A Fourth Church Sermon by Sarah Jo Sarchet

July 30, 2000 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

The Quest for Intimacy

Sarah Jo Sarchet
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

2 Samuel 11:1–15
Ephesians 3:14–21

“I pray . . . . that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”

Ephesians 3:16–17 (NRSV)

Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply.

Henri Nouwen

If there is extra glow or sparkle in the pulpit this morning, it’s because I am newly engaged, and very excited! A colleague remarked to me, “The Quest for Intimacy“ is an intriguing sermon title for a newly engaged woman. . . .

There is a bit of intrigue in this morning’s sermon, coming fresh from the pages of the Old Testament scripture reading. The story of David and Bathsheba is full of scandal and suspense and a falsely directed quest for intimacy that leads not to fulfillment, but to destruction and demise.

The story speaks to us in vivid and graphic detail of how easily we get wrapped up in our own selfish quests, using power and manipulation and others’ vulnerability to design self-satisfying schemes, damaging and even destroying relationships in the process.

Prior to today, if you were asked to describe King David, the first adjectives that come to mind might have been that he is talented, strong, cunning, and demonstrates an unfailing trust in God for power to prevail. David, who began his life in a humble setting as a lowly shepherd, always seems to come out on top.

Indeed, it seems true that while David is on the battlefield, he really does know what he is doing and makes all the right strategic choices to win the war. However, once David is established in his kingdom, we see a different side of him. In this story, he is just plain out of control.

We squirm through this reading of the Old Testament lesson with all of its lust, adultery, deceit, and murder. In fact, as I was discussing the passage with other pastors preaching this week, some of them weren’t even sure the passage should be read out loud in worship. What is this R-rated story doing in the lectionary? Why do we have to deal with this side of God’s chosen anointed king in worship?

What was going on in David’s mind? David’s whole personality seems to have changed once seated on the throne in Jerusalem. He’s out of the heat of battle. His relationship with his wife Michal is cool at best. And his building plans to make a great name for God—or was it for himself?—were squelched. There’s not much left to define David, to distinguish him, to deepen his meaning for existence. Sound familiar?

David sets out, like so many of us do, on a quest for intimacy that is confused with power. While war raged on, as was typical in the spring of the year according to the Bible, David remained in a position of safety in Jerusalem. Unlike most kings of the time, David stayed out of the thick of it. Seated comfortably on his couch, instead of fighting the battlefield with his men, David has only time to kill. Therefore, he uses his kingly power to make a different type of conquest—that of Bathsheba. Perhaps in his lust, he talked himself into the idea that he was simply searching for intimacy with another human being. But there is nothing in the passage that denotes mutuality or the potential for a loving, caring relationship in this action. He sends for her and has sexual relations—a married man with a married woman. He breaks one of the BIG 10—Thou shalt not commit adultery. This is not true intimacy. It is a thoughtless, selfish quest for power that takes no heed of the lives he is affecting—including his own and the lives of his vulnerable subjects whom he, as king, is called to protect.

Shortly after this event, David gets the bad news that Bathsheba has conceived. Now it seems his quest is for control. How can he manipulate the situation—and the people—to cover up his selfish intent and to gain and maintain control? He uses his authority again, this time to neatly do away with the complication of her husband. When Uriah, who is more honorable than David hoped for or expected, does not simply fall into David’s plan, David manipulates the movements of his army to see that Uriah falls—permanently. David breaks another one of the BIG 10—Thou Shalt Not Kill.

How could David fall so low? How could he stray so far from God’s commands? As I studied this text , I found myself disgusted with David, even angry. I tried to look beyond this particular story to see how God later used David in greater ways, but I found myself frustrated with and blinded by the mess David had made. In my disgust, I said to a pastor friend, “You know, Nancy, sometimes I think God should have just let go of David and started over with someone else.”

Well, I have to tell you, that comment brought me to silence—and even a bit of inner panic. I have to wonder what would happen if God became as fed up with us as we do with each other? What if God abandoned us and made us wallow in our messes and mistakes and sin for eternity? What if God simply said, “That’s it. You blew it! I want nothing more to do with you. I’m starting over with someone else?”

