First Baptist Church of Asheville Podcast
Sermon: Bathsheba
Bathsheba. Bathsheba. She has a name. She has a voice. She has dignity. She is married to the honorable Uriah and contrary to her image in popular culture and even in many congregations, I want to say definitively, she is not an adulterer. She is not lecherous. She is not a scheming strompit. When David sees her bathing from the roof, she is ritually cleansing herself from her period. As any Hebrew woman would, the text says it was laid in the afternoon, but in his song "Hallelujah," biblical scholar Leonard Cohen sings her beauty in the moonlight over through you. So it could have been getting close to dark. The text does not state plainly that Bathsheba is naked. She may well be clothed. Either way, Bathsheba most likely assumes she is bathing privately. Since it is reasonable to assume that the only person in the city who could see into any one's quarters would have been David because he would have had an elevated palace. What we do know of Bathsheba is that she is a beautiful young woman who has caught the wandering eye of a very powerful man, King David. She has a name. She has a voice. She has dignity. But she is about to be the victim of a series of revolting acts by King David. In other attempts to preach about David and Bathsheba, I've given more weight to English translations that soften the language of David's actions. Or they focus on the characters of the men involved. David, Uriah, Nathan, not this time. Today I want to preach only from Bathsheba's point of view, with help only from women biblical scholars in order to amplify Bathsheba's perspective and voice. And I apologize for not having done so before with this text. So this will ask all of us to use our imagination since Bathsheba says very little throughout the chapters of her story. For instance, today, the only thing we hear her say is I'm pregnant. But there are faithful judgments we can discern here about Bathsheba's experience. And I'm convinced there is good news here for us all. From Bathsheba's perspective, I invite us to imagine her being approached by David's entourage of officials. This must have been a startling, fearful visit. David's executive branch did not have caravans of black bulletproof Chevy Tahoe's all rolling up at the same time. However, the arrival of a royal cohort at your door at sunset has to be a deeply unsettling and frightening event. Remember, Bathsheba's husband Uriah is away serving in the military. She may well be answering her door alone. What's more, this visit is not a negotiation. Many translations soften it to say. And probably your Bible says something like David sent messengers to get her. But in the Hebrew, David sends messengers to seize her. Second Samuel uses the same word, seize or take that he does earlier in his warnings to the Israelites about appointing or anointing a king. You can do it, but I'm warning you he's going to take and take and take and seize and seize. Bathsheba is not delivered gently to David's quarters. She is taken, perhaps even rested away from her home. Now, with help from womanist scholar Wilda Gaffney, I'm compelled to say what happens next is not an act of adultery. David uses his power and authority to wield violence to keep Bathsheba, she writes. He sees her, sins for her, has sex with her without her consent, he rapes her. In the subsequent narrative, Nathan and God treat David as a rapist, she says, by condemning him not, but not importing sin to Bathsheba as a complicit consenting person. Their treatment of her is consistent with the treatment of women who are raped in the Torah statues. Now, Gaffney contradicts centuries of assumptions about this text that amount to attempts to protect David's character, and I'm complicit in that. Church fathers like John Chrysostom and Augustine have called it adultery, and countless scholars and preachers have followed their lead ever since, but adultery implies consent. Moreover, a plain reading of the text would put the burden of proof on anyone who might say otherwise. I know it's hard to say this about David. Isn't Jesus the son of David? Yes. He's also said to be the son of the wife of Uriah. Why this matters could not be more relevant to us, one in five women in the United States have experienced completed or attempted rape during their lifetime. Nationwide, 81% of women and 43% of men report experiencing some form of sexual harassment or assault in their lifetime. Intimate partner violence is mainly a threat to women, but it's not limited to gender. I won't ever forget learning that lesson. My first week as a pastor, I was 25 years old, it just, my office still wasn't unpacked. When Bard came and stood in the door frame and he had a bloody brow. Bard, what on earth happened to you? He said, preacher, woke up this morning, my wife slammed glass picture over my head. And then she was standing there with a shotgun. And she was pointing at me and she said, don't think I won't pull the trigger. She said it calmly. So many readers can be forgiven for thinking Bathsheba was in on all of this or that she eventually changed her mind and fell in love with David, but we should all tread carefully here. The text does not corroborate much of what happens in the 1951 film, David and Bathsheba, starring Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward, where the attraction is mutual. Yes, Bathsheba has relations with David, but we would be unwise to assume she wanted to. One of the most frightening fun calls I've ever received, I was a student in college, a