Freeville/Homer Avenue UMC's - Ninth Sunday after Pentecost - 07/26/15 Sermon - “Digging yourself deeper!"

Sunday 07/26/15 Freeville/Homer Ave UMC’s

Sermon Title: “Digging yourself deeper!”                      

Old Testament Lesson: 2 Samuel 11:1-15

                                            

New Testament Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21

Gospel Lesson: John 6:1-21

          Friends, brothers and sisters, welcome once again on this our Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost, that day so long ago, that the Holy Spirit moved like a mighty fire, like a mighty wind, and the Christian Church was born. In being born, the apostles and the first Christians went forth far and wide, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They went forth changing hearts and minds, building God’s kingdom here on earth.

          This morning though, I want to talk about when we mess up things. You know what I mean, when we put our foot in our mouths. How many of us have ever put our foot in our mouths? Yet what do we do when we mess up? When we really mess up, do we “fess up,” or do we just try to hide the mess up? Do we just cover up one lie with another lie?

I remember watching a movie once, and two boys were horsing around in the kitchen of their house, throwing a ball around. As this ball was flying around to and fro, it suddenly hit momma’s beloved cookie jar on the counter. Well as you can imagine, that ball took that cookie jar right off the counter. That cookie jar shattered into a bunch of pieces.

Now these two boys then realized they had a problem. One was terrified, as momma had gone to the store. He was terrified that when momma got home that he would get punished severely. The other boy was equally as worried.

  Now one option would be to wait until their mother got home, and just own up to what had happened. Let’s be honest though, that’s just not we function sometimes.

So the two boys then began to glue back together the cookie jar, yet you could see the seams in some places where the cookie jar had broken. Well, the cookie jar was dark, so the other boy thought they could just fix those seams with a dark marker, which then made the cookie jar look even sillier. The two boys then tried another thing, and another thing, and when their mother got home, they still tried to weasel out it. They then lied and made excuses. Their mother, as mother do, finally got the truth out of them, and they were punished more severely for lying.

I wonder if this story connects with any of us, from when we were children. I wonder if this type of story has occurred with any of our own children or grandchildren? Sometimes though, we just don’t want to tell the truth, because we don’t want to accept the potential consequences. In fact, I can still remember the scariest six words that I ever heard as a little boy, “Wait until your father gets home!”

It would seem that it would just be easier to “fess up,” then to dig ourselves deeper into sin, or a lie. Sometimes to, isn’t it so obvious that a person is lying? We have seen politicians, presidents, and corporate leaders lie on camera, haven’t we? We have seen them tell the opposite of the truth, and sometimes do it so poorly, that we just knew they were lying. Then some extra piece of information would emerge, and they would then tell another lie to cover up the first lie. A great example of this was the “Watergate Hotel Scandal,” under President Richard Nixon.

So, we live in a world where sometimes people lie, cheat, rob, steal, swindle, and instead of telling the truth, they “dig themselves deeper.” To me, lying is not something that we should be willingly trying to do. It seems that some lie so freely and without worry though. Yet our deceptions and our lies can just work to “dig us deeper” into deception and lies.

Yet some people have said to me, “you know Pastor Paul, sometimes we need to lie.” To one of these people, I said once, “oh really. If this is true, give me an example of when it is good to lie.” He said, “Ok I will. Suppose that your wife comes home with a new a dress. Now Paul this dress is hideous. I mean who ever designed and created this dress should be fired immediately, because it is such an awful looking dress.” This person then said, “Then your wife puts this dress on, and says, ‘how does this dress make me look?” Wow!

I said, “well, I guess I would be honest and tell her that anything she wears is incomparable to her radiant beauty.” Of course I didn’t really directly answer the question. Deception, lies, “digging ourselves deeper.”

Last week, we talked about a small Sheppard boy named David. David was a son of a man named Jesse. God chose David to be the King of Israel, and promised to make his family name a dynasty. Meaning that King David’s family name would rule forever, even leading to one greater than David. Leading to the Messiah, to the savior, to Jesus Christ.

So last week King David was looking pretty good. He was a hero, and God chose him. Yet this week, King David’s power, his favor with God, and his status leads him to sin, corruption, and deception. The ancestor of Jesus Christ, the King of Israel, the one who conquered the Philistine warrior Goliath, the one that God promised to make great, and the one that God promised to make his family rule forever, had a fall from grace this morning.

You see no matter how powerful we become, no matter how beloved we are, we are sinners, and are broken people in need of God’s grace.

So, what did King David do that was so bad then? Well let’s look at the scripture again for this morning from 2 Samuel 11:1-15.

This scripture begins by talking about how it was spring, and that in spring that this is “when kings go off to war” (2 Sam. 11:1a, CEB). Yet while King David was at war with the neighboring Ammonites, he decided to sit this one out, as it were. The scripture says, that “David sent Joab, along with his servants and all the Israelites, and they destroyed the Ammonites, attacking the city of Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem” (2 Sam. 11:1b, CEB).

It was often a custom in ancient times, in some Middle Eastern cultures, that some wars would cease during the winter, and resume in the spring. Now sometimes the king would go and lead his army, but King David stayed in Jerusalem. In fact, King David sent his nephew and the commander of his army Joab, to win the war with Ammonites without him.

While this war was going on then, King David was alone in his palace in Jerusalem. The scripture then says that, “One evening, David got up from his couch and was pacing back and forth on the roof of the palace” (2 Sam. 11:2a, CEB). The scripture than says, “From the roof he saw a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone and inquired about the woman” (2 Sam. 11:2b-3a, CEB).

