Fortunate Fall

2 Samuel 12:1-7; John 8:1-11; Psalm 51

August 28, 2022 • Mount Pleasant UMC

She was on the ground, half-naked and ashamed. When they broke in and grabbed her, they didn’t let her get dressed. Now they stood in a circle, facing her, taunting her, calling her all sorts of awful names, names she never expected to hear coming from the mouths of religious leaders. He had left in a hurry, and she had begun to believe he was in cahoots with them. Maybe he had never loved her at all. She didn’t know, and it really didn’t matter, because at this point, the next thing she expected to feel were the stones. All of them had one, and they were ready to throw them at her. She expected that a few well-aimed throws would knock her out, and then she would die. That was, after all, the penalty for what she had done. She knew that when she got into this mess, but she couldn’t help herself. Or at least that’s what she had told herself these last few weeks.

Why were they waiting? Why weren’t they throwing the stones? She looked up and saw that they seemed to be waiting on the approval of a young rabbi whom they had pulled into the discussion. “Teacher,” they said to him, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. What do you say?” (8:5). He hadn’t said anything yet. Instead, he had stooped down, near her, and was scribbling in the sand. Something—she couldn’t make out what he was writing or drawing. But he wasn’t saying anything and they were getting impatient. Why didn’t he just agree with them and get it over with?

Why, indeed. After all, the religious leaders were correct. Adultery was forbidden by their law, and the punishment for it was death by stoning (cf. Deuteronomy 22:22-24). Jesus really couldn’t argue with them, no matter how much he might want to. So, rather than responding to them, he kneels in the dirt and writes…something. We don't know what; John doesn’t tell us. This is the only time we have any indication Jesus wrote anything, and nobody took notes! Some people suggest he was writing the names of those gathered there and their sins in the dirt. Some say he was just doodling. Perhaps he was writing out the Ten Commandments. Or maybe, just maybe, he was writing the words, “Remember David.”

David, as I’ve said, is considered the greatest king of Israel. He became known as a “man after God’s own heart,” and he is an ancestor of Jesus. Pretty good pedigree! And yet, as we’ve been looking at his story over these weeks, we’ve also seen he was far from perfect. He is no stained-glass saint. He is someone, just like us, who struggled to keep his eyes fixed on God, and to live the way God called him to live. This morning, we come to a point in David’s life that not only derailed him but also had consequences throughout the rest of his life and ripples across his family life. It begins in 2 Samuel 11, when David makes a choice to stay home from war.

We’re told it’s spring, the time when kings go off to war (11:1). But David, rather than going himself, sends Joab, his general, to demonstrate his authority over the city of Rabbah (modern-day Amman in Jordan). This isn’t a major war; this is a raiding party. They went to attack and loot and bring back stuff (Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, pg. 182). It’s not a battle that requires the king’s presence; Joab will do just fine. Besides, David is older now and firmly established as the king. He doesn’t need to prove himself in battle anymore, and at least in part because of that, boredom is getting the best of him. What else is there to accomplish when you’ve become king at age 30? Complacency has set in (cf. Luchetti, Overcoming Spiritual Slump, pgs. 14-16), so he’s hanging around the palace, napping in the afternoon, and taking evening strolls on the palace roof. And one evening, during his stroll, he sees a beautiful woman bathing on her roof (11:2). Now, most people went to their rooftops for privacy, but because the palace was higher than other buildings in Jerusalem, David can see onto their roofs. He can literally keep an eye on the inhabitants of the city (Goldingay, 1 & 2 Samuel for Everyone, pgs. 140-141). So he sees this woman, and then sends for her. Even after learning she is married to one of his top soldiers, he still has her brought to the palace, where he sleeps with her (11:3-4). Then he sends her back home. Bathsheba is just a momentary pleasure for David; he doesn't love her. Interesting fact: we’re never told David loves anyone (Goldingay 141). At this point in his life, people are things, and that is the first step down a dangerous road.

