“Prophetic Justice”based on 2 Samuel 12:1-9

March 4, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

It can seem like the word “scandal” and the phrase “abuse of power” were created to describe this period of history, but the Bible begs to differ. King David had more than his fair share of scandals and abuses of power.

At this point in the story, King David had been crowned king, and had the accouterments of power: he’d married the previous king’s daughter, he’d moved into the palace, he had a large harem and many children. The Bible says that all these were God’s gifts to him, a statement that I take core issue with, but am going to let lie for now.

Presumably the palace was higher than the rest of the buildings around it, in any case we’re told that David was out walking on the roof deck and had the vantage point to see Bathsheba bathing. What he saw, he wanted. Worse yet, he had the power to get what he wanted. He sent his servants to find out who she was. They told him. They told him not only who she was, and whose daughter she was, but also who she was married to. Knowing this, he sent other servants to fetch her.

And then he raped her.

The Bible only says that he “lay” with her, but she didn’t have the power to decline, and lacking the power to decline means that there is no possible way for there to be consent. We don’t know if it was violent or not, but it was rape. Bathsheba was impregnated by the rape, and let David know.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t get any better at this point. David didn’t want to take responsibility for his actions, so he started working on a cover up. Bathsheba’s husband was serving in David’s military, so David sent word to the general to send him home, under the cover of asking for a report from the front lines. It is also useful to know that at this time, kings tended to function as their own generals, and David staying home safe from the fighting was perceived by many as an inherent abuse of power.

David hoped that while home for the night, Bathsheba and her husband Uriah’s marital relations would cover his rape. It turned out that Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, was a man of high integrity though. He felt that it was unfair to the fighting army for him to have the comforts of home while they were on the front lines, and so he slept with David’s guards at the palace. Then David thought the man’s integrity would break with just a bit more pressure, so he got Uriah drunk. However, it still didn’t work. Uriah slept among the guards. So David wrote a letter to his general and sent it back to the front lines in the hands of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah.

The letter instructed the general to put Uriah in the front line of fighting and then pull back all the rest of the troops, to assure Uriah’s death. His general followed orders, Uriah died, Bathsheba mourned, and then David had her moved into the palace and married her himself, adding her to his royal harem.

This, apparently, displeased God, the Bible tells us. (2 Samuel 11:27b) Nathan comes to speak God’s truth to David’s power. As we heard today, Nathan tells David a story about a rich man with a large herds and flocks and a poor man who had only one lamb and treated it like family. The rich man wanted to look hospitable and good, but didn’t want to actually kill any of his animals, so he stole the other man’s lamb and fed it to his guest.

Like any of us, David was immediately able to see the injustice and wanted to do something to fix it! He thought the rich man had no compassion, he thought the man should have to repay what he’d done 4 times over. In fact he thought the man deserved to die over it (although I’m told what he said didn’t constitute an official judgment condemning the man to die, this was merely passion.) Nathan’s story worked. It not only raised the issues of abuse of power and basic injustice, it found a way to get at the most basic problem: David’s actions valued David more than other people, they indicated that David thought he mattered MORE. God doesn’t work like that.

In the New Interpreter’s Bible, Bruce Birch, comments on this passage saying, “Power is always tempted to live in the illusion that it is autonomous and self-sufficient. Powerful people in powerful positions often imagine that they can define reality in their own terms.”¹ However, “In the eyes of God, the powerless are as valued as the powerful, and the exploitation of the powerless ones is evil.”² That is, God’s justice doesn’t have favorites, but human action often does.

I don’t know what was going on in David’s mind when he took those actions. Did he think he was God’s favorite who could do no wrong? Was he just high on power? Did he simply WANT and act on that desire without thought of consequences, and then want to avoid consequences?

Although I am generally not a fan of David’s, in this story I think he acts as an extreme version of all of us. He isn’t the only human to have desire for someone or something out of bounds. He isn’t the only one to break rules (or laws) to get what he wants. And he certainly isn’t the only one to make things worse with the cover-up. It does turn out that when Nathan is done speaking his accusations, David actually acknowledges what he’s done and expresses repentance! That is worthy of notice. Most scandals and abuses of power aren’t acknowledged. Most of the time people double down on their “rightness” no matter how much harm they’ve done. In terms of acknowledging what he’d done and not repeating the same mistake, David IS an example of what humans can be.

