Old Testament Reading:  2 Samuel 11: 1-15 & 11: 26-12:14        
 
The story of David’s life is an interesting one, but we usually bring it down to just two stories that we remember: David as a child defeating Goliath, and then the story from today, the Rape of Bathsheba. We know that he was a great warrior and king at times, but most of what we recall comes down to these two stories that are so very contradictory. Today I want to explore those contradictions as well as some of the stories we do not hear that much. 
 
David was chosen by God from Jesse’s eight sons when he was just a 12 year old shepherd. The prophet Samuel was told by God to annoint David as  a future King. David proved his valor by defeating the Giant Philistine Goliath with a single stone from a slingshot shortly thereafter. 
 
The reason David was chosen was his faith. He had a steadfast faith in God even at that tender age and God knew it. That faith gave him the courage to face the Giant in God’s name. 
 
And while David was anointed as a future king, this would take years to happen. Saul had disappointed God and lost his favor but he was still king. And David seemed to respect him initially and served him as a warrior. He was also best friend’s with Saul’s son Jonathan. 
 
But Saul grew wary of David - he knew God favored David rather than him. Saul made him a battle commander and, for the price of killing 100 Philistines, he was given Saul’s daughter Michal as a wife, making him the King’s son-in-law. Yet Saul was still jealous of the favor David had with the Lord and his popularity among the people and sought to have him killed. However, Saul’s son Jonathon warned David and talked his Dad out of it at one point, but Saul continued to pursue him. David eventually gets the upper hand but refuses to let anyone kill Saul because, although out of God’s favor, he was anointed by God initially and David’s faith will not allow him to kill him. 
 
By the time of our scripture today, Saul and Jonathan have both been killed in battle. David mourned them. Shortly thereafter he became King of Judah while another of Saul’s sons became king of much of Israel. There were many battles between the House of Saul and the House of David and eventually David became King over all of Israel, uniting them. 
 
So David had made a name for himself as a warrior and King but on the day that he saw Bathsheba, the battles were being fought without him. He was at home. David had numerous wives and concubines but he saw Bathsheba and wanted her and thus had her brought to him and essentially raped her. She sends word to David later that she is pregnant and he tries to cover it up by bringing her husband home from battle to lie with her but, as a true, loyal soldier, her husband, Uriah, refused to sleep with his wife while a battle was raging, So, to cover up the rape, David has Uriah sent to the front of the battle where he is killed. We find ourselves questioning how this is God’s chosen ruler.
 
So what are we supposed to learn from David? 
 
The first thing we need to remember is that he had steadfast faith in God. This is what God saw in the 12-year old David: a strong faith, which was more important than height or strength or even intellect. Those things could come later, but faith comes from the heart and David had it. Throughout his battles and in his ruling, he sought guidance from God, first through hearing from the Prophet Samuel and later the Prophet Nathan. David is also attributed with writing a number of the psalms so he practiced his faith by praising God and seeking God’s help regularly.
 
We also know that David is loyal: first to God but also to Saul as God’s annointed King before him. Even as David is pursued by Saul who is trying to kill him, he is still loyal to him. When he catches up to Saul eventually, he merely takes the sword that was at his head as he slept to show that he could have killed him but did not. And despite their very fraught relationship, David truly mourns Saul when he dies.
 
Finally, in our scripture today, we clearly see that David is flawed. His power has corrupted him. He is lustful and uses his power to act on that lust, hurting an innocent woman and killing her husband.

That’s a tough one to deal with. It makes us angry to think about it and it made God angry as well. God sent Nathan to share the analogy of the stolen lamb to show David what he had done - to show him how he had abused his power. God was frustrated with David to whom he had given so much and yet David still took something that was not his.
 
And David got it. He was angry at the story and wanted the man to be punished and, when he was told he was that man, he realized what he had done in a way that he had not seen before. He knew that he deserved punishment. And while he does regain God’s favor, that child does die even though David prays that it will not happen and refuses to eat while the child is sick. The child’s death is an awful price to pay and, frankly, hard for us to think about. 
 
So David has a strong faith, is loyal to God and the chain of command in his kingdom and he is a sinner; he messed up, big time and not just once. 
 
I think what we are supposed to learn from David is that even people of strong faith make mistakes, hopefully not this big of one, but mistakes or sins nonetheless. And God called David to task for that. God did not ignore the sin because David had done so many good things. But neither did God give up on David. God was still with David even when he was disappointed by him. In fact, Jesus is of the line of David, so God truly did not abandon him, he was still willing to connect his son to that line. 
 
