Rev. Jared Buss
Pittsburgh New Church; March 17, 2025
Readings: 2 Samuel 7:12-22 (children’s talk); 2 Samuel 12:1-10; Secrets of Heaven §10661
We’re going to turn, now, to another story about King David—a story that’s very different from the one that we just talked about. In the story we just talked about, we see some of David’s best qualities: we see his devotion to the Lord. This next story is about one of David’s lowest moments. It’s about the aftermath of his affair with Bathsheba. Here’s a summary of that affair: David committed adultery with Bathsheba while her husband, Uriah, was away at war, fighting in David’s army (2 Sam. 11:1-14). Later Bathsheba sent word to David, informing him that she was pregnant (v. 5). For a while David somewhat desperately tried to hide what he’d done; the “solution” he eventually fell back on was to arrange to have Uriah killed in the midst of a battle (vv. 6-25). So David committed adultery, and he committed murder.
We’re not going to spend any more time talking about these things that he did. It’s obvious that he shouldn’t have done them. Instead, we’re going to focus on the aftermath of these things. David tried to resume normal life. He married Bathsheba (v. 27), and her child was accepted as his legitimate child. For a time it seemed that his secrets were going to stay secret. Uriah’s death seemed like just a casualty of war. It seemed that David had simply married Uriah’s widow.
And at this point it’s useful to remember the story that was read to the children—useful to remember that the Word doesn’t present David as someone who was bad through and through. He had a relationship with the Lord. He thought of himself as a servant of the Lord. In many ways he was a servant of the Lord. The Lord was with David. David probably thought of himself as “mostly a good person.” In the wake of his affair with Bathsheba he probably felt ashamed and afraid, and he wanted to leave all of those things behind and hide them, and go back to being “mostly a good person.” Now we’re going to hear how that went. We’re going to hear about the message that the Lord sent to David, after all these things had happened [read 2 Sam. 12:1-10].
David thought that his secret was secret. It didn’t occur to him that Nathan’s story was about what he himself had done—because he didn’t think that Nathan knew about those things. He thought that Nathan was reporting to him about a real situation. So he pronounced judgment on this heartless man who had stolen a poor person’s lamb. Then Nathan told him, “You are the man” (v. 7). And think of how those words must have terrified David. All of the veils that covered his secret were ripped apart at once.
The thing that’s most remarkable about this passage is that, before he realized that Nathan’s words were a parable, David was genuinely outraged with this rich man who stole from the poor. The story says that his “anger was greatly aroused against the man” (v. 5). He knew exactly how wrong this rich man’s actions were, and he was upset by them. But in this rich man’s actions he saw no reflection of the things that he had done.
To David’s credit, he stopped hiding from the truth as soon as Nathan finished speaking. What he said in response to Nathan was simply, “I have sinned against the Lord” (v. 13). But up until that moment he’d been holding a double standard: for other people to abuse power and prey upon the weak was outrageous, but he was allowed to do those things himself.
Of course, David isn’t the only person ever to have held a double standard. Everybody tends to see other people’s actions one way, and their own actions another way—even when the actions are essentially the same. So, for example, we might aggressively tell someone to stop speaking to us so aggressively. We might judgmentally observe that that other person is so judgmental. The Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church has this to say:
It is extraordinary how anyone can scold another intending to do evil and say to him: “Don’t do that, because it is a sin,” but he finds it very difficult to say that to himself. The reason is that saying it to oneself involves the will, but saying it to someone else merely comes from a level of thought not far removed from hearing. (TCR §535)
In short, it’s much easier to see sins in other people than to see them in ourselves. The reason for this is that seeing sins, or flaws, in other people doesn’t require us to do anything more than think about them. It’s easy to think that this or that is bad. But to see sins, or flaws, or bad behavior in ourselves, we have to dig into our will—what we want. Because things that we want don’t feel bad, even if they are bad. So we have to recognize and acknowledge that gap between what we want and the truth—and that takes work.