It seems like David actually did know that what he was doing was wrong, even though that didn’t stop him. Now, in those days what he was doing that was wrong was taking another man’s property by sleeping with that man’s wife, and then the murder. Today we add rape to the list of acts of evil he perpetuated. I suspect he knew that was wrong too.

In addition to my curiosity about David’s motivations, I’m rather curious about Nathan’s. Why did he bring this up to the king? I don’t tend to think that God’s connection to humans was actually that different in those days than today, so I think it is likely that “the Lord sending Nathan to David” is much more likely to be Nathan’s deep sense that something was wrong and that God wanted his help in naming it. He may well have known that this had to be brought into the light, but it was still a frightening thing to do. Other prophets had been killed by kings, or threatened by them. David was already a murderer when someone got in his way.

Yet clearly Nathan’s sense that this had to be spoken was MORE powerful than his concern for his own well-being. Why? Why was this worth it for him? Was Uriah one of his friends? Was David one of his friends? Was God just a really good nag? Did this seem to matter? Did he want to prevent it happening again and again? Did he think David needed help finding the right ways to use power? Was he worried the whole country would fall apart if leadership like that continued?

Furthermore, of all of the issues of injustice that were present in that day, why was this one the one he spent his time on? This I might have an answer to! Human societies, at least ones with successful agriculture, naturally become domination systems. Some people end up with more power and they do what they can to keep it.

God’s vision for the Israelites was a society without a domination system. It was carefully designed to prevent generation poverty or cycles of debt; to welcome the stranger and care for the vulnerable; to offer rest to all, no matter their status; and to prevent the creation of social classes or nobility. In fact, in the original system the Levites were the teachers who taught God’s vision and tried to motivate people to keep it, but they were prevented by it from owning any land. Thus they couldn’t adapt it to their own benefit!

I think the most significant deviation from this vision occurred at the creation of the kingship. The bible itself expresses DEEP ambivalence about the practice of having kings. It suggests that God didn’t want a kingship for the country, but the people “wanted to be like other nations.” Since the people had been called by God to be a “light on a hill” the desire to be like their neighbors isn’t exactly flattering. For the most part, the Bible is unimpressed with the kings personally as well as in theory. David most certainly included, and in his case it gives us good examples of why!

I suspect that Nathan knew all this. He knew that kings tend to create domination systems, and they tend to justify them with divine “favor.” And he knew that the well-being of the masses in Israel was dependent on limiting the power of the king to dominate. If that’s true then his actions in calling out the king were meant to take care of the people. He might have only been calling out one action, but he was stopping the acceleration of domination.

It also seems worth noting HOW he did it. The use of the parable to bring his point home was brilliant. It raised David’s yearning for a just world, and that was necessary to bring David around to seeing his own acts of injustice and evil. This may be a very good strategy to keep in our own toolboxes for the difficult conversations God nudges us to.

Time and time again in the Bible, prophets have to tell those in power that their actions are against God’s will and are doing harm to God’s people. The role of the prophet is HARD, and dangerous. It was dangerous when Jesus did it too. And now, the role of the prophet is now shared within the Body of Christ. Jesus’s lifework was multifaceted, there is much to do as the living Body of Christ today. One piece of our shared work is to name injustices to those in power, to try to limit the destructive power of domination systems. For each of us individually, this is part of our work but the portion is different. At some times we have to speak to friends or family members. At others we have to speak to institutions or their leaders. All of it is difficult, but we are responsible for holding God’s vision of a just society in the midst of the many illusions about power and its right to dominate others. Our God is a God of the powerless AND the powerful. Our work is to reflect God’s: by seeking to eliminate the exploitation of the powerless. May God be with us that we might be as creative and successful as Nathan. Amen

1Bruce C. Birch, Commentary on 2^nd Samuel, New Interpreter’s Study Bible Vol 2 (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1998), p. 1294.

2Birch, 1294.

–Rev. Sara E. Baron

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First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 4, 2018

Sermons

“In the Midst of the Mess” based on 1 Kings…

August 6, 2017February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

By the time we get to 1 Kings, many of us are lost in the storyline of the Hebrew Bible. It has been an intense soap opera for quite a while, and the intricacies are often convoluted and subtle. This leaves me with the task of setting the stage for the story we just read, a task I’m not entirely sure I’m up to. Nevertheless, I’ll give it a try 😉

You remember the story of Moses, right? Well Moses led the people the the border of the Promised Land before he died. Then Joshua led the people into the land. What followed was about 350 years of various leaders emerging as needed, which was when the tribes were under threat. That 350 year period is described in the book of Judges, and archaeologists tell us that is the period when the people occupying ancient Israel were most consistently living out the rules of the Torah. All the homes seem to be about the same size, meaning that wealth was neither being accumulated nor lost. That’s a significant part of the goal of the laws of the Torah.

