Lost in the Flood

2 Samuel 11: 1-15

I remember one time I dreamed that I was in heaven, where I was promptly met by St. Peter at the famous “Pearly Gates.”  Peter began to show me around.  I noticed right away that on the walls of an enormous warehouse I saw thousands and thousands of clocks. All of these clocks were ticking away, but at different rates. 

I then noticed that under each clock was a name plate with a name engraved on it. Naturally, I asked the significance of all this. Peter informed me that each clock was designed to keep track of an individual still on earth. Each time the person committed a sin, the hands on their clock make a complete revolution.

Upon closer examination, I began to recognize a few names.  After searching for my own clock and not finding it, I inquired as to the location of my clock. 

St. Peter replied, “Oh, your clock? Well, we moved it into the office and are using it for a fan.”

We are no strangers to sin.  It comes to us so naturally.  Most of the time we don’t even see our sin or know we did anything wrong until later.  At that point, we find ourselves on a road to nowhere, deep in the woods, lost in the flood.

I’m a big fan of the Veggie Tales video series.  The characters are all vegetables and some fruit.  The main characters are Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber.  They introduce the theme for the show and tell a story to reinforce the specific theme.  In the episode, “Larry Boy and the Fib from Outer Space”, we meet Junior Asparagus, a young boy who finds himself in some trouble.  He broke his dad’s bowling plate in pieces and knows when he finds out he’s in big trouble.  At the same time a strange visitor tells Junior to cover his tracks and tell a little white lie. 

“My name is Fibrilious Minimus!  But you can call me Fib for short!”  Fib tells Junior that white lies are the ones that don’t hurt anybody.  Junior makes up a little white lie; a story about what happened to the plate and his Dad believes him.  No punishment for Junior. 

Junior begins to notice something strange.  His new friend is getting bigger and less and less cute every time Junior tells a little white lie.  Junior’s “little fib” grew and grew and grew finally into a 30 foot monster that threatens to destroy their town and Junior, too.  Larry Boy comes to save the day and free Junior from the clutches of Fib.  But Larry Boy can’t save him.  Junior learns that he is the only one who can stop the monster.  To stop him, Junior must tell the truth and confess what he had done.  He begins to confess his “sins” and the monster fib gets smaller and smaller, until there is only little fib left.  The little lie led to bigger lies; one little lie can lead to a chain of lies and lead us to sin.

We are no strangers to sin.  And neither was King David.

This narrative is more than we want to know about David and more than we can bear to understand about ourselves.  It started when, instead of leading his army into war, David sends his commander Joab and his officers to do the dirty work. While they are ravaging the Ammonites and besieging Rabbah, King David remains behind in Jerusalem (2 Samuel 11:1).

This is not a good sign. By not going to war, David has ceased to be the commander-in-chief and now relies on agents to do his work.  The slide into sin begins when David neglects his normal duties. He got bored.  He had too much time on his hands.    

While lounging in his house, his eyes get him in trouble.  He spots a woman taking a bath some distance away.  The king is enticed and curious about this woman.  He issues an all-points-bulletin to his servants.  First, he sends someone to discover her identity: Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite.  Then he orders messengers to fetch her.  Then he laid with her, that is, they had intimate relations. 

With the organization and energy that should have gone into doing his kingly duties, David methodically commits at least five of the Seven Deadly Sins. He begins with the sin of sloth on his couch, moves into lust when he sees Bathsheba bathing, follows up with envy of her husband Uriah, acts on his greed when he sends messengers to fetch the fetching woman. He tries to get out of it by setting up Uriah to deflect any suspicion of linking David to what had happened.  When he doesn’t do what he wants, David sets Uriah up again to be killed in battle making it look like a casualty of the war.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that pride and anger must have been a part of the mix as well.

Did David know what he was getting into or was he just lost in the flood?

David is blinded by power.  In the text, he acts swiftly; his actions are quick.  They rush by us as the passion of David rushed:  he sent, he took, he lay.  There is no conversation with anyone about what he wants to do.  There is no hint or sign of caring, affection or love – only lust.  He has become so powerful that he imagined himself as exempt from God’s law and could act for his own desire.

David as king is in control.  As king, he can have whatever he wants, whenever he wants.  He exercises no restraint, no second thoughts, no reservations and no justifications.  He takes simply because he can. 

