Year B Proper 12 2 Samuel 11:1-15 John 6:1-21

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

No one stays young and strong forever, and David has reached what we call middle age. As much as he might have wanted to go with the troops to face the Ammonites, he is no longer really up to the job. Instead, he has stayed home, wishing the troops well, but having had to let them go off to fight without him. .

David is a warrior king. Unlike modern monarchs he doesn’t just reign, he rules – his power is absolute. He has lived according to God’s word and Law, he has obeyed when told not to build a house of cedar for the Ark of the Covenant, but now, in the throes of a real midlife crises, trying to deal with the limits of ageing, he comes face to face with temptation.

We can imagine him on the roof of his palace, that house made of cedar, very much the same as, but slightly larger, and thus taller, than the houses in the surrounding neighborhood. Maybe he often walked there, and certainly the neighbors would have known this. And so it cannot be a total accident when late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful.

Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, has gone off to war, and she must have known that her bathing on the rooftop of her home would not go unnoticed by King David if he happened to be on the roof of his house. Was she banking on this? We aren’t told, though her actions are certainly not those of a total innocent.

Upon seeing her, David breaks the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet’, followed quickly by his decision to break the seventh, “You shall not commit adultery”. And, no surprise, there is a price to pay. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

Not one to panic, David comes up with the perfect plan. Bring Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, home, have him sleep with his wife – and he will think the child is his. But Uriah has high standards he will not break – and they involve not sleeping with Bathsheba at this time. Did David have a moment of panic? He must have had – but he solves his problem by plotting to break yet another commandment. “You shall do no murder.” This situation, with all of its nuances, all his flaunting of the Law of God, this is the beginning of his undoing.

Unlike David, we rarely find ourselves in a dilemma of such dreadful proportions, but we do often use his solution to situations where we know right from wrong, but would prefer to ignore the obvious. We deny the sin and rationalize our response. We curse! We skip church and do not remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. We are angry and unkind, unloving to friend, family, and stranger alike. And we say to ourselves - What will it matter just this once? What harm can it do? God will understand!

And, indeed, God will understand, but not in the way we tell ourselves He will. God will wait for our confession, repentance, and penance. These are words you seldom hear today, because, like David, we flex our own power and will, forgetting Who it is we hurt and disappoint.

Quite often, though we know what we have done, we don’t give a thought to how to apologize to Jesus and ask for His forgiveness. Maybe that is because in part we see confession, repentance, and penance as harsh and even cruel, and not as the loving reconciliation they actually represent between us and our Lord. All of this, the sins, the lying to ourselves, the failure to repent, this is what it is to be human and to be “of this world”.

Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.

Jesus and the disciples have found themselves in a new and not overly comfortable position in that they have become celebrities. No longer do small groups come to hear Jesus and ask for His help. In place of these manageable gatherings, it is now huge groups of folks that flock to see the Rabbi Jesus and His followers, and as is the case with any very large gathering, such situations tend to be fraught with problems. This particular crowd is huge and everyone is hungry.

This is one of those times when, were it up to us, our worldly minds would tell us that perhaps it would be better not to engage the crowd today. What would it matter, really, to take the day off? We can so easily imagine the “superstar” of the group, the Rabbi Jesus, asking one of His disciples if they can find an easy way to get Him out of this situation. But instead, when Jesus looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

Phillip is no help, but one of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Jesus, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?" Our Gospel writer, John, lets us know the boy has barley loaves, because barley loaves were the food of the poor.

Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.

The crowd in today’s Gospel is composed of poor people who want a Messiah who will give them their fill of bread, and they see Jesus as that person. They are so excited by having had their bellies filled, they want to make Jesus their king. Jesus doesn’t pause to rationalize, to wonder if it would really matter so much if He accepted and became a worldly king. He doesn’t stop to think of the power He would have, of the army He could raise, of the good works He could do, and how useful it might be to have bodyguards to keep the crowds at bay. He considers none of these things.

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He withdrew again to the mountain by Himself.

How unlike us this is – to flee from the opportunity to have power and wealth, worldly recognition and accolades. Jesus flees from the opportunity to become a king like David, to have power and dominion on earth. This is what it is to choose not to be “of this world”.

As evening came, Jesus must have sought out a quiet place to converse with His Heavenly Father, while His disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum.

Today we have heard about King David, and have had the chance to see the stark contrast between him, with all his human failings, and our Lord. Where do we fit into all of this? What does this say about us?

Even though in many ways we are more like him than we want to admit, it is unlikely any of us see ourselves as closely resembling King David. We are not rulers, not wealthy, we do not live in palaces, and we have not committed murder to hide our sins. Nonetheless, like him we are sinners, and we do take things into our own hands and rely on our own power. We like to believe that we are the rulers of our lives and should have charge of our destiny. We are selfish, self-centered, and more likely to put our concerns first, before those of others. Like David, we disappoint God, and we need to repent.

We are also, in many ways, like the hungry crowd, turning toward the superstar Rabbi for sustenance. And Jesus does not disappoint. He always feeds us.

And then, too, we may picture ourselves like the disciples in that small boat, tossed on a stormy sea. The wind comes up and blows us about mercilessly, and we struggle all the harder for control. And then the King of Kings comes walking toward us, on the water, through the storm. And this often does scare us, because we’re so mired in our own thinking and way of doing things, we don’t at first recognize Him.

Jesus said [to his frightened disciples, as He says to us], “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take Him into the boat…

That is all that is needed – for us to want Him, to choose Him as He has already chosen us, to let go of the hunger for worldly power and control, the struggle to be in charge, and to take Him into our boat.

Suddenly we don’t have to figure it all out. Whatever the tumult, when Jesus steps in, it is for us as it was for the disciples, the solution is there before us, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, You know that there are often times when we long to be free to do as we please, times when we think we are in charge, times when we rely on our own power and will. Help us to understand that this is not really freedom, but bondage, and that the world offers us nothing that is important or eternal. Help us to repent, and grant us grace to surrender to Your will and in You to find that perfect freedom and fullness of joy, that You promise to all Your faithful friends. All this we ask, for Your love and mercy’s sake, Amen.