2 Samuel 12:1-10 "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan...

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, 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.”
Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.” (2 Samuel 12:1-10)

Comment:

This is a part of one of the great stories in Hebrew Scripture—the adventures of David and Bathsheba. And it’s the earliest example of a parable used as a teaching tool in the way that Jesus would perfect in his ministry hundreds of years later. If Nathan had simply gone to David with a direct accusation, there might have been serious consequences for the prophet. Instead he uses the story of the simple peasant and his one and only lamb to force David into basically condemning himself. By becoming outraged at the actions of the rich man in the story, he is brought face-to-face with his own behavior. This allows Nathan to deliver the message of the Lord. That message is basically a reminder of the spiritual law that choices have consequences. David has turned to his own manipulative skills to achieve a lowly goal, when the same divine energy that brought him to the throne in the first place was eternally available.

The same is true for us, I think, much of the time. The “error thought” that leads us to negative choices is the belief that we know best what we want and how to get it. The result is that the negative energy of those choices becomes our life experience. We must live with those consequences until we, like David, recognize the error, dissolve the underlying fear and turn to the guidance and love of the Lord of our Being to make new choices. It’s literally true that we are not punished for our sins; we are punished by our sins and the negative energies they bring into our lives. And no matter how grievous the mistake may have been (and David’s was a doozy!), the infinite love of the divine is never denied us, and is always available whenever we decide to return to it.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed