Were you ever startled by your own reflection?
Maybe you are passing by a mirror, but don’t realize it’s a mirror until an image catches the corner of your eye. You jump. Then you realize the image was you –reflected in the mirror that you just walked by.
Or maybe one morning you get up, after a night of restless sleep, and look into the mirror. There you see a stranger with dark circles under the eyes, puffy face, tangled hair, and a hollow expression. You gasp. Who is that person? Surely not me!
Am I the only one who has had one of those experiences before?
We all have times when we don’t recognize ourselves. Sometimes it has nothing to do with our visage!
Maybe you have had an interaction with someone, in which you acted totally out of character. Something someone said or did pushed your buttons. You found yourself saying or doing something so foreign to your usual reaction, that you now recoil in horror. You can’t think about it now without getting the heebie jeebies, and you can only shake your head and say, why on earth did I react that way? What made me lash out like that? That’s not like me at all! Why did I do that?
Anyone identify with what I’m saying? It’s not just me?
[You may want to give people the opportunity here to share their own stories.]
But…you know…there are other times, when we do things, and we entirely fail to recognize just why we did it. Or even that it was wrong. There are places in all of our lives in which we have blinders on.
It’s like when you look through your camera on your phone [show photo if you’d like], and take a photo. Then afterward you discover you can’t see anything of what you thought you photographed, because the entire time, your thumb was in front of the lens!
We all have “blind spots” in our lives that trip us up. But even if we know this, there are times when we get tripped up anyway! That’s why it’s called a “blind spot”!
The best people have them. The most faithful, and loving people in the world have some “blind spots.” King David was no exception.
In fact, when you look at the stories of scripture, you see that they are filled to the brim with flawed and faulty people –people with blind spots. Good people. But people that make mistakes, and need God’s guidance to get them back on track again.
Let’s look at the story of David, and one of his “blind spots.” David’s “blind spot” had a name. Anyone remember? That’s right. His blind spot was called Bathsheba.
Bathsheba was the wife of a guy named Uriah, who held an important position in King David’s army. While Uriah was off fighting David’s battles, David’s eye wandered across the royal walls and upon the visage of Uriah’s wife –the beautiful Bathsheba.
David had a number of wives, an entire harem of them in fact. But when his eye caught Bathsheba, his heart jumped into gear, and he just had to have her. He watched her every day, and each day, he wanted her more. The fact that she belonged to someone else soon became irrelevant to David. In fact, he probably started rationalizing to himself, that he was after all King, and that he should be able to have whatever and whomever he wanted. He did hold an awful lot of power and prestige. And of course, Bathsheba should be honored to be welcomed by the King.
But what about Uriah? Out of sight, out of mind. All David saw was his desire….growing bigger, and bigger, and bigger every day. Until it obscured his vision like a big, fat thumb.
And here’s the thing about a Bathsheeba kind of blind spot. Pretty soon, things seem awfully simple. Forget complications. Forget integrity. It’s very easy. He wants her. He takes her.
And so, he did.
But that wasn’t the end of it, was it? Now David had a problem. Bathsheba was pregnant.
What’s he going to do?
First, he tries to get Uriah to sleep with his wife, so that he thinks the child is his. That doesn’t work.
Then he resorts to desperation to cover up the deed. His blind spot….has now cost him his dignity. And now all he can see is how to get himself out of the mess he got into! Blinders. Big time!
So what does he do? He has Uriah killed. Now his dalliance has blossomed into a bigger, fatter SIN!
So, God does what God usually does in this kind of situation. God sends in a prophet! When things get rough, we send in the clowns. God sends in the prophets. In David’s case, a prophet named Nathan.
It wasn’t easy being a prophet. Especially to a King. If the King didn’t like what you said, it could easily get you killed! So, you had to be a little sly about it.
Nathan, the prophet who God sent to David, gets creative. He tells the King a parable.
Do you remember what it is?
Who can remember?
[Allow someone to repeat the story.]
Well, this parable acts like of kind a mirror. You’re fumbling around in the dark. You bump into some furniture….get all battered up. All of a sudden the light goes on….you look in the mirror –and BAM! Man, do you look awful!! Who is that black and blue stranger!
David had a bit of a surprise too. At first, he listens to the story. Then he gets angry at the man in the story who behaved so badly. Then “light switch!” Nathan turns the tables on the King. Suddenly David sees his reflection in the story.
And it isn’t pretty.
Repentance is kind of like that. Usually we need a little help from God to truly reveal our blind spots.
And boy do we have them!
But the good news is….Jesus came to set us free….from a lot of things…but mostly from ourselves.
Needing Jesus to shine His Light on our flaws and our follies so that we are confronted with the truth of our humanness….that’s what it means to stand naked in the sight of God.
We need God to get our hearts back on track, to reveal us in our blindness, to coax us out of our hiding places.
Jesus declared in his sermon at Nazareth, “I’ve come to give sight to the blind.”
We are the blind. All of us at one time or another. And we all need the love and the Light of Jesus to make us see.
For when our sins are revealed, when we stand naked in the sight of God, that is when we can be bathed in the purifying and cleansing Light of the Lord of All.
That is when we’re “made” in the image of Christ.
