Saints and Sinners

Psalm 51

Is church a place for saints or for sinners?

Who are we? Are we saints or are we sinners?

There are four possibilities for us with this choice. We can be saints. We can be sinners. We can be saints and sinners at the same time. Or we can be neither saints nor sinners.

Who are people who think they are saints? These are people who come to church and think they are better than most other people. These people are proud that they go to church and are highly critical of the sin of others.

These people don’t steal, they don’t cheat, they don’t have sex outside of marriage. They read their Bible and pray and go to church on Sunday. And when they hear about someone who has done something terrible, they compliment themselves on how good they are, not like other people in the world.

Those who view themselves as saints are like the Pharisee in the story Jesus told who went to pray. (Luke 18:11)

The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

These people view the sins of others with a magnifying glass and dismiss their own tiny, little faults as insignificant. They may even have built up a protective wall that hides their private sin so that others cannot see it and they themselves can hide from the truth of who they are.

These are those who think they are saints.

There are others who view themselves as sinners. These people know that they are not good people. They know that they cheat and are not good at resisting sexual temptation. Sinners are uncomfortable being around saints because the perceived goodness of the saints is a condemnation of themselves.

The other part of the story Jesus told compares the prayer of the Pharisee with the prayer of a tax collector. Tax collectors were under no illusion that they were good people. They had betrayed their country by collaborating with the Romans and they had betrayed their religion by working with Gentiles.

Viewing yourself as a sinner is a good point of transition because it can lead us to God, but it is not a healthy place to rest. Viewing myself as a sinner without hope of being different is destructive. Such a view destroys the human spirit.

In the church there are those who think they are saints, those who view themselves as sinners and if there are people who come to church who think they are neither saints nor sinners, I wonder why it is they come to church. Perhaps there is some intellectual curiosity or perhaps it is just a pattern in life that they have established. Actually, in my parent’s Unitarian Church there were a lot of people who disdained being either saints or sinners. They were secularists who prided themselves on their intellect and rationality and saw no need to descend to being either saints or sinners.

The last possibility is the best option. There are those in church who view themselves as saints and at the same time, sinners.

My daughter Elizabeth was in high school and one day the physical education class was cancelled for some reason so she sat in the bleachers writing a letter to God. A classmate came up to her and asked her what she was doing.

“I’m writing a letter to God.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure.”

He read the letter and then said, “I didn’t know that Christians thought they were sinners.”

Christians are at the same time saints and sinners.

When Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome, he talked about the struggle Christians have of being at the same time, saints and sinners. Romans 7:21-25)

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

And in writing to Timothy, who worked with Paul in the churches he had established, Paul, the great apostle of the church declared: (I Timothy 1:15)

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.

Christians are sinners who have been fortunate enough to discover a path to eternal life which means they are not better than anyone else. D. T. Niles, a Sri Lankan evangelist who died in 1970, said, “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.”

Christians do not deserve the salvation that found them. They cannot earn this salvation. They will never be able to repay the gift of salvation.

They are sinners found and saved by grace.

I love the quote by Oscar Wilde:

The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Christians are saints and at the same time sinners and there is no better example of this than King David.

Psalm 51, the text we are looking at this morning, was written by King David. But there is a story behind the writing of the psalm. In the Bible, there is a note at the beginning of Psalm 51:

A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

The full story of this is found in II Samuel 11.

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.

David should have been at war with his army, but he was feeling lazy and one evening, after sleeping in the late afternoon, he got up from his bed and walked around the roof of the palace. The king’s palace was the tallest building and he could look down around him and on a nearby roof, he saw a woman bathing and she was very beautiful.

David was bored and having nothing better to do, he inquired about her and discovered that she was the wife of Uriah, one of his generals, who was off fighting with the army as David should have been.

A godly man would have stopped at this point or even earlier, but David sent messengers to bring her to him.

Understand that David was king with absolute power. He could do whatever he wanted. He had no parliament to work with. He had no media breathing down his neck writing articles critical about what he did. The palace workers did not dare say anything against David. If David wanted something, he got it. Some people speculate about whether or not Bathsheba was trying to seduce David but it doesn’t really matter. She had no choice in the matter. David wanted her and he got her. Whether she wanted David or not, it was David who had absolute power and it was therefore David who was to blame for what happened.

