Today's Scripture Reading (July 25, 2025): 2 Samuel 12
J. Edwin Orr (1912-1987) tells of a
time of revival in Brazil. At this time, a lady attending the service stood in
a crowded church and said, "Please pray for me. I need to love people
more." The leader gently responded to her words, arguing, "That is
not confession, sister. Anyone could have said it." The woman sat down,
and the service continued with songs, testimonies, and teachings by the special
speaker. Later in that same service, the woman stood again, but this time her
testimony had changed: "Please pray for me. What I should have said is
that my tongue has caused a lot of trouble in this church." Her pastor
leaned over and whispered to the guest speaker, "Now she's talking."
There is a reality that true
confession can never be general; it must be specific. It is not enough to say
to God, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," without getting to the
specifics of our sin. We need to be honest with God and with those around us
about the ways that we have hurt the community. Like the woman, we all need to
love people more, but the true confession of sin is that we have gossiped, told
tales, revealed secrets, and harbored hatred directed at specific people. And
we can never be healed until the particulars of our sin are understood and
confessed.
Nathan has told a story to David. It
was the story of a horrible sin, one in which a rich man had taken advantage of
a less affluent neighbor. In the story, the wealthy man, with his many sheep,
entertains a friend. Instead of sacrificing one of his large flock of sheep to
feed his guest, he decides to steal the only lamb of the poorer man. It is a
horrible story of the abuse of power by the wealthy man, and David responds
precisely as he should. Whoever this rich man was, he needed to be punished to
the fullest extent of the law. Something like this should never happen in
Israel, in a land that had been consecrated as the people of Yahweh.
But then Nathan responds with a familiar
plot twist. The rich man is David. The King was the one who took the only lamb
of the poor farmer. The lamb was Bathsheba, and the poor farmer was Uriah the
Hittite, whom David had commanded to be killed. It was a very personal sin, and
as a result, it would be a very personal punishment. But David appeared to be
blind to this fact until Nathan had told him a story about two men and some
sheep.
Sometimes I wonder how blind the
contemporary church is to our sin. We are blind to the way we treat those who
have less than we do. We insulate ourselves from the need that surrounds us.
And I wonder if maybe a Nathan is standing among us who needs to tell us a
story about a rich man, a poor man, and their sheep, and bring home the guilt of
our civilization.
Tomorrow's
Scripture Reading: Psalm 51
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