The 51st Psalm
“You are the man!” Said the
prophet Nathan to surprised David; David who perhaps did not realize his “taking” of
Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah, was anything other than a kingly
prerogative. After all, Israel had been warned, if you choose the monarchy
instead of the tribal system, kings’ll conscript your men, take your wealth,
make war, and take your women.
But David’s “loving too much” and
taking on the trappings of Kingship had consequences. Consequences for his
Kingdom, his friends and lovers, his family, and his soul. And so, we receive
this psalm, “Have mercy on me, O God.” Blot out! Wash! Cleanse! I, I alone have
done this! This sin shoots backwards to my very birth. Purge me! Create in me a
clean heart! Cast me not away! Let me witness to the possibility of
transformation and sing of deliverance! I am broken by the enormity of what I
have done!”
It is a psalm that can be mined
and mined again by the poets, psychologists, and pastors of every age. Living
up to the expectation of kingship broke the man. Just because you’re doing what
your job calls you to do, just because you acted as an aunt or father, doesn’t
mean the things you did in those roles don’t somehow count. “I was just
following orders” is never a good excuse, either according to international
law, or in our more generalized experience as human beings.
Similarly following the impulse of his heart, and loins, had got him
far in the world (read David’s “origin story” sometime) but there was an edge
to it, a point at which successful action becomes sin. This is a common story
in the Bible, for example, trickster Jacob loved getting the better over on his
brothers until he was wrestling with a man/angel/god in the night beside the
Jabbok river. It is a common trope in the ancient world—for example the Greeks
call it the Golden Mean—there is a happy middle point on most things, that
becomes quite bad if not taken far enough or taken too far. For example,
cowardliness is unseemly, courage is good, recklessness is foolish.
When we let a role define us and
form our actions even when they are wrong, when we follow the script of our
past successes to evil ends—it’ll feel Psalm 51-like, eventually. Our wrongs
will be called into account and those transgressions of ours will weigh us
down.
And God will not forsake us or despise us. No, God will transform our
wails into songs of praise and redeem our every hurt, because God is not in the
condemnation business, but the restoration business!
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