Morning prayer: Tom Lyda Choral Amen Hymn of Grace *Amazing Grace* Witness of Scripture: 2 Samuel 6: 12-19 Anthem *A Jubilant Song* Allen Pote. Chancel Choir Sermon *Essentials: Covenant and Consequence* David Spain
Recorded on October 13, 2024
In 2016, Pam and I had the incredible opportunity to go to Italy—Rome with the Vatican and the Coliseum, Tuscany with its rolling countryside and hilltop towns, Assisi with the basilica and narrow cobbled streets, Pisa with its leaning tower and tasty gelato, Venice with its canals and late evening Vivaldi concerts.It was one highlight reel after another.Of all the iconic scenes—none of which disappointed—perhaps nothing surpassed the moment of rounding the corner, looking down the long hallway in the Accademia Gallery in Florence and seeing Michelangelo’s statue of David. It was stunning at a distance and up close. Neither Pam nor I said much to each other until later that evening—it had been an almost exhausting day of museums and walking, paintings and sculpture (and gelato). “What did you think about the day?” There was a pause—
“Wow, it was David.” Something about his statue far exceeded our expectations.
It is stunning—finished in the first few years of the 1500’s, the statue stands 17 feet tall. For more than 350 years it stood in a public square in Florence until it was moved to the Gallery in 1873, after which a replica was placed in the public square about 40 years later. There are no words to describe Michelangelo’s David, except to say that the statue brilliantly text paints the life it represents from the Biblical story, for no figure looms larger in the Hebrew scriptures than David; and no sermon series on essential Biblical stories can ignore David, a life of covenant and consequence. Our children in Logos are studying ‘heroes of the faith,’ and David is heroic in the fullness of that word—he looms large in his triumph and his tragedy. And yet through it all, we learn more than the consequences of human failures; we learn the sustenance of God’s covenant.
Even if people are not remotely interested in religion, something of David’s story lives in our conscience. When Vanderbilt defeated Alabama last week, it was David conquering Goliath on the gridiron, not with 5 smooth stones but one quick quarterback; that which seems imposing is often described as Goliath; if only one Psalm is known it is the 23rd, calling to mind the shepherd boy David. From the other side of the street, Bathsheba reminds us that power can lead to tragic and cascading destruction as long as we remember that David rather than Bathsheba is orchestrating the events. David lives on the grand scale.
We remember David’s ancestry. His great grandparents were Ruth and Boaz, an unlikely yet important heritage of the surprising ways God is embodied in our world—even in ones believed to be foreign to God. From their union came a son Obed, who married and had a son named Jesse, who married and had a host of sons the last of whom was David. When it came time for Israel to have a new king—when Saul was in fact losing it which is a tragic story in itself—Samuel came along to anoint the new king. Jesse trotted out his seven sons in birth order because the spoils go to the firstborn, but Samuel was uninspired. “Haven’t you any other sons,” asked Samuel? It can’t be young David out in the field keeping watch over the flocks by night—and yet it was, reminding us that God is not bound by human assumptions about how God moves. It may not be in the halls of presumptive power but in the backwaters and the barrios and the back of the bus that God’s power resides. The text playfully and poignantly writes that when Samuel anointed David, “he was redheaded, had beautiful eyes and was handsome.” From then on, Israel is unable to take their eyes off David; he is statuesque already, as God’s grace surprises everyone including his older brothers who may not necessarily have been happy about this surprise. Perhaps God is not always in the happiness business; instead, God goes for covenant which may well include happy but also includes more than happy.
The next iconic scene portrays diminutive David taking down domineering Goliath, twice
David’s size dripping wet. Eschewing armor and ignoring Goliath’s trash talk, David brings
down the giant with one well-placed stone. Rather than bring attention to his good aim, David reminds people of the aims of God, who is not fond of bullies and braggarts. It is too bad David did not remember that lesson later; yet for the time being he grows larger in Israel’s eye, in Saul’s fear, and in his own esteem.Saul’s paranoia would eventually send David back to the wilderness where he essentially Robin Hooded around until Saul was killed and David assumed the throne, growing ever larger in Israel’s affection.
