August 31st, 2025 - "Bible on Broadway - Hamilton: History Has Eyes" - Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the Sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to find

out more about the ministries of First United Methodist Church, please visit us

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Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris: I am sort of bummed that this is the

last of these sermon series bits.

Also, I'm sort of glad 'cause I'm tired of following you all.

And I will say I did a different sermon for nine and 10.

10, it was called, this Kid Is Insane, and it was kind of dealing

with the early part of Alexander Hamilton and King David's story.

And you guys get the back end of their story.

And people I've been asking, and by the way, this sermon title is History Has

Eyes, people have been asking me, am I gonna keep this up if I gonna do two

different sermons at both services and no.

No, I am not.

But again, these fabulous musicians have caused me to rise to the occasion.

So I've been grateful to have this opportunity to share these with y'all.

Alright, so the nine and 10, 10 heard God making a covenant with David and

not very many chapters Later we get this story, so hear now the word of the Lord.

In the spring when Kings go off to war, David sent Joab along with his servants

and all the Israelites, and they destroyed the Ammonites attacking the city of Rabba.

But David remained in Jerusalem.

One evening, David got up from his couch and was pacing back and forth on

the roof of the palace from the roof.

He saw a woman bathing.

The woman was very beautiful.

David sent someone and inquired about the woman.

The report came back.

Isn't this M's.

Daughter Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, the Hitite.

So David sent Messengers to take her.

When she came to him, he had sex with her.

Now, she had been purifying herself after her monthly period.

Then she returned home.

The woman conceived and sent word to David, I'm pregnant, she said.

Then David sent a message to Joab.

Send me Uriah, the Hitite.

So Joab sent Uriah to David.

When Uriah came to him, David asked about the welfare of Joab in the

army and how the battle was going.

Then David told Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet, and

he doesn't mean wash your feet.

By the way, Uriah left the palace and a gift from the king was sent after him.

However, Uriah slept at the palace entrance with all his master servants.

He didn't go down to his own house.

David was told Uriah didn't go down to his own house.

So David asked Uriah, haven't you just returned from a journey?

Why didn't you go home?

The chest in Israel and Judah are all living in tents.

Uriah told David and my master Joab and my master's troops

are camping in the open field.

How could I go home and eat and drink and have sex with my wife?

I swear on your very life, I will not do that.

Then David told Uriah, stay here one more day tomorrow, I'll send you back.

So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day.

The next day, David called for him and he ate and drank, and David

got him drunk in the evening, Uriah went out to sleep in the same place

alongside his master servants, but he did not go down to his own home.

He is really not with the program here.

The next morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

He wrote in the letter, praise Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle,

and then pull back from him so that he will be struck down and die.

So as Joab was attacking the city, he put Uriah in the place where he

knew there were strong warriors.

When the city's soldiers came out and attacked Joab, some of

the people from David's army fell Uriah, the Hitite was also killed.

Joab sent a complete report of the battle to David.

When you have finished reporting all the news of the battle to the

King, Joab instructed the messenger.

If the king gets angry and asks you, why did you go so close to the city to fight?

Didn't you know they would shoot from the wall?

Who killed Abel's son?

Abbe?

Didn't a woman throw an upper millstone on top of him from the

wall so that he died in Thebes?

Uh, why did you go so close to the wall then?

Say your servant, Uriah, the hitite is dead too.

So the messenger set off and when he arrived, he reported to David

everything Jo sent him to say.

The men overpowered us.

The messenger told David, they came out against us in the open field,

but we fought against them up to the entrance of the city gate.

Archer shot down on your servants from the wall.

Some of the king servants died, and your servant Uriah, the hitite is dead too.

David said to the messenger, say this to Joab.

Don't be upset about this because the sword is that way.

Taking the life of this person or that person, continue attacking

the city and destroy it.

Encourage Joab.

When Uriah's wife heard that her husband Uriah was dead,

she mourned for her husband.

After the time of mourning was over, David sent for her and

brought her back to his house.

She became his wife and bore him a son.

But what David had done was evil in the Lord's eyes.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes that we might see and know

the word you have for us this day.

In your holy name we pray, amen.

My brother and I have a lot of debates that never get resolved.

We just continue debating and one of our debates is whether when we

are recycling plastic bottles, is it better to leave the lid on or lid off?

