08 Pentecost B 09
July 26, 2009
2 Samuel 11:1-15
1 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.

2 It happened, 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. 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, "This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite." 4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. 5 The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, "I am pregnant."

6 So David sent word to Joab, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house, and wash your feet." Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 When they told David, "Uriah did not go down to his house," David said to Uriah, "You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?" 11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing." 12 Then David said to Uriah, "Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, 13 David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote, "Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die."

Psalm 14
1 Fools say in their hearts, "There is no God."
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is no one who does good.
2 The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.
3 They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good,
no, not one.
4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the LORD?
5 There they shall be in great terror,
for God is with the company of the righteous.
6 You would confound the plans of the poor,
but the LORD is their refuge.
7 O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.

Ephesians 3:14-21
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

John 6:1-21
1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3 Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5 When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 9 "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?" 10 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. 11 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. 12 When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." 13 So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."

15 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.
16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20 But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." 21 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.


Why Jesus Is My Lord

We don’t usually use the word “lord” to describe people who have power over us. And the people we have power over don’t call us “lord.” It’s an old word and we associate it with kings and princes and forms of power we think we’ve gotten past.

As much as a man might like it, his wife doesn’t welcome him home with “Dinner’s on the table, Lord.” When your little child greets you, he doesn’t say, “How are you today, Lord?” When you’re employees come into your office in the morning, they don’t say “Good morning, Lord.” When the company you have most of your stocks in writes you a letter they don’t address it “Dear Lord.” But your wife knows you have a certain amount of power over her because she depends on your love and kindness. Your child knows you have power over him, that you can feed him or not feed him, beat him or hug him, and he really can’t do anything about it. Your employee knows you have power over how much money she makes, whether or not she keeps her job. You get the point. There are lords in our lives.

Lords have capital. There are many kinds of capital. Of course there’s money. That’s pretty serious capital, serious brute force. But there’s also reputation, popularity, talent, expertise. Capital is anything you have in more quantity than you need, anything you can hold out as a carrot or a club. Capital is bestowed on individuals, usually by other people. The power of a lord is based on how many people give him capital, and how much they give him. Taxes, payment, investments, obedience, even love. And here’s the thing: capital is bestowed on the basis of trust, trust that the capital will be used to the benefit of the people bestowing it.

There are also invisible forces that are lords in our lives. Right now there’s a lot of talk about the economy. The economy is a big system, far bigger than any of us, and it has real power in our lives. I am coming increasingly to the conclusion that what really runs the world is the marketplace.

I did some study of economics while I was on my six-week leave and I learned a lot. I never even knew what the definition of the science of economics was. Do you? Well, economics is the science of distributing resources in a situation of scarcity. It’s an interesting definition. I’ll repeat it: economics is the science of distributing resources in a situation of scarcity.

Adam Smith was an economist who wrote that we could trust free market capitalism. He wrote that a market, unconstrained by government intervention, will naturally drive down prices and increase the quality of life for everyone. Trust the self-interest motive, and everyone will prosper. He called it “the invisible hand.” I think the invisible hand is one of the best illustrations we have of the bible’s idea of “powers and principalities,” or “spirits of the air.” It’s a force that is not in any one person’s hands. It’s much greater than that. It is in fact a spiritual force. We have been told we can trust it. Just leave it alone. Don’t get in its way.

Of course, we keep running into what everyone calls “market corrections.” More importantly, we keep running into dishonesty. I read an interesting book on economics from a Christian point of view that suggested that a market cannot be free if people are misled. If people don’t know the truth about the products and services and deals they are invited to get into, they are not making free decisions. If they are lied to, manipulated, or if some of the facts are withheld or hidden, then the whole thing falls apart. Invisible hand indeed.

David had serious capital. God fell in love with David and made a promise he maybe shouldn’t have made. “I will make you and your descendants lords over Israel forever, and I will be with you all the way.”

And nearly the first thing he did with this amazing capital was to steal a poor man’s wife, then murder him.

A friend of mine who suffers with addiction finally found faith and recovery. Part of his ongoing ministry is to share with others his story. He says that back in the day when he and his wife were strung out, when all the money was going for drugs and alcohol, there was often nothing to pay the rent or to put food in the cupboards. He’d have awful fights with his wife over money. Well, one night they were going at it, and their little five year-old gingerly came into the living room. They didn’t even notice her, they were so busy trying to find ways to hurt each other more. When her mother noticed her she suddenly fell silent and her eyes filled with tears. Her father saw the tears in his wife’s eyes and turned to his daughter. The little girl was holding her piggy bank. “Will this help?” she said.

