Sermon: Accountability

Rev. Nico Marie Ashe

June 17, 2007
Text: 2 Samuel 12:1-7a

1 The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 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.
 4 "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."
 5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."
 7 Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!”

Today is Father’s Day and I wanted to start with two of the most important men in my life. First is my Pappy. He was my maternal grandfather and died in 2000. I love him so much and usually can’t even speak about him without crying. I miss him so much. I remember him as playful, indulgent, smart. Pappy could do anything. Us girls would always say, “Pappy is a genius.” Pappy taught me about the three things that give me joy and sustain my life: gardening, cooking and God. He was a devoted Christian. The best grandfather.

My mother and her sister have very different memories of him. When they were growing up Pappy was a mean alcoholic. Those are their childhood memories of him. Auntie Bernie doesn’t even have photos of him in her house; she is still hurt and angry. She cuts his head out of family photos. Very different memories than mine. Same man, same Pappy, so different. Sunshine and storm clouds.

The next man I want to talk about is my father, Dick. My memories of Dick are him being home all the time. He was retired already from NASA. He played in a band all my life. And he filled the house with music and with his interesting musician friends. He was always available for helping me with homework—even if he was a little long winded! And he was very handy. Of course he received many homemade Father’s Day cards over the years. But my favorite one that he has saved for about 40 years now is from my sister Jan. She made a card at school with several pages. At the top of each page the teacher had written TO A DAD WHO and Jan filled the pages with “To a dad who yells, ‘Clean your room.’” “To a dad who comes home from work late,” “To a dad who says, ‘Quit fighting with your sister,’” “To a dad who says, ‘Go cut the lawn,’” “To a dad who says, ‘Go finish your homework!’”

Jan is 10 years older than me and experienced a very different, very busy and stressed out dad. Same man, different memories. Sunshine and storm clouds.

Now, Let me tell you about another man: King David. He was the greatest King of Israel. He was a passionate man. King David loved God. And even though he was a great and powerful King, he had compassion and a strong sense of justice for this poor man that Nathan told him about. King David cared about his people and was outraged that a man who had so little could have everything taken away so ruthlessly.

And Nathan knew King David would react in this manner. Nathan knew that King David was a good man, a man of God. Nathan knew that King David would see that the poor man in the story had been severely wronged by the rich man. And, of course, the punch line is that Nathan said to King David, about the bad man: “You are that man.” Sunshine and storm clouds.

I have been using the phrase sunshine and storm clouds to describe these three men, but you are probably more familiar with the term “saint and sinner.” And you know that I could have described any of you this way—the good and the bad. I certainly could have given you examples about myself, good and bad. We will always fall short of what God would want for our lives. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to be better people. But sometimes it is really hard to recognize ourselves. And so, like Nathan, we are called by God, to confront one another.

We need each other, to keep one another accountable for our actions. Mutual accountability is part of being the “Body of Christ.” Mutual accountability is an important piece of our loving fellowship, our ‘koinonia’ in faith, life and witness.

The literal meaning of the word koinonia, is like "a participation of people together in God's grace." It is a community where people willingly covenant to share (we call that tithing), and a community where people covenant to be in submission to each other, and to God.

As a loving community in Christ, our first responsibility is to keep people safe. To let them know, by being there, that there are other people in the world who care for them, and are concerned about them, even at those times when they may feel most alone. At my ordination, here at Cross of Hope, Bishop Allen said over and over, “Just show up.” Be there for the people of God. I think here at Cross of Hope we do this well.

Our second responsibility as a community is to hold people accountable: to help them see (and perhaps at times even to compel them to see) the kind of consequences their actions have on the world, because we have a hard time seeing ourselves accurately. Sometimes we don’t recognize ourselves. So, we need each other.

Holding people accountable and a willingness on our part to be accountable to other people is not always easy. You can see that Nathan did not come up to King David with a full frontal assault. He was clever and creative. Because otherwise the King might have lopped his head off or thrown him out.

Holding people accountable is, yes, confrontational. So above all we must remember that our relationships are always worth restoring, because we are all members of God’s family.

So I encourage you to help each other be better people in a spirit of love and concern, and in a covenant of mutual trust and support. And have the humility to be open if someone tries to nudge you in a new direction as well.

Amen.