Today, as we prepare to come into our time of prayer, let us ask for the Light of Jesus to shine through us and among us, to reveal us in our sin, and to cleanse us with God’s ever-saving grace.
May you be ever blessed to see “the writing on the wall” by the holy finger of God!
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
The Story of David and Bathsheba and Nathan’s Parable of the Lamb (2 Samuel 11 and 12)
Jesus’ Encounter with a Woman Accused of Adultery (John 7:37--8:12)
Minor Text
The Potter’s Hand (Genesis 2)
God’s Hand/Finger Strikes Egypt (Exodus 6-8)
The Sotah Jealousy Ritual Given to the Israelites by God (Bitter Waters) (Exodus 32)
The Ritual of the Sotah and the Law of Jealousy (The Test of Bitter Waters) (Numbers 5)
The Finger of God Writes Upon the Tablets of Stone (Deuteronomy 9 and 10)
The Manner in Which Accusations Must Be Judged (Deuteronomy 17)
Guidelines for Judging Virginity (Deuteronomy 22)
Psalm 8: The Creative Work of God’s Fingers
Psalm 36: God’s Righteousness and the Fountain of Life
The Tablet of the Heart: Proverbs 7:3; 3:3; 6:21
Jeremiah’s Prophecy: Their Sin is Etched Upon their Hearts (17)
Jeremiah’s Prophecy of God’s Restoration of Virgin Israel: I Will Write Upon Their Hearts (31)
Daniel’s Story of Susanna and Joakim and the Unfair Trial (13)
Daniel’s Prophecy of Judgment and God’s Finger Writing on the Wall at Belshazzar’s Feast (5)
Jesus’ Discourse on Adultery and Divorce (Matthew 5:27-28; 19:3-12; Mark 10:1-12)
Jesus’ Discourse on Divorce (16:18)
The Tablet of the Heart and our Witness Written by the Hand of the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3)
The Story of Ruth
In the interest of space, the entire story of Ruth will not be printed here. Read it in your favorite translation!
Image Exegesis: To Covet / The Image That is Etched Upon our Hearts
In the Hebrew/Jewish tradition, the eyes are connected intrinsically to the heart. What the eye covets therefore says something about what is “written” or “etched” upon your heart.
When God creates commandments for Moses to show the people of Israel, these are engraved in stone tablets. However, later, God says, “No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the LORD. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people (Jeremiah 31:33).
When God’s “Word” (that is the covenant with God ….faith, love, devotion to God) is written/etched/engraved upon the heart, it means that God has “written” the “code” that drives us in our thoughts, feelings, actions, and motives. Our eyes see only God, because our heart has been engraved with “God-code.” This is the way that we “know” God intimately, the way we can be in intimate relationship with God. God ensures that we can “know” God personally and relationally by making God’s self known through “personalizing” God’s brand upon our hearts. In a sense, God writes God’s “signature” upon us after God has molded us and created us and inbreathed us into God’s image.
We are then image-bearers of God’s love and mercy, because we have been in-graved with the directional indicator of God, allowing us to keep our focus on God before all else, to see God as first.
We are in a sense wearing the signature clothing of God, stamped with the insignia, “Made by God!”
However, in the absence of God’s “signature” heart-tattoo, we tend to engrave upon our hearts whatever our eye beholds! And left to our own devices, our hearts will desire all kinds of things, when we do not “know” God.
If we look at our neighbor’s house and perceive it to be bigger than ours, we may decide, ours is not good enough. Our eyes get fixated more and more on our neighbor’s house until the reflection in our eyes imprints upon our hearts a fierce feeling of envy for our neighbor’s house. We want it! We covet it! And our coveting makes us terribly unhappy creatures.
Coveting is like blinders. It’s like looking at the world through distorted glasses. Instead of the truth of God’s presence in our lives, we see only what we don’t have. We compare. We judge.
What does God’s imprint do for us? It takes away all of that covetousness, and allows us to see the truth of God’s abundant blessings in our lives. It allows us to see Jesus’ sacrifice as personal to us, and real to us. It allows us to feel gratitude in place of greed, and peace in place of petulance.
In the stories of scriptures for this week, the “writing on the wall” is the truth of our reflection. The writing on the wall reflects the writing upon our hearts. If our hearts are written/riddled with covetousness and envy, the writing on the wall will reveal us in all of our ugliness. If however our hearts are written/smitten with the love of God, the writing on the wall will show beauty.
Remember the story of Snow White? When the wicked Queen looks into the mirror on the wall, it reflects exactly the inner state of her heart.
In the story of Daniel, the “writing on the wall” is prophecy –the consequences of the sin of Nebuchadnezzar revealed in the Light of God. In the case of David, the “writing on the wall” is revealed in Nathan’s parable, in which David is able to see himself within it. In the case of Jesus and the adulterous woman, the writing on the wall (in this case in the sand) reveals the truth of what’s going on in the interaction between the woman and the Pharisees (God’s true justice is revealed in mercy).
The writing on the wall that we all must see is God’s infinite mercy and grace that God longs to imprint upon us and our lives.
What will your eyes behold today? The beauty of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection imprinted upon your heart? Or something else instead?
What signature brand defines your heart?
Only God’s unique and special brand appears on the clothing of righteousness.