King David was dancing with disaster. He was playing fast and loose with the commandments of God. David was in a war against the Ammonites. David's men had been consecrated and sent off to battle. But David stayed home. One day as he sat on a balcony and looked over the rooftops his gaze swung to find the source of the sound of falling water. In a courtyard not far away a woman was preparing to bathe. Bathsheba was shapely in David's sight and he desired her. So he sent servants for her, brought her to his bed, and she became pregnant. But Bathsheba was another man's wife. She belonged to Uriah, one of David's commanders. This was not good thing. This was no way for a King anointed by God to act.

But it got worse. David called Uriah back from the battlefield. He inquired about how the battle was going and then tried to send Uriah home to be with Bathsheba. David wanted to cover his own tracks. Uriah was a righteous man. He had taken a vow to abstain from sex until the battle was over. So Uriah did not go home that first night.

The next night David got Uriah drunk and tried to send him home again. Even with his inhibitions loosened Uriah remained steadfast, he slept on the palace steps instead of in his bed with his wife. Then the very next day Uriah went back to the battlefield.

Since the opportunity to cover up in this way was lost, David took yet another step away from righteousness. David arranged the order of battle such that Uriah would be thrust to the front where the fighting was most furious, then David ordered that the line was to draw back leaving Uriah exposed. This drama of deception ended with Uriah's death by the swords of the Ammonites. But it was David who had killed him as surely as if he had swung the blade himself.

Is this the kind of King that God would choose to lead his people? David had fractured a family, tried to get a righteous man to break his promises to God, and then murdered this same man who had trusted him with his very life. One bad decision led to another. A rocky attempt to cover up one transgression led to a landslide of sins. Now David was so out of step with reality that his actions seemed divorced from his true self.

David could have great compassion and a thirst for righteousness. These qualities were part of the essence of who David was, so he was outraged when Nathan told the story of the rich man with many herds who took the little ewe lamb from the poor man. But David had become blinded by his own attempts to bend reality. So he could not see himself as the villain in the story until Nathan nailed him. "You are the man," Nathan pronounced. Like a stone hitting a plate glass showroom window, Nathan words shattered the brittle barrier David had put up between his own imaginings and the world as it actually was.

David suddenly realized what he had done. "I have sinned against the Lord," he said.

It is not just ancient kings who lose sight of what really matters. The television and newsmagazines are full of stories of such spin doctoring and falls from grace. Corporate board meetings and daily life in families hold their share of slippery slopes taken in a weak moment. It is so easy to pick up momentum and suddenly find we have gone over the edge, crossed the line by a wide margin, and created a vast gulf between our outward actions and who we truly are. This is where a sense of separation from of God's presence and alienation from other people gets engendered.

One bad idea leads to another. One little lie expands to take over our whole life. Ancient kings, modern Presidents, and ordinary men and women are all poised ­ perhaps we will fall to our knees ready to seek God's forgiveness or perhaps we will simply fall from grace like willful children swan diving into an empty pool just because we can.

We can make things so much harder for ourselves than they need to be.

David let things get too loose and ended up entangled in lies, sin, death and despair. The Galatians were tempted to take on too much stricture than was really needed for their own salvation. Paul told them with great vigor that they did not need to become ensnared in the burden of the Law. They were Gentiles with no obligation to such rigors. It is not ritual observances that save a person, it is faith in Christ. We cannot nullify the grace of God.

One the one hand, nothing we can do can stop God from loving us. On the other hand, no matter how strenuous our religious practices may be, we will not pull ourselves into heaven by our own bootstraps.

Michaela Bruzzese of Sojourner's magazine writes that: "For both the Jewish and Christian traditions, the theme of forgiveness is one of the most difficult. There is a fine line between justice and mercy, and we humans struggle endlessly with how, when, and if to extend each, as if they are mutually exclusive. Fortunately, we worship a God who loves justice and mercy equally, and who lavishes both upon us as we ask and need.

Isn't this apparent in the story from Luke? Simon is weighing it all out carefully. Simon judges the women, discounts Jesus, and hedges his bets when questioned about forgiveness. Simon is sure that this woman is a sinner. Of course she is. But who isn't?

Simon, like David, is blind to his own transgressions. But Jesus sees it all. Simon has no hospitality, even for Jesus, so wrapped up is Simon in figuring out the scorecard. But Simon is only tallying the other teams runs and errors. The sinful woman knows she has sinned, she does not even see Simon and the other guests because she is telling the story of her life with her tears. She is bringing it all to the feet of Jesus.

Bruzzese states that "It is nearly impossible for most of us to comprehend a God who forgives without merit, who loves us anyway, who keeps calling us home to the fullness of life that only God can give. S. [W]e have the chance to risk great love, instead of standing aloof in judgment. Perhaps we, too, can yield the fruits of forgiveness and know the great love to which we are invited."

We are invited into wholeness. We are reckoned as righteous. We are invited to gaze on own faults with open eyes but to let God cross the distance that has opened between us.

David saw himself in sudden shocking clarity. He also heard that God had put away his sins.

Sin drags us down too, but it does not have the final word. We are already forgiven, and there is more from whence that came. We do not have the burden of the law as first century Jews experienced it, nor do we have the freedom to ignore all limits as though nothing matters. Rather, we have a model of what love looks like and a call to go and do likewise as well as we can.

The life we lead in the flesh, Paul says, we live by faith in the Son of God. It is the cross of Christ that spans the gulf between what we are called to be and what we are able to do solely by our own strength. Thanks be to God.