God’s Anointed- No Immunity from Crime

For some time there has been a lot of talk about Donald Trump as God’s anointed or God’s chosen person. This isn’t new, but has, perhaps intensified since the assassination attempt and the Republican National Convention. If you think Mr Trump is God’s chosen person, it is unlikely that I would be able to change your mind about that. But there is something I do want for us think about.

Let’s look at the Biblical story of one of God’s chosen people- David in 2 Samuel 11:1-15 and think about how it might inform our actions today. To put this story in context, in 1 Samuel 16 God directs Saul to anoint David as King. In 2 Samuel 2 David becomes king of Judah and in 2 Samuel 5 becomes King of Israel. Today we pick up the story in chapter 11.

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 on 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.”

So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to you house and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house. When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.” Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk, and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.” 2 Samuel 11:1-15 NRSV

As the story continues, Joab does as commanded and Uriah dies. On hearing the news, David replies to Joab, “Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another; press your attack on the city, and overthrow it.” (2 Sam 11:25) After Uriah dies his wife Bathsheba mourns. Once her time of mourning is over, “David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.”

The text continues, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David.” (2 Sam 11-27- 12:1) Then comes the story of Nathan’s rebuke of David’s behavior. Nathan tells a parable and when David fails to see that the parable is about him, Nathan says, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel…. Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight?” You can read Nathan’s parable and his rebuke of David in 2 Samuel 12:1-15.¹

Just because David is God’s anointed, doesn’t mean he can do no wrong. Just because David is God’s anointed doesn’t mean he can do whatever he wishes. Just because David is God’s anointed doesn’t mean people shouldn’t hold him accountable for his actions.

David, God’s anointed, sees a woman bathing, commands her to come to him, has sex with her- a married woman. When she is pregnant, he attempts to trick her husband into thinking the child is his. Uriah, the husband, is presented as an upright soldier, who won’t sleep in his own bed or make love to his wife as long as his fellow soldiers cannot either. So David plots to have Uriah killed. When his orders have been obeyed, David tells his commander, to “not let this matter trouble you.” “The sword devours now one and now another.” Is that a philosophical statement on the fortunes of war? Or is it an implied threat to Joab?

The Biblical texts is quite clear, just because David is God’s anointed, that doesn’t mean his has immunity from his crimes. Nathan goes and speaks the truth to David. Nathan admittedly approaches the topic obliquely with his story of the stolen lamb. But finally, Nathan has no choice but to directly confront David with his crimes.

So here is my point. You may sincerely believe that Donald Trump is anointed by God. But even if that is so, Mr Trump does not get a pass about his actions or his behavior or his rhetoric. Just as God held David accountable, God holds Donald Trump accountable. Just as God has people tell David the truth and hold him accountable, God wants people to speak the truth and to hold Trump accountable. God demands, via Nathan, that David act lawfully. David is held accountable for breaking the law. And just like David, Donald Trump is accountable to God and God’s law. Being chosen by God does not give one a free pass to any behavior they may choose to do. We could argue that being chosen by God calls one to a higher standard, to be an example of Godly behavior.

And so, siblings in Christ, will you hold the person you believe to be God’s anointed accountable? Will you speak the truth to him and about him?

If you are unwilling to do so, you might spend some time reflecting on why that is.

1. Read 2 Samuel 12: 1-15 here. ↩︎