dear childhood friend, Gina, called me. She said, I don't know who to talk to. I'm calling you. She said, I was with my boyfriend and she sort of liked him. She's kind of fascinated by this guy. He took advantage of her. She didn't know what to do. She knew him. He was a friend. He violated her. She thought something was wrong with her. She thought it was her fault. No. No. Yes, Bathsheba marries David, but we would be unwise to assume she wanted to. Many people get married against their will. Yes, Bathsheba does have multiple children, but David, but again, we would be unwise to assume she wanted to. Many people feel trapped in their marriages with an abusive spouse, or for many reasons. Yes, Bathsheba definitely maneuvers through her relationships with David and for the rest of their marriage. Many people cope and suffer through intimate relationships they feel must be preserved for too many reasons to consider here right now. Yes, it's true that one day Bathsheba will be Queen Mother to Solomon, her son with David, but she will receive that honor only by outsmarting David and working with the prophet Nathan to outmaneuver him and his own selection of his other son to be king. There's the conventional way to view Bathsheba as a willing or even conniving partner in sharing power with David, or only as a victim, just as a victim of David's lust and violence and cruelty. Rather, I invite us to see Bathsheba, though, as a wise and righteous woman. A woman whose story not only holds tragedy, but also conveys deep faith. Hers is a story that begins with her being subjected to some of the most painful experiences imaginable. Hers is a story that concludes with an astonishing moment of reverence. In her final appearance in Scripture, this is in 1 Kings, chapter 2, Solomon rises from his throne. He bows to Bathsheba, and he has another throne placed beside his and invites her to sit with him. And there the curtain closes on Bathsheba's grand story as she sits in regal splendor. She established this role of Queen Mother, a role that held for as long as the kingdom existed. And today Bathsheba is even venerated by the Ethiopian Orthodox to a hato church, everyone familiar? As a saint. Why do I preach on this today? It's the middle of summer. It's July. We've got barbecues and ball games and stuff on a stick on our mind. Why am I doing this? Well, for one thing, the electionary gives this to me. I've been avoiding it. And so finally I said, "All right, now this is the time." But also because I want everyone to hear what I imagine Bathsheba's voice would be to us today. Let's listen to the woman. Bathsheba rises from her Queen Mother throne and her dazzling, elegant robe, and she says to each of us, "No matter your past, you have a destiny in God. If you have ever been assaulted, you are not damaged goods. You have a name. You have a voice. You have dignity. And you have a destiny in God. God cares about you. God is intimately and lovingly involved in your story. You may not end up being a member of the royal family, but in and through the Lord of hosts, you are a member of the royal priesthood. You matter to God. You matter to your family and your friends. You matter to the history of the world. You matter to God's story. No matter what has happened to you or what you've been through, you are made in the image of God." Listen to Bathsheba. Look in her eyes. She's been deeply hurt. She's lived through hell. She has been so afraid at times. She pours bravery into her fear. She pours confidence into her doubts. She prevails. God, as with her, cares about her, attends her and walks alongside her. Another leading Jewish woman who might echo these words I've imagined from Bathsheba is, "Go with me here. Dr. Ruth Westheimer, otherwise known as Dr. Ruth, who died earlier this month. And know when I set out to go into a life of pastoral ministry, I did not think I would ever be quoting Dr. Ruth in a sermon. But I appreciated it when I learned what she said in a 2015 interview with Philadelphia Magazine. With her characteristic humor and conviction, she told the interviewer, "I believe that the best sexual relations have to be in a loving relationship, not like in Hollywood, but in an enduring relationship, and to realize how grateful we are, and we have someone who cares for us." Of course, in church we call this marriage, and you're not alone in marriage. Remember that. When you come forward to promise yourselves to one another, you're also in the context of a surrounding community, witnesses we call them. But we might just as well think of them as the people who are going to help you be married. You can't do it by yourselves. Look around at this room. In church, we're all here to help one another, yes, be married, but also be tender, loving, gentle, mutual in the ways that we honor the simple fact that we are each made in the image of God. Here are the good news, friends. God designed us for steadfast, faithful, gentle love. God designed us not to abuse power, but to share it, especially with those who do not have it. God designed us not to live in fear, but to meet fear with faith, courage, and even cleverness. You, whether you know it or not or feel it or not, you have been clothed from on high with regal splendor. Your soul is a temple, and on your heart has written the promise from Jeremiah. I will put my law on their hearts and write it in the cardiac parchment. I will be their God, and they will be my people. So you hear this story and know you have dignity, and you have a voice, and you have a name, child of God.