Then, there came King Saul. The Bible says that the people wanted a King, but God didn’t want the people to have a King. The prophets kept telling the people that God is their Ruler, but the people wanted a human one anyway. You may be shocked, but I don’t quite believe that one. I think it is much more likely that Saul wanted to be King, and once he was King he made sure that the story being told was that he was King because everyone wanted him to be. I do, however, believe that the prophets thought this was a terrible plan!

Then, somehow, David becomes King. I say “somehow” because the Bible tells several versions of this and they don’t make much sense individually or together. Basically, David led a coup against Saul with military leadership from Judea supported by external mercenaries soldiers. The Bible claims Saul was crazy. It is very difficult to tell if that is propaganda from David. (Then again, historians aren’t sure either of them ever existed, which could potentially resolve this issue for us. However, we’re going with the story as its told, even with ALL of its complications.)

OK. So David is King, which happens to mean he has a whole bunch of wives. Some of the wives predate his kingship. Many of his wives he “inherited” from Saul with the kingship. #sentencesIwishIdidnthavetosay Once David is serving as King in Jerusalem, he acquires more wives. The most famous story of his acquiring a wife is the story of David and Bathsheba. David’s palace was now larger and higher than the homes around his, and thus when Bathsheba was bathing herself on her roof top one day, David saw her and lusted after her. He had her brought to him, raped her, impregnated her, tried to cover for it, and then and had her husband killed on the front lines when the cover didn’t work.

In response, the prophet Nathan brought accusations against him. David turns to God in repentant prayer. David and Bathsheba’s infant son dies, which the Bible tells as if it is God’s punishment (you can tell from my phrasing I don’t believe that either). Bathsheba stays in the palace as David’s wife. She appears to remain his favorite wife according to the stories. Also, she ends up giving birth to 4 more sons, the youngest of which is Solomon. Please note we don’t know if she had daughters because they’re generally not worth talking about as far as the Bible sees it.

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? We are caught up to the start of 1 Kings. Oh shoot! We aren’t. I need to remind you of another messy bit of this story, in order to make sense of this one. King David’s oldest sons were born to his earliest wives, before he was King. The oldest was Amnon. He was the one who raped his half-sister Tamar, who was a full-sister to the third son, Absalom. Absalom killed Amnon in revenge, years later. Absalom then attempted to claim the kingship of Israel in a coup and was killed by one of David’s generals. The 2^nd son is assumed to have died in infancy. The 4^th son was Adonijah, who was thus the oldest surviving son as of this point in the story. The Bible says there were about 20 sons, Solomon wasn’t one of the oldest 10.

According to normal inheritance laws, Adonijah had a far stronger claim to the throne than Solomon did. The Bible often tells stories that ignore normal inheritance laws. According to the beginning of 1 Kings, the parts we skipped, David was very old and impotent. A new young, beautiful wife, was brought to “warm his bed” but that didn’t work. Her name was Abishag. With awareness of David’s condition, Adonijah holds a coup and claims the kingship. He raises support from his father’s old guard, the part of David’s leadership that was Judea-centric and NOT representative of the whole kingdom of Israel. He excludes ONLY his brother Solomon, which I think would imply that he saw only his brother Solomon as a threat to his claim. David’s newer advisors refuse to attend, and seem to decide to thrown in their lots with Solomon.

The story says that Nathan approaches Bathsheba with a plan. Bathsheba accepts it and goes to King David’s bedroom to make her plea. There may be a new, young, wife in town but Bathsheba still has the privilege of entering David’s bedroom at will and being greeted with an offer to give her whatever she wants.

She takes Nathans suggestions and runs with them. She tells David that he promised her Solomon could be king after him (Nathan said she should SUGGEST it in a question), she tells him Adonijah has claimed the kingship and makes sure it sounds particularly insulting to David himself, she tells him who among his servants have supported his son’s coup, she implies that the whole nation of Israel needs his leadership and that Adonijah will only care about the southern part of Judah, and she names for him the threat to her life and Solomon’s if David lets the coup stand.

