Eleventh Thursday after Pentecost, Proper 13, Experimenting with Truth

For the Transfiguration see Tuesday’s blog

Lessons: Psalm 83; 2 Samuel 11:1-27; Acts 19:11-20; Mark 9:2-13

Bathsheba with David's messenger,
as the king watches from his roof, 1562 Jan Massys

We all know that we can get away with a little non-truth, an occasional lie, or silence or lack of confession of truth.  In fact sometimes it seems the only or best option.  Perhaps it is related to our desperation.

I remember vividly a moment in childhood when I went on a truth jag.  All kids lie sometimes and I was no exception.  Something had penetrated my awareness and I had decided it was best to tell the truth always. I was perhaps eight or nine.  It might have been Sunday School but this part is lost.  Then there was the day with shaving cream.  I had entered my parents' bathroom, found an aerosol can of shave cream and one press and the can seem to explode in my hand. I cleaned as best I could but I must have not done so well.  When Dad came home from work and found the tell-tale signs he was not happy.  "Who has been in our bathroom?” Did he roar?  Whatever, I was not going to admit it was me and neither were my two innocent brothers.  Somehow it was decided it had to be my elder brother because he got punished.  Now I was never going to tell because I would get double the punishment.  But the question remains, was it the lie that made Dad so angry?  Would I have gotten just a lecture if I had confessed to begin with?  It was well over a decade before I told the truth.

In 2 Samuel, David gets himself in a bind created by lust and lie and power.  Any adult who has lived long enough knows these temptations. With soldiers off to war Bathsheba might have been lonely, David is idle enough for lust run amuck and holds both power of force and of position and we know not which took control.  An afternoon of lust, a child conceived, a plot to cover it over by returning her husband Uriah home for battle to satisfy his natural desires, happen in course. If this works all is covered over for now.  But Uriah honors the custom that men at war save their sexual energy for the battles ahead.  He alone remains honorable and set to his task.  His honor despoils David’s plan to save his pride, his privilege, sense of entitlement. 

This all results in David’s next plan to set Uriah to the front of battle where he is sure to die.  Die he does.  Mourning is entered into and marriage follows. 

Yet this marriage from its inception is all based on deception and lie.  It is based on a King covering his tracks too late; avoiding a duel of honor or self knowing that is humbled by sin admitted.  It is based on a woman either not desiring the honorable thing or disempowered to reach for it.  Once the initial deed is done, she by law should be stoned to death, and we know Jesus would later condemn this law and practice.  

This is of course more than shaving cream.  Yet perhaps the road to here begins as simply as my own lie gone unnoticed and undervalued.  Knowing my brother had been punished in my place worked on me for a long time.  Not enough perhaps but I never forgot that I had caused this even if I undervalued it.

There are moments in life when we just need to own up to our mistakes, our self centered calculations, be they lust or greed or self preservation at another’s cost.  We have to own up to them inside ourselves first.  We choose how we sit with them yet we do well to know they fall under God’s all seeing nature and our own.  We then choose how we accept our actions and decisions.  Sometimes this is a confession to those injured.  We must be careful we do not do this just to feel we are now honest and open without regard to the damage we do.  Sometimes we must hold them alone because of the potential next layer of damage we may cause a loved one.  In this case we still know we have acted wrongly and this may be its own cost.  Sitting with this may be our teacher.  The danger is when we will not sit with it to learn wisdom.

Speaking for me, I have learned a host of lessons by self honesty, by sitting with my decisions.  Sometimes I have been left honorable, sometimes not so much so.  Understanding I am always visible to God and often others has brought me to self examination.  This has brought me to confession to at least God and self and sometimes to one I have injured.  This can invite us to wisdom and future responsible action.

If David had stopped at the first lust, none of this story would exist.  If he had stopped at fathering a child, there might have been a stoning.  If he had accepted his human failure, he might not have orchestrated a death equal to murder.

However much I thought I was just preserving myself from a more powerful father, I wish I had told the truth and spared my brother.  But I did not and I carried the guilt and that made me more careful of the truth in the years ahead.