But what about Bathsheba? History too often tells the story of the victor, or at least tells the story from the male perspective but Bathsheba matters too and God did not abandon her either, even though we have to read through the lines to see her story. Despite how the child was conceived, Bathsheba loved their child, just as David did. After their child dies, scripture says that David goes to Bathsheba and consoles her. Consoling involves caring. One does not console one’s enemy or even one’s property, so despite everything, Bathsheba was loved and maybe even learned to care for David as well. They have another child that David originally names Solomon, which means replacement but God tells David through Nathan to name him, Jedidiah, beloved of Yahweh. David had many children, the fact that God shows his love for this son so clearly seems to be a clear compliment to Bathsheba.
 
Like any good parent, God is disappointed when we make mistakes but does not stop loving or caring for us. God does not give up on us for our first, second or even seventieth mistake. Neither does God want us to give up on ourselves. What we do need to do is learn from our mistakes and change.
 
That’s why we have a Call to Confession each week. We recognize that we all screw up at times. We do things that we shouldn’t do and we fail to do things we really should do to help or serve God, others or even ourselves. 
 
Acknowledging our mistakes, our shortcomings, is a kind of humility that lets us start anew. It takes humility to have faith, since faith is believing in something bigger than ourselves. It is a letting go of power rather than abusing it. 
 
And somehow, in letting go of power, we sometimes gain it. By confessing our shortcomings, our mistakes, humbly before God, we are also asking for help not to do this again. We get to release those sins and hear the reassurance that God still loves us, forgives us, even when we mess up. Knowing this, should give us the courage, the power, to try to do better next time, even if it takes a number of times, and more confessions to get it right, or just closer to right. 
 
The story of David teaches us that faith does not have to be perfect. We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to own our mistakes and try to do better. We need to lean into God’s love knowing that it is not conditional. God will not stop loving us because of our mistakes, but God will be disappointed, maybe even angry depending upon the degree of the mistake. But when we humbly give a little of our power to God in the prayer of confession and work to change our ways, God’s arms will be outstretched, eager to welcome us home.
 
The story of Bathsheba reminds us that we can survive even very difficult, very painful trauma. God is with us through life’s travails holding our hand in our pain and sorrow and looking for the opportunity to console and to restore us. 
 
In our lives we will all make mistakes that hurt ourselves and others but we are given the gift of forgiveness from the Great Redeemer and the chance to do better. In our lives we will also feel pain and sorrow, but in this, the Great Comforter is with us, we do not suffer alone. 
 
God presents God’s self to us in the ways we need it, in the times we need it whether that is in chastisement or support but either way, our loving parent is always with us. Amen. 

Pastor Michelle Fountain

Old Testament Reading: 2 Samuel 5: 1-5 & 9-10
The Gospel: Mark 6: 1-13
 
Have you ever noticed how many storage units have been cropping up across the Vermont landscape and everywhere else? I often drive through these Green Mountains enjoying the farms, fields and forests and when I am seemingly in the middle of nowhere - there they are: Self Storage Units for 30 or more different people. While storage units have their place, particularly for the in-between times of our lives, do we Americans really need that many? Do we really need that much stuff?
 
I am guilty of having too much stuff also. Russ and I have a home that is over 100 years old. They did not have as much stuff back then, the closets are small, so in our four-bedroom home, we each have closets in two different bedrooms. Of course we also have four bedrooms and a full attic for only two people, so we have a lot of stuff in general, as many of us do. 
 
 You know how whether you are packing for one night or five there seems to be a lot of “stuff” that you have to bring with you from combs to toothbrushes, face creams, medicines, shoes, and, of course, clothes? Nowadays, with the fees for luggage, we try to smash all of that stuff into our carryon luggage and some bargain fares do not even let us have carryons!
 
But Jesus “ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts.”
 
The disciples would definitely have qualified for the bargain flights, as long as their staffs were collapsible. 
 
But what does it mean to “take nothing”?
 
For the disciples it meant that they were clothed in faith, trusting that their essentials would be provided for them in the homes that welcomed them, by the people who listened to them. Those people were rewarded, as needed, with the removal of unclean spirits, by the healing of the sick. For others who would not listen to them, who barred their entrance, the disciples were to visibly “shake the dust off their feet” in front of them as they left, as if washing their hands, or in this case, feet of them. 
 
