Acknowledging the Cultural Noise
If you have turned on a television, opened a browser, or checked your mailbox this past week, you were likely reminded—about sixty times an hour—that in less than ten days, a national election arrives. According to the surrounding culture, the fate of human civilization rests entirely on this ballot.
Look around our sanctuary today. Red paraments adorn the pulpit, lectern, and altar, reminding us of the Holy Spirit, church history, and God's constant, re-forming grace. But many of us brought a very different color into this space today—a heavy, anxious gray.
We live in a culture of constant panic—one conditioning us to live out of scarcity, fearing there is never enough safety, control, or grace to go around.
I was thinking about this fear on returning from my trip last week to Budapest. One of the most powerful experiences I had there was along the bank of the Danube River at a memorial entitled Shoes on the Danube. It consists of 60 pairs of old-fashioned iron shoes scattered along the water's edge. These shoes honor 20,000 people—mostly Jews and political dissidents—who in the winter of 1944-45 were lined up, shot, and pushed into the river by fascist militiamen. They were ordered to strip off their shoes first because shoes were a commodity that could be sold for profit.
Standing before those empty shoes, you realize what happens when fear and political hostility run unchecked: human beings cease to be neighbors made in the image of God and become reduced to entries on a spreadsheet of suspicion.
Under pressure, our human instinct is to pull back and build protective walls. But defensive armor locks us in. To help us dismantle these defenses, we turn to an ancient story in 2 Samuel—a story about power, denial, and a prophet who used a story to break through royal armor.
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.”
When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare and drink from his cup and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.”
Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your bosom and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah, and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. --2 Samuel 11:1-5, 26-27; 12:1-9 (NRSVue)
Looking into Nathan's Mirror
Last week, we stood with Joshua at Shechem as Israel renewed its covenant, declaring, "We will serve the Lord!" What followed was a long descent through the Judges, leading Israel to demand a king "like everyone else."
By 2 Samuel 11, Israel has shifted to a centralized monarchy. And then comes trouble: "In the spring, when kings go out to battle... David remained at Jerusalem."
From his high palace rooftop, David sees Bathsheba and takes her. When she sends word—"I am pregnant"—David quickly manages the crisis. He recalls her husband, Uriah the Hittite, from the front lines to cover it up. But Uriah, a foreigner, acts with covenantal integrity, refusing to sleep at home while his comrades camp in the field. When Uriah ruins his cover story, David escalates, sending Uriah back carrying his own death warrant. Uriah is killed, David marries Bathsheba, and the crisis seems contained.
Except for the story’s final line: "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord."
God sends the prophet Nathan, who tells a simple story about a rich man with vast herds who steals a poor man's single, beloved ewe lamb to feed a visitor.
David’s moral indignation is ignited: "The man who has done this deserves to die!"
And right at that moment, Nathan drops the trapdoor: "You are the man."
God points directly to the root of David’s sin: a fundamental distrust of divine grace—a belief that God’s provision is not enough, which drives him to grab and hoard. Nathan’s story brings David face-to-face with truth. That same mirror turns gently toward us today.
Bringing the Mirror Home
We must bring Nathan’s mirror home to this sanctuary.
It is easy for a church—just like a king—to build protective walls out of self-preservation. As we mark seven years since our legacy congregations merged into this single church body, we recognize that seven years is a milestone worth celebrating. Yet in any season of change, it can be easy to want to hold onto the way things used to be.
But because we are rooted in Christ, we do not need to lead out of caution or defensiveness. God’s grace gives us a safe, gracious space to acknowledge those lingering feelings without fear, letting go of what was so we can channel our energy into what is—serving the living mission of Jesus Christ together.
At its core, David’s sin—and so much of our own—stems from a mindset of scarcity. Scarcity tells us there is never enough grace, status, or control to go around. It makes us lock up our hearts and view reconciliation as a risk we cannot afford. But true repentance shifts us from scarcity to God’s boundless abundance.
When we realize that God’s grace is infinite, we no longer need to protect our pride or hoard our resources. Receiving God’s forgiveness naturally spills outward into horizontal grace across these pews and into our community. Repentance isn't a burdensome duty; it is the liberating relief of discovering there is more than enough grace for every single one of us—allowing us to lay down the heavy burdens of self-defense we were never meant to carry anyway.
Stepping Out onto Clean Ground
Today, we launch our annual stewardship campaign: The Plowshare Pledge.
The world's way of scarcity beats plowshares into weapons and hoards resources behind walls. But as the Church, we are called to beat swords into plowshares—driven not by fear, but by grace and trust. Stewardship isn't a duty or a membership tax; it is simply what an unburdened, grace-filled heart looks like in practice.
Think back once more to those iron shoes along the Danube—a tragic monument to human fear and self-preservation. But in scripture, slipping off our shoes means something entirely different. Like Moses before the burning bush, taking off our shoes acknowledges that the ground beneath our feet is holy.
Right now, right where you sit, I invite you to take a physical step of faith. If you are comfortable doing so, slip your shoes off your feet. Wiggle your toes. Feel the solid floor beneath you in this sanctuary.
Let this simple action be a physical sign of what God is doing in our hearts today. As your shoes come off, let down any defenses you brought through these doors. Unclench your hands, breathe, and feel the clean, solid ground of God’s grace beneath you. You don't need to carry the panic of our culture anymore. You are standing on holy ground.
Hear this word of assurance today: God does not hold your past against you. Just as Nathan declared to David—"The Lord has put away your sin"—that same word of pardon is spoken to us today. Your past is forgiven. The old accounts are closed.
Step out into God’s peace. Set down those self-protective walls, open your hearts, and let us walk forward together in radical trust, boundless generosity, and open-handed love. Amen.
Preached on Reformation Sunday, October 25, 2026, at Vista Lutheran Church, St. Louis Park, MN.
