Power to Bless, to Enhance Life
Homily
By The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 26 July
2015
Proper
12 Year
B:
2 Samuel 11:1-15; Psalm 14; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21
“I
am pregnant.”
I
wonder if Bathsheba's terse message, “I am pregnant,” forced
David to sit down when he received that shocker in our first lesson.
We know he gets busy trying to fix the situation; he is pregnant with
ideas. Our scriptures are pregnant, not with child, but pregnant as
another of the dictionary's meanings: “rich in significance,
possibilities, consequences”1.
We
see consequences & significance in our scriptures today. We see
contrast between King David's abundant resources, his
self-indulgence, his murderous action & the life-giving actions
in our Gospel, grace that springs from meager resources, the wisdom
Jesus has to go away by himself when people want to make him king.
Our
first serving of scripture today is rich in irony & repetitions:
9 times we hear the word send
or sent,
5 times we hear go
down
or not
go down
about Uriah going home. The 4 times we hear that he does not go down
to his house emphasize his steadfast2
character. The 6th
time we hear the word down
is in David's order to his commander to put Uriah at the front lines
& desert Uriah so that “he
may be struck down & die.”
We see irony
as Uriah carries his own death sentence in the letter David writes.
Earlier
in this lesson we see irony:
while
the soldiers are fighting, the king
[who
usually goes & fights]
stays
home, takes a nap & makes a mess of several lives.
“(W)hile (his )army
besieges Rabbah,3
The
Jewish Study Bible
tersely
title this Chapter “Adultery & Murder”5
& notes that it is unusual
in ancient literature to criticize the king.
It is unusual
that both Bathsheba's father & husband are named.
Her dad,
Eliam, may also have been a soldier like her husband,
Uriah
the Hittite,
who is not an
Israelite & whose name
in Hebrew means,
as Harper's
Bible Commentary notes6,
“YHWH
[God] is my light”. This
foreigner is a man of light, a man of honor7,
more honorable than King David.
What
if Uriah knows what David is doing
&
what David has done?8
While
his fellow soldiers must sleep camped outside, he refuses to enjoy
the comforts of home. Notice: He sleeps where the king's other
servants sleep. With communication going between David to get
Bathsheba, her message to David, David's message to his commander to
send Uriah home, someone else must know something.9
Perhaps
Uriah hears the truth as he honorably denies himself a comfortable &
comforting bed.
Think
of the difference between Uriah's lack of comfort & David's lack
of honor, David's lack of turning to God for guidance.
David's horrid taking of an innocent, loyal man's life contrasts to
the loyalty of Uriah. What
contrasting generosity we see in our Gospel's sharing of
the meager resources available to Jesus.
These meager resources turn into abundance through the self-giving of
Jesus & of the boy who shares his 5 loaves of bread & 2
fish.10
Jesus
works through this demanding situation when he could easily send the
people home.
The
disciples see a problem. Jesus
sees an untapped abundance, a resource that will offer
plenty of leftovers to collect to share with hungry folk who aren't
there. The disciples use baskets for the leftovers – perhaps
baskets like this.
For
leftovers at home we use dishes or storage items like this.11
We use a traveling kit like this to share the abundant bread &
wine that we have when we gather at this Holy Table. We share it with
our brothers & sisters who cannot be here & in emergencies.
We
know from experience the grace we receive in the bread & wine
even though we may not be able to explain the transformational,
healing nourishment. We can't explain how 5 loaves of bread & 2
fish can feed 5,000 &
provide plenty of leftovers. The thousands of people gathered with
Jesus don't demand to understand how the miracle has happened before
they eat.
Notice:
The disciples have just participated in this major miracle & they
quickly forget to trust when life gets stormy. The gift from the Holy
Spirit that we receive in Holy Communion strengthens us for our
journeys, for the battles we have, for the difficult, self-indulgant
people in our lives, for the storms we face.
The
gift of the Holy Spirit reminds us that we are not alone in life's
storm-tossed boat. The Holy Spirit reminds us to see things
differently: to see like Jesus sees. Where there seems to be lack,
Jesus sees abundance.
Jesus
abundantly gives us our daily bread:
the
physical & the spiritual nourishment we need to serve where we
are
as
Jesus' healing, nourishment-giving hands.
Bibliography
Handy
Dictionary of the Bible.
Ed.: Merrill C. Tenney. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House.
1965.
Harper’s
Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco:
Harper & Row Publishers, 1988.
Harper’s
Bible Dictionary.
General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1971.
Holy
Bible with the Apocrypha.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New
York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Loque,
The Rev. Canon Frank. 8
Pentecost, Proper 12 (B) – 2009.
Accessed: 24 July 2015.
http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2009/07/26/eighth-sunday-after-pentecost-proper-12-b-july-26-2009/
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.
Accessed: 25 July 2015.
7
Ibid. Jewish Study Bible. P. 637.
8
Ibid. Harper's.
9
Ibid.
10
Note: I wonder when Jesus & the disciples eat.
11
Idea from: “What
to Do with the Leftovers”.
http://www.sermons4kids.com/leftovers.htm.
Accessed: 23 July 2015.
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