Psalm 14
2 Samuel 11:2-15
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-15
Hymn: 226 (Lift Up Your Heads)
Homilist: Randal Wisbey

Dr. Judah Rosenthal is a man in trouble. As the central character in Woody Allen’s film Crimes and Misdemeanors, Judah finds himself caught in a world in which all things black and white have now become varying shades of grey.

As a child, sitting in the synagogue, Judah was often reminded by his father: “The eyes of God are on us all. God sees everything.” For Judah, as a child, right and wrong, good and evil, seemed very clear to him. Yet now, as an adult, Judah has lost the certainty of his faith. God's eyes may indeed be upon him, yet he feels no assurance of God's presence. He has passed from the terrifying faith of his childhood to an even more terrifying lack of faith as an adult that leaves him only with the words of his father echoing in his mind: “God sees everything.”

I’ve thought of Judah, and his father’s words, as I have reflected upon the scripture lessons for this week—and the implicit call to live in faithful relationship with God. How do we relate to God’s overarching presence in our lives? In what ways do we respond to God’s innate interest and blessing? What happens when we knowingly turn away, and, in the process, make decisions that are destructive? How will we order our lives if we truly embrace the truth that God sees everything?

The readings I have chosen to focus on this Sabbath take three literary forms: one is an historical account, the second a piece of poetry, and the third a prayer found within a letter. While I initially saw little connection between these three, the more time that I spent with the passages, the more I grew in my awareness of how God was longing to speak to me . . . and, I hope, to each of you, through their powerful concurrence.

Our first lesson, found in 2 Samuel 11 , requires us to stop, to think, to truly consider the significance of this familiar story. Up until this moment, the experience of David has been one of miracle and power, bravery and faithfulness. Against the backdrop of Saul’s progressive deterioration as Israel’s first king, David wins victory after victory. As he kills the giant Goliath, he steps into the hearts of all the soldiers who have witnessed this miracle—just as his story inflames the hearts of every young soldier who stands in Sabbath School and sings, with imaginary sling in hand, “Only a Boy Named David.”

Pursued by Saul—with his jealous heart and vindictive spirit—David moves from one success to another, and no matter who the enemy, David is brilliant. Following Saul’s death, he is anointed king, first over Judah, and then over Israel. Eventually, he conquers Jerusalem, defeats the Philistines, and brings the Ark of the Covenant to rest in the city that is known by his name. With the gaze of God’s eyes fully upon him, David continues to experience God’s blessing, even as he brings honor to his nation and defeat to Israel’s many enemies.

Now, however, we transition to unfamiliar territory. David moves from the battlefield—where the vast majority of his victories have taken place—to the rooftop gardens, pools and bedrooms of his palace complex, and we experience, for the first time, David’s very real humanity. It is a moment in David’s life that will forever change him. Its profound effect will prove essential to the history of Israel as it will provide an explanation for the sudden end of good fortune that had, up to this moment, accompanied David.1

Our passage is introduced, in verse 1, with a review of the facts. It is spring—the time when kings go off to war. David, now well established in Jerusalem, sends forth, unto battle, the Israelite army, the king’s men, and his ever-faithful Joab. The army does its work: the Ammonites are destroyed, Rabbah is besieged. But David, as the writer informs us, David remains in Jerusalem.

One evening, unable to sleep, he goes for a walk. Looking down from the rooftop where he stands, David sees a beautiful woman bathing. Immediately interested, he learns that she is Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite—a member of David’s royal guard. In that moment, David acts, sending messengers to bring her to him—an action that will eventually lead to David’s transgression of the 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th commandments.

This part of the story, as recorded in verse 4, is terse and to the point: “She came to him, and he slept with her.” Bathsheba seems to be an un-protesting partner in this moment of adultery. We only know that “she had purified herself from her uncleanness,” making perfectly clear the writer’s intention that we, as readers, understand that Bathsheba had just become ceremonially clean after the impurity of her monthly menstrual cycle. The significance of this is also clear, for by including these words we are to understand that she was not already pregnant by her own husband when David had sex with her.

We know nothing of the following days. Did they see each other again? Was their regret? Or was it excitement? We only know that Bathsheba soon lets David know that she is pregnant—the next steps will need to be his.

And so, to work, David goes. Knowing the Levitical law2 would require their deaths as adulterers, he comes up with a plan to bring Uriah back home to the bed of his wife in the hope that this indiscretion can be quickly and neatly covered up.