Now brothers and sisters, this is step one of King David “digging himself deeper.” So the inquiry on this woman came back to King David, and in the report it said, “Isn’t this Eliam’s daughter Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” (2 Sam. 11:3b, CEB). By the way, “Uriah the Hittite” is a soldier in King David’s army, who is at this point fighting in his war against the Ammonites.

I would like to say that King David just said, “oh, that’s who she is,” and that would be end of this story. Yet this is not what happened. In fact, the scripture says, “So David sent messengers to get her. When she came to him, he had sex with her. (Now she had been purifying herself after her month period.)” (2 Sam. 11:4a, CEB). So Bathsheba was bathing, as women were required to do after the monthly cycle, according to the Jewish cleansing laws. When she was bathing, King David saw her.

Afterwards, the scripture says, “They she returned home. The woman conceived and sent word to David. “I’m pregnant,” she said” (2 Sam. 11:4b-5, CEB). Well I don’t know what you all think at this point, but it would seem that the mighty King David is in over his head here.

So does David then just “fess up” and tell the truth? Of course not. Instead, David sends a message to his nephew Joab, who is the leader of his army, and orders Bathsheba’s husband Uriah home from the war. Now I can imagine that Uriah thought that this was an odd request from his king, to pull him out of war to come home. I mean, why would King David do that?

Well when Uriah comes to King David, King David didn’t want to “fess up” to Uriah. So he asked him, “about the welfare of Joab and the army and how the battle was going” (2 Sam. 11:8, CEB). So King David then, would have Uriah believe that he was called all the way home from fighting a war with the Ammonites, just so that his king could get a status update on the war.

King David then tells Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet” (2 Sam. 11:8, CEB). Now during wartime, it was expected that a soldier would not leave there post, unless they were told that they could so. One way to release temporarily or permanently a soldier in ancient Jewish culture, would be to say to that soldier “go wash your feet” (2 Sam. 11:8b, CEB). Essentially, clean yourself up, and go home to have some romantic time with your wife.

Well the scripture says that, “Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. However, Uriah slept at the palace entrance with all his master’s servants. He didn’t go down to his house” (2 Sam. 11:8b-9, CEB). Due to this, King David can’t just tell Uriah that he had made his wife Bathsheba pregnant, which is why he ordered him home in the first place. She hadn’t been pregnant very long, so King David wanted Uriah to think that the child was his.

Well, it appears that King David is “Digging himself deeper.” So then King David was told that Uriah didn’t go home the night previous, and so King David “asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just returned from a journey? Why didn’t you go home?” (2 Sam. 11:10, CEB).

Uriah responded, “The chest and Israel and Judah are all living in tents, “Uriah told David.” And my master Joab and my master’s troops are camping in the open field. How could I go home and eat, drink, and have sex with my wife? I swear on your very life, I will not do that!” (2 Sam. 11:11, CEB). It would seem that Uriah’s sense of duty and honor to his brothers in arms, and his commander Joab, was is the greatest concern.

Well then, what is King David to do? Perhaps he will no “fess up” to Uriah?” Of course not. King David is going to “dig himself deeper” of course.

So at this point, King David says to Uriah, “Stay here one more day. Tomorrow I’ll send you back. So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day. The next day David called for him, and he ate and drank, and David got him drunk” (2 Sam. 11:12-13a). You see King David was thinking that if he could get Uriah drunk enough, then he would go home to Bathsheba. If Uriah did this, then King David could just say that it wasn’t his baby at all. “Digging yourself deeper.”

Well sure enough, Uriah sleep outside of the palace in the same place that he had the night before (2 Sam. 11:13b, CEB). Well maybe King David will just “fess up” at this point. Yeah right! “Digging yourself deeper.”

So how is King David going to cover up this web of deceptions then? We here is what is he did. “The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. He wrote in the letter, “Place Uriah at the front the fiercest battle, and then pull back from him so that he will be struck down and die” (2 Sam. 11:14-15). Uriah was killed in that battle. David then made Bathsheba one of his wives, as she of course was devastated by the loss of her husband Uriah.

Now I hope at this point, that you understand why the title of my sermon this morning, is called “Digging yourself deeper?” I mean King David just added layer upon layer of lies, deceit, and wrong doings. In fact the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12:8-10 tells King David a message from God. This message is, “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. 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. 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.’ (2 Sam. 12:8-10, CEB).

King David then repents to God, begins fasting in sack cloth, but Bathsheba’s son dies. David then loses his new son only a few days after he was born.

So God forgives King David, but not without punishment. I wonder what God would have done if King David had just “fessed up.” For that matter, don’t our own lives just get more complicated and stressful when we lie, deceive, and are dishonest? Don’t we find that in these situations that we are just “digging ourselves deeper?”

Brothers and sisters, friends, if we sin against one another, let us strive to be honest, to repent, and to own up to what we have done. For it we do not, it can get much, much worse. Let us cling to God, and be children of light. Let us seek truth and honesty, and not lies and deception. For lies and deception only prove to “dig us deeper” in a pit of despair and hopelessness. For this is why Christ came, this is why in the gospel of John reading from this morning, Jesus Christ feed the five-thousand (John 6:12, CEB). For Christ came in grace and truth, not in lies and deception. Let us never seek to “dig ourselves deeper.” Amen.