HOMILY JANUARY 29, 2022

The readings we have heard today are wonderful, full of light, full of hope. For reasons of time, I prefer to comment only on the first reading, in continuity with the witty homily that Fr. Riccardo gave us yesterday.

I briefly remember the previous episode. David, falling in love with a beautiful woman, Bathsheba, wife of one of his officers, makes her pregnant. He tries to make up but fails and then he sends his officer to the front line where he died. So David is guilty of two serious sins: adultery and murder.

First message: even the men chosen by God, those according to his heart, can be great sinners.

David is trying to remove what happened (the psychologists call it a defense mechanism). So he tries to enter normality marrying Bathsheba who gives birth to a son. “Ultimately nothing had happened” is David’s thinking.

But the troublemaker arrives. His name is Nathan, he is a prophet. It is God who sends him. Surely he is a courageous prophet (with a character like David heads could fall very easily) but he is also prudent: he does not go straight to the point. He starts from a parable set in the pastoral environment, well known by David. The parable tells of an injustice done by a rich man towards a poor man. David identifies himself with the poor man and with the poor sheep and pronounces a death sentence against the bad man, the author of the injustices. His conscience is still asleep. The very man who is so ready to harshly condemn the errors of others is the same man who looks with indulgence at his own sins. But the prophet wakes him up with that terrible sentence: “You are the man” and then continues to reproach him for his ingratitude towards God.

Second message: Never judge your brother or your sister because you are capable of doing even worse than what they did.

Third message: Thank goodness there is always some prophet sent by God who tells us the truth and helps us shed light on our sins.

At this point David’s defenses fall, he repents of what he has done and Nathan announces that the Lord has forgiven his sins.

Fourth message: God is willing to forgive always, even the most abject sins. He just wants us to acknowledge our mistakes and sincerely ask for forgiveness.

Unfortunately, along with forgiveness, there is a terrible punishment for David. His testimony was negative, his behavior was a scandal to the people and gave reason to doubt the Lord. The punishment is exemplary: his son will die.

And here our conscience rebels: but what does the child have to do with it? Why does he have to pay for the faults of others? But is God so vindictive and unfair?

We can try to give two explanations:

1. a) in those days infant mortality was very high. The writer reads the tragic story of a child who died prematurely as a punishment from God against the sinful king (the idea of divine punishment that Jesus will question);
2. b) children, like wives, were considered to be the property of their fathers and wives were the property of their husbands. David has taken from Uriah his wife and God takes something from David: his son. David cannot enjoy this son obtained through deception and crime.

Fifth message: How many times, even today, children pay for the sins of adults! The parents don’t get along and they separate. Who pays the consequences? Their children! In the wars that adults continue to fight, causing hunger, death and destruction, who pays the most consequences? Children, those hungry, ignorant, mutilated, sick children who can neither play nor study!

We are preparing for the feast of St. Jerome: let us all remember, we Somascans first of all and then all those who share our mission: we are called, like our founder, to take care of abandoned, mistreated children who have grown up without education. Brothers and sisters, we have no right to be horrified by the death of David’s baby if we let the images of the children who die every day around us flow without lifting a finger.

We can now summarize this story by describing the characters:

1. David, the great king, the ideal king. Power makes him arrogant, he distances himself from God. He thinks that he is the master of the life of others and that he can dispose of them as he pleases. He falls and suffers, but repents and asks for forgiveness. God forgives him and does not make him lack his blessings.
2. Nathan, the courageous prophet sent by God, who is not afraid to face David. He looks him in the eye and tells him the truth. Nathan, the sincere friend who finds the right words to touch the heart of his king and who wants to help him redeem himself, who knows how to speak to him with frankness but without violence.
3. Uriah the Hittite, loyal and courageous, who fulfills his duty even with his life, who renounces his own advantage out of solidarity with a people that is not even his own.
4. Bathsheba, a woman. She has no value for the culture of the time, she has the only advantage of being beautiful. Davide sees her and has her brought, like a beautiful vase, a beautiful carpet, any valuable object!
5. A child without a name, whose main fault is that of existing, of being the fruit of adultery, the living monument of sin.

In front of these characters there is the people of Israel, for whom this text was written. And therefore we too. We, with our powerful and arrogant Davids (who rarely repent), we who as soon as we acquire a little power become arrogant, we who as Church have a duty to be prophets and to speak a strong and clear word against arrogance and the injustice of power but that, as believers, we have a duty to speak with humility and sympathy and compassion to our brothers and sisters who make mistakes. We, with our soldiers sent to die and killed in wars decided by others, we, with our women bought, sold, raped, mistreated, used by those who have more power than them, we with our child victims to distraction or for calculation.

Among all the characters there is also God, with his plan of salvation, who takes care of his people, who has at heart the fate of the sinner as of the just. If God cannot prevent man from falling into error, he makes sure he doesn’t stay there forever. God, who through his word opens our eyes and makes us aware. God, who loves us, as he loved David, in spite of everything, in spite of us. God, who in Jesus Christ, the innocent victim, saves us and sends us the announcement of his grace. May the Holy Spirit give us the strength, the courage and the right words to do so to announce the good news of forgiveness and salvation to the men and women of our time. Amen.