B Proper 12 17 Ord BFC
2018
2 Samuel 11:1-15
July 29, 2018
1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2011, 2013, 2014,
2015, 2016. These were the years we spoke up about Larry Nassar's abuse. All
those years, we were told, ‘You are wrong. You misunderstood. He's a doctor.
It's OK. Don't worry. We've got it covered. Be careful. There are risks
involved.’ The intention? To silence us in favor of money, medals, and
reputation.[1]
Those were the opening lines from United States
gold-medal gymnast, Aly Raisman’s speech given as she and dozens of other women
stood up to receive the ESPY’s 2018 Arthur Ashe Courage Award—an award given
for courage that transcends sports. Raisman’s
speech was not so much about the abuse itself.
The use of unmitigated power will continue to assert its evil in the
world, often using the power adults have over children, the power a still
male-dominated society has over women.
Raisman’s point is that the abuse could have come to an end but for the
willingness of other adults to ignore, pass off, or forgive too quickly those
who commit unfathomable acts of violence against those entrusted to their
care.
Many of you know that I think Aly Raisman is
already a legend. Her speech in the
courtroom, speaking directly to the perpetrator, reminded everyone that the
perpetrator should not be the one receiving everyone’s easy sympathies. In order to speak out, Raisman has said must
relive her trauma, an act of self-sacrifice not everyone can or is called to
do, but Raisman does it choosing to save the lives of others who come after
her. Not only that, but Raisman has
appeared in ESPN’s “body” issue, refusing to have her sexuality dictated by historical
violence or present puritanical shaming.
Last week, on the first Monday of our Bible 101 class,
I related the Bible as a discernment tool by which we divine the heart of
God. There are other discernment tools
we use to divine God’s heart, many of them shared in the Bible. Many of the Psalms speak of relationship with
creation or elements of creation to understand the way God is moving in the
world. The prophet Daniel divines the
heart of God through spiritual practice—his kosher practice, prayer, and
fasting. Throughout the Bible
relationship with the poor and oppressed or with their struggle is a way of
seeing God already at work in the world.
Finally, the apostle Paul divines the heart of God by Socratic
questioning, “Does it build up community or tear it down?”
And the Bible will often engage and be critical
of itself as it divines the Heart of God.
We are part of a living tradition.
And therefore engagement, attention, and critique are necessary to
discern what we will carry forward and leave behind.
What we hear again and again in Scripture,
repeated as the heart of God, are steadfast love, righteousness, and
justice. These values, this way of
being, is the way God moves in the world.
They are God’s name, reflect God’s integrity. Through that lens, we discern what we will
carry forward and what we will leave behind.
As Lisa
related, today we have one of the most iconic Biblical stories before us. As in any good storytelling, the tone is set
early on when we are told that it is the season when kings go out to war with
their armies. But David is back in the
palace in Jerusalem
Among
those Christians who clamor for social justice as a primary value within our
faith tradition, this is one of two stories from Hebrew Scripture, Naboth’s
vineyard being the other, to point out that even the most powerful and
glamorous figures within Jewish tradition cannot escape the Jewish God’s love
of justice. The king, as a
representative for God to the Jewish people, is particularly tasked with
justice making and justice doing.
Psalm 72,
like an inaugural speech, states God’s hoped for values for the king, “Give the
king your justice, O God. May the king
judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. May the king defend the cause of the poor of
the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. For the king delivers the needy when they
call, the poor and those who have no helper.
From oppression and violence, the king redeems their life and precious
is their blood in the king’s sight.”[2]
King David
was to protect those who had no helper. Precious
is their blood in his sight. In Jewish
tradition, that meant taking care of the widow, the orphan, and the alien or
immigrant. David is to protect the life
of the alien or immigrant, Uriah the Hittite.
But in this story, David sends for the wife of Uriah the Hittite, the
alien or immigrant who is serving him well in battle. David rapes the wife of Uriah the Hittite and
then, to cover up the pregnancy, sends for Uriah the Hittite, sends him to his
home to have sex with his wife. Sends
for him to get Uriah drunk and then send him back home. When that does not work, David sends Uriah
the Hittite back to battle with a note he has sent to his commander, Joab. This notice tells Joab that he is to have
Uriah killed. And when the murder and
cover-up are complete, finally, King David sends for Bathsheba to join him in
his palatial estate, as one of his wives.
This story
culminates what began with Samuel the prophet.
The Israelite people come to Samuel and say to him, “We see the nations
around us brandishing their swords to make war.
We feel that our national security is at stake. We want to be like other nations. Give us a king!” This call from the people is a disappointment
to God. As King of the Universe, God
believed that Israel
As
judgment against what King David has done, and to make us aware that this story
is a cohesive whole, God, in punishment, vows to take away David’s women and have someone else lie with them.[4]
In the
story before us, King David, the master manipulator, controls all the
action. As the word take is the focus for what the king will do with you, the word sent is how the king controls all the
action. The word “sent” appears eleven
times in just twenty-six verses, almost always used by King David. David, who was supposed to be the antithesis
of kings, chosen by the prophet Samuel when he is just a young boy shepherding
sheep, the small lad with the slingshot, is selected way back when by
Samuel. God chooses David because the
Living God does not look on outward appearance or stature but upon the heart or
character.[5]
Alas,
absolute power corrupts absolutely. David
becomes just like any other king. Israel
becomes like any other nation. The story has enough references and parallels to
the David and Goliath story to tell us that David becomes Goliath. That is a powerful critique of a king, an
imperial presidency, or a nation that is willing to subvert its deepest values
to rule the world.
