When Our Leaders Fail Us

2 Samuel 11:1-15

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.” Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”

God had warned them. The people longed for a king. They desired to be like the other nations, with a ruler that would fight their battles for them, with a figurehead that would represent their aspirations and glory. Then they would be respected. Then they would fit in on the world stage.

But God was displeased. Through Samuel, God warned them what a king would do. God warned them that a king would take their sons to serve in his army and to drive his chariots. A king would put commanders over the people to make the weapons of war and to harvest the fields to feed the army. A king would take their daughters to serve in his house, and would take the best of the harvest of the land from them. God warned them that they would cry out to God after they had suffered at the hands of a king, but on that day God would ignore their cries.

But the people rejected Samuel’s words of caution. They wanted a king. But God had warned them. [1]

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It was almost to a T that David fulfilled God’s warning. Time had passed. The battles of his youth are now behind him, and now David has grown comfortable in power. He continues to wage battles, seemingly as a matter of course, because what else do kings do? But now David wages battle from the comfort of his home—millennia before working from home would become a thing—sending his commanders to lead the battles and his soldiers to fight the enemy of the moment, while wandering about his house idly as he waits for reports from the frontline.

All of this is but a backdrop for what comes next. Because as David putters about his house, he spots Bathsheba. And seeing her, David abuses his power and authority over Bathsheba to make her have sex with him.

When, at last, the consequences of his abuse come to light, David tries to hid what he has done. Sending for Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, from the battle front, hoping that the man would embrace the opportunity to sleep with his wife. When Uriah does not out of a sense of solidarity with those who were still sleeping in tents and fighting the battle, David gets him drunk, hoping that inebriation would loosen Uriah’s moral fortitude. Still, Uriah does not go down to see his wife. So, David moves to plan B, and has Uriah carry his own death sentence to the front line, instructing the commanders to ensure that Uriah is killed in battle by the enemy.

Thus, David’s fall is complete, having killed another for his own evil, having coerced sex with one who could not consent—after all, if you can only say yes, then you cannot consent. And so, by his own actions, by his own corruption, David becomes exactly what God had warned would happen.

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It is a troubling story of corruption and evil, and I am not sure that there is any good news to be found in it. I’m not sure there is good news in it, and this story does raise some important questions.

What do we do when our leaders fail us? Because David was not the first person in power, he was not the first leader, to fail the people he served. Nor was he the last. Because we do not have to look long and hard to find politicians who have abused their power for financial gain, or political gain or sexual gain. Whether it be from bribes, misappropriation of funds, or scandalous affairs.

But it is not just limited to political leaders is it? The “Me Too” movement showed the world how rampant this abuse is, from movie stars and billionaires to authors and regular old business executives. And, perhaps most painfully to us, we know all too well that it extends into the church, from stealing and the pursuit of personal gain to sexual abuse and misconduct.

There is something profoundly corrupting about power and authority. And it starts from the misguided belief that they deserve their success, from the belief that power and authority stems from their own merit. From there, it is only a short leap to believing that they deserve whatever we can take, taking our collective trust and leaving us with a profound sense of betrayal and injustice.

What do we do with this betrayal? What is the faithful response to this failure of our leaders? Because it would be easy to give into a nihilistic despair and anger, throwing up our hands into the air in pre-emptive defeat, becoming jaded, and shutting down. But that just allows those who have abused their power and authority to get away with it, it is not a faithful response.

One thing that we can do is speak the truth to those in power, not allowing what is true to die, unseen, in the shadows. That is what happens to David when he is confronted by the prophet, Nathaniel, as we will hear about next week. But that is not where our faithful responses end.

A faithful response also calls us to listen to those who lack power in the system, whether that is in the political system, the business system, the church system, or within society at large. We are called to watch attentively for where those who lack power are being taken advantage of, abused, and mistreated. And we need to believe them when they tell us that have been wronged. Too often we are loathe to admit that someone we admire and hold in esteem has betrayed our trust, and so we too often dismiss and attack those who accuse them. But the powerful always benefit when we rush to their defence, when we question, doubt, and undermine those who say that they have been hurt.

What is more, we are called to stop ascribing divine right to kings, and I don’t just mean monarchs. We too often believe that this practice is behind us, but we are just as quick today as we were thousands of years ago to proclaim God’s favour upon those in power. We only have to look south of the border to the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump to find many people, himself included, claiming that it was a sign of God’s favour that he survived. Whether it is political power, fame, business success, or a place of spiritual authority, the position of the powerful is never ordained by God.

But most of all, we must finally heed God’s warning about the dangers and pitfalls of kings. We must finally listen to God’s voice, and rather than placing our trust and authority and power into a human who is as broken as any of us, place that trust in God, and God alone. For that is what God has always called us to be, God’s people with no other above us, placing our whole trust in the one who created all things and calls us to be a blessing for the world.


[1] 1 Samuel 8:10-22