4 Pentecost C June 12, 2016
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15 + Galatians 2:15-21 + Luke 7: 36- 8:3
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
I offer that prayer at the beginning of many sermons. It’s a quote from a Psalm, but more than that, it is a deep prayer that the words I speak and the words you hear and receive would, indeed, be acceptable before God. Last week I mentioned that the beauty and the difficulty of assigned Scripture readings is that we cannot avoid the hard texts. We must consider stories in Scripture that we might rather avoid, at least for a time. To be honest, I would rather preach about the sheer gift of blessing of being back in this community of faith….where we have come to love and care for one another, where we worship God and sing and sometimes even shout our praise. Where we love our neighbors. And where, indeed, it is safe to sit with hard texts.
So, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.
Our reading from 2 Samuel today is the tragic ending to an equally tragic story. To recap the story: King David is at home in the king’s castle, because he is the king, a war is going on around him, and he spots a beautiful woman bathing on the roof of her home. The roof is where the water was collected and stored and it was where the people bathed. Liking what he sees, David sends for the woman, and to borrow the cleaned up language of the Bible, he lays with her. We would call it something else today, this non-consensual act. The woman is Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, a general in David’s army. Bathsheba speaks only once in the entire story when she says that she is pregnant. David then sends Uriah to the front lines of battle, where Uriah is predictably killed and now David can feel assuaged of his guilt.
Although David feels exonerated, God sends a prophet, Nathan, to point out to David that the taking of Uriah’s wife and having Uriah killed in battle was cause for God’s anger.
An ancient story….of power and privilege….of rape….of silenced voices….of truth tellers.
I tried every way I knew to get out of preaching on this text. To move away from such a difficult story on my second Sunday back from sabbatical….c’mon God I don’t want to talk about this. None of us do.
But the reality and the truth is that it is both an ancient story and a current story. We can begin our consideration this morning with David and his victim and it is but a short move to Brock Turner, the Stanford University swimmer, and his victim and we know that there are thousands and thousands of victims in between.
The story of Brock Turner….his assault and rape of an unconscious woman….is not a new one. With the light sentence from the judge, the absolutely astonishing plea for leniency from his father…the outrage on social media and in the mainstream media began to grow. But it was, perhaps, the words of the victim herself that moved us….as a nation, and moved us as disciples of Jesus and children of God….to pay attention.
As I struggled with this sermon, it occurred to me that I could easily point out the trouble in this text. David’s abuse of power, his assault of Bathsheba, his murder of Uriah. But for the life of me….I could not find grace in this story. God’s action in the story is wound up in the illness and eventual death of the child conceived in this horrific act.
And then I read the question that Jesus asked Simon in the Gospel reading today. Simon had diminished and insulted the woman who had used her costly ointment to anoint the feet of Jesus, her tears to wash them, and her hair to dry them. And in showing Simon the error of his judgment, Jesus asks this question: “Do you see this woman?”
Because Jesus saw her. He did not see her according to reputation or stories or gossip around the town square….Jesus saw her for the love that she literally poured out upon him.
While David may have seen Bathsheba on the rooftop, bathing, he did not really see her. He did not see that she was a wartime wife to Uriah, likely to be worried about his safety and left behind while he was at battle. He did not see that she was a woman who perhaps dreamed of the children they would have together when the war was over. David did not see the fears that kept her awake in the dark watches of night or the joys that caused her face to light up. David simply saw something that he wanted and then he took it.
Turning toward the woman, Jesus said to Simon “Do you see this woman?”
It is a question that we as a Church must ask ourselves….”Do you see this person? This woman? This man? This child of God?” We must ask it every day of each person…..of the street person who confronts us with shouting or asking for money…do you see this child of God? To the spouse or partner with whom we are annoyed for one small thing or another…do you see this child of God? To the son or daughter who did finish their homework, but forgot to turn it in….do you see this child of God? To the person whose political views differ from ours…..do you see this child of God?
And then, the Church must never be silent about sexual assault. We must never join the culture that blames victims and teaches girls how to avoid being raped rather than teaching boys not to rape. We must teach our children to look at one another and ask: “Do you see this child of God?” Really, truly see them?
“The bible is not silent in the face of sexual assault. The bible forces us to read the story of David and Bathsheba and talk openly about it. The bible holds up this story as a mirror, reminding us of the ways we harm victims by blaming them or ignoring them; reminding us of the ways we harm men and boys by excusing their behavior; inviting us to tell painful truths and call our culture to account.” [1]
The victim of the Stanford swimmer’s attack wrote a long, difficult letter that she stood and read to her assailant at his sentencing. If he did not see her on that terrible January night, he could hardly avoid seeing her as she stood before him. But at the end of her remarks she said this:
And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought every day for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. As the author Anne Lamott once wrote, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” Although I can’t save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you.
Vice President Joe Biden responded to the victim with an eloquent open letter of his own. In it he told her: I do not know your name — but I see your unconquerable spirit. I see the limitless potential of an incredibly talented young woman — full of possibility. I see the shoulders on which our dreams for the future rest. I see you.
Then turning toward the woman, Jesus said to Simon “Do you see this woman?”
Sisters and brothers….the lessons we have before us in hard stories from Scripture are ignored at our own peril and at the peril of our daughters and sisters and mothers….and our sons and brothers and fathers. May we tell the stories of women like Bathsheba and Tamar and Rahab and Jezebel and really see them, without minimizing them or pushing them to the margins. May we as Christian communities make space for victims of assault to be heard and honored, to weep with them and assure them that they are, indeed, beautiful, valued, respected, powerful, and cherished in the eyes of God. And may we work for justice and imagine a system that can help transform the lives of those who have committed a crime. [2]
And finally, brothers and sisters, know that whatever you have been through or are going through, Jesus sees you. His eyes are on you as surely as they are on the sparrow. Imagine it and believe it….that Jesus turns toward you, toward every person who has ever been a victim, toward every broken body and broken heart and says “Do you see this child of God? I died for them.”
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. And let the church say…Amen.
[1] Sachse, Katy McCallum. www.hslckirkland.org
[2] Some language also attributed to Katy McCallum Sachse. Edits are my own.