A few weeks later she sent him a message saying that she was pregnant. Now this was a problem. Her husband was away at war and she was pregnant. This put her in danger. If she became pregnant and it was not her husband who made her pregnant, she could have been stoned to death for being an adulteress.

The law of Moses was very clear. Deuteronomy 22:22

If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

According to the law, both Bathsheba and David were in trouble, but the reality is that it was only Bathsheba who was in trouble. David made the laws, he wasn’t always concerned with keeping them.

David thought about it and it was pretty clear what he needed to do. He did what our politicians and leaders continue to do to this day. He tried to cover up what he had done.

He sent for Uriah thinking that Uriah would sleep with her, the baby would be born perhaps a month and a half prematurely and that would be the end of the matter. But Uriah wasn’t a stupid man. He was one of David’s generals and as he returned to Jerusalem, he wondered why David wanted him. When all David asked of him was to report on the state of the soldiers and the war, he knew there was another reason David had sent for him. He was immediately on guard and when David told him to go home, he stayed at the gate of the palace and slept with the servants.

David sent again for him and asked why he had not gone home. At this point Uriah may have suspected something. Why was David so concerned that he sleep with his wife? Uriah told David that he could not sleep at home while Joab and the other soldiers slept in the open fields. He could not sleep with his wife and relax in his home.

This in itself was a rebuke to David who was sleeping in his palace while his army slept in the fields.

So David asked him to stay one more night. David invited him to eat and made sure he got good and drunk, but even in this state, Uriah kept his head and slept at the palace gate.

The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent Uriah with it. In the letter he wrote that Uriah was to be put in the front line where the fighting was most fierce and then to pull back from him so he would be killed.

David was king and so Joab did as he was told and Uriah was killed.

Bathsheba mourned for her husband and after the period of mourning, David brought her over to his palace. She became one of his wives and bore him a son.

But then the text indicates trouble was coming.

But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.

God was displeased and he had his prophet in Jerusalem whose name was Nathan.

The gossip in the palace must have been buzzing. People did the math and knew that the father of Bathsheba’s son was not Uriah. The fact that David brought her over just as soon as the mourning period had ended told everyone who the father was and they also remembered the time she came over to the palace, just about nine months ago. And what a coincidence that Uriah conveniently died on the battlefield so David could have Bathsheba? People may not have known how Uriah was killed but they knew David was somehow behind it.

But who can confront the king who has absolute power?

God’s prophet, Nathan, came and spoke to him of an injustice that had been committed.

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. ² The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, ³ 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.

⁴ “Now a traveler 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 traveler 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 did not sit well with David.

⁵ 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! ⁶ He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

And in a great act of courage, 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. ⁸ 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. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰ 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.’

Was David a saint or a sinner? He was certainly a sinner. He took another man’s wife and slept with her. He lied to cover up the consequence of his action. He tried to deceive Uriah and when that did not work, he arranged for his murder – and the murder of the other men fighting around Uriah who were left behind when Joab withdrew his forces.

David did not sin impulsively. It is not that he had a momentary lapse in judgement. He had plenty of time to think about what he had done.

He slept with Bathsheba, there was a bit more than a month before she discovered she was pregnant and then David had to decide what to do and send for Uriah to come back from the battlefield. Uriah had to travel to Jerusalem and then three days later he had to make the return trip to the battlefield. Then Joab had to plan the battle so Uriah could be put in a position where he could be killed. There was a month of mourning after Uriah died before Bathsheba came over to the palace. So Bathsheba was maybe four months pregnant when she moved and became one of David’s wives. In these four months David had plenty of time to reflect on what he had done but he did not. He was king and could do whatever he wanted.

David was a sinner. There is absolutely no doubt about that. But it is in David’s response to Nathan’s declaration that we see he was also a saint.

¹³ Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

Remember that David was king and could do what he wanted. He could have had Nathan imprisoned and executed. He could have ignored the whole thing.

As much as David did what he wanted, lied when it was convenient, deceived when it was necessary, he also repented when it got through his thick, arrogant, sinful head that he had sinned. David was a saint and a sinner.

How do we respond to sin?

There are some who practice what is called cheap grace. This is a term made popular by Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a German pastor and was killed by the Nazis for his opposition to their Nationalist Socialist regime.( Bonhoeffer picked up this term from The Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, N.Y where he went to church while at seminary in New York.)