And the reason for the debate is because I say you should take the

lid off because there's a little bit of water trapped in there, and if we

keep trapping the water, then we're gonna have more water problems, right?

Whereas my brother has read research that says if you put the lid on, that keeps

water from getting trapped in the bottle.

And so it is better if you actually keep the lid on.

And I will admit, I don't know what the right answer really is.

All I know is I have to keep arguing with my brother.

Right.

But I don't know.

'cause we don't have the wisdom.

We don't have thousands of years of plastic bottles wasting away.

We're not gonna know for a long time.

And that's so often what we face as people.

We don't have the wisdom to see far enough.

To know what ramifications our decisions are going to have.

How do you, how do you do something new?

And especially how do you lead something new?

Both David and Hamilton, were building nations, something new.

David is the second of the kings, but the first king didn't work out, so he's

got to do something different, be better.

And Hamilton is part of this ragtag group of people that's trying to create

a new nation and throw off one of the more powerful nations in the world.

And the patterns that they set are going to influence history, influence how

those nations will identify from then on.

And both David and Alexander Hamilton had great successes at what they did,

and they made some profoundly bad decisions, and many of those decisions

are a result of the temptations of power.

Because the truth of the matter is when you have power, there is always

temptation and there is especially temptation to satisfy your own desires,

and both of them fell prey to that.

I will admit that Ray and I have been back and forth about music for Hamilton

for this series, and in part because Ray kept saying, I mean some of these

lyrics, can we do them in the sanctuary?

And I'd say, Ray, I'm gonna read David a Bathsheba.

You're not gonna come up with anything worse.

And that strikes one chord, that even though both of them had significant

falls when it came to their own desires, Hamilton engaged in an

affair and David took Bathsheba.

The difference is Hamilton's affair was consensual.

It was dumb, and it resulted in his blackmail and damaged his

ability to be able to lead as fully as he might have been able to.

But primarily the damage was to himself and to his family.

David's did not involve consent.

Now we're not told that explicitly, but it's the king.

In that day and time, you don't say no to the king.

It's not an option.

And Bathsheba loved her husband, and Uriah was a good man.

And not only was there no consent, but David was not doing what he

was supposed to do to begin with.

He was supposed to be out.

It was the time of year when the kings were at war and their king was not

at war, and then facing his mistake.

Rather than repenting, he puts a man's life on the line and kills him.

The damage that was done was primarily to others.

Now, David did suffer.

The child that's born dies, but so many others paid so

deeply for what he chose to do.

They both pay prices for their choices.

Are those prices proportional to what they did?

Maybe are they contextual to what they did?

Absolutely.

Both of them were judged in ways that were appropriate and understandable

for the time and place and position they were in, but that's got me

thinking about leadership today.

And thinking about how Hamilton and David would fare now, and that's

an incredibly complicated question.

In fact, it's probably not even fair to lift them up and drop them into

this current time because there has been such a deep shift in values.

But there's also been a deep shift in scrutiny.

We are all watched.

By the eyes of history.

Now all of us,

and what is happening as a result of that is that scrutiny is consolidating

power because you have to be able to survive the scrutiny to rise up and

lead, and the scrutiny is intense.

You can't go to the grocery store without being watched.

And as a result of that consolidation of power, the only people that can really

survive the scrutiny are those who are part of already existing dynasties whose

power is long established and held.

And hard to shake, or those who have enough wealth to overcome the scrutiny

to basically buy their way out.

As a result, we are not being led by the best people anymore because let's

just be honest, if I were to ask you.

Are you good enough to lead?

You know what the answer is, you're not.

But neither am I. Because of the level of attention that is put on leaders,

and not just the level of attention, but it is incredibly complicated.

It's always been complicated to lead.

I'm not gonna say that this is a new complication, but there are new challenges

that we face and, and you've gotta ask yourself, what are we getting into?

We don't even know.

We don't even know what we're getting into.

Let's just think about me.

I have been in the full-time ministry since 2013.

That's 12 years in the grand scheme of history, that is nothing.

That is nothing.

And in the course of the time that I have been on this journey, the organization

that I represent and defend has had some significant shifts in value.

Some of which I have agreed with and some of which I have not,

and yet I'm still here having to represent this organization.

