Sermons

Minister: Rev. Margaret A. Beckman | READING
Thoughts about privilege

Peggy McIntosh~ I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege.

Allan G. Johnson (via wretchedoftheearth)~ With just enough exceptions to prove the rule, men have taken almost no responsibility for patriarchy. Some men confuse taking responsibility with being sensitive to women, offering emotional support, or tolerating women’s anger and frustration. Men can be sensitive, however, without doing anything to challenge or undermine male privilege or to define gender issues as men’s issues, especially to other men. …

What such men often don’t do is the work of taking the initiative to decide what needs to be said, asked, listened to, discussed, fought over, attended to, and cared for in order to overcome the status quo’s foot-dragging inertia. When women get tired or confused or distracted by the everyday details of their lives, the responsibility these men take often lies dormant until the next time a woman feels compelled to risk making trouble by raising a “women’s issue.” And when women express anger at always having to carry the burden of figuring out patriarchy and doing something about it, these sensitive and supportive men may react as if they’re being unfairly criticized or even attacked, their exceptional and seemingly generous efforts unappreciated, their supposed immunity from reproach unfairly snatched away.

Allan G. Johnson (via wretchedoftheearth)
Chris Boeskool from his blogpost ‘When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression’

I had just read this amazing quote (a quote for which I tried very hard to find an attribution, but kept coming up “Unknown):
“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
And things started making a little more sense to me. All this anger we see from people
screaming “All Lives Matter” in response to black protesters at rallies. All this anger we see from people insisting that their “religious freedom” is being infringed because a gay couple wants to get married. All these people angry about immigrants, angry about Muslims, angry about “Happy Holidays,” angry about not being able to say bigoted things without being called a bigot…

They all basically boil down to people who have grown accustomed to walking straight at other folks, and expecting them to move. So when “those people” in their path don’t move — when those people start wondering, “Why am I always moving out of this guy’s way?”; when those people start asking themselves, “What if I didn’t move? What if I just kept walking too?”; when those people start believing that they have every bit as much right to that aisle as anyone else — it can seem like their rights are being taken away.
Equality can feel like oppression. But it’s not. What you’re feeling is just the discomfort of losing a little bit of your privilege — the same discomfort that an only child feels when she goes to preschool and discovers that there are other kids who want to play with the same toys as she does.

Chris blogs at theboeskool.com about Jesus, politics and bathroom. You find him on Twitter and Facebook. This post originally appeared on TheBoeskool.
Follow Chris Boeskool on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheBoeskool

READING Hebrew Scripture 2 Samuel 12 (New Revised Standard Version)
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!”

SERMON
The story of David, Bathsheba and Nathan.
2 Samuel 11 and 12 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) with commentary by Margaret Beckman

David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba

David rapes Bathsheba

11 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.

Why David remained in Jerusalem we do not know. Perhaps it was bone spurs.

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. David was filled with lust and desired to have this woman 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Now, Eliam was a servant in David’s court and Uriah was an officer in David’s army – so David held complete power over Bathsheba’s father and husband. 4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. She was forced to come to David when he sent for her – even trying to refuse the King would have meant probable death for her and her father and her husband. When she was brought to him, David raped her. Then he sent her away. (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.”

Bathsheba was well and truly stuck. Pregnant by a powerful man, the King, who is not her husband. In those days, if it became known that she had become pregnant while her husband was away at battle, she would have been murdered – what some cultures still name as an honor killing. Killing the woman in order to save or preserve the honor of a man. If she publicly accused the King, surely all her family would die. She could not stay in the house of her husband to whom she would bring complete dishonor. Who could she tell? No one would believe that the king would have taken her without her consent and no one would accuse the King of sexual assault and rape – no one.

With nothing more to lose, for her life was already over, she risked telling the King himself – her rapist, her oppressor and perhaps her protector.

King David did not kill her, for he desired her and wanted to have her as his own – regardless of what she might want.

Problem. She has a husband and David, even though King, could not simply steal the wife of one of his military officers.

So, he crafted an elaborate and treacherous scheme to bring Uriah home from the battlefield for R&R, for a night or maybe two at home – with his wife. Then, the child would be seen as Uriah’s child and David would be in the clear.

Yet, it didn’t work out for David. Part of the military honor code was that soldiers did not enjoy the company of their wives while others were at the battlefield. They all came home to the comfort of their wives, or none of them did. Despite David’s dishonesty and treachery, Uriah remained loyal to the officer’s code of honor. David’s underhanded and dishonest plan was foiled.

6 So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths;[a] and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.” 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, 13 David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

Uriah returned to the battlefield. David needed another solution. He could not admit to having sexually assaulted, raped and impregnated the wife of one of his officers. Rather than have his own honor diminished, David plotted to have Uriah killed in battle. And it worked.

David Has Uriah Killed

14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.” 16 As Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant warriors. 17 The men of the city came out and fought with Joab; and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite was killed as well. 18 Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting; 19 and he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling the king all the news about the fighting, 20 then, if the king’s anger rises, and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? 21 Who killed Abimelech son of Jerubbaal?[b] Did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.’”

22 So the messenger went, and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. 23 The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us, and came out against us in the field; but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. 24 Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall; some of the king’s servants are dead; and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” 25 David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another; press your attack on the city, and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”

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.

Two verses. That is all we get about Bathsheba when she learns that her husband is dead and she is still pregnant and without a husband or a protector or any means to tell her story about what happened to her. She was distraught and grief-stricken and powerless.

Immediately after the mandatory period of grieving, David, again, sent for her. She has no other choice except death by suicide or honor killing. She chooses to become the wife of her rapist and bear his children. Even her name is lost. The scripture refers to her as Uriah’s wife.

Her identity is completely gone; she is invisible; her voice is silenced.

There is no one to tell. No one to advocate for her. No one to remember her life when it did not belong to King David.

Nathan Condemns David
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. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. 11 Thus says the LORD: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. 12 For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.” 13 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan said to David, “Now the LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD,[a] the child that is born to you shall die.” 15 Then Nathan went to his house.

Because of David’s sin against Uriah (not because he raped Bathsheba), the court prophet, Nathan, condemns David and the punishment is the death of his son conceived in rape. This child is also the child of Bathsheba and she suffers, again, for David’s sin. David murdered her husband and now her son will die for David’s sin. Who can she tell?

Who would believe her? Who would care? The honor of the King and protecting him from the penalty for rape is far more important than she is.

Yes. Nathan confronts David. And David repents. And the Nation of Israel is saved.

But still, no one cares about Bathsheba. She is forgotten. She is invisible. Her second son of David’s is Solomon – King of Israel. But she is still unnamed and unheard and invisible.

Bathsheba’s Child Dies

The LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became very ill. 16 David therefore pleaded with God for the child; David fasted, and went in and lay all night on the ground. 17 The elders of his house stood beside him, urging him to rise from the ground; but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. 18 On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead; for they said, “While the child was still alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us; how then can we tell him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm.” 19 But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, he perceived that the child was dead; and David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.”

20 Then David rose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes. He went into the house of the LORD, and worshiped; he then went to his own house; and when he asked, they set food before him and he ate. 21 Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while it was alive; but when the child died, you rose and ate food.” 22 He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me, and the child may live.’ 23 But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Solomon Is Born

24 Then David consoled his wife Bathsheba, and went to her, and lay with her; and