Bathsheba + David + Psalm 51

The beautiful, bathing Bathsheba, a lustful King David, and Psalm 51! 

Victim or Survivor?  Today, anyway, I prefer to see Bathsheba as a tough-minded and capable leader.  

(For more read “Her Story” here.)

David’s story continues with an emphasis on his wickedness and sin.  His lust.  His violence.  His murdering heart.

And then the lectionary gives us Psalm 51! 

And the focus all changes. 

I forget about Bathsheba…in particular. 

And I forget about David...in particular. 

And I remember my own life…my desires and short-comings and straight-up sin.

My offences truly I know them

And my sins are always before me.

But they aren’t always before me

I don’t really even know…most of the time.

In fact I think that my particular misdeeds…can be a convenient smokescreen.

A quote I wrote on my laundry room wall:

The older I get

The more contrite I feel

And the less I am able

To link that contrition

With any particular misdeed.*

Why is that so?

Why more now than ever?

God doesn’t need our sacrifices

But a contrite heart…a humbled contrite spirit

Somehow it is this contrition

That I, more and more, can’t link to any misdeed

Somehow it has a role to play in God’s new creation

Out of nothing…out of less than nothing…out of sin even

God makes all things new

So Maybe this contrition and sadness

Is the ingredient that helps me know my offenses

My contrition is a confession

that in my comfortable life

All my choices are somehow connected

to the flourishing or the diminishment of the human family…

and all of creation even. 

They are connected…they play a part…

They aren’t the whole story…

the weight of the whole world is not mine to bare

But just enough of it is

Just enough…so that this time…

God might find fertile ground in me for a piece of the new creation

That’s what God can do…

God waits for my contrition

“finally…her offences…she knows them”

And in that moment of recognition…and sadness…and weeping

God creates me all over again

Transforms me into someone new

Not just restoring but recreating me

And then,

I can join the psalmist

In the joy of salvation

An exuberant joy that invites me home to your side

Thanks be to God!

*from an audio lecture by Gil Bailie...Can't remember which one...I don't make footnotes when I write on my wall!