I
had expected this morning to be preaching on the miracle of the feeding of the
five thousand. It is one of the greatest hits of our Christian tradition. But then
I reviewed the lessons and discovered that we would be hearing the story of
David, Bathsheba, and Uriah the Hittite this morning. From one perspective, it
is one of the “juiciest” stories in the Bible. From another, it is one of the
most appalling. Either way, it is the biblical equivalent of a soap opera,
filled with lust, deception, abuse of power. It demands our attention and reflection.
Like
many people in power, David is a complex figure. The Bible describes him as
especially handsome. And he must have been, because it almost never says that
about anyone else. We have no idea what Adam looked like, or Abraham. It never
describes the Virgin Mary or even Jesus. We do know that Esau was hairy. And
that Joseph (the one with the Technicolor Dream Coat) was handsome. But David
gets the full treatment: it says that he was ruddy, had beautiful eyes, and
was handsome to behold. It’s interesting that sometimes in the Old Testament
women are described as having beautiful eyes, but David is the only male so
described. And while we don’t really know what is meant by saying he was ruddy,
it likely means that he had a lighter or redder complexion than most of the
people around him. Perhaps with red or auburn hair. So, he stood out—the Robert
Redford or George Clooney or Brad Pitt of his biblical day.
On
top of that, he was a successful warrior—killing the giant Goliath while he was
a youth. (Often, in art, David is
depicted as being naked in the battle, no less, emphasizing his physical
features). He played the lyre (like a harp), so he was artistic. According to long tradition he is the author of the psalms. And, he was
anointed above all others as God’s chosen to be king over Israel and Judah. In other
words, he is about as beautiful, strong, and alluring a person as the Bible can
imagine—hence the famous Michelangelo sculpture—the epitome of youth, strength,
and beauty.
David
is also deceptive, power hungry, lustful. When we meet him this morning, it is
spring and he is supposed to be off fighting a war, like all good kings. Don’t
you like that description? “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go
out to battle.” It sounds like the start of a fairy tale. But David’s not in
battle. He stays at home, lounging on his couch, while his men are off fighting
for him. There’s a clue about his character. And bored one afternoon, he rises
from his couch and decides to go for a walk across the roof of his palace, to see what he can see.
And
what he sees is beautiful Bathsheba, the wife of one of his leading soldiers,
off at battle. She’s bathing herself. Whether she wanted to be seen or not, we
do not know. But despite learning that she is married to one of his trusted
men, David decides that he just has to have her for himself. It’s not clear in
the text whether Bathsheba a willing party or not. In any case, it wouldn’t have
been easy or even possible for a woman in her circumstance—with her husband
away in battle—to fight off or deny the king. And soon we learn that Bathsheba’s
pregnant.
So
now what, King David?
Well,
David tries to get her husband Uriah home, with the hope that a quick, happy
reunion of husband and wife will cover up the fact, and neither Uriah nor
anyone else would be any the wiser. Only, Uriah refuses to return to his home,
to enjoy the company of his wife, while his men are at battle. The contrast
between Uriah’s sense of honor and duty and David’s couldn’t be any starker. The
next day David gets Uriah drunk in the hope that his moral sense would be
lowered, but with no success. Uriah will not be tempted.
Feeling
defeated, and demonstrating his true ruthlessness, David sends Uriah back to
battle with a letter to his General Joab. In the letter, which Uriah carried
himself, David ordered that Uriah be placed at the front of the worst fighting,
and when the enemy armies advanced, Joab’s men were to retreat, leaving Uriah
exposed and left for dead, a sitting duck. All because David saw Bathsheba and
she was beautiful. All because David wanted what wasn’t his. All because David
used his power and influence, over Bathsheba, over Uriah, over Joab and his
armies, to cover up his adultery, lies, and abuse of power.
If were this a contemporary story it would fit in perfectly
with the #metoo movement and the real
life stories of sexual harassment and abuse. Sometimes, to make the story less
appalling and, it must be said, to denigrate women Bathsheba has been portrayed
as a vixen who lured David in—the 1950s blockbuster David and Bathsheba starring Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward is one
example. Another, more recent, is a series of books by an Evangelical Christian
author named Liz Curtis Higgs titled Bad
Girls of the Bible. Bathsheba is not in the original, but she appears in
the sequel Really Bad Girls of the Bible.
In the author’s defense, she does note that there is debate about Bathsheba’s
willingness or interest in submitting into David’s desires. But then she runs
with the idea that Bathsheba never really said no and that somehow she was
complicit.
And it’s
true. We don’t read that she ever said no. But would it have mattered if she
had? The power differential was about as wide as it could be—a woman whose
husband was off at war on the one hand, and the king on the other. It is a
story of sexual harassment and abuse, possibly rape, definitely abuse of power,
and sin in the most explicit way possible—leading to adultery and even murder—all
in the person of David, handsome, ruddy, and with beautiful eyes, whom God had
anointed. It’s quite the fall from grace.