It’s a sobering thought. After all, I am David. We are David. We all make messy mistakes. We all quest for false intimacy of some kind. And we all have affairs of one kind or another. In a quest for closeness with another human being, some of us have an affair with sex. In a quest for success some of us have an affair with money. In a quest for personal satisfaction some of us have an affair with our own ego. In a quest for recognition, some of us have an affair with power.

“Not I!” we think. “I’ve never done that! I would catch myself before falling that low.”

The subtlety of sin is that it doesn’t feel like sin when we’re doing it. It could happen to any of us. In fact, it has happened to all of us. We sin by cutting ourselves off from the true source of our power and strength and talking ourselves into thinking we have everything we need to control our lives and one another. Everything is within our grasp, and in our selfish quest for self-fulfillment, we sever our connection with others and God.

Sometimes, when one sin leads to another, we feel so far off that it seems hopeless. The moment we recognize our common bond with David, we are ready for the only real surprise in the story—the forgiveness of God that is found in the next chapter.

Enter Nathan, David’s pastor, the prophet. Nathan, through a sermon parable, helps David see his shortcomings and wrong-doings. David repents, falling to his knees in prayer.

I think we all need a Nathan—or a Nathan moment in our lives—someone or something to convict us in our sin—someone to call us to task, to illustrate our messy lives so clearly that we end up seeing ourselves for who we really are. Then, upon our confession and true repentance—when we turn around and make permanent intentional changes in our lives—we need someone to assure us of God’s forgiveness.

Nathan was there for David, and Paul was there for the Christian community in Ephesus. And we need to be there for each other—to convict, to help change, and to reassure us that forgiveness is possible.

I was once taught this example. Think of a rope as the connection between you and God—or between you and another person. When we sin against one another and against God, it is as though we are cutting the rope. We feel far away from God. Confession and repentance is like tying a knot—re-connecting the line. And if you notice, when the knot is tied, the line is shorter. The connection is even closer. I like that thought, because as Nancy and I were talking a couple of days later, I realized that I am so hard on David because I am so hard on myself. It is difficult to imagine God’s grace really extending so far as to cover all sin—including mine! Sometimes forgiveness is beyond all we can ask or imagine.

Paul, like David, understood the boundless grace and love of God. He, too, was guilty of taking God’s power into his own hands. He still hardly dared to ask for forgiveness for his crimes prior to becoming a Christian. And he freely admits that he still makes mistakes. But he sets himself on a quest for the truest of intimacy—spiritual intimacy—and calls the Household of Faith to join him on this very special journey that brings the only complete fulfillment we can know.

In Ephesians, Paul prays that we will choose not the way of power, but the way of prayer, such that our relationships and choices, our intentions and attentions, will grow out of love and be built on the foundation of our closeness with God.

My recent life experiences have had me thinking about growing and building relationships.

In August of 1999, a close family friend, like a brother to me, a former Navy seal stationed in Hawaii, called and asked if I would officiate at the marriage of him and his fiance in a July 2000 ceremony at her home on the north side of Oahu. Across the phone lines I replied, “I’d love to be there Jeff, I just don’t know how I could make that happen. Let me pray about it.”

As providence might have it, two days later, Jim, a member of the congregation I served in Cincinnati, called and asked if I would officiate at a wedding anniversary vow renewal ceremony for him and his wife of 25 years. “Here’s the kicker,” he said, “I want to do it on the exact same day in the exact same place where we were married, 25 years ago to the day, July 12, 2000—and I want it to be a surprise for Carol. We were married in Hawaii on Oahu, and I’ll fly you over, Sarah, just say you’ll come.” So, not to question providence, I scheduled my vacation, a busman’s holiday if you will, and off I went, last week, to participate in two very special occasions.

Jim and Carol have given me many gifts in the past—gifts of friendship and support through ministry and transitions as I left Cincinnati to come to Chicago. Once again, they were giving me a gift.

