Ralph W Emerson wouldn't have accused the good
Archbishop of being small minded.

Emerson wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin
of little minds."

A scan revealed little in the way of an outline that
would give a clue as to his destination and whether he
led us there.  No foolish consistency there!

So God loved little David.  Shall we continue in sin
that grace may abound?

What was it little David played on his harp?

Charles+

Charles






--- jlealx1@... wrote:

> Archbishop Ndungane's Sermon at Westminster Abbey
> 
> 2 Sam 11:26-12:10,13-15
> Ps 32:1-6,11-12
> Gal 2:15-21
> Luke 7:36-8:3
> 
> Brothers and sisters in Christ, I greet you in the
> precious name of our
> Lord. It is a great joy to be with you this morning.
> 
> Had King David lived today, there is no doubt that
> the popular press
> would have had a field day with his eventful life!
> 
> Those who gave us the books of Samuel and Kings may
> not have had the
> same journalistic freedom as today's tabloids, but
> they still give us
> some pretty juicy material to work with!
> 
> Our very first encounter with David tells us that he
> was ruddy. And if
> that was not enough, he had beautiful eyes. And, in
> case we had not yet
> got the message, we are also told he was handsome (1
> Sam 16:13). The
> Brad Pitt of the Old Testament, perhaps!
> 
> Or if not Brad Pitt, then David was certainly the
> sort of action hero we
> are used to seeing Brad Pitt play - as he despatches
> Goliath and any
> number of Philistines and other enemies.
> 
> Like any cool action hero, he also has his tender
> side - playing the
> harp and composing Psalms .
> 
> And like rather too many celebrities, he has a
> torrid personal life.
> Saul's daughter Michal loves him, is lost to him, is
> returned to him,
> and ends up despising him.
> 
> Then there is Abigail, the clever and witty wife of
> his enemy Nabal, who
> conveniently drops dead, so he can marry her.
> 
> But when Bathsheba comes along, David has to
> engineer the dropping dead
> of her husband.
> 
> Indeed, there are rather a lot of individuals who
> are inconvenient to
> David, who seem to drop dead one way or another.
> Often this happens by
> the hand of his trusty cousin and military commander
> Joab, who does the
> dirty deed before David even asks!
> 
> David is certainly a complex, if undeniably
> charismatic, character.
> 
> Contrast him with his son and heir, Solomon: the
> ultimate wise and
> civilised ruler. Not for him the uncontrollable
> passions of his father.
> 
> With careful judgement, Solomon reigns over peace
> and prosperity. He
> enters careful diplomatic marriages. No tumultuous
> tabloid love life for
> him.
> 
> But what do we find? For all his atrocious
> behaviour, it is David whom
> the Lord loves.
> 
> Solomon, the arch-pragmatist, allows his numerous
> foreign wives their
> own shrines to their own gods, and becomes caught up
> in their worship.
> 
> 1 Kings 11 tells us that Solomon's 'heart was not
> devoted to the Lord
> his God, as the heart of David his father had been.'
> 
> Whatever David's behaviour, his heart had remained
> true to the Lord.
> 
> This is of course the same Lord who had told his
> people repeatedly that
> he was a jealous God. So even though, as our Old
> Testament lesson told
> us, 'the thing that David had done displeased the
> Lord'; and even though
> David will have to deal with the consequences of his
> sins; nonetheless,
> what seems to have mattered most of all to this
> jealous God was that
> through it all, David loved him.
> 
> It is absolutely vital that we do not lose sight of
> the central
> importance of this lesson, in all the differences
> within the Anglican
> Communion.
> 
> The life of faith is first and foremost about our
> relationship with our
> God.
> 
> It is not about how good our behaviour is.
> 
> Nor does it hinge on how correct our theology is.
> 
> Nor does it hinge on our stance on human sexuality.
> 
> What God really cares about is whether we love him.
> 
> The first commandment is that we should love him,
> with all our heart and
> mind and soul and strength - that in the depths of
> our being we should
> yearn for him, and yearn to grow in love and
> knowledge of him, above all
> else.
> 
> God loves us with an outrageous exuberance. He loves
> us far, far more
> than is reasonable or rational or sensible. He loves
> us to death -
> literally, to his own death, in Jesus on the cross.
> 
> And the desire of this God, who is love, is that we
> should share in this
> overflowing, excessive and abundant love - with him,
> and with others.
> 
> This is the message behind our gospel reading. Jesus
> tells Simon the
> Pharisee that the unrestrained love of the sinful
> woman is far more
> important to him than the religious respectability
> and the technically
> correct hair-splitting theology of his host.
> 
> Paul argues a similar point - it is by faith in
> Jesus Christ that we are
> justified.
> 
> We are not saved by being orthodox in our theology,
> or good in our
> behaviour.
> 
> What matters is whether Jesus is the touchstone at
> the heart of our
> lives.
> 
> Our primary identity must be that of being
> 'crucified with Christ' so
> that 'it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ
> who lives in me.'
> 
> The first consequence of this is that by being
> united with him, we are
> automatically united to everyone else who is 'in
> Christ.' This is a gift
> of God, and it is a given. No matter how deep our
> divisions, we cannot
> change this fact. We would do well to remember this.
> 
> The second consequence lies in remembering that
> Jesus Christ is the Way,
> the Truth and the Life, and he is the one who, by
> the Spirit, will
> continue to lead us into all Truth.
> 
> Being led by him is what enables us to dare to
> tackle the difficult
> question of how to enunciate the eternal gospel
> truths in the changing
> circumstances of our world.
> 
> In other words, being in Christ is what allows us to
> change our
> interpretation of Scripture.
> 
> I hope I have not shocked you by saying this!
> 
> Please be reassured that I am NOT saying that
> 'anything goes' and we can
> make of Scripture whatever we like - or just ignore
> it where it suits
> us.
> 
> But we have to be honest about this. There are areas
> of life where we
> have made great changes - not to Scripture itself,
> but to how we
> 
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