First Reading, 2 Samuel 12:7-10

Our Liturgical Setting: We resume liturgical year C's journey through Saint Luke's gospel. Today's gospel is a well-known story about forgiveness, so the lectionary chooses a first reading with a similar theme.

The Historical Situation: So just how serious is the forgiveness in the first reading? The literary context is late Israel's need to retell its story of the cycle of fidelity to God, prosperity, infidelity, disaster, repentance, forgiveness, fidelity, prosperity, ... The vignette from history is a powerful one: the reign of the early king David. Things were so good under David, or at least remembered as being so good, that David was for ever after the model of leadership in Israel. Before Jesus, when Israel's fortunes were much worse, the hoped-for messiah ("anointed one," that is, king), who would restore the nation's fortunes, was modeled only on David.

Several aspects of the David story, though, show that God was the real sovereign controller of national affairs. First is how unlikely a candidate for king was David. He was a youth, and a shepherd, the least of his brethren, when the prophet/judge Samuel secretly anoints him. Thus his reign began in secret, for Saul was still the visible king. Another facet of David's story that highlights the frailty of human kingship is the context of today's reading. David lusted after the beautiful Bathsheba, wife of David's officer, Uriah the Hittite. While Uriah is on a military campaign for David, the king sleeps with the soldier's wife and impregnates her. David summons Uriah home and encourages him to sleep with his wife, to disguise the true paternity of Bathsheba's child. Uriah declines, out of loyalty to his troops, who are still fighting, and to the Ark of the Covenant, which is currently in enemy hands. David abuses his royal power even further, and arranges for Uriah to be exposed, unprotected, in battle. Uriah dies, and David takes his widow into his house, as one of his wives. Second Samuel 11:27 says tersely, "But what David had done displeased the Lord."

Proclaiming It: That's what's behind the few verses you are to proclaim. Nathan is a court prophet who cleverly tells David a story about a rich man who steals a poor man's only lamb. When David demands that the wicked man be brought to him for justice, Nathan says "That man is you!" Today's lectionary selection is part of Nathan's fiery condemnation of King David's wickedness.

So make Nathan sound outraged. He first ticks off God's favors to the ungrateful David:

• I had you anointed king
• I rescued you from Saul (Saul, the first king, became jealous when the people celebrated David for his one-shot victory over Goliath the Philistine. Saul tried to kill David, already secretly anointed as next king.)
• I gave you your lord's house and wives (that is, king Saul's palace and wives)
• So the sword shall never depart from your house (your descendants will always have to defend themselves in war)

Proclaim the above as vehemently as their context and content demands. Then pause. Not long, just a moment. For it takes David only a moment to repent, and no time at all for God to announce through Nathan that David's sin is forgiven.

Curious about verses 11 & 12, omitted by the lectionary? They threaten David with an unspeakably terrible retribution for his secret appropriation of another man's wife. David's own wives will be appropriated by others in public. It's a passage too indelicate for liturgical proclamation. But that threat of humiliation speaks volumes. In Middle Eastern society, with its codes of honor (or codes of shame) nothing would humiliate a man more. The verses might not belong in your verbal proclamation, but let it inform the way you condemn David's sin in proclaiming the prior verses.

Second Reading, Galatians 2:16, 19-21

The Historical and Theological Background: The earliest Christians believed they were believing in the utltimate fulfillment of Judaism. It was a big shock when Gentiles, who had had little taste for things Jewish, joined them as believers in Jesus. It was none too comfortable for the Gentile Christians, either. Working out how to integrate these groups, long antagonists, was the early church's great controversy.

After Paul had made converts among Gentiles in Galatia, Christians of Jewish origin came there, questioned Paul's standing as an apostle, and told the Gentile Christians that the gospel required that they observe Jewish law and religious practice. The letter to the Galatians is Paul's vigorous (to put it mildly) corrective to this error:

• After abbreviated opening pleasantries, Paul blasts them in chapter 1, verse 5: "I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by (the) grace (of Christ) for a different gospel." He curses anyone who preaches a gospel different from what had preached.
• Later in chapter 1, Paul insists his gospel did not have mere human origins.
• Then he talks about his own history as an observant Jew, then as a convert and preacher of the new way.
• Early in chapter 2 he describes at length his unity with, but independence of, Peter and the other earlier apostles. He tells of a meeting with Peter and the other apostles at which they entirely approved of Paul's gospel, consented to the de facto assignment of the Gentile "turf" to Paul, and made no mention of the need for Gentile converts to be circumcised or practice Mosaic law.
• Beginning in chapter 3 (these chapter divisions are a later attempt to organize the biblical writings), after today's lectionary passage, he upbraids his audience again, "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified!"

  This reference to the cross is part of the kernel of Paul's argument: That what God wrought for us in Christ is so thorough that there's no need for old observances. Faith is accepting that God wants to give us what we couldn't earn by legal observance. Living in the flesh, here, means trying to justify oneself before God by keeping laws. Living in the spirit is living by the faith described above.

That's why Paul can say in today's passage that no one is justified (made right with God, "rightwised") by keeping the law.

Proclaiming It: As often in Paul, this passage is about contrasts between two ways of life. These two have become, for Paul, opposites. You can beat your brains out trying to justify yourself before God by keeping laws, or you can accept the gracious (undeserved) gift of justification in Christ, and get on with life in Christ. These are starkly different to Paul, and you should make them sound so in your proclamation.