David’s self-indulgent misperception of his life as autonomous from everything and everyone will lead him to lose his true self.  He was lost.  Lost in himself; lost in his culmination of power as king; lost in a sea of sinfulness whose under toe had pulled him so far from the shore he couldn’t see it anymore.  No bearings to know where he was.  No coordinates to tell someone about where he can be found.  And he is sinking fast.  His absolute power as king had corrupted him absolutely.

Are we in danger of going down with David?

The problem with sins is that we think they’re manageable — a little bit of lust, a smidgen of sloth, a pinch of pride — but before we know it they get out of control and lead to damage, destruction and even death.  Standard sins can be the gateway to more serious, unconventional ones. David’s lust turned into adultery, which turned into deceit, which turned into murder. He spiraled steadily downward until he finally hit rock-bottom, confessed his sins and returned to an authentic relationship with God.

Take gambling, for instance. Even though gambling is now legal all across our country, transforming greed into a rather common sin, the damage done by this industry is impossible to ignore. Americans now spend more money on legal gambling than they spend on groceries, roughly $500 billion a year, and the destruction to individuals and families is heartbreaking.

Soft drugs like marijuana are believed to be the gateway to harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin. For some of us, all it takes is one joint and we’re hooked, one peek at pornography on the internet, one piece of gossip, one lie, one kiss, one bet, one drink and we’re headed fast down a dangerous road, one that is extremely hard to turn off on our own.

When I lived in Chicago, I became friends with a guy from church named Roy.  He was a member of the small group I joined earlier in the year.  Roy was a good guy, energetic and enthusiastic.  He was a solid member of our small group.  It was mid-December when I received a phone call from Roy.  He asked if he could stay at my place for a few days.  He had been kicked out of where he was living and had no place to go.  Surprised by his request I asked my roommate Jeremy if he thought it was okay.  Jeremy was in the same group and knew Roy as well as I did.  We gave Roy the okay and he schlepped himself over to our place that very night.  We all agreed that Roy could stay with us for three nights and three nights only.  Everything went fine with no problems.  I kept asking Roy if he found a place to go and he had a different excuse why he couldn’t find a place.  Something wasn’t right and I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I was getting suspicious.  My Presby-senses were tingling!

When I came home from work on what would have been Roy’s fourth night with us, I found that all his stuff was still in our place.  My roommate had left town for the Christmas holiday, so I was going to have to handle this myself.  After a while, the phone rings and its Roy begging me to stay another night in this very winey, pathetic sounding voice.  I said no.  I was very suspicious of him and the trust level had plummeted.  He kept begging and I kept saying no.  He finally gives up and says he’ll be right over.  Thirty minutes later Roy arrives and as he picks up his stuff begins to beg me to let him stay.  I still said no.  His begging turned to anger.  He called me all the names in the book, told me where to go, what to do with myself and he said I was a bad Christian because I wouldn’t help him.  Oy vey!  If I received a dollar every time I was called that, I would be a very rich man.  Roy finally left and secured the door behind him.  Whew!  That was exhausting. 

I found out later that Roy was an alcoholic who stopped going to AA meetings, couldn’t hold a job, had no income, and no place to live.  He lied to other friends of ours borrowing money and never paying them back. 

I don’t know what happened to Roy.  I never saw him again not at church or anywhere.  His drinking, his lies and his denial not only hurt him but also those of us who called him our friend.  Roy was on a downward spiral and refused to admit it.  Did Roy know what trouble he was into, did he know he was on a road to nowhere, a lost highway or was he just lost in the flood?

What are we to do? In David’s statement of repentance concerning this affair in our responsive reading today of Psalm 51, he suggests that a good place to start is with confession, cleansing and community. 

We must start with confession because we’re never whole or complete unless we take responsibility for our actions.  We must stop blaming others and the circumstances we find ourselves for our problems and difficulties, for all that is wrong, hurtful, and debilitating.  God is waiting for us to acknowledge our need for the grace of God in our lives.

We must be cleansed because only in the act of confession and forgiveness can we feel that the stain of sin has been removed. It is only here that we get a second chance with God, that we get to start fresh and with a clean slate. Our sins go from scarlet red to a white that is as white as fresh snow.

We must do all this in community because it is in fellowship with others that we receive the support and encouragement we need.  Consider church and worship to be a weekly convocation of the courageous, a place where the rewards of righteousness are identified and defined; a convention where we’re encouraged, supported, affirmed, admonished and given help along the way so that we can keep our morality sharp and our spirituality lively. 

Sprinting toward God, instead of Gomorrah, is the way we need to go. Any other direction is bound to be extremely wet.