The horror of this story of David is the horror of that poor child offering her piggy bank to addict parents who are sorely unworthy of her trust. It’s not so much that David was faulted or that he was merely human. It was that he used the capital God had given him to rob and murder the poor. It’s the temptation of every lord who has been given a lot of capital, who have power over others.

We don’t call the people who drive the economy, the two percent of our population that controls eighty percent of the capital, “Lords.” I have however heard them called “Masters of the Universe.” The system we have, the “invisible hand,” is in truth not a bad system. But I wonder this morning whether the “Masters of the Universe” are really worthy of the immense trust we place in them, the tremendous capital we put into their hands. Some say we should transfer some of that capital to our government, but there are plenty of examples of bad faith in that history as well. I wonder this morning, who is attached to that invisible hand in which we have placed so much trust? The economists argue, and we take sides. The economists get very important at times like this.

Jesus’ disciples were good economists. Jesus told them to feed the people, and Philip said, “Jesus, we’ve done the math. There are 5,000 people here, not including women and children, so the total is probably more like 15,000 people.” We’ve got to let that number sink in. Think Woodstock, think outdoor concert, think stadium at a championship game. Got it? Jesus says, “Feed these people.”

Philip is a good economist. “Six months wages might get enough food for everyone to get a bite or two.” Philip was probably what we’d call working class wage-earner. Let’s think about how much he’s talking about given the news we got this week. Six months wages for a worker making $7.50 an hour? $7,800.00. Seven thousand, eight hundred dollars for fifteen thousand people. That works out to about fifty cents a person. We’re talking a bag of Skittles. I’m not even sure that would work. “Even if we had seven thousand eight hundred dollars, Jesus, which we don’t, it’s not going to work.” Philip is a good economist.

The first time I heard this passage preached was around 1987 in New York City by a pastor named Martin Hauser, and he brought up the boy, this boy. Apparently, this boy comes up to Andrew, probably too shy to approach the master himself. You can almost hear him asking, “This is all we have. Will it help?”

The gospel doesn’t tell us what Andrew was feeling when the boy handed him the basket with the five loaves and the two fish. But I wonder if his eyes were not filling with tears. I can only think that’s the reason he even mentioned it to Jesus. I’m glad old Pastor Hauser made sure to lift up this nameless boy, though. It’s obvious the boy trusted Jesus, believed in him. He was willing to trust Jesus with everything. He was willing to give him all his resources, invest in him. That’s what we do with a Lord.

But Andrew remained an economist. “The math doesn’t work. What will so little do for so many? How do you distribute these resources in a situation of such scarcity?” Jesus said, “Give it here.”

And fifteen thousand people sat down to dinner.

There’s another invisible hand at work here, friends, and that’s why I’m happy to call Jesus “Lord.” People focus on the magic and supernatural when they hear the story of Jesus walking on the water. But that’s because so few Christians pay much attention to the Old Testament. Genesis chapter one tells us about God’s creation of the world. It says that when there was nothing but chaos and nothingness, symbolized by a great depthless sea, God’s Spirit moved over the waters.

The struggle of the Christian to be filled with the Holy Spirit is very, very serious. Because once someone is genuinely filled with God’s Spirit, their power becomes very great. People will respond to that power, depend on it, expect it. It doesn’t matter if that Christian becomes a pastor or a bank executive or a real estate agent or a fisherman. Blessing and blossoming will happen all around them. Everyone they touch will be uplifted, the poor will be fed wherever they turn, the sick will be healed around them, and the chaos of life will recede wherever they go.
The struggle is serious because the temptation is great to allow one’s own selfish motives, even for those one loves, to drive the Holy Spirit out of one’s heart. The power of the Spirit-filled Christian depends entirely on the complete submission of the Christian to God’s will. It requires a level of honesty, open-mindedness and willingness that is nearly beyond human capacity. The Spirit is that pearl that the rich man sold everything he had to buy. The Spirit is the treasure of the kingdom of God. To be filled with the Spirit is to become rich in the deepest sense of the world, to become fed with a food that never ceases to sustain, to be made wise beyond any human understanding.

The riches of heaven pour into the world through those who call Jesus Lord, who give their money and their time and their talent to him. So invest in what you want, pay for what you want, gamble on what you want. Serve the lords that you think you can trust.

As for me, I’m putting everything on the man who walked on the water.

Amen.