But this sin will not so easily be dismissed. Uriah does indeed return, as commanded, but he resists David’s directive to go to his home. Upon learning, the following morning, that Uriah has spent the night, not in the comfort of his own bed but with his servants at the entrance to the palace, David asks him why he has not gone home.

Imagine David’s inner fury as Uriah, whose name means “My light is the Lord,” responds: “The ark and the army of Israel and Judah are staying in tents… How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife?”3

Conceding that his plan will not work with such faithfulness on display, today’s portion of the story ends with words at once solemn and cold-blooded as David directs Joab to “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

This familiar story is important—not only for what it will mean to David in the later years of his reign, but as a remarkable and striking commentary on the uniqueness of the moral qualities of the Israelites and the manner in which they lived. David’s action with Bathsheba, and later with her husband Uriah, is quite characteristic of Oriental monarchy, and would hardly have been cause for remark outside of Israel.

Yet, as the writer of our passage would have us understand, in Israel this was unacceptable. To the ordinary eastern mind, for the king to take the wife of a subject was within the sovereign’s right and quite normal. Few men in David’s position would have felt it necessary to either conceal the fact or to get rid of the husband. But in Israel, a man was a man—even when he was a subject of foreign birth—and his rights must be respected. Characteristic, too, is the eventual rebuke, and repentance of the king. Neither would have been conceivable in any other nation of the ancient near east.4

Later, when Nathan will confront the king with his sin, David will again realize that while he may have been able to hide his adultery from the public gaze, there was One unable to look away.

“The eyes of God are on us all. God sees everything.”

Our second passage, Psalm 14 , seems to resonate with the devastation of David’s sin. With the simple annotation, Of David, it begins: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” Here, the Hebrew word, nabal, translated in English as fool, denotes one who is morally deficient and insensitive.5 God is pictured as looking down from heaven “to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.” Yet again, the refrain of verse one returns: “there is no one who does good. Not even one.”

In these short seven verses, the point of the psalmist is clear. When God is not honored, humanity disintegrates and degenerates. The end result, as identified in verse 5, is a life filled with terror—a life of no limits, no guards or boundaries, with everything at risk.6

God is indeed watching, looking for those who will respond to His heart of grace. Though the psalmist is pessimistic about humanity’s overarching ability to do that which is right and good, the writer is unwilling to remain in a state of hopelessness, choosing, instead, to conclude with an utterance of messianic hope—of deliverance and restoration—and the promise that “Jacob shall rejoice, Israel shall be glad.” As one commentator notes, “Without hope, the hands hang down; with it, we are renewed for work.”7

Our final passage, found in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, finds Paul at prayer for the believers in Ephesus. Asking God to grant his fellow Christians an experience of God’s power and fullness, he prays:

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.”

I find this passage particularly encouraging, especially when placed in the context of the human condition that our first two passages have made so abundantly clear. Here, God’s eyes are also at work—eyes full of love and compassion, eyes whose gaze speak of the height and depth, the length and the width of his love.

Many of us, if not all, have experienced God's nearness. His closeness. The sense that He truly does have a plan for our lives. That He is concerned and that He is present—in matters both mundane and important.

Yet some of us have also experienced God's silence. Some period in our lives when we weren't quite sure if our prayers were getting beyond the ceiling under which we knelt. When with tears streaming down our faces, we felt as though we had been abandoned —as though God did not, and had chosen, not to care.

Like David, lusting after something that was not his, finding himself drawn deeper and deeper into lies and actions that broke the heart of God, we, too, find ourselves, far too often, reaching for things that will not bring joy. As the psalmist has reminded us today, we all have gone astray—in our thoughts, our actions—there is little that separates us from one another. And, as a result, we, too, have known the truth that God sees everything.

And yet, despite this reality, God continues to make a way. For David, who will suffer for his sin but who will be forgiven and who will still see the promise of God fulfilled. Like the psalmist, who despite his knowledge of humanity’s inability to be faithful to God, cannot end without a promise of new life. And like Paul, writing to these early Christians, understanding their many struggles, he opens his heart to God and prays on their behalf, asking God to bestow strength and direction, enabling them to understand the remarkable love, compassion and grace made possible through the gift of Jesus.

Yes, God sees everything. And, in spite of even this, never stops hoping. Never stops loving. And for this, we can all be grateful.

Citation 1285, NABAL, p. 547