There is just one little issue with what she says: there is no reason to believe that David had promised the kingship to Solomon. It is never previously mentioned. The possibility of Solomon as a contender only emerges when Adonijah doesn’t invite him to his coup. Most likely, it wasn’t true. David is likely experiencing memory loss by this point, and Bathsheba manipulates him into doing what she wants. She plays the role of king-maker, and she makes sure it is HER kid who on the throne. Her role has changed a bit since she was first introduced.

Then Nathan backs her up, sort of. He at least backs up the fact that Adonijah has held a coup. He lets her stand on her own in terms of the claim that Solomon would be king. Based on their words, Solomon is named and anointed King.

Then Solomon promises his brother Adonijah that he can live as long as he keeps supporting Solomon’s kingship. David dies, and then comes the next bit of our story. Now, if this part of the Bible is historical, and if all these characters existed, and if things more or less went down the way this story says they went down, I STILL don’t believe this part. Under those circumstances, I think that either Solomon or Bathsheba make it up.

The story SAYS that Adonijah, the eldest living son of David, comes to King Solomon’s mother and asks her to ask her son King Solomon if he can have his father’s youngest wife as his own. Since the King’s harem is seen as part of the King’s rightful possession, getting to marry one of David’s wives would have strengthened Adonijah’s claim to the throne. I don’t quite believe he would have been stupid enough to ask for that, especially when his continued life was already tenuous. However, the story says he asked, and says that Bathsheba goes right to the throne room. Her son bows to her has a THRONE brought out to her, indicative of his affection for his mother (or perhaps of her power in his kingship), and she publicly tells him about this request. In response, Solomon orders the death of Adonijah. It seems a bit too easy, especially in the first days after David dies, and if the story stands as written, I only wonder if Solomon was in on Bathsheba’s plan or not.

All in all, this leaves us with a whole bunch of questions. The most difficult question is one that was posed in Bible Study: is Bathsheba a subversive woman? In terms of saying, “Yes! Of course she is!” we have the following evidence: she made a king, she eliminated his rivals, and she got what she wanted out of the leadership of the country. On the other side, the side that says, “Nope, not a subversive women” we have the following arguments: manipulating people for power and influence is one of the most normal of all human activities, and even more normal when it comes to royal lineage. That argument says that no matter how you worked it, doing the work to get your son on the throne is playing with power, not subverting it.

For me, both of those perspectives hold a lot of water. I kept her story in this sermon series because I love that she has such a complicated life story and significant character development, particularly from being a passive object of lust into being the most powerful agent of her own life and one of the most powerful agents in the country. However, she still mostly exists within those terrible constraints of oppressive power. She just moves from being oppressed to being the oppressor, she doesn’t change the way the game itself is played.

The other big question is: how can the kingship be such a complete and utter mess????? This is the time of history that the rest of the Bible looked to as the golden age. There are only three kings of the United Kingdom (of Israel and Judea) and they are: Saul, David, and Solomon. And all three, and their families, are total messes. They make modern soap operas look boring. They make truly broken modern families look picture perfect. If that was the golden age, heaven help the rest of the ages!

Actually, while the drama factor is higher in the Jerusalem palace, all of the characters of the Hebrew Bible are ridiculous messes. Some are richer than others, some are smarter than others, but they’re all messes. They don’t even look impressive as compared to average humans. (And I think most humans are struggling rather mightily.) And yet, the Bible contends, God CHOOSES to work with and through those messy people. God doesn’t just give up on them because they are terrible parents, or greedy rulers, or manipulative queens, nor manipulated kings. God doesn’t even give up on the ones who are murders (David and Moses). Yeah, think about that for a bit. And who are the most famous murders in the Hebrew Bible? David and Moses. Who are the most celebrated leaders of the Hebrew Bible? David. And. Moses.

God doesn’t give up on us. Ever.

And the Hebrew Bible makes it plain to see that we can’t be so messy that God ever will give up on us. Even better, God keeps working with us to take our messes and make them into something beautiful. Solomon was known for his wisdom. David was known for his Psalms of Praise. Bathsheba found a way to be an agent of her own life (and help a very wise man take the throne). God isn’t scared off by messes, God can work with whatever we are, and bring wonder and beauty out of it all. Thanks be to God for that. Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

August 6, 2017