Sermon for January 28, 2007
David: God's Chosen King
Who Fails
and Succeeds by Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz |
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Scripture: II Samuel 12: 1-7a from the Good News Bible Translation 1 The Lord sent the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan went to him and said, "There were two men who lived in the same town; one was rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had many cattle and sheep, 3 while the poor man had only one lamb, which he had bought. He took care of it, and it grew up in his home with his children. He would feed it some of his own food, let it drink from his cup, and hold it in his lap. The lamb was like a daughter to him. 4 One day a visitor arrived at the rich man's home. The rich man didn't want to kill one of his own animals to fix a meal for him; instead, he took the poor man's lamb and prepared a meal for his guest." 5 David became very angry at the rich man and said, "I swear by the living Lord that the man who did this ought to die! 6 For having done such a cruel thing, he must pay back four times as much as he took." 7 "You are that man," Nathan said to David. Ever since my first trip to Israel over ten years ago I have followed the newspaper articles I see that report some event out of Israel. I was struck by one of those articles a while back because it told about a debate in the Israel legislature, the Knesset. It was actually more than a debate, it was so passionate it almost turned into a fistfight, and the topic of the debate was the Bible character we are talking about this morning. It seems that one legislator made a reference to King David who lived 3000 years ago, and the reference was slightly negative, and because of that negative comment another legislator became incensed and defended David’s reputation passionately and a fight was just barely avoided. The point is that, as William Faulkner said, the past is not dead, it is not even past! And the other point is that David’s life and the lessons of the life of David are very much still with us. There is a site in Israel that we always visit that purports to be the actual tomb of David—it most likely is not—and every time we go there, many faithful Jews, mostly Orthodox, are present, studying, conversing, and honoring the memory of the most important king in all of Jewish history. David is so important that the messiah was to come from David’s ancestry, and that is why the Christmas stories emphasize that Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem because that was the city of David and the Messiah is a descendant of David. The people also expected that the Messiah was to be a warrior hero like David who would unite the Jewish militants to fight a bloody battle against Rome and that may be why Jesus in the gospel of Mark keeps telling people not to spread the word that he is the Messiah because he did not fit their preconceived notion of messiah-ship! Stories about David have been immortalized by some of the most important artists in art history, and you are most likely familiar with Michelangelo’s statue of David which dominated Renaissance Florence and still is a breathtaking attraction in its own building today. Bernini, the father of baroque art 200 years later portrayed David in a more coiled and active stance. And one of my favorite artists, Caravaggio, gives us this painting of David with the head of the giant warrior Goliath. What most people know of the story of David is two things: we know about him as a teenager fighting Goliath the Philistine warrior. And we know the story of David and Bathsheba. I want to fill out the story for you today and let us see what we can learn about character. We will find that David is a tragic figure who gives us a gripping story of dramatic success and dramatic failure. We meet him in the Bible when the prophet Samuel goes to Jesse, David’s father and says that one of Jesse’s sons has been chosen by God to be the future king. Jesse parades all of his sons before Samuel; they are all strapping, handsome young men, but Samuel does not see what he is looking for. He asks, are there any others? Well, only little David, out in the field with the sheep. Bring him here. When Samuel sees him, David is a handsome, full of life, teenager and the Bible says, his eyes sparkle. Samuel anoints him with the olive oil he has brought and he is now the future king. The Bible says David was a man after God’s own heart. There is already a king-King Saul, the first king of Israel, and David goes to meet him while Saul is leading his soldiers in a battle, but the Israelites have been stymied in that battle with the Philistines. Do you remember why? There was a Philistine soldier named Goliath who apparently looked like a NFL lineman. He had challenged the Israelites to send one man to fight him and settle the war, but no one had volunteered yet. David goes to the battlefield to bring food to his brothers and he volunteers because he had killed wild animals with his slingshot. He fights Goliath and kills him and cuts off his head. David becomes a musician in the court of King Saul and Saul often calls for David to come and sing and play for him to calm him when he feels bad. David is a poet and songwriter and we have some of the poetry and songs he wrote. They are the Psalms! He did write some of the ones attributed to him but probably not all of them. David and Saul become alienated because Saul is threatened by David and even tries on two occasions to kill David but David remains loyal to his king and even refuses to strike back at Saul. When Saul is killed, David is made king of Israel and his accomplishments are huge. He is a great military general and warrior. He leads the Israelites against their enemies so effectively that the territory of Israel is larger than it ever has been. He makes Jerusalem the capital city. He has the Ark of the Covenant