The Reading
2 Samuel 11:1-5, 26-27; 12:1-9; Psalm 51:1-9
1 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. 2 It
happened, late one 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. 3 David sent someone to inquire about
the woman. It was reported, "This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife
of Uriah the Hittite." 4 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. 5 The woman conceived; and she sent and told
David, "I am pregnant." 26 When the wife of Uriah heard that her
husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. 27 When the mourning was over,
David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him
a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord,
12:1 and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and
said to him, "There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the
other poor. 2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds; 3 but the poor man
had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and
it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare,
and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to
him. 4 Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one
of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but
he took the poor man's lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to
him." 5 Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to
Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; 6
he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he
had no pity." 7 Nathan said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the
Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you
from the hand of Saul; 8 I gave you your master's house, and your master's
wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if
that had been too little, I would have added as much more. 9 Why have you
despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck
down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife,
and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
Psalm 51
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me
thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my
transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I
sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your
sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a
sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I
shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and
gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my
sins, and blot out all my iniquities
The message
Last week, our reading was from the book of Joshua, ending
with a famous, public declaration of faith. After listing the victories and
miracles God brought to the people of Israel during their journey to the
promised land, Joshua challenges the crowd to serve the Lord and tells them “as
for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”.
Joshua was the successor of Moses. Joshua leads the people of Israel to
victory over the Canaanites. Through this journey there are great victories,
moments of great anxiety, disobedience and repentance. Joshua directs the people faithfully, as they
settle in the promised land. All of his actions are done with an awareness that
God is the force behind what is happening.
Today, our reading
comes from Second Samuel. Samuel was one
of the major prophets in history of Israel.
After Joshua, the people of Israel were led by a series of Judges,
people like Deborah and Gideon, who lead as part prophet, part king, part
administrator and part priest. After
decades the people of Israel ask for, argue for and even demand a king (so they
can be like their neighbors). God honors
this request. Samuel is the last of the
Judges. He is responsible for the transition from Judges to Kings. God sends Samuel to anoint Saul as the first
king. Saul makes mistakes, becomes arrogant and falls out of favor with the
Lord. He is found to be unworthy and Samuel is sent to remove Saul from power. God sends Samuel to anoint David as the next
king (this is a surprise, David’s brothers are all more “kingly” in age and
appearance). Saul will then be killed after a series of conflicts and chases.
Samuel will die before today’s reading. His role as prophet, as messenger of God,
will be taken on by Nathan. (We have no real idea how this transition happens,
Nathan just sort of appears already established in 2 Samuel 7) This was a vital and powerful role, after
all, like Joshua constantly witnessed to, Israel lived because of God’s word
and will. Nathan will serve as a counter to King David’s otherwise absolute
power. David is considered to the most significant king in the history of
Israel, Most importantly for us, he is the one who receives the promise that
the Messiah will come from his descendants (news delivered to him by Nathan).
This is why Matthew and Luke start their Gospels with the genealogy of Jesus from
King David and down the line. Those
Genealogies are rather messy, there are times when this family line is
continued through what would be seen as impurities (women, foreigners, people
who have acted in ways that most of us would think of as questionable,
immoral).
Today, we hear one of the worst of those messy events, the
story of how King Solomon’s mom and dad first met. Now, I think of how Jen and I first met. It’s a nice, if not so exciting story. We were the only people in our church under
30 ( a church she grew up in and I happened to wander into). We started talking one night during a
workshop after we were paired up for a small group discussion. If I remember it was about spiritual gifts and
how we use them. After the workshop, we started emailing each other and then
went on our first date. Now how Solomon’s parents, David and Bathsheba met, that’s something
else. King David is at home during war. (This is a clue that he would do
something wrong, the king should have been on the battlefield, with the
soldiers defending his kingdom, following his command.) Perhaps this was at the
insistence of his generals, who though the danger was too great but either way,
David is where he does not belong. While
the army fights, David takes a break from lounging inside and decides to go
outside. There he sees Bathsheba bathing.
He likes what he sees and asks his servant, who it is. If she was not married, David could simply add
her to his group of, let’s call them lady friends. Bathsheba is not single. She is the wife of
Uriah the Hittite, a good man, well-known and highly regarded solider, who has
served Israel faithfully. This should
have stopped David, but it does not. He decides forget Uriah, I want what I
want. David sends messengers to get Bathsheba, David has sex with Bathsheba and
she becomes pregnant.
To cover this up, David sends for Uriah, calls him back from
battle and asks him some routine questions about the war, soldiers, morale.
Tangentially, David mentions, oh since you’re here, why don’t you go to your
wife and have sex with her. Uriah refuses, keeping faithful to his promise and
fellow soldiers (during active combat soldiers refrained from sex). David, now desperate to cover up his actions,
sends Uriah to the front lines, so he would certainly die in battle. Uriah is
killed in the conflict. David and
Bathsheba marry after the mourning time is over. That is how King Solomon’s mom
and dad first met, a story of David
abusing power, deceitful actions,
betrayals and disgrace. (for the most part Bathsheba is doing the right
thing or more accurately, the only thing she can).
David does not get away unscathed. Bathsheba’s story will be
told. As David breathes a sigh of relief
that he got away with one, the prophet Nathan appears. God will not allow what happened to her to go
away. David fears no man really, but Nathan speaks God’s word, the word that
put Saul in power, the word that took Saul out of power, the word that anointed David and most pressing, the word
that could remove David. Now, like
Bathsheba has been throughout the story, David is in a position of
powerlessness. Nathan confronts David,
sharing that story of the slaughtered lamb, that enrages David, only for him to
be told, your that guy who did that awful thing. Nathan announces the
consequences of David’s sin but David will remain king. Nathan appears again later, in support of David
and Bathsheba's son, Solomon. It is clear
that God has accepted David's confession and plea for forgiveness. (that is why
todays reading is paired with
Psalm 51)
Today, the news is filled with stories of powerful men who
are accused of acting like David, abusing their authority for sexual purposes. This
is not the story of one man’s sin and one woman’s victimhood. This is not a
story of how to handle abusive leaders or how to deal with the aftermath of
abuse. This story shows sin does not stop God’s action in the world. From horror there is joy, from death there is
life. God’s will is going to get done, despite us and our sin.
In this ancient story, we do see things that matter today. Without
Nathan intervening, Bathsheba’s story would have been covered up and never
told. There was not much of a me too
movement back then but we hear God speaking for the voiceless. Blaming the
victim is nothing new. People in some
traditions deny this happened (under the belief that prophets are pure and
would never do this). For others, Bathsheba is portrayed as a seductress, as
tempting sweet, pure and innocent David, as constantly bathing where she knew
she could be seen by him until he gives in to her advances. She saw a chance to
move up in the world, to ditch her husband, a good, loyal but not like king
rich guy and move into the palace. .
We have no reason to think Bathsheba was asking for it. She
is a victim, a body other people exercise control over, a woman trying to make
the best of an awful situation with no right answers Interperters and added
details that pull us away from that do not come from the story in the
Bible. They reflect our denial of sin,
our attempts to fit everything into our own world views and our desire for
heroes. It exposes the difficulty we
have with admitting King David was wrong, human, that he lets his greed, desire
and selfishness rule his actions. We are
not defined by the worst things we have ever done, not to God at least. In what David did and our attempts to explain
it away, this story is about sin, proof that we all are desperate to not wake
each morning saying: Have mercy on me, O
God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot
out my transgressions. Wash me
thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is
ever before me.
