Episode 1458: Call to Confession

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1458 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Miriam Cobb: Hi, I'm Miriam Cobb. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to find your passionate calling is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:36] Scott Maderer: Not forgetting, forgetting, not saying it's perfect, not saying that it's all over, but allowing yourself to recognize the forgiveness and grace of God and the redemption that comes out of that, that can change not just on Sunday, but the entire rest of your life. Welcome and thank you for joining [00:01:00] us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:03] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:23] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk with you about 2 Samuel, chapter 11, verses 1 through 15. I share how sometimes we need to be reminded that sin is a truth for all of us. I also share how important it is to recognize that we bring our whole selves to worship. Second Samuel chapter 11 verses one through 15 says In the spring of the year, the time when Kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him.

[00:01:53] They ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened late one [00:02:00] afternoon when David Rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof, a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman, and it was reported, This is Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, the wife of Urah the Hittite.

[00:02:17] So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. Now she was purifying herself after her period. Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. David sent word to Joab, Send me Urah the Hittite. And Yoab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Yoab and the people fared and how the war was going.

[00:02:42] Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. Uriah went out of the king's house and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king's house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house. When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his [00:03:00] house, David said to Uriah, You have just come from a journey.

[00:03:03] Why did you not go down to your house? And Urah said to David, The Ark and Israel and Judea remain in Booth, and my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house and eat and drink and lie with my wife? As you live, as your soul lives, I will do no such thing.

[00:03:22] Then David said to Urah, Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back. So Urah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his Lord, but he did not go down to his house.

[00:03:40] In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, Send Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die. This passage begins with you, you remember that face that your [00:04:00] mom would give you when you did something that disappointed her?

[00:04:03] That seems to be the tone of the beginning of this passage. But David remained at Jerusalem. See Kings were supposed to go out to battle. It even says this. This is the season when the Kings go out to battle. That's how the verse begins. But David remained at Jerusalem. It's already starting out bad. And this is before we get to the part that makes this passage so difficult.

[00:04:28] It's not going to be good if that's how it starts. And it's about as far from good as it can get. This seems to be the beginning of the end for David in many ways. This abuse of power seems to be the beginning of the decline of David. There was a bad decision, followed by a bad decision, followed by even more bad decisions.

[00:04:53] The king at this point is still held out, has this pinnacle of the royal experiment, and here he's [00:05:00] revealed to be human. A sinner in need of redemption, just like any of us. There have been attempts throughout history to rewrite this and exonerate David and lay the blame at the feet of Bathsheba.

[00:05:16] She was just too beautiful, too available, too accessible, too visible to resist. She didn't, Fight back. David was helpless before her. But if you think about it, that's much the same argument as saying that a rape victim is somehow to blame for their attack because of something they've done.

[00:05:34] Think about the power dynamic here. David has all of the power. She's simply bathing herself in blood. trying to purify herself, and David is tempted and gives in to that temptation. And there's some power dynamic where the king is asking for this. What would happen if she even said no? And what if she did?

[00:05:58] We don't [00:06:00] know what all happened, but clearly there is sin here. And then she sends word back to the king that she's pregnant, and what does David do? He doubles down on the sinfulness. He expands it, he compounds it, he makes it worse. First he tries to cover it up. He calls her husband back, and says, This will let him end up spending time with his wife, and then they'll think it's His kid, not mine.

[00:06:30] But then when that doesn't work, he plots murder against an innocent man. A man who clearly in this story is patriotic, is faithful, who's honoring his king, his country, the other soldiers. This honorable man is actually preserved in the genealogy of Jesus that's recorded in Matthew. This offense against Bathsheba and Uriah is laid bare for all to see.

[00:06:59] You [00:07:00] And yet, the Messiah comes from this line, the Messiah who came to redeem the world. And realize, redeem here doesn't mean erased it, doesn't mean got rid of it, doesn't mean ignore it. This story is a complicated and difficult story, and what do we do with it? During certain times of the year, certain seasons, like elections that are going on right now, we use this story sometimes to remind people that no one is immune from bad behavior.

[00:07:30] No one is immune from the abuse of power. There is no human today who is immune. living the perfect life and is completely without sin. And that includes our political leaders on either side of the aisle, by the way. And yet this story, I think, makes us uncomfortable. It makes us challenged. It makes us think about the fact that I'm not as bad as [00:08:00] this.

[00:08:00] I haven't done that. I've never plotted murder to cover up infidelity. And yet every Sunday in most churches, there's some version of a prayer of confession. sometimes people are asked either directly or indirectly to worship and to share in public confession. And I will tell you that there are times that I've been asked, can we just skip that part?

[00:08:25] After all, we're good people. We do a lot of mission work. We do a lot of good things. It's uncomfortable in my church. Some of the things we say is, corporately, together, we have not done your will. We have broken your law. We have rebelled against your love, and we have not heard the cry of the needy.

[00:08:44] And at first glance, that may seem like a bit much. Don't we do most things right? Aren't we helping and engaging in mission? Aren't we doing good stuff? Why do we say this out loud and claim that we're not doing it when we are? Clearly, look at what we're doing. [00:09:00] Worship is supposed to be happy.

[00:09:01] It's supposed to make me feel better about myself, not worse. Can't we just skip over this whole confession thing? And yet the truth is, if you think about it, we gather together with regrets, we gather together with things that we have done wrong, we gather together with sins, both big and small. Maybe we haven't arranged a murder like David did.

[00:09:25] But we've murdered people with unkind words. We've pushed away people that we love. We've done hurtful acts. We've walked or driven past someone who needed something from us and pretended like we didn't see their need, when in fact we could have done something. We felt helpless in the face of systems that create poverty and inequity and other things that are injustices.

[00:09:51] And yet we do nothing about them. We come carrying burdens that can feel overwhelming. And if all we do is [00:10:00] set them aside and sing praises to God, we still walk away with those same burdens, that same guilt, and that same sin. The whole point is that confession, in part, is there so that we can be transformed by that act of confession and go out into the world a different kind of person.

[00:10:19] We can take the transformation of confession out into the world. When we bring our whole selves to worship, a lot of other stuff comes along with us. There are questions about how we use our power, how we use our privilege, even if we think that we don't have power or we aren't privileged. There's fear that we could be caught out for something that we've done either currently or in our past that haunts our step and our every decision.

[00:10:48] Things done and things left undone weigh on us. And here's the moment where we can lift those up to God who loves us anyway. Here we can [00:11:00] find forgiveness and blessings. Not forgetting, not saying it's perfect, not saying that. It's all over, but allowing yourself to recognize the forgiveness and grace of God and the redemption that comes out of that, that can change not just on Sunday, but the entire rest of your life.

[00:11:24] Thanks for listening.

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