Old Testament Reading: 2 Samuel 11:1-15
For Sunday, July 29, 2012: Year B—Ordinary 17
The David and Bathsheba debacle is a terrible story.
It’s a tragedy of epic proportions. And worse, it’s a story everyone thinks they know, which means it’s that much harder to get someone to pay attention to its horror. And even worse than that, most people seem hell-bent on speeding past all the uncomfortable parts (and boy are there plenty) to arrive at the part where Nathan calls David’s bluff and David repents in 2 Samuel 12.
Talk About a House of Cards
But let’s just call a spade a spade, shall we? Let’s actually line up all the spades in a row, while we’re at it: This is a story about power and privilege.
I’d like to say that story has changed, but you and I both can think of a number of contemporary examples that would prove otherwise. It’s a story where one of the main characters, Bathsheba, is left in narrative silence. We have no idea how she feels about any of these matters, because the text is too busy telling us what’s happening to David and Uriah. It begins and ends with violence in war, bookends to the violence of power that lie in the verses between.
Consider for a moment all the people it took to pull off this series of events—messengers and Joab and all the hidden servants, none of whom said a word or tried to stop any of it. That’s some kind of royal flush.
Like Father, Like Sons
And I know, I know, the lectionary reading stops at verse 15, but while we’re shooting straight, let’s also bring the full story into view here. David’s punishment for this transgression is that the child dies. The child? The child pays for David’s exploitive escapades? What kind of insane sense of justice is that?! And still the text hardly mentions Bathsheba’s pain as the mother of the child?!
I’d like to say that David repents and all is well, but that’s just not true. Because in chapter 13, David’s son Amnon rapes David’s daughter Tamar. And in chapter 16 David’s son Absalom pitches a tent on the roof of the king’s palace in clear view of everybody and he takes advantage of all ten of his father’s concubines.
It seems sexual exploitation is a family affair.
Set Down the Deflector Shield
If any of you actually choose to preach on this passage, here’s my sincere hope: you throw out the excuses. You do not say that David paid for his sin by losing a child and not getting to build the Temple. (Consider all the women who paid far more dearly than that.) You do not excuse him because things were different back then. (Consider all the stories in recent history that show it’s not all that different now.)
Let’s be honest. David doesn’t repent because he feels bad about summoning Bathsheba to his bed. He doesn’t repent because he is a “man after God’s own heart.” He repents because he got caught. More specifically, he repents because he swindled and cheated and killed a man, not because he exploited a woman.
The Hardest Question
So here’s my hardest question—would we be outraged at David’s actions toward Bathsheba if she hadn’t gotten pregnant?