The increase of wealth even for people not in the aristocracy in Medieval Europe in the 11th-13th Centuries gave rise to the Mendicant Orders who resisted having a life filled with “stuff” even communally owned stuff like most monasteries had. Father Thomas Nairin in his article “Begging without Shame: Medieval Mendicant Orders Relied on Contributions” (March-April 2017 Health Progress: Journal of the Catholic Health Association of the United States) says “members of mendicant orders were itinerant preachers, moving from town to town to preach the Gospel. Consciously modeling themselves on the disciples of Jesus, they went about two by two and were to "take nothing for the journey, neither knapsack, nor purse, nor bread, nor money nor walking stick."3 The form of poverty embraced by these religious communities involved the renunciation of all ownership of goods, communal as well as individual. To survive, the mendicant friars asked for alms as they preached, traveled and worked along the way.” 
 
Buddhist monks in Thailand and other Asian countries rise before dawn and silently go around seeking alms. The donations of food from lay Buddhists provide the primary support for thousands of monks in Bangkok and other places. The disciplinary rule for monks says that they should not engage in agricultural labor, should keep only a few possessions and should eat whatever appears in their bowls from their daily alms collections. 
 
Those medieval friars took Jesus’ words literally and many Buddhist Monks seem to live that way to focus on their spiritual lives as well, but what about us?
 
While many of us have a lot of stuff and could use some yard sale pairing down or even have some downsizing in our future, this scripture is less about our physical stuff than our spiritual stuff. The question really is, is all of our physical stuff getting in the way or taking the place of our spiritual stuff? Do we spend our lives accumulating physical stuff rather than building our spiritual selves which can then go out and help others? It is very easy to do that and I would hazard a guess that we have all done that, at times. 
 
Father Richard Rohr discusses this in his book, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. In it he lays out that the first half of our lives is about stuff. We have to establish careers and homes to support and maintain our growing families or even just ourselves.  He notes that in the first half of life we establish our identities and part of the process of doing that is having enough stuff to feel secure. He describes this first half of life as building our container: the container of our identity. Rohr says, “We need a very strong container to hold the content and contradictions that arrive later in life. We ironically need a very strong ego structure to let go of our ego. We need to struggle with the rules more than a bit before we throw them out. We only internalize values by butting up against external values for a while. All of this builds the strong self that can positively obey Jesus–and “die” to itself.” 
 
It is in this dying to the self needs of the first half of life that Rohr says that we move into the spiritual second half of our lives; in that second half, we do not need so much stuff. We are secure in ourselves and can spend more time looking inward, building our spiritual selves, being content with what and who we are and considering how we can deal with the inevitable challenges and tragedies that will happen in our lives and how we can help and support others through them as well. And we must do this. Rohr says that “if we stay in the protected first half of life beyond its natural period, we become well-disguised narcissists or adult infants (who are also narcissists!) –both of whom are often thought to be successful “good old boys” by the mainstream culture.” These are the people who worship stuff, ideas or even country over Jesus and advocate for limiting rights rather than expanding them for all, as Jesus would. 
 
Jesus refused political power when tempted by Satan in the wilderness and he said to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s when it came to paying taxes. Jesus believed in the separation of church and state that our constitution upholds. He would want us to honor and celebrate the freedoms in our country as we did this week - honoring and celebrating our country and all Americans in whatever shape, size, race, gender, gender identity, economic or disability status or faith they do or don’t have. 
 
We are called to follow Jesus’ model to welcome and love all, even our enemies and to “take nothing” on that journey. That journey is primarily a second half of life journey, as Rohr would say. Our identity containers are built. We have learned from our successes but even more from our failures. We have fallen down and gotten back up again. We are ready to metaphorically grab our staff and embark on that inward spiritual journey. But do we still have too much literal or figurative stuff in the way? Taking nothing is hard, even with the lower priced airfare. Taking nothing is a letting go, a trust in both ourselves and God that we are and we have all we need to really embark on that spiritual journey. It is a way of finding inner peace among outer turmoil. It is a way of focusing beyond ourselves and our individual needs. 
 
We really do not need anything to take a contemplative journey with Jesus as our guide and model. Taking this journey, we realize that we do not need stuff to love ourselves and others. We don’t need stuff to get through life’s challenges; we just need faith. As Rohr says, “Faith is simply to trust the real and to trust that God is found within it–even before we change it.” The ability to make positive Jesus-like changes: to welcome, accept, love and help all people is what Jesus sends all of us disciples out to do even though some may take offense and question this wisdom just as the people of Jesus’ own hometown questioned him.

So, armed with faith, let’s grab our staff and get going; maybe we can recruit a few fellow pilgrims along the way. Amen. 

Pastor Michelle Fountain