Homily: Saturday, 3rd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Sm12:1-7, 10-17; Ps 51; Mk 4:35-41

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"You are the man!" [2 Sam 12:7]

David, the King, his sin exposed by Nathan, comes to realize the depth of his sinfulness. It is through your sin, the Lord tells him, that you have despised me. Such very hard words from God. And how these words must have torn open the heart of David, as he came to realize the depth of his sinfulness.

David, the King, falls to the ground. Now a penitent like any other sinner, he repents, pleads for forgiveness, and prays for the life of his infant son. We hear David's grief and his plea expressed in Psalm 51, the penitential hymn he prayed that very day:

For I know my transgressions; my sin is always before me. Against you, you alone have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your eyes...Free me from blood guilt, O God, my saving God; then my tongue shall revel in your justice. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise. [Ps 51: 5-6,16-17]

Yes, his guilt makes David unable to praise; God must open his lips. God, through forgiveness, must allow David to love once again.

David sings his Psalm of repentance

But even though God forgives, sin still has its consequences, doesn't it? And if the sinner is great in the world's eyes, those consequences can be far-reaching indeed.

For David the most devastating consequence is the death of his son, the product of his sin. But he is also King, so the nation and its people will suffer as well. And the King hears that ominous prophecy: "The sword shall never depart" from the house of David.

Yes, David is forgiven, for our sins don't condemn us. If they did none of us could be saved.

No, the threat to our salvation comes from our refusal to repent, our unwillingness to change. But God never stops calling and waits patiently for repentance and conversion. His mercy is always there, just waiting for us.

You see, Bothers and Sisters, God wants life for us, not death. This is why He sent His only Son, our Redeemer, into the word, not to condemn the word, but...

"I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly" [Jn 10:10].

But that abundant life depends on our acceptance of God's gift of faith. How did Jesus scold the Apostles in today's Gospel passage? He did it with two questions...

His first question? "Why were you afraid?" The answer is simple enough...because the threatening seas had convinced them they wouldn't survive the storm. Yes, they were terrified.

And His second question? "Do you not yet have faith?" Again, a simple answer: No, they didn't, because fear and faith cannot coexist in the human heart.

Jesus Still the Sea - Fear and Lack of Faith

But Jesus performs this miracle because of their fear, so they will come to know who He is, so they will be able to answer that other question He will ask them later: 

"Who did you say that I am?" [Mt 16:15]

Yes, Jesus speaks to the sea as only its Creator can, and the Apostles ask themselves a question having just witnessed its answer:

"Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?" [Mk 4:41]

Of course the other Gospel message is Jesus' ongoing Presence in the Church.

The boat and the Twelve represent the fullness of the Church community, and no matter the trials and storms it might face, Jesus is always there among us.

Our weak faith can cause to believe God is sleeping, unaware of the threats surrounding His Church. And like the Apostles we turn to God our hearts touched with despair: "...do you not care that we are perishing?"

Silly question - one asked only by the weak of faith.

Brothers and sisters, we were given the gift of Emmanuel - God with us - so we need never fear, we need never despair. God remains with the Church, just as He promised:

"I am with you always, until the end of the age." [Mt 28:20]

And He remains with you and with me, always calling us, always forgiving us, always loving us, always saving us.

The David Myth

I find it both interesting and disturbing that so many biblical scholars disbelieve most of what's in the Bible. The so-called "David Myth" is a good example of what I mean. According to many scholars, King David, who, along with Abraham and Moses (two other mythical figures), can only be described as a central figure in the Old Testament, simply did not exist. He was instead the fictional creation of priests and political leaders who needed to provide the people with a heroic figure who epitomized the mythological former glory of this primitive tribal people. David, the youthful shepherd who became a giant killer, a great strategist and general, and a king respected by all the nations, is simply too good to be true. Too great to have been created by God, he must have been created by man. As I said, this really disturbs me.

The documentary evidence for David's existence is, of course, substantial. It's called the Bible. If we substituted David's name with the name of some obscure ancient Middle Eastern king, and then discovered these writings in a desert cave, there would be rejoicing among the archaeologists and textual scholars that we now knew so much about this previously little known potentate. But for some reason, the Bible is generally discounted as an historical document. After all, it's filled with all those odd theophanies, all those concocted and impossible manifestations of this minor tribal god. How can anyone believe anything in documents littered with such obviously tall tales? And what really bothers these scholars is that, even in these enlightened times, so many people -- believing Jews and Christians -- still accept all of it.

Aerial view of excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa

In recent years, however, there's been a constant stream of archaeological evidence pouring out of the Holy Land in support of the Bible as real history, and this includes the story of David and his kingdom. The latest evidence comes from the excavation of a fortified Iron Age city at Khirbet Qeiyafa that dates from the time of David. The archaeological evidence points to its being a Jewish city in the Kingdom of Judah. All of this evidence argues that the Jews of the 11th century B.C. lived in urban settings, something that supporters of the "David Myth" have disputed, believing instead that urbanization didn't occur until centuries later. And so it appears that this primitive tribe of nomadic shepherds might actually have been more sophisticated and advanced than previously thought. In other words, they were pretty much just as they are described in the Bible.

To read a brief overview of the report of this excavation, click here: The Sacred Page.

To read a more detailed report, click here: Israel Antiquities Authority.

And if you're really interested in this general subject of the historical accuracy of Scared Scripture, let me suggest reading K. A. Kitchen's fascinating book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament.

In the meantime, read your Bible every day, and believe what you read.

Blessings...

Upside Down World - More Signs

A few moments ago, after a nice relaxing dinner with the beautiful Diane, I picked up my little Asus netbook and checked out thecatholicthing.com. (They send me a little notice on my iPhone whenever they post their daily essay and I hadn't had time to read it yet. For an old guy, I'm pretty well connected.) There I encountered an essay by Matthew Hanley entitled, "Catholics & Pagans: Then & Now" and to my surprise found that it addressed some of the same things I had just written about on this blog. Of course, Hanley's a much better writer so his essay actually makes sense. While I used Isaiah 49 as an example, Hanley went back farther to the events surrounding David's act of adultery with the lovely Bathsheba who unfortunately for her husband, Uriah, was married (2 Sm 11). By the way, I've always liked this picture of Nathan confronting David with the truth of his sinfulness. Maybe we all need a Nathan looking over our shoulder.

Hanley makes the point that David had just led his army in a battle in which 40,000 men had perished, and yet this "isolated instance of adultery [is] singled out for reproach" by the prophet Nathan. He goes on to explain, however, that David's sin was certainly greater than adultery since "it also involved murderous scheming."

But then Hanley makes the same point I had tried to make in my latest post, that everything has completely changed. In his words, "Still, the reverse generally holds true these days: a single casualty in battle is often met with stern media disapproval, while thousands upon thousands of 'illicit' encounters go unremarked -- or are even glamorized."

Neither Hanley nor I deny the tragedy of war and the fact that so many today recognize this. His only qualification is that people not succumb to "blind pacifism" or turn their backs on the kind of real evil that must be confronted and defeated. But, as Hanley remarks, "Insensitivity to the breakdown of the family and to the destructiveness of the 'hook-up' culture, on the other hand, is a sure sign of moral regress."

This is just one more example of our present upside down world, a world in which good is bad and bad is good, a world in which far too many of its inhabitants are completely unaware of the fact that they're standing on their heads unable to see reality as it is.

Read Hanley's essay. It's very good. And keep your feet on the ground; otherwise you'll never be able to follow Jesus on the Way.

Pax et bonum...