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Do you know the song, “Frankie and Johnny”? I would rather not sing it to you — the music of Jimmie Rodgers lies a bit outside our splendid Anglo- Catholic tradition, and outside my own stylistic abilities, and anyway I have no guitar up here with me, and couldn’t play it if I did — but I’d like to offer you a spoken sample. I think I can recite portions of “Frankie and Johnny” as a compelling story. Terrible, sad! But — compelling. Here goes.
Frankie and Johnny was sweethearts,
oh Lord how they did love
Swore to be true to each other,
true as the stars above
He was her man, he wouldn't do her wrong
Frankie went down to the corner,
just for a bucket of beer
She says, Mr Bartender
has my loving Johnny been here
He's my man, he wouldn't do me wrong
I don't want to cause you no trouble,
I ain't gonna tell you no lie
I saw your lover an hour ago
with a girl named Nellie Bligh
He was your man, but he's doing you wrong
Frankie looked over the transom,
she saw to her surprise
There on a cot sat Johnny,
making love to Nellie Bligh
He’s my man, and he's doing me wrong
Frankie drew back her kimono,
she took out a little 44
Rooty toot toot, three times she shot,
right through that hardwood door
Shot her man, he was doing her wrong…
This story has no moral,
this story has no end
This story just goes to show,
that there ain't no good in men
He was her man, and he done her wrong
Here ends the reading.
“There ain’t no good in men.” That’s a persuasive little argument, right there. Just look around. Look at all this mess. Jimmie Rodgers offers what sounds like a fairly reasonable take on human nature. And there’s a kind of safety in this argument, a protective shell you can huddle under, keeping you safe from crushing disappointment. Frankie’s on her way to the bar, telling herself that her man wouldn’t do her wrong, but if she really believes that, then why is she looking for him, and with a gun? She doesn’t trust him. Not deep down. Our girl is all too ready to find out that her man, he done her wrong.
But today’s Good News is for Frankie, even if it arrives too late to save her from killing Johnny, even if she can’t or won’t listen to it. Frankie, hear this Good News: your man was doing you wrong … but he can change. He can make it right. He can get square with you.
He really can.
The prophet Nathan says so.
Nathan — a name from the Hebrew root natan, a word that means “gave” — Nathan gives King David a tremendous gift. Nathan isn’t packing a 44 in his tunic. He has something even more devastating: he comes to King David with the hard truth. He confronts his boss with the one thing David does not want to hear. And he persists until David confesses his terrible crimes.
In doing this, Nathan saves David from a terrible fate. David admits his dreadful wrongdoing — that he coerced a woman into having sex with him, a power move that she could not resist; and he then abused his power to have her husband killed in battle. David repents from all of this, and therefore, though his actions foreshadow the eventual collapse of the kingdom, David recovers. David improves. David is remembered now with honor, as a good king, a strong and inspiring servant of God. He did several people wrong, but that wasn’t the end of his story.
As for Bathsheba and her husband Uriah, David’s victims, they most certainly were not saved from a terrible fate, but this may be the most honest part of this awful story from the second book of Samuel: David’s moral journey doesn’t end happily for everyone, and so it rings true. We all know stories like that. Many of us have lived — many of us are still living — stories like that. But Bathsheba and Uriah, for all their sufferings, come first from God’s perspective. Note that the text says, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David.” We praise the One God who sees the victims in a story of violence, the One who frees the slaves from a cruel empire, the One whose eyes are on the orphan and the widow.
I hope you can hear how extraordinary this is. Where else in ancient literature do we encounter the moral development of a privileged sovereign who abused and murdered his subjects, challenged and corrected by his god? This is news of a difference on the face of the earth: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob checks the privilege of human leaders. The Lord Almighty pays attention to the victims in awful human dramas. God cares about those who are last and least. And so God gives a privileged man a terrible, redemptive gift: the gift of a chance to repent, to confess, to make amends, and to evolve; the gift of a chance to be a better king, a better leader, a better person.
David accepts this gift, gracefully. His story of redemption shapes our own growth and maturity in faith. Every Ash Wednesday we sing Psalm 51, today’s psalm, a psalm of repentance attributed to David himself. What David did was terrible, and will always remain so. No feeling or act of remorse can fully undo bad actions. But the gift of a chance to confess, and to make amends: that ancient gift of God is evergreen. We will receive it yet again, today, when for the umpteenth time we hear these words: “Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.”
But the story of salvation continues, long after David dies in the peace of God. Centuries later, not far from the city where David once reigned, another figure emerges. For us who proclaim the mystery of Christian faith, this person is our prophet and priest and sovereign: this is Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Word of God, Jesus the Incarnate One who moves into the human neighborhood — including this neighborhood — and extends God’s invitation to us once again to repent, to confess, to make amends, and to evolve.
Jesus feeds the multitude in a wondrous sign of his abundant grace and power, and this feast on the hillside prefigures the Christian Eucharistic community, the community we form here, week by week, year by year. But he has more to teach that multitude, more for them to learn and to know. Shortly after the hillside feast, the crowd discovers that Jesus slipped away somehow, and they go looking for him. But when they find him, he upbraids them a bit. He says, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life…”
And so we watch as the crowd is corrected in their misunderstanding of who Jesus is, what Jesus is doing, what he’s all about. They underestimated him as merely a source of abundant food. Now, in their defense, abundant food is undoubtedly a good thing, and seeing Jesus as a food bank is a reasonable and understandable assumption for these hungry peasants to make.
But Jesus invites them into a deeper understanding of his mission, and their mission, and our mission. He is calling us all into a new community, a new Rule of Life, a new Way.
In the Jesus Movement, we don’t merely find food for ourselves. We don’t even settle for sharing food with our neighbors, as virtuous and essential as that is! In this movement, we abide with Jesus, in dreadful yet lovely intimacy. And whenever we abide with Jesus, we abide with one another, bonded forever as one human family. This family transforms the whole world into a just and peaceful home where God dwells intimately with God’s people. When we do all of this — when we study more carefully what Jesus is saying and doing, and envision the kind of world the Word of God is speaking into existence — then we improve. We get better.
Take note: our SPiN walkers don’t just hand out food and supplies. They build lasting and collaborative friendships with our neighbors. Like King David, and like those hungry peasants who initially misunderstand Jesus, we deepen our understanding. We expand our skills.
There are several misunderstandings in John’s Gospel, stories of people who don’t get it at first, but then make progress, and get better in their practice of faith. The watching crowd at the temple misunderstands what Jesus is saying about the old temple, and how his own body will become the new temple. Nicodemus needs a minute to make sense of being “born again.” The woman at the well initially underestimates what Jesus means by “living water,” thinking only of her immediate practical needs. (She’s clever, though, and soon puts it all together.) And so on. People initially don’t get it.
Our forebears are models for us, models of improvement, of evolution. King David reforms. Nicodemus bravely acknowledges his ignorance and asks Jesus to enlighten him. The woman at the well is astonished and perplexed, but she figures it all out and runs back to her village with exciting news. Peter repairs his denials and goes on to found a whole new movement. According to the letter to the Ephesians,
“All of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God; [all of us come] to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
So Frankie, oh Frankie, please put your 44 revolver away. Your man, he done you wrong. That’s the truth. But he can get better. And if you put your weapon down — and Frankie, I speak this truth to you in love — if you put your weapon down, you can get better, too.
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Preached on the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Year B), August 4, 2024, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.