I recently had a gentleman ask me, \u201cWhy do we believe that David is in Heaven? Look at what he did during his life!\u201d Certainly, one could retort, \u201cWell, look at all the good things he did, too.\u201d David wrote so many psalms, for example, and was said to be a person \u201cafter [God\u2019s] heart\u201d (Acts 13:22).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You wouldn\u2019t guess that David had so many shining attributes if you were limited to this passage, however. We don\u2019t see any redemptive qualities to David, and this is precisely the point. From this story and its place in the wider Biblical narrative, we learn yet again that God works through even the worst of situations and the worst of intentions to somehow \u2013 mysteriously \u2013 bring about salvation. It is all too easy to focus on the sin and the brokenness in the present; it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture of God\u2019s unfolding kingdom. Likewise, it is easy in this story to just focus on David\u2019s evil intentions. We should not forget, though, that the Savior came from the lineage which was established through David\u2019s affair with Bathsheba. God used David\u2019s lowest point to bring salvation to the whole world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am truly grateful that psalms like this exist, that they were placed in the Bible, and that we pray them frequently in our liturgies and in our devotional lives. Why? This one in particular, to me, touches on the heart of the human condition. To clarify, I am not talking about the view of human brokenness portrayed in the psalm, what some people would call total depravity. No, I am talking about the disheveled and paradoxical nature of the psalm itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Psalmist seems very confused. He talks about how nobody \u201cdoes any good\u201d and how no one seeks after God, but he also talks about a people who are righteous. Later, he talks about how evil-doers \u201ceat up\u201d God\u2019s people. Yet, these evil-doers \u201ctremble with fear\u201d because God is in the midst of the very people they are destroying. We are left with a question: What is the Psalmist actually praying for? We see hope comingled with despair, righteousness comingled with sin. We get the sense that the Psalmist both knows and doesn\u2019t know what to pray for. Here we see a truly human prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the past several months I have been struck by how short-sighted I tend to be whenever it comes to my own spirituality, particularly when the minister comes to the Eucharistic prayer in the liturgy. If you are like me, you believe in the real presence of Jesus in the sacrament. I truly do believe that God is present in the bread and the wine. Yet all too often, I forget that God also dwells in me, and that I should not only contemplate God\u2019s presence within the bread and wine, but that I should also contemplate God\u2019s presence within me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This passage in Ephesians reminds us that Paul prays for a reality that far too few people actually take the time to think about; that God really is present within human beings. Paul does not simply pray that God\u2019s people would have a little bit of Jesus within their hearts. What does he pray for? That our inner beings would be strengthened, that Christ would live in our hearts, and that we would \u201ccomprehend\u201d the breadth, length, height, and depth of this love of God that is within us. Paul would have us comprehend a love which is incomprehensible and, thus, be filled with the \u201cfullness of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not too long ago, my wife and I were getting ready to go to the seminary chapel service. Just a few minutes before walking out the door, we received a phone call and learned that someone very dear to us had died during the night. After we got off the phone, we began to weep, and we wrestled with whether or not we should still go to chapel. Did we want to weep in front of all our friends? Did we want to mourn in such a public space?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We decided to go. It was one of the most blessed worship experiences we\u2019ve ever had. Life has a tendency to pull us away from church, to pull us away from the grace that God bestows through the sacraments. Sometimes it feels as though the Eucharist \u2013 that simple little cracker and that tiny sip of wine \u2013 is not enough. Yet, if you are like me, you often walk away amazed by how powerful and redemptive the Eucharist has been in the moments we need it most. Our Gospel reading puts imagery to a feeling that we all feel. Sometimes we doubt, saying, \u201cWhat can Jesus do with this little cracker and this sip of wine?\u201d Then we walk away from the altar sensing just how much God has multiplied his grace, and how satiated we actually feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2 Samuel 11:1-15 I recently had a gentleman ask me, \u201cWhy do we believe that David is in Heaven? Look at what he did during his life!\u201d Certainly, one could retort, \u201cWell, look at all the good things he did, too.\u201d David wrote so many psalms, for example, and was said to be a person…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201221,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,52,33,3],"tags":[333],"class_list":["post-766927","bible_study","type-bible_study","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-studies","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-12b"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":23,"label":"Bible Studies"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":333,"label":"Proper 12B"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bible_study"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952091,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766927\/revisions\/952091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}