David moves on with his life. Bathsheba is in the past until word comes that she is pregnant. The only words Bathsheba speaks in the whole story are these: “I am pregnant” (11:5). Now David knows he is in trouble, so he devises a plan. He calls her husband (and his soldier) Uriah home from the front, gives him a leave thinking Uriah will go home and sleep with his wife. Then, the child will be thought to be Uriah’s. But Uriah, maybe suspecting something is up, or that his loyalty is being tested, refuses to go to his house (11:6-9). He sleeps on the palace porch. So David tries again. He gets Uriah drunk in hopes he will stagger home without thinking, but this time Uriah sleeps among the king’s servants (11:12-13). If only David were as loyal to Uriah as Uriah is to David. So David sends Uriah back to the battle, and he sends along orders for Joab to make sure Uriah is killed in the fighting (11:14-15). After that’s done, Bathsheba mourns for her husband, and what that’s over, David brings her again to the palace and marries her (11:26-27). Now everything’s taken care of. It’s done. No one will know. And David would have gotten away with it—except for one thing. The very last verse in chapter 11 says this: “But the thing David had done displeased the Lord” (11:27).

At that moment we realize we haven't heard a thing about God in this story. That’s because when we ignore God, he goes silent. David has not been “inquiring of the Lord,” as he had done earlier in his life (cf. Luchetti 17). In fact, throughout this story, David is playing God. He has taken charge, and you can see that through the use of one little word: “send.” David sends Joab to battle. David sends to find out about Bathsheba. David sends for Bathsheba. David orders Joab to send Uriah back to the capital, and he tries to send Uriah to his own home. David sends Uriah back to the battle carrying his own death sentence. And after Bathsheba mourns for Uriah, David sends for her to come and marry him. David thinks he is in charge; the whole “king” thing has gone to his head. He has forgotten that God is the one who sends. Virtually all sin comes from the same root: the desire to be gods ourselves (Peterson 184). That was the promise the serpent made to Eve in the Garden of Eden: “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). That temptation, to be like God, causes us to try to take charge of our own life and assume control over others, to be “senders.” David sent, but his “sending” ends at the beginning of chapter 12, when God steps in: “The Lord sent Nathan to David” (12:1).

We’re not told where the prophet Nathan caught up with David, but I picture this conversation taking place during a walk. The two of them are maybe talking about the state of the kingdom, and then Nathan says to David, “Can I tell you a story?” David enjoys the stories Nathan tells, so he agrees, and Nathan spins this story about a poor man with a single lamb and a rich neighbor who had many sheep. When the rich man has company come by and needs to feed his visitors, he doesn't want to “waste” one of his own flock on the traveler, so he takes the poor man’s lamb, just because he could, and he serves that lamb for dinner. David was a shepherd; he knows the value of a lamb and how attached you get to them so he grossly overreacts. He “burns with anger,” and says, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity” (12:5-6). And then comes Nathan’s punchline: “You are the man!” (12:7).

Typically, when preachers tackle this story, we end up with a sermon about how adultery is bad, murder is bad, so David repents and all is well. And that message is here, and it’s true. But I want to take a bit broader view of David’s story, because not everyone ends up in the same situation David is in, but we do all end up in places of sin, of separation from God. David’s story gives us a bit of a clue as to how we get there, and in true preacher fashion, the steps all start with D. The slide begins with degeneration, with a boredom with the things of God. It’s when we stop “inquiring of the Lord” as David did, when we no longer want to pray or read Scripture or participate in corporate worship. We begin to distance ourselves from the things of God, and it’s not something that generally happens overnight. We take one step away, then another, then another until we’re no longer “inquiring of the Lord” and instead of going where God sends us, we’re on the couch in the evening. It’s the mindset of “just one drink won’t hurt,” even though you know your tendency toward alcoholism. It’s the innocent online search that leads you into dark places on the internet. It’s the lie, the cheat, the past regret that you convince yourself God can never forgive. Degeneration doesn’t happen overnight, but when it happens, we find ourselves moving away from God.