What we’re really focusing on today is this idea that things that we want don’t feel bad, even if they are bad. Another way to put it is, evil is something that other people do. What we do never feels evil to us—at least not in the moment—because we want to do it. And what we want feels good. The Heavenly Doctrine says that a person, “calls good everything that he feels with delight” (AR §908). But our ears still hear the truth. Our brains still know what’s right and what’s wrong. So there’s a gap between what we know and what we feel. And often, instead of letting the one confront the other, we hide them from each other. We let the light of truth shine on other people, but not on our own affections. At least, that’s our tendency. And what we’re talking about today is the difficult work of pushing past that tendency. If we’re going to be good people, we have to be so honest with ourselves. Way more honest than we often want to be. We have to let the Lord’s light shine on all of us—even the bad stuff.
One of the lies that hell tries to tell us is that if we’re honest about a failing in ourselves—if we admit that it’s known to the Lord, and especially if we admit that it’s known to other people—then that evil is branded upon us. Our identity is cemented: we’re the person who does that bad thing. Hell whispers all kinds of lies about how we can never change—our sin is an anchor that will forever drag us down. But it’s the other way around: when we’re honest about our failings it becomes easier to escape from them. And the more honest we are, the easier it becomes. The Lord’s light is a healing light.
We’re going to turn, now, to a longer reading from the Heavenly Doctrine, which explores some of these ideas in more detail. This reading is from Secrets of Heaven, and it’s printed on the back of your worship handout [read §10661].
Left to ourselves, we’re “completely in the dark so far as spiritual things are concerned.” Left to ourselves, we just don’t know about the Lord or eternal life. In a different passage we’re told that at the start our lives we really know nothing at all about the good of charity, or how happy that good can make us (SH §8462). Left to ourselves, all that we know has regard to the world and to ourselves. And the things that we call good are worldly things that benefit us—like being wealthy, for example, or having things go the way we want them to go. And we just don’t really get that when we take what we want, but at someone else’s expense, that’s evil. This is why we need to be taught from the Word. We need the light of the Lord’s truth to shine on us. Learning that truth isn’t the point—the point is for us to learn the truth and live it, so that it becomes good. But the light is an absolutely necessary tool. We just don’t know what goodness or what love really is until, somehow, in some way, we let the Divine light show it to us.
Of course no one here is completely in the dark, when it comes to moral and spiritual things, because we’re all adults, and we’ve all been taught something about what’s really good. The hard part is that it isn’t enough to let the light that’s been shared with us stay “up there,” shining on all our lovely thoughts. We need to let it come all the way down, so that it shines on that thing that we just did. We don’t learn the truth so that we can know what good and evil look like in theory, or in other people: we learn it so that we can know what good and evil look like in ourselves. So we need to look at ourselves—really honestly. We need to ask: “According to the truth that I know from the Word of the Lord, what name do I need to give to that thing that I did?”
This kind of honesty isn’t just hard—it’s scary. It can seem to us that if we’ve done something bad, and we let light shine on that bad thing, then we will be judged and damned. But it’s the other way around: the moment in which we choose to be honest is also the moment in which hell’s grip on us begins to weaken. Nathan came to David with a hard message, and David answered, “I have sinned against the Lord.” That was the moment in which he gave up his denial—so it was the moment in which change became possible. The Lord’s light is a healing light.
Listen to what He says in the gospel of John:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. (3:16-21)
The Lord says pretty clearly that people who are doing evil don’t want to come into the light. He also says that the light has come into the world—and clearly He’s talking about Himself. He is the light. And He came into the world because He loved the world. He didn’t come to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Coming into the light can be so painful—and terrifying—but when we come into the light, we are not inviting the Lord to condemn us. We are doing exactly the opposite.
When we hide from the truth, the hells have all the cards. Because our eyes are closed—so they can do what they want. And they weave webs to keep us trapped. But when we’re honest with ourselves, things start to become simple again. To come into the light is to say, “I did this, and because I know I did it, I also know I can choose not to do it again.” And the Lord is on our side.
This is why it’s important to put the David and Bathsheba story in context of David’s whole story. Nathan’s words to David were hard. The message was that adultery and murder are not okay—when we break the Ten Commandments there are painful consequences. David had to face those consequences. But the Lord was with him. He was more than just a sinner. The Lord was with David before Nathan said, “You are the man,” and He was with him afterwards—perhaps more so than before. The light of truth might show us things that we don’t want to see; but if we’re really seeing in the light of truth, we will also see the mercy of the Lord. In His light, we see light (Ps. 36:9).
Amen.