brought from Baalah to Jerusalem and he accompanies it singing and dancing with only a loincloth around his waist. His wife Michal ridicules his dancing and his public display, but he says he is celebrating and honoring God, and then something bad happens to Michal because of her criticism. David wants to build a temple for God in Jerusalem but his court prophet Nathan tells him that God wants someone else to build the temple. David accepts that news with humility and then he offers one of the most eloquent and humble prayers in the Bible in II Samuel 8: "Lord I am not worthy of what you have done through me and you are great and awesome. Do what you want to do through me because I am your servant.” If the story of David ended here, he would not be a tragic hero. But there is more. He becomes full of himself. He overreaches. He thinks he is entitled. He thinks he can do whatever he wants and that he is not accountable to anyone. He is dominated by excessive pride. His soldiers are in a battle but he is back in Jerusalem and one afternoon from his luxurious palace he sees a woman bathing in her home. He is attracted to her; he has her brought to him. He takes her to his bed. She becomes pregnant. And David tries to cover up what he has done. Her husband is at war so he brings her husband home for a few days so that he will sleep with her and think the child is his. The husband, Uriah, has real integrity, unlike David, and because his men are still in battle, he refuses to dishonor them by going to bed with his wife while they are fighting, so David’s scheme does not work. So David tells his generals to put Uriah in the hottest part of the battle so that he will be killed. That happens, and then David marries Bathsheba. What happens next? Nathan the prophet does what prophets are supposed to do (and what ministers today are supposed to do): he tells the truth and confronts the abuse of power. I encourage you to read this story on your own in II Samuel 12) David, to his credit, takes the blame for what he has done, repents, asks forgiveness—some of his words may be in Psalm 51—and feels remorse. But the deeds are done and the child Bathsheba bears to him becomes very ill and dies. And from then on, the greatest king in all of Jewish history is on a downward slide. He is forgiven but the consequences of his sin remain and his life is a tragedy and a series of problems until he dies a forsaken old man. David becomes a victim of his own arrogance and overreaching pride. Hubris is what the ancient Greeks call this character flaw and it affects religious leaders and presidents and business leaders alike. There is a new book out just this month about the problem that David had with pride and arrogance. The author is Dr. Matthew Hayward who is assistant professor at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business. Before he joined the CU faculty he was an investment banker with UBS Warburg and then a venture capital investor. The book is called Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris is Wrecking Companies and Careers and How to Avoid the Trap. Hayward writes mostly about CEO’s and how their problem is just like that of David: they are successful and then they become arrogant and full of themselves and their pride and ego take over to lead them to failure after failure. He begins the book by reminding us of the Greek myths about Icarus whose father made him wings and told him not to fly too close to the sun, but he did. He overreached and his overreaching led to his downfall. Hayward tells us about the Greek character Narcissus who became so enamored of gazing at his own reflection that he too ended in misery. He says that today narcissists are known for their self obsession, a preoccupation that drives them to egotistical behavior. He gives some advice to anyone, especially leaders, about how to avoid arrogance and hubris: Don’t get too full of yourself, don’t get in your own way, and don’t kid yourself about your situation. And he says that every leader needs at least one person who will tell them the truth as frankly as possible so they are not in avoidance or denial about their work or their leadership. Those persons help us not to operate in a bubble where we are out of touch with the reality around us. He quotes former GE executive Jack Welch who in a training event for business executives asked, “How many of you work for a company that has integrity?” About 95% of the hands went up. Then Welch asked, “How many of you get-straight-between-the- eyes honest feedback?” Only about 5% of the hands went up. He says that every leader needs what he calls a “foil”, someone who will tell us the truth even when it is uncomfortable—a person who will do for us what the prophet Nathan did for King David, someone who will do what Groucho Marx did when he says, “I have nothing but confidence in you, and very little of that!” Hayward tells the stories of the destructive power of pride and arrogance in such companies as Enron, AIG, Scott Paper, and WorldCom. Most of us recognize those names from headlines over the past few years. He reminds us that the story of the downfall of David has hundreds of contemporary parallels as well. It might be a great exercise for you today to think about some current examples of humility and of hubris and to see how the story of David still gets repeated in our time. David shows us what happens when we start out with all the right ingredients for healthy character including humility and talent and the intent to use our talents for others, and then when we get too full of ourselves and overreach and put ourselves in an egocentric bubble and think we can do anything we want. The book of proverbs warns us also: “God hates pride and arrogance”, and, “Excessive pride leads only to our downfall”. May God help us to be sure that our character as individuals and groups and nations is defined by humility and not by hubris. |
