Friday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 321

Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
Against you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight.

Because I am not a Veteran of any military service, the word honor had no particular resonance for me. I heard it used in movies about warriors; I heard Veterans in the VA talk of it. Its weight finally fell upon me as I attended the opera Carmen. 

Don Jose, the protagonist, is a dutiful soldier, attentive to his mother and affectionate with his sweetheart until he falls insanely in love with the gypsy Carmen. She shamelessly leads him on as he disobeys orders, challenges his commanding officer in a duel, joins a gypsy band of thieves, and renounces everything he stood for. Jose's mindless worship of the woman cannot justify his foolishness, dishonorable conduct, and murder. 

Having attended an opera, I won't say I have the same sense of honor as our Veterans; but I think I have at least a civilian's understanding. With it, I read the story of King David differently. 

David had every advantage of experience and authority over our young Jose, and Bathsheba was certainly not a seductive Carmen; so David's murder of Uriah is all the more dishonorable. When Nathan exposes the crime, we can suppose David's contrivance fooled no one but himself. 

Periodically, I must return to a statement by Reinhold Niebuhr, especially since I meet this mystery almost daily as a hospital chaplain: 

The high estimate of the human stature implied in the concept of "image of God" stands in paradoxical juxtaposition to the low estimate of human virtue in Christian thought. Man is a sinner. His sin is defined as rebellion against God. The Christian estimate of human evil is so serious precisely because it places evil at the very center of human personality: in the will. This evil cannot be regarded complacently as the inevitable consequence of his finiteness or the fruit of his involvement in the contingencies and necessities of nature.
Sin is occasioned precisely by the fact that man refuses to admit his "creatureliness" and to acknowledge himself as merely a member of a total unity of life. He pretends to be more than he is. Nor can he, as in both rationalistic and mystic dualism, dismiss his sins as residing in that part of himself which is not his true self; that is, that part of himself which is involved in physical necessity. In Christianity it is not the eternal man who judges the finite man; but the Eternal and Holy God who judges sinful man. Nor is redemption in the power of the eternal man who gradually sloughs off finite man. Man is not divided against himself so that the essential man can be extricated from the non-essential. Man contradicts himself within the terms of his true essence. His essence is free self-determination. His sin is the wrong use of his freedom and his consequent destruction.
      The Nature and Destiny of Man. Reinhold Niebuhr (1941) ISBN 0-02-387510-0

Professor Niebuhr has said this as well as anyone since the Divine Author penned the story of Adam and Eve. We sin because we choose to sin. We don't have to. There is no law that says we must. David's initial taking of Bathsheba was inexcusable; his murder of Uriah, beyond anything we should have to forgive.  

With that sense of horror for sin, we hear of God's merciful regard for David. he will forgive the psalmist who wrote Psalm 51. He will not revoke his word and the Messiah will be born of David's line, despite his dishonorable conduct. 

Lent is still a few weeks away but pondering God's mercy is never out of season. Other than our Baptism we have no claim on God's mercy. We dare not take it for granted. 

And when we do consider the Grace that is Freely Given to the Undeserving, we must be staggered by God's Goodness.