However, the gift Jim and Carol gave me was not the plane ticket or the week in Hawaii. It was the precious gift of seeing the surprise and joy on Carol’s face as Jim asked her if she would marry him again; the gift of seeing a strong and faithful marriage relationship of 25 years celebrated before family and friends; the gift of hearing vows renewed with all the depth and knowledge of 25 years of partnership; the gift of listening to the tribute their son Nick, a senior at Purdue, gave to them as he thanked them for creating a home that was rooted and grounded in love, and for showing him what true intimacy was.

A week later, I repeated those same vows to the newlyweds, Jeffrey and Kathy, at the dawn of their own quest for intimacy.

God gave us marriage as a holy mystery in which a man and a woman are joined together and the two become one. In Christian marriage, a woman and a man belong to each other, and with affection and tenderness freely give themselves one to the other. In marriage, a husband and wife are called to a new way of living, created, ordered, and blessed by God. This way of life must not be entered into carelessly or from selfish motives, but rather responsibly and prayerfully.

As I read from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship statement of the gift of marriage, I was struck by the relevance of these words for all of the relationships of the Christian life, married and single and partners, parents and siblings and children, colleagues and associates and classmates and friends.

In Christian relationships, men and women are called to a new way of living, created, ordered, and blessed by God. Our relationships must not be entered into carelessly or from selfish motives, but developed responsibly and prayerfully. This is the kind of intimacy Paul wants for us.

Paul knows that we need inner strength for this kind of living with one another. He prays that we will build our relationships and our lives from a place of spiritual intimacy with God.

But how do we begin, especially if some of our relationships are already damaged or broken? When we cut ourselves off, how do we connect or re-tie ourselves to one another and to God? The first and foremost answer is to recognize that the source for love and forgiveness and growth is always our faith. As disconnected as we get sometimes, God never disconnects from us. The relationship between God and us is not destroyed when we stray or turn away, for God remains faithful. While we have dropped the line, God is still hanging on. It is God’s initiative, through Jesus Christ, that ties the knot.

However, we do have a responsibility for nurturing this relationship. What can we do? Taking our cue from Paul’s letter, one of the best ways to pursue our quest for intimacy in relationship with God and one another is to pray for spiritual growth and maturity. So today, I challenge us all to rededicate ourselves to the daily spiritual discipline of prayer. Using this passage from the third chapter of Ephesians, Ephesians 3:16, I invite you to pray a line daily.

Tomorrow, on Monday, pray that God will strengthen you in your inner being with power through the Holy Spirit. Strength comes as a gift from God. It is God’s work in us, and nothing you can do by yourself.

On Tuesday, pray that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith.
This is the prayer of welcoming Jesus into the center of your life.

On Wednesday, pray that you may be rooted and grounded in love. Think in terms of being fertile soil for God’s word, and laying the foundation upon which God can build the firm base of love in Jesus Christ. Ask that all your intentions and attentions be focused on love.

On Thursday, pray that you may have the power to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love. That is to say, ask that the expansiveness and completeness of Jesus’ boundless love will be revealed to you in countless ways and through all of life’s experiences.

On Friday, pray to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge—to intimately know in your very heart, and with all your mind and strength that love lies at the heart of God’s nature and purpose.

On Saturday, pray that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. This is the culmination of the prayer, that you may be complete—that you finally realize that only God will fill you fully—and to overflowing!

And on Sunday, the seventh day, give thanks to God, who by the power at work within us, is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. Thanksgiving to God is part of stepping outside of ourselves, recognizing God’s sovereignty and power.

Paul prays for us, surely we can pray for one another. When you have finished with this prayer for yourself next week, (if you could ever be finished with such a prayer), follow Paul’s lead and join in that same daily prayer discipline praying for others, that they too, might grow in intimacy with God. Pray this prayer for your spouse, or your friend or colleague who is struggling or suffering, or your parent or your child. Pray knowing that God through the power at work within us can accomplish in us far more than we can ever ask or imagine.

To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.