5. Preacher, Tell Me a Story
Preacher, Tell Me a Story
The Lord sent Nathan to David” (2 Sam. 12:1). Is that an assignment you would eagerly accept? After all, David was an adulterer, a murderer, and a liar; and he was working overtime to keep his sins hidden from everybody, including God. Besides that, he was the king, wielding absolute authority; and there are indications that David at times could be impulsive and hot-headed, such as the time he intended to kill Nabal (1 Sam. 25). Nathan’s job wasn’t an easy one. This might well have been the last pastoral visit of his ministry.
“He was a happy preacher whose pulpit awakened David and brought David back to God,” said Alexander Whyte. “Nathan took his life in his hand that day. But he had his reward.”[1]
Listen to Nathan’s story as though you’d never heard it before.
There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 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.
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. (2 Sam. 12:1-4)
In telling David a story, Nathan took the wise approach. Most of us enjoy hearing stories because there’s usually somebody or something in the story that we can identify with. Once we’re caught up in the story, the possibilities of self-discovery are numerous. Nathan’s story is really a parable, and parables start off like pictures, then become mirrors, and then become windows. First there’s sight as we see a slice of life in the picture; then there’s insight as we see ourselves in the mirror; and then there’s vision as we look through the window of revelation and see the Lord. As he went to the palace, Nathan prayed that David would see himself, judge himself, and then turn himself over to the Lord in repentance.
Nathan and Hushai both deserved Aristotle’s “master of metaphor” degree, for both of them knew how to turn the listener’s ear into an eye. David had been a shepherd; and as he listened to his chaplain’s story, he saw the rich man’s flocks and herds and the poor man’s ewe lamb. He knew how it felt to have a lamb in his arms. He also knew how a shepherd responded when somebody tried to steal one of his sheep. For David, the setting was perfect.
David clearly saw the picture, but he failed to see the mirror until Nathan said, “You are the man!” and preached him a sermon. Then the king capitulated, looked through the window at God’s mercy and said, “I have sinned against the Lord.” The use of metaphor in ministry is not a substitute for “Thus says the Lord!” Recall my quotation from Sallie McFague: “Images ‘feed’ concepts; concepts ‘discipline’ images. Images without concepts are blind; concepts without images are sterile.”[2] Nathan’s story made David angry at another man’s sin; Nathan’s sermon made David confess his own sin. A balanced ministry of the Word requires both concept and image.
The imagery in Nathan’s story fascinates me. Uriah’s wife is a cuddly ewe lamb. Temptation is an unexpected traveler who stops for a visit. Adultery is robbery. Sexual sin is like eating a meal. These images are not limited to Nathan’s parable; they’re found often in Scripture.
Bathsheba is pictured as a loving ewe lamb. A husband should look upon his wife as a beloved lamb who shares his house, his table, his arms, and his bed. Proverbs 5:19 compares the wife to a doe who brings her husband satisfaction. First Thessalonians 4:4 and 1 Peter 3:7 (NKJV) picture the wife as a vessel that should be kept pure and beautiful. Peter suggests that this vessel should be treated like a delicate and valuable vase. Proverbs 5:15-18 compares the love of a faithful wife to a refreshing fountain, but adultery to drinking at a filthy sewer.
The biblical image of sheep is a familiar one. Israel was Jehovah’s flock (Pss. 74:1; 79:13; 100:3; Matt. 15:24), just as the church is the flock of which Jesus is the shepherd (John 10; Acts 20:28-30; Heb. 13:20). Sinners are lost sheep who need to be found (Isa. 53:6; Luke 15:4-6), and believers are weak sheep who need to be led and protected (Ps. 23; John 10:1-18; 1 Peter 2:25). When God’s people suffer, they are like sheep destined for the slaughter (Ps. 44:22; Rom. 8:36).
Temptation is pictured many ways in Scripture. To Cain, temptation was like a hungry beast lurking at the door (Gen. 4:7); and God warned him not to open the door. James describes temptation as the bait on a hook or in a trap (James 1:14), and as a womb pregnant with evil (James 1:15; see also Ps. 7:14 and Isa. 59:4, 16). But in Nathan’s story, temptation is a friendly traveler who drops in for a visit.
When we consider this image of the traveler, we can see that the working of temptation is subtle. The traveler comes as a guest but soon becomes the master of the house. So influential is this visitor that the host is even willing to steal and kill in order to please him! Welcoming the visitor is the first step toward sin and death. Whoever “entertains” temptation will pay dearly for the feast.
Adultery is equated with robbery in 1 Thessalonians 4:6, for the verb “take advantage” means “to defraud” or “to exploit.” The Greek word translated “take advantage” is related to the word for covetousness, and the two concepts obviously go together (Eph. 4:19; 5:3; Col. 3:5). Proverbs 6:30-35 also presents the picture of adultery as robbery and shows the tragic consequences.
No matter how much personal pleasure David experienced with Bathsheba, God compared what he did to the killing and eating of another man’s only lamb. It isn’t a pretty picture. In Scripture, sin is often pictured as eating. “This is the way of an adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’ ” (Prov. 30:20). Zophar described the sinner as somebody who enjoys the taste of sin but doesn’t realize that it will eventually produce sickness (Job 20:12-19). Eliphaz talked about the person who “drinks up evil like water” (Job 15:16).
The first temptation involved desiring food and eating it (Gen. 3:6). “Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious” (Prov. 9:17; and see 20:17). In Proverbs 9, Wisdom and Folly, personified as women, both prepare feasts; but Folly’s feast leads to death. The lips of the adulteress drip honey; but in the end, the sweetness becomes bitterness (Prov. 5:3-4). The adulteress pleads, “Come, let’s drink deep of love till morning” (Prov. 7:18). For a description of sanctified married love, see Song of Songs 4:10-15, where images of wine, honey, milk, water, and fragrant fruits are all involved in the enjoyment of the relationship.
Nathan’s parable was brief, but it was rich in images to hang in the picture gallery of the king’s mind. David didn’t realize how Nathan’s story quietly penetrated and worked in his inner being. As a shepherd, David identified with the poor man’s love for his ewe lamb. As a king, he was incensed by the injustice of the rich man’s action in stealing and killing his neighbor’s lamb. As a husband, David knew the blessing of married love; and as a human being and one-time fugitive in the wilderness, he knew the joy of satisfying both hunger and thirst. He also knew what it was like to entertain guests. The cumulative effect of these images prepared David for Nathan’s, “You are the man!”
But suppose Nathan had preached a doctrinal homily to David, dealing with such abstractions as sin, marriage, and injustice? Would the king have responded as he did? Probably not. The abstractions might have reached the king’s mind, but they would never have touched his heart. As we shall see in a later chapter, the imagination has a powerful role to play in building character and changing life. Walter Brueggemann was right when he wrote, “The link of obedience to imagination suggests that the toughness of ethics depends on poetic, artistic speech as the only speech that can evoke transformed listening.”[3]
Such “transformed listening” is what preaching is all about—using words to turn ears into eyes so that people see the truth and want their lives to change. If it worked with a tough case like David, with God’s blessing, it will work with anybody.
“A fact stated barely is dry. It must be the vehicle of some humanity in order to interest us. It is like giving a man a stone when he asks you for bread.”
“I caution against communication because once language exists only to convey information, it is dying.”