That leads, in David’s story, to disruption. When Nathan shows up, he calls out David’s self-deception. At first, as he listens to the story, David has no insight; he can’t see himself in the story. Nathan has to call him out: “You are the man!” (11:7). That’s because we don’t like disruptions. We don’t like to be called out. We’re much better at denying and deflecting. What I did wasn’t so bad. Oh, yeah, well, so-and-so is much worse! And on we go. And still Nathan says, “You are the man!” But here’s the truth:disruption is a gift of grace because without someone or something from the outside breaking into our degeneration, we will continue to slide further away from God. And though a lot of paintings and sketches picture Nathan as angrily pointing his finger at David, I don’t see that as consistent with the character of the God who sent Nathan. The God of grace always wants to restore us in love, and even when Nathan comes to confront David, he does because of God loves David enough to distrupt him. And he loves us enough to disrupt us as well.

Degeneration leads to disruption. Disruption leads to disclosure. After Nathan finishes, David confesses, “I have sinned against the Lord” (12:13). No excuses, no half-hearted reasons, just a simple confession. “I have sinned…” And while he certainly had sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba, he recognizes that his primary sin is against the God who created and loved Uriah and Bathsheba and David and you and me. Sin breaks relationships here on earth, but more than that, sin breaks our relationship with God, and the only way to heal it is to bring it out in the open. The way to healing is through disclosure. St. Augustine had a phrase that gets at that: in Latin it’s felix culpa that basically means “happy sin” or “fortunate fall.” To most of us, that sounds rather strange. You don’t often hear preachers talking about “happy sin,” do you? Usually it’s like the man who came home from church and his wife asked what the pastor preached about. He said, “Sin.” His wife asked, “What’d he say about it?” “He’s against it.” And so we are. But Augustine saw beyond the act to what our sin enabled or caused. Felix culpa is not celebrating sin for sin's sake. Rather, as musician Audrey Assad put it in a song, “O happy fault…fortunate fall, that gained for us so great a Redeemer.” That is the Gospel message: that in spite of our sin, a redeemer, a savior was sent for us. God could have been done with us, but instead he sent Jesus. All that’s left for us to do is accept his grace, his mercy, his love and be forgiven. We stop playing God long enough to throw ourselves on the savior, on Jesus, and allow him do the forgiveness work. Fortunate fall that gained for us so great a redeemer.

There is a psalm associated with this story, Psalm 51. There, David writes, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (51:1-2). Before this, everything was all about David, what he had done, how he had done it, and about him finding a way out. But by the time he writes the psalm, he is all about God and what God can do and will do with a repentant heart. Mercy. Love. Compassion. Cleanser of our sin. O fortunate fall that leads us to so great a redeemer. Listen to how Eugene Peterson described it: “David’s sin, enormous as it was, was wildly outdone by God’s grace…It’s always a mistake to concentrate attention on our sins; it’s God’s work on our sins that’s the main event” (Peterson 189).

That’s why David prays the way he does later on in Psalm 51. Listen to these beautiful words: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (51:10-12). I’ve been especially taken by that last verse over the last couple of years, through the pandemic and the denominational stress and the national conflicts: restore to me the joy of your salvation. Restore to me the joy. The word means “mirth, gladness, exultation.” It means something displayed, not something kept secret. David’s not talking about just smiling even though the world is falling apart. He longs for that joy, that deep down sense that life is good even when it’s hard, to be evident in his heart again. For me, there are circumstances that will threaten that joy. I brood over things, and I can easily let bad things push that joy aside. That’s one reason I need this prayer. I need God to remind me often that life is good, that he is good, and that the worst thing is never the last thing. Joy, deep down unspeakable joy. And that joy, David says, comes not from circumstances, not from people, not from having more stuff, not from achieving some goal or dream. That joy comes from where? Restore to me the joy of your salvation. That joy comes as we realize that we have a finite number of ways to sin, but God has an infinite number of ways to forgive (cf. Peterson 190). No matter how broken we are or how broken the world is, there is nothing we can do that can exhaust God’s ability to create a clean heart within us and to restore the joy in our soul. Joy comes as we come to him serious about disclosure.