In addition, I have faced a whole season of people from within the organization

lying about what we believe, saying things like, we don't actually believe in Jesus,

we don't believe in the resurrection now.

And as a result, those folks broke off and we went through what I

would like to call an uncivil war.

And then when I got into this job, social media existed.

I'm not gonna say it didn't, it didn't exist when I was a kid

and I was doing stupid stuff.

Thank God.

Yeah, thank God.

Right?

But there is some photographic evidence out there of some things.

Nothing too bad.

But you know, you just never know.

But not only that, it doesn't matter whether there's photographic

evidence or not because AI exists.

AI exists.

And so if somebody really wanted to come at me, they can make

up a whole history about me.

And in fact, we were talking about this the other day.

There's enough video and audio evidence of me thanks to us broadcasting worship, that

someone could create an entire life of me.

I thought, I don't know how I defend

and I serve a divided people.

Now on the whole, the people that I serve are united in the idea that all

are welcome and no matter who you are and how you live your life, you're a

welcome into this space, which means that everybody comes into this space.

And we don't agree, which means that people come into my office

and tell me what they don't agree with about what we are doing.

Right?

So in the last month, I've heard we're too political and we're not political enough.

I've heard that you're talking too much about conservative things.

You're talking too much about liberal things.

I hear this all the time.

You're not enough on my side though.

It's fine that we welcome other people.

I'm fine with that.

You see how the shoulders I'm, I'm fine with that,

but except for me though.

Right?

And that doesn't even go into the questions that I

get about my personal life.

You're single.

What does that mean?

And the fact that as a Christian pastor.

I also, of course, every time I step into this pulpit, I am an abomination

to many other Christians because I'm divorced and because I'm a woman.

And that's me.

And I hear this often, you know, it must be really hard to have 600 bosses us.

And if you've ever said that to me, you know how I respond.

So if you've ever thought about saying it, I'm gonna go

ahead and give you my response.

No, I have 600 people to love and one boss

history does have eyes, but as a people of faith, the eyes

that really matter are Gods

not histories.

We're never going to be able to control how history views us.

We're never going to be able to control that.

And you know what?

We also can't control how God views us.

'cause no matter what we do, no matter who we are, no matter how we lead,

history will have judgments for us.

And no matter what we do.

No matter who we are, no matter how we lead, God will love us.

I think we need to remember that what we need most from leaders are

principled leaders, but not perfect ones.

We need to respond with a little more grace for the people who have taken

a chance to be in that scrutiny.

And if you are feeling a tug that you need to lead.

Know that will hold you in that scrutiny and God will

love you through that scrutiny.

One of the things that I've gotten both praise and criticism for, were speaking

at City Council this week, but I think the, the thing that struck me, well, one

of the things that struck me about sitting through that city council meeting was

looking at the city council and the mayor.

And what a difficult situation they were in and what tremendous

scrutiny they were under.

And I felt for every one of them, and I was convicted to

offer grace to each of them.

I do not agree with all of them, and I have a right as an American citizen to

cast a vote that makes that opinion heard.

But as a Christian called to love, I will love each of them, and

I'll extend grace to each of them.

The arc of history is long and it bends toward justice, but it

also bends toward redemption.

David's been idolized forever, but now we look at him with a little bit of a, hmm.

Can we also recognize that he still established the genealogy that gave us

Jesus Hamilton's been a complicated figure forever and will continue to be, but he

didn't change our world and he changed our country and we changed who we are,

and I kind of think that it was in their brokenness that they were at their best.

If you take a look on the altar space right now, there's a broken pot.

I have various times in my ministry questioned why I'm doing

this, including this past week.

And one of those times I was sharing with one of my colleagues, pastoral

colleagues, and I said, I don't think I have the strength to do this job.

I don't think I'm strong enough.

I'm too broken to lead this people, and this is what he gave me for my birthday.

I'll hold it up.

He said he's done this for people.

He takes a pot, he smashes it up and he glues it back together.

And then he tells you, put a candle in the middle.

It is through your broken pieces that the light of Christ will shine through.

And we're none of us ever gonna be perfect.

We can be principled.

But we won't be perfect.

But thanks be to God, we don't have to be.

Amen.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

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