Hear this
though. Though this story is a powerful
critique and relates some of my deepest values, I want to engage and critique our
tradition to say that we must not let this story be the end. For there is something strikingly absent from
an incredible story written out of male-dominated world, a story that would
critique one of the greatest figures in Jewish history. There is something missing from even the
prophet Nathan, who shows up later in this story, who comes to hold King David
account for his misdeeds. The prophet Nathan tells David that the Biblical God
seeks to exact punishment for what he has done and that punishment is the death
of the child with which Bathsheba is pregnant.
What has
been forgotten is the woman who was raped and carries that child—Bathsheba. Her husband, Uriah, is remembered. It is as if the dead Uriah, as a man, is the
only one who seems to matter to Nathan and the Biblical God as judgment is
pronounced against David.
Too often
this story has been altered to maintain our prejudices. In keeping with our windswept romance novels
found at any grocery store, I remember finding a book some years ago that
sought to fill in all the details of this tragic story. I remember reading it as if these were the
long, lost details only the National
Enquirer could report. You know the
ones I mean. David is half-naked, wind
blowing through his hair, Bathsheba held in his arms, maybe her tunic down her
arm to indicate what is about to happen.
According to this fictional novel, Bathsheba seduced David, David
romanced Bathsheba, and the starstruck lovers were destined to give birth to
the promised future king—Solomon. But
the Biblical story gives no hint of such romance.
Bathsheba
is taking her purifying bath when David sees her. David sends for her. This is an act of kingly power, not seductive
act. Bathsheba is so forgotten that when
David sends Uriah to lie with his wife, Uriah feels more kinship with his
soldier comrades out in the field than with a wife he has not seen for some
time. As a credit to Uriah and to
his honor, he forgets his wife.
Bathsheba
must not only grieve the violence done to her in this rape, the violent death
of her husband, Uriah, but also the violence done to her by God when it is
decided that her child shall be taken as a punishment for King David’s
acts. She is but a byword in a terrible
story.
And I say
to this part of a powerful story, that I disown it. It is wrong.
In my relationship with the Living God, a God who has often been my
nurturing and strong mother, a God who has held my hand and confidences as
wife, sister, and friend, a God who has inspired and seduced me with wisdom too
great for my own brain, this is not the God of compassion I have come to
know. Nor would I want to worship a God
who forgets Bathsheba and her pain and then punishes Bathsheba.
One can
only imagine what Bathsheba felt, what any number of women forgotten in the
tradition have felt, as Uriah, her honorable and loyal husband is dead. The purity she was keeping when David saw
her, gone by the man who murdered her husband.
Her child, the product of a violent act, now dead, by the hand of a
violent God atoning for the sin of David.
Then Bathsheba is supposed to endure intercourse with this same man to
have another child by him. The rapist
takes her once again to complete God’s promise.
As I work
out those details to the story, my stomach turns and I am revolted by this part
of the tradition. Bathsheba, and so many
strong women who have survived their silent tragedies, need to be remembered so
that we create a community which is counter to the one which suggests that
kings, presidents, priests, pastors, and football coaches have carte blanche to
fulfill their needs however they see fit.
Our women, daughters, and children should not have to atone for the sins
of their fathers to be part of God’s continuing promise.
I say that
part of Biblical authority and tradition is wrong, revolting, and we must
remember our daughters, Bathsheba, and all women who have been lost in our
tradition. Through the lens of God’s
character and integrity, God’s steadfast love, righteousness, and justice we
say the Biblical tradition is wrong when it is sympathetic to David and forgets
Bathsheba. We will not let any tradition
or king or powerful program have our daughters, or our women, or our sons as a
sacrifice to sate their desires. And let
us proclaim that we do not believe God requires it as well, and that God
grieves and thunders in the Halls of Heaven every time we believe such a
sacrifice is required—whether that be Bathsheba or the women and children of
the Yellowstone Valley. The God of
Compassion seeks to deliver those who are without a helper and precious in
God’s sight is their blood. Precious in
God’s sight is their blood.
Aly
Raisman finished her acceptance speech by saying, “We all face hardships. If we choose to listen and we choose
to act with empathy, we can draw strength from each other. We may suffer alone,
but we survive together.”[6] In contrast to how the Biblical story ignores
Bathsheba, I believe Aly Raisman’s statement, said by a courageous prophet in
our time, is part of the tradition we carry forward as a way of listening to
those who have been historically oppressed; a way of building up and weaving
together our community in a more healthy sexuality; a way of being in keeping
with a God of steadfast love, righteousness, and justice. We suffer alone, but we survive
together. May we find our voices. As adults.
As children of God. As carriers
of the tradition. Amen.
[1] Aly Raisman, “Acceptance
speech at the ESPYs for Arthur Ashe Courage Award,” July 18, 2018. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a22212177/aly-raisman-sarah-klein-tiffany-thomas-lopez-espy-speech-larry-nassar/
[2] Psalm 72:1-2,4, 12, 14.
[3] Everett
[4] Ibid, p. 188.
[6] Raisman, “Acceptance.”
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