Which leads to the final piece of this story, our story: decision. We decide that, from this day forward, we are going to live differently. In the rest of chapter 12, David repents and begs God not to punish him, but when the consequences settle on his family through the death of the child conceived in adultery, David resolves to move forward. He can’t go back but he can decide to walk in God’s ways once again. In Psalm 51 he puts it this way: “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you” (51:13). Basically, David says he wants to help other people avoid the sin he ended up in. He doesn’t want others to have to go through what he went through. And that brings us back the woman huddled on the ground with Jesus doodling in the dirt nearby. After the religious leaders goad him for a while, Jesus finally does say something, words that have echoed throughout the centuries: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (8:7). And then he kneels down and starts doodling in the dirt again. We’re not told how long the silence was, but I imagine there was a least a bit of time while the religious leaders realize they have been undone by the grace of Jesus Christ. John tells us that they started dropping their rocks and leaving, beginning with the oldest. When everyone is gone, Jesus looks at the woman and asks a question he already knows the answer to: “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?” Trembling, she responds, “No one, sir,” knowing that he still could. But Jesus puts that concern to rest. “Neither do I condemn you,” he says. And then he calls her to a decision: “Go now and leave your life of sin” (8:10-11).

To find our joy fully restored, and even more importantly, to find our relationship with God restored, requires a decision. What will you do, what step will you take away from your sin and toward a renewed relationship with the God of all mercy? Mike Schmidt, Hall of Fame third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, once described his own slump in playing baseball, saying, “When it was really going bad, even in the prime of my career, if you had told me that I would have a better chance of hitting with my back to the pitcher, I would have tried it. You’ll do anything to get out of a slump” (qtd. in Luchetti 92). Will we do anything to get back in a right relationship with God? David decided to find others like him and warn them of the danger of their sin, to help them turn back to God. Joshua stood before the people of God and told them to make a choice, a decision, and then declared his decision: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). Zacchaeus the tax collector, when Jesus came to eat at his house, made a decision to follow: “If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8). “The decisions we make today determine the person we become tomorrow” (Luchetti 96).

Every person who has walked through the doors of Celebrate Recovery has had to make a decision to turn their back on whatever had ahold of them, to leave it behind in order to follow Jesus. And that decision is not a one-and-done, either. It’s a daily decision. I want to invite you to get to know Melissa, who is a testimony to the power of God in a life. Take a listen.

VIDEO: Melissa Nesting

So, did you hear the word Melissa kept using? “Grateful.” Everything God has done in her life: she’s grateful. Also, one thing she didn’t say in the video is that she is helping lead that Celebrate Recovery group at Next Steps. She’s a missionary, sent out from our Celebrate Recovery to help others on Thursday nights. All because she decided, as she said, to “give God a real chance.”

Every day, each of us has to decide who we are going to follow: Jesus or the “sin that so easily entangles” (cf. Hebrews 12:1). It might mean deciding that you will get back to prayer, as frustrating and as discouraging as it can sometimes be. Maybe the decision you make is that you’re going to come and pray on Saturdays with the prayer group to try to kick start your own prayer life. Or maybe you’ll get back to reading Scripture daily. There are lots of excuses we all make for not getting into the Bible daily, and the most frequent one I hear is, “I don’t have time.” Do you spend time in the car going back and forth to work or other activities? Rather than using that time in the car to listen to mindless music or frustrating talk radio, tune into a podcast or a Bible readings app. Listen to the Scriptures; make a decision to reconnect with God through his word. Or maybe worship has become optional for you. Maybe God feels distant because you’ve chosen to distance yourself. I think of the reasons we have so many psalms is because that’s one way David connected most powerfully with God: in worship. Many of the psalms we have are simply David’s worship songs—and if you read enough of them, you’ll see that worship is not all about being happy and positive. There are some pretty powerful emotions—positive and negative—contained in the psalms. It’s okay; God can handle it. A good relationship can. We worship to stay connected with God, and maybe that’s a decision you need to make. Here’s the bottom line question for this morning: are we willing to do whatever it takes to live in faithful and joyful obedience to God (cf. Luchetti 106)?

You know what the really good news is? This is one of my new favorite quotes. “You can take a thousand steps away from God, but it only takes one to come back” (Luchetti 117). It only takes a single decision, and only when we’ve made that decision can we truly look back and say, “O fortunate fall that gained for me so great a redeemer.” Let’s pray.