PREACHING THE LECTIONARY: THE McGREGOR PAGE
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Pentecost 8 -- Page 203, August 6, 2000
Pangs of Plenty
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
Ps. 51:1-12
Ephesians 4:1-16
John 6:24-35
David was hungry. For what? "Had he not enough wives to lie with?" God complained. David, the reflective man with a reverence for God, was caught off guard by his hunger, a hunger that comes not from deprivation but from abundance, the hunger that abundance creates. It is the elusive hope that one day we might be satisfied, complete and victorious.
I had lived many years before it dawned on me that I could possess very little. I did not possess my wife or my children. I didn't possess my career. It belonged to the church. Things that were legally in my name could be legally in another name with a single turn of events. Even the food that I got inside myself would not stay or sustain me long. If I were ever to be satisfied, complete and victorious, it would not come to me through anything I could possess or convince myself I did possess.
David was hungry. Then he was angry. Then he was crushed. Like David we get angry at others without realizing the boomerang in our anger. We direct it outward and say, "the man who has done this deserves to die." (2 Samuel 12:5) All the time some part of us knows that we have done it or thought about doing it or done something like it differing only in degree. Consumer oriented worship services don't deal with our hypocrisy, our sinfulness, too negative. They treat the worshipper like the innocent child who has just scuffed his knee, all pity and solicitation and indulgence. (Martin Luther would recognize the irony of Protestand churches now selling indulgences.) You mustn't treat the religion consumer the way Nathan treated David. But, what if people are really seeking forgiveness for their sin? Are we to imply that they can be saved through yet another possession?
David's sin hits him with its full force, but it doesn't hit in the back. Nathan did what a priest should do, "Turn David!" The first child of that union would die; the second would ruin the kingdom and divide the tribes of Israel forever. God heard his confession and forgave him, but the deed was done. The forgiveness of God does not remove the effect of our sin on others. The amazing grace is that it removes the enmity between God and us. That will be enough for David and for us.
If we are not hungry for a world we control, we are hungry for a world not controlled by our sin, but neither hunger shall be satisfied. There is only one bread from heaven, and no one can have it; that is, no one can possess it. Except for the Sabbath, Manna could not be kept, only eaten as it was given. Likewise the bread of heaven, the righteousness of Jesus, can only be ours as we receive it hour by hour, day by day. "But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ..." (Ephesians 4:15) "We must grow up..." Paul says with urgency and hope in his voice. Grow up from what? The life of hunger that Paul goes on to describe.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, that I may not hunger for that which does not satisfy. Mine is the iniquity of the world, I will starve if you do not cleanse me. "Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.'" (John 6:35)
Roland McGregor
United Methodist Preacher
(Comments to Roland at RMAC.PARTI@ECUNET.ORG)
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