So
what does this ancient story say to us today, beyond it being a juicy biblical
soap opera? Well first, I think, it’s a reminder that it’s not only today’s
politicians and celebrities who take advantage of women and then try to cover
up their actions—leading to lost jobs, trials, special council investigations
and even presidential impeachments. It’s been happening for thousands of years.
This doesn’t make it okay, but points to the long struggle for human liberation
and flourishing. We all have work to do, to ensure that abuse and victimization
are eradicated.
Related,
is the reminder that even the greatest of heroes are fallible, sometimes
spectacularly so. And often access to power leads to ever greater
transgressions. I think we can all imagine people we have thought of as heroes,
only to learn later that they have feet of clay. The story of David and
Bathsheba is a reminder that shouldn’t place our trust in them. We should place
our trust in God. In fact, God warned the people that kings were a bad idea. Later
in the biblical text we will learn how David was punished by God for his
callous, self-centered actions. In fact, this event with Bathsheba and Uriah will
mark and follow him all his days.
Third,
I think this biblical story reminds us that we need to listen to the real-life
stories and experiences of women and girls, in particular. As the biblical text
is written, Bathsheba has no agency. The story is not told from her
perspective. This doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t imagine what she was
thinking and feeling. In that way, she’s like women throughout history—too
often subjected to the whims and desires of powerful men, or just ordinary men.
Real people, with real hopes and dreams, real fears, real emotions, bodies,
hearts and minds.
For
the sake of our full, shared humanity, we need to hear the voices and know the
experiences of women who have faced harassment, abuse, and discrimination.
Hopefully, the #metoo movement of
today will have a long-lasting effect on truly transforming hearts and minds.
That so many have felt empowered to come forward and share their experiences of
abuse is a sign, I hope, that a new day is dawning—one that Bathsheba could
probably never have dreamed possible so long ago.
Coincidentally,
today, July 29, marks the 44th anniversary of the first ordinations
of women to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. Like the women speaking up
today about their experiences of harassment, abuse, and discrimination, the first
women ordained to the priesthood had to fight to be heard. They had to break
the rules in order to break open the church. Those ordinations were
controversial because the church had not approved ordaining women. In fact, it
had been voted down twice—although, there was no church law explicitly forbidding
either.
Deciding
they had waited long enough, the women organized and convinced three retired
bishops that time was right. And so, in the Church of the Advocate in
Philadelphia, 11 women were ordained to the priesthood. 2,000 people were in
the congregation. The Senior Warden of the parish was none other than Barbara
Harris, who served as crucifer, carrying the cross in procession. She, of
course, later was ordained herself and eventually elected bishop here in
Massachusetts.
The
preacher that day was Dr. Charles Willie of Harvard (and husband of Mary Sue
Willie who served as organist and director of music here at Emmanuel for over a
decade). In his sermon Dr. Willie said, “it is a Christian duty to disobey
unjust laws… It was an unjust law of the state that demeaned the personhood of
blacks by requiring them to move to the back of the bus, and it is an unjust
law of the church which demeans women by denying them the opportunity to be
professional priests.” The ordination, he said, must be celebrated “not as an
event of arrogant disobedience but as a moment of tender loving defiance.”
Following the ordinations, the House of Bishops held a crisis meeting and
declared them so irregular as to be invalid. But a year later, four more women
were ordained in Washington, DC. And by
1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church changed the canons to
explicitly authorize the ordination of women. Doubtless it would have taken
years longer had it not been for the act of defiance in 1974.
I
would note that three of those women ordained in Philadelphia were among my
seminary professors at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge: Suzanne Hiatt,
Carter Heyward, and Alison Cheek. So their story and ministry is part of my
story and ministry, too. And I draw strength and courage from them.
Bathsheba
and Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha of Bethany, the Syrophoenician Woman, the
Hemorrhaging Woman, Mary the Mother of Jesus, the Philadelphia 11 priests, all
call us to listen, to act, to tear down structures and behaviors that diminish
and inhibit human flourishing. Now is the time, so that no more women or girls
are forced to say, with Bathsheba, “me too”.
It
seems appropriate on this day, in particular, to conclude with the prayer
dedicated to the first ordinations of women to the priesthood in the Episcopal
Church. You’ll notice that it could easily apply to any who speak up and speak
out, bring God’s good news to life.
Let
us pray:
O God, you poured your Spirit from on high
to bless and summon these women, who heard the strength of your call: Equip,
guide, and inspire us with wisdom, boldness, and faith to trust you in all
circumstances, hear you preach new life to your Church, and stretch out our
hands to serve you, as you created us and redeemed us in the name of Jesus
Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God everlasting.
Amen.
© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell, PhD