What is cheap grace? In a book Bonhoeffer wrote in 1937, Cost of Discipleship, he said:

cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

Cheap grace is sinning during the week with the assurance that it will not matter because on Sunday you can come to church and receive forgiveness. Cheap grace says that because Jesus’ blood was shed for sin, any sin I commit has already been paid for – so I don’t really have to change. I can sin and be forgiven and continue on as if nothing had happened. And because of God’s unlimited grace, there is no end to the game. I can sin and sin and sin and not worry about the consequences because I am covered by the blood of Jesus.

I’ll critique this in a moment. But there is another inadequate response to sin.

There are others who wallow in sin. They know that it is wrong to sin, feel bad about sinning and know that they need to make changes, but they find themselves unable to change. Such a person might cheat on an exam and feel bad about it and determine not to do it again, but when the next exam comes, panic sets in and he cheats again. Or it might be an inability to stop looking at pornography or reading romance novels, the female equivalent of pornography. Or it might be the inability to stop stealing things you want.

These people come to church, sing the hymns, pray the prayers, listen to the Scripture and sermon but it is not a pleasant experience because it is only a reminder that they are doing bad things. They are trapped in their sin, unable or unwilling to stop. They sit among other people who seem to be able to live a Christian life and they feel bad in comparison. So they eventually stop coming to church or come infrequently.

The problem with either cheap grace or wallowing in sin is that in each of these responses to sin, sin is viewed as a transactional problem. I have done something wrong and now I have to pay the price.

It is like parking your car and failing to buy the parking sticker. You come back to find an orange boot on the tire of the car. It is irritating, but you make the phone call, the parking boot man shows up, you pay a forty dirham fine, he takes off the boot and you drive away.

It has not been a pleasant experience, but the fine has been paid and it is in the past and can be forgotten. It is a clean cut transaction with no strings attached. If the next day I park illegally and get another orange boot, I go through the same process and once again I am free to go.

People want sin to be like this. Do something wrong, go to church and say you are sorry and the fine has been paid and now you can go on with life.

But sin is not a transactional problem. It is not a matter of doing something wrong and paying a fine.

Look at the psalm David wrote after he was confronted by Nathan. Does David anywhere list the things he did wrong? Is there any mention in the psalm of his adultery? Any mention of arranging to have Uriah killed? David wronged Bathsheba, Uriah and the other innocents in the story. He wronged the baby who died as a consequence of his sin. But it is not to them this psalm is addressed.

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

blot out my transgressions.

² Wash away all my iniquity

and cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is always before me.

⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are proved right when you speak

and justified when you judge.

Against you, you only, have I sinned

David did a lot of things wrong. But what he did wrong was not as important as the fact that in his sin he broke his relationship with God. Sin is a relational problem, not a transactional problem.

When people complain that they sin, pray for forgiveness and then don’t feel any better, they are demanding a system like the orange boot.

When a man has an affair, his marriage is destroyed. He cannot simply come home and tell his wife he is sorry and expect things to go back to normal. It takes time to rebuild the relationship.

In the same way, we cannot simply say, “I’m sorry,” to God and expect everything to be better. Fortunately for us, God is quicker to forgive than we are. When we turn to God in repentance, he is not slow to forgive, but we do have to exert ongoing effort to draw close to him. We cannot simply say “I’m sorry,” and then get on with our lives. We have a relationship to restore.

Look at what David asked for in his psalm of repentance:

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;

wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

⁹ Hide your face from my sins

and blot out all my iniquity.

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Cleanse me, wash me, create in me, renew, restore to me. David wanted to rebuild his relationship with God and knew this had to come from the heart.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke about cheap grace in Cost of Discipleship and he also talked about costly grace.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake one will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us.

This morning we observe the sacrament of communion. We remember in eating the bread and drinking the wine that Jesus died for us. This costly sacrifice dare not be mocked.

If there is sin in your life and you are looking for an easy fine to pay so you can get on with your life, do not come forward for communion. The costly sacrifice of Jesus dare not be used for our own human manipulations.

But if you are struggling with sin in your life and it is your heart’s desire to change, then come and receive forgiveness and strength from this communion meal.

None of us is without sin. Throw yourself at the feet of Jesus and plead for mercy and grace and then come forward to receive what we do not deserve, cannot earn and can never repay.