When David becomes king, he holds the coronation dance of all time. In a shrewd political move, he brings the ark of the covenant—that ornamented box of wood that contains who knows what but at least thought to be the law of God—into Jerusalem and places himself as grand marshal of the parade, “high stepping in front of it,” as Frederick Buechner wrote, “like the Mayor of Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day.” And then he did something else seldom repeated, and thanks be to God will not be text painted here this morning—he took off the royal robes and marched into town in his BVD’s as if to say, “I have nothing to hide from you or from God.” Most of the people—except for his high-class wife and Saul’s daughter named Michal—thought it was quite special if not a spectacle, after which David threw a great banquet for everybody and not just the elites, picking up the tab which all but made everyone forget about his questionable dancing, as David grew more statuesque, now with a throne to back him up.
Since our Hebrew scriptures are more interested in telling truth about life rather than fabricating a story called Camelot, we can well expect that not everything goes perfectly. David reminds us that unlimited power, unchecked appetite, and unmatched ego are a tragic trifecta. It starts to unravel when, pondering his next acquisition, David’s sight turns to Bathsheba, whom he treats as an object for consumptive self-gratification. To cover his footprints, David brings her husband Uriah home from the battle front to be with Bathsheba; but Uriah is more honorable than David, so David sends Uriah back to the battle front where he is easily killed and David can ‘legitimate,’ his relationship with Bathsheba. Others may be fooled by such shenanigans, but the story says God is not and neither is Nathan, who through a masterful metaphor speaks truth to power, confronting David with his own despicable behavior.How is it the clay pieces of statuesque David are not swept into the heap of history’s landfill? How is it that at the end of the day, Israel and all these years later even we are moved to say, “wow, it was David?”
We ponder these possibilities. To be in covenant with God means there are consequences of living outside covenant.Consequence is inevitable when covenant is violated, which can lead to destruction, rebellion, sorrow, and death.God does not prevent that. Not only are there immediate consequences; there can be enduring ones. Whether or not this was ever in the cards, David will not build a grand temple and put his name on the cornerstone. Is it his deception, too much violence, too much war? The story doesn’t say exactly, but the prophets proclaim when power becomes violent, vindictive, and voracious, God wants no part of it. To be in covenant with God is to live with one another in the ways of justice, mercy, humility.
But David’s is more than a story of covenant violated and its consequences, important as this is. What is stunning and rare is that David admits, confesses, learns and again places himself bare before God—not high-stepping for show but vulnerable with contrition. He has come to see that when he hurts and takes advantage of another, he has not only diminished the sacredness of life; he has also violated the presence of God who abides even and perhaps especially in the ones who are vulnerable. David reminds us that power has the capacity to do what is good and healing, and power has the capacity to do what is destructive and hurtful. David reminds us that candor with God and honesty with each other is the avenue through which God’s covenant of grace travels.
Most remarkably of all, as David prays his confession found in the 51st Psalm, which is also our confession every Ash Wednesday, God does not in fact take God’s love away from him; God does not cast away David. Maybe we are not entirely sure how we feel about that; and yet perhaps the story is a reminder that God’s desire to renew and restore outlasts our human failings. The consequences of living outside God’s covenant are sure, but they are not greater than the covenant itself--“I will not take my steadfast love from you,” which the psalmist reiterates, and Jesus proclaims from Golgotha, and God resurrects three days later—that even the worst humanity can do is not more powerful than the best God can do. Maybe this is what stands largest of all in this story—not a marbleized, idealized, statuesque David. Instead, what towers is God’s surprising, wondrous, essential consequential covenant, so much so that at the end of the day we will be able to say “Wow, it is more than David.” And that is good, with or without gelato!