Introduction 

Who tells the Prime Minister it’s time to go?  Who goes and tells the leader of our country, the one with all the political power that for the good of the country they should step down?  Which party figure gets the job of telling their political patron that if a resignation isn’t submitted then the party faces meltdown at the next election?  It was a dilemma for those around Mrs Thatcher and Mr Major at the end of their terms.  It seemed to be a dilemma for those around Mr Blair towards the end of his term and, now it seems those around Mr Brown are wondering who gets the job of, as the Americans put it, “telling the truth to power”.  Of course it’s harder for Mr Brown as he, himself, is widely believed to have spent a lot of time telling Mr Blair that it was time to go .  

Who tells the truth to powerful figures?  Who tells the President that this policy was disastrous and the policy was his idea?  Who tells the Pope that no one believes that doctrine anymore?  It’s not an easy ministry and not one that would be eagerly desired by those with the necessary gifts.  But it was the ministry of the prophet we will be looking at in today’s service, the prophet Nathan. 

Nathan 

Nathan was the main religious leader in the time of King David – that is about 3,000 years ago.  David was a strong king who was supported by the people.  He had subdued Israel’s enemies, had expanded the country, brought it prosperity and stability and had pleased God by establishing a Temple next to the royal palace in Jerusalem.  Nathan had increasingly become the main person who told the King what the will of God was.  David himself was popular with the people and was incredibly devout.  Many of the Psalms are accredited to him and he certainly seemed to be in touch with his feelings not being ashamed of his ability to love a man as well as to love women.   

But he was a king in an age before parliaments.  He was an absolute ruler in an age before anyone heard of democracy.  He was God’s anointed in a devout kingdom.  The problem with absolute power, as Lord Acton once put it, is that it corrupts absolutely.   

Reading: 

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.  One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her.  The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."  

Who was going to tell the King that he really shouldn’t sleep with another man’s wife?  Who was going to speak up for Bathsheba – in her age women would have found it very hard to resist the King.  It maybe she was interested in a little dalliance, it is more likely she was powerless to resist.  Maybe she thought it would help her husband’s career.  Who knows after all these years.  All we know is that David got his own way, but then found that Bathsheba fell pregnant.  Well, this wasn’t too much of an issue, he’d recall Uriah and get him to spend some time with his beautiful wife, they’d make love, the baby when it came would be a few weeks early and who would know?  The problem was that Uriah was a very honourable man 

Reading:

When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?" Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord's men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!" Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David's invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master's servants; he did not go home.

Well this wasn’t going to do at all.  Everything had been tried but Uriah wouldn’t go home and sleep with his wife.  Before long it would become a bit obvious to Uriah why David wanted to make him comfortable and then it would be embarrassing.  So David arranges with Joab, his general, to have Uriah sent to the front and with a quick retreat Uriah was killed in battle.  So Kings get what they want after all. 

Reading:

When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD. 

We don’t know what Bathsheba’s emotions were like here.  She mourns her husband but what choice did she have but to marry David.  She had a child on the way and this was not an age which looked after single women.  But the Lord was displeased with David’s actions, he had committed adultery, had seduced someone who was hardly his equal, and had arranged for her husband to be killed – a pagan who was actually working with the Chosen People on their behalf.  But who was going to tell David of his sins and how? 

Step forward Nathan, the palace prophet.  Nathan decided that David’s moral compass was working incorrectly but that it was, at least, working.  So Nathan decided to tell David a story: 

Reading:

The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. "Now a traveller came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."  

This was a good strategy and it got David’s righteous indignation going: 

Reading:

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity." 

So far so good, now all Nathan has to do is to spring the trap:

Reading:

Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!

This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.  I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

Nathan’s words came true.  David’s home life was not happy, and Bathsheba became a bit of a shrew.  His grandchildren argued over the Kingdom and due to the misrule of his son, Solomon, the Kingdom itself split after his death.  Maybe David should have stuck to being in love with men, it may have made his life less complicated! 

And Now? 

The story of Nathan is still well known now because it is such a powerful story.  It fills us with amazement that David could be so morally blind and that Nathan could be so brave!  It also intrigues us as we still have absolute rulers in the world, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia and many other regimes around the world are ruled without benefit of democracy simply on the whim of their rulers.  We have seen other countries which claim to be democracy and even have elections but which aren’t free or fair and we see the results which lead to oppression.  David stopped quickly; if Nathan hadn’t acted who knows what type of man he may have become.

Maybe rulers have got more cunning than David.  Mugabe got rid of Archbishop Pius Ncube who was a very effective vocal critic of the regime through the simple expedient of a sex scandal.   

The story of Nathan reminds us that the political powers are subject to God like the rest of us, the story of the fallen Archbishop reminds us that we need to be sure that we are acting in accordance with God’s will, that we don’t become blind to our own faults like David – that most spiritual of people - became blind to his.