A synopsis of the sermon delivered by the Rev. David L. Hicks at St. Paul’s Reformed Episcopal Church on Trinity I, June 13, 2004. Please read 2 Samuel 12:1-15 and Galatians 2:11-21.
What do you do when you are wrong? Do you have a difficult time admitting fault when someone confronts you about your errors? Both lessons from Scripture speak about occasions when someone was wrong and was confronted about it. In the New Testament lesson (Galatians 2), Saint Paul calls Saint Peter to account for his actions when the latter drew back from table fellowship with Gentile Christians for fear of offending Jewish visitors from Jerusalem. The text does not tell us about Peter’s response because that is not the focus of Paul’s story; however, we do learn from this account that no one less than the great apostle Peter needed to be confronted with something that he had done wrong. Knowing his character from the rest of Scripture, it seems safe to assume that Peter responded appropriately.
The second lesson from 2 Samuel 12, concerns the time when the prophet Nathan confronted King David about his sin in committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband, Uriah, killed in battle. Nathan approaches the subject by telling the king a story about a wealthy man who stole a loved and prized lamb from a poor neighbor. When David angrily demands the identity of the callous offender in order to punish him, Nathan responds, “Thou art the man!” Nathan’s story enabled David to see his sin in the same way that God saw it, for all sin is ultimately against God’s commandments and his character. Tradition has held that David wrote Psalm 51 as an expression of repentance for his sin concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. In this psalm, he acknowledges that his sin against these other people is really an offense to God: “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight” (Psalm 51:3-4).
Each time we gather for worship and hear the Scriptures read we are confronted with our sins against God. This is by no means the only thing that we hear, but it is a vital and consistent part. We are directed to acknowledge our sin, to see it as God sees it, so that we may rightly receive and understand the forgiveness that God provides through Jesus Christ. With this in mind, let us hear the words of Saint John in his first letter: “If we walk in the light, as he [God] is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:7-9).
