Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Do I Trust God?: A Reflection on 2 Samuel 24: 1-17


10Afterward, however, David regretted having numbered the people. David said to the LORD: “I have sinned grievously in what I have done.b Take away, LORD, your servant’s guilt, for I have acted very foolishly.”*11When David rose in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying:12Go, tell David: Thus says the LORD: I am offering you three options; choose one of them, and I will give you that.13Gad then went to David to inform him. He asked: “Should three years of famine come upon your land; or three months of fleeing from your enemy while he pursues you; or is it to be three days of plague in your land? Now consider well: what answer am I to give to him who sent me?”c14David answered Gad: “I am greatly distressed. But let us fall into the hand of God, whose mercy is great, rather than into human hands.”15Thus David chose the plague. At the time of the wheat harvest it broke out among the people. The LORD sent plague over Israel from morning until the time appointed, and from Dan to Beer-sheba seventy thousand of the people died.16But when the angel stretched forth his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD changed his mind about the calamity, and said to the angel causing the destruction among the people: Enough now! Stay your hand.d The angel of the LORD was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.e17When David saw the angel who was striking the people, he said to the LORD: “It is I who have sinned; it is I, the shepherd, who have done wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? Strike me and my father’s family!” (2 Sam. 24: 1-17)



What’s the big deal about David counting the military men? Wouldn’t a king want to know how many troops he has? Why is God so upset that David counted his men? There are several reasons.

First, David could have been proud that Judah, the tribe to which he belonged, had 500,000 soldiers, whereas the other 11 tribes of Israel had 800,000 altogether. He could boast about his own tribe. However this is not the main reason that God was upset with David.

Secondly, the book of Numbers is filled with numbers of the people. So why is God upset that David is counting the people when one of the books in the Bible is all about numbers?

The issue involves trust. As David develops in his relationship with God, God expects more of him that he did earlier. David has gone through some very serious sins of adultery and murder, and God showed him that he forgave those sins and still loved David and kept his covenant with him. So David should’ve trusted that God would take care of him.

More is expected of those to whom more has been given. As David grows in his relationship with God, he is expected to grow in trust of God. Perhaps he trusted himself and his troops more than God. Maybe he was considering what battles he could win or if he could win them, and he wanted to know the number of troops in order to make this determination. God held David to a higher standard than other military leaders and kings, because God had shown David that he, God, could be trusted. When David went out to destroy Goliath with a slingshot and five stones, God gave him the victory. Then 40 years later, when David is returning from battle, the women sing, “Saul has killed his thousands and David his 10,000s.” This certainly indicated that the victory was God’s, not David’s.

David has a lack of trust that God could deliver him from his enemies no matter how many troops he has or how many troops the enemy has. Unlike the time when David sinned with Bathsheba, this time David feels guilty before the prophet comes to him. In the case of Bathsheba, and the killing of Uriah the Hittite, David did not recognize his sin until the prophet Nathan confronted him with it. In the situation of the census of his people, David recognizes his sin before the prophet Gad comes. David asks God for forgiveness, and then speaks to Gad who comes to tell David, “OK. God has forgiven you. But you don’t get off scott free. As a punishment, do you want a b or c?” David’s response is interesting. He says, “Let us fall by the hands of God rather than by the hands of men because God is the most merciful.”

David understood God’s mercy. He wrote about this mercy many times in the Psalms. David is writing from his own experience. He experiences a deep sense of sorrow in his heart, a sorrow for the suffering of his people. He had been protective of his people before, but now we see the compassion and tenderness he has toward his people.

David does not say, “I, the king have sinned” or “I, the leader, have sinned.” Rather he says, “I, the shepherd, have sinned.” By calling himself a shepherd, he may have been looking back to his childhood when he, as a shepherd used to watch his sheep and have to take care of them. At that time he would defend his flock by using a sling to ward off predators, and God protected his flock. David says that he killed a bear and a lion who were going to attack his flock, all by the grace of God. David sees the people as sheep who are vulnerable, gentle, unsuspecting. He feels a deep love for the people. This shows that he has a deeper understanding of God.

David says, “Punish me, not the sheep. I am the one who is guilty. I am the one who lost trust.” David is not just willing to fight for his people but also to suffer for those in his charge.

This passage from Scripture helps us to consider what God has done for us and the many graces that he has given to us. Are we responding to those graces? Am I worrying about things? Am I still lazy? Do I not put up a fight? Am I not responding to what God has done in my life? Am I not responding appropriately to God? Is my trust in God strong in comparison to what he has shown about trusting him in Scripture? My trust is so small compared to what I have seen. My failure to trust, my lack of trust is not in accord with what God has done in my life. Why is that?

Consider the mercy of God. Do I trust enough in God’s mercy? Do I trust God’s mercy, not my own ability, talent, work? Where is my heart? Am I willing to not only trust God but also love him and love my neighbor? Am I advancing in love of neighbor or do I just love myself? Do I think I am this, I am that, it’s all about me, or am I truly beginning to think about those whom the Lord has given me to care for and pray for? Do I want to not just fight for Christ but also to enter into suffering with him, to lay down my life for him?

What about those of us who are in religious life in the first, second, or third orders? Jesus told us that the good shepherd would lay down his life for his sheep. David said that he would rather be punished for the sake of the others. Wasn’t that an example of the good shepherd? The willingness to suffer penance for our sins, however that penance may come, all done out of the love of Jesus, shows our love for him and for the sheep. And I willing to give Jesus my all? Do I trust in God and in his mercy and in the love that he showed us on the cross?

-- Transcribed as best as possible from a homily by Father David Engo, FBM



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