with 5 loaves and 2 fishes accepted Jesus' invitation - even though the child knew how insignificant 5 loaves and 2 fishes was compared to 5000 hungry mouths. The child accepted the invitation and stepped forward. And the power of God - the power that is not power over, but power with - worked through the bread and the fish and multiplied.
Jesus could just have performed the miracle without the child's participation. He could have just performed a miracle on His own and fed everyone. But that is the kind of power the world understands. Is that the God's power? Because if Jesus had just fed the 5000, that would mean they would be always just waiting for bread and fish to be given to them. They would always be dependent on someone else, someone beyond us to do something for them. Perhaps that is why Jesus ran away when they wanted to make him King - because that would mean that they would not see that they themselves have to be part of the miracle, part of the work, and they would have to take part in the work. They will only see him as the one who gives them what they need.
Are we sometimes like that? Dependent on some higher power to do what needs to be done? Perhaps waiting for God? Waiting for the authorities? Waiting for the government?
The power to transform, redeem and save this world we live in is in our hands. We are empowered by the living God to do what needs to be done to bring about a just world, and break down the structures and systems of injustice where some have plenty and most go hungry, where some people are valued more than others. Remember, First Realize Everyone Is Equal.
God invites us to join God in the work of transformation, salvation and resurrection. We are called continue the difficult work of enlarging God's kindom - yes kindom not kingdom - it is a family, not an empire. It is enlarging the circle of love and inclusion and justice.
I always have an issue of how we distribute the elements theologically. Today we do it a little differently. I hope a little more reflective of the kind of vision God has. I do not believe that we just sit there and wait for the elements to be passed to us, but we come forward - we participate more actively with our minds, bodies and our spirits. So today, we are going to have 3 stations, and I invite you to come forward to partake of the communion.
Let us prepare ourselves for communion. Let us pray.