Living in the Spirit
July 27, 2015
Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
…and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, ‘There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.’ Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.’ –2 Samuel 12:1-6
While we humans each feel we are totally objective in our viewpoints, base them on facts, and are very open minded, I fear for the most part we are not. We all see through a glass darkly.* However we label ourselves—liberal, conservative, progressive—we cannot escape the filters of our experiences or our culture when attempting to understand what is actually happening in our fast-paced world. The problem is that our filters may have been formed by realities that no longer exists and certainly do not take into consideration the realities of others.
By all accounts David was intelligent, intuitive, and cared about his people, but our scripture today explores his blindside. Nathan sets David’s sin in allegory where outside his own situation David readily sees the fallacy of the logic. Yet, he does not make the connection between the story and his own life.
Our political sector is filled with people on all sides who are emulating David by being unable to clean their filters and deal with the problems within our society in positive ways. Each side keeps pushing against the other with the same solutions that may or may not have worked in the past but are not working now. Our tenacity in holding on to what we sincerely believe is right is limiting our creativity in finding what works.
Much of Jesus’ ministry on earth was targeted at just this issue. For example he said, ‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. (Luke 11:42) We would do well to follow his lead now.
Prayer: Lord, clear our insight so that we can take in the concerns of others, combine their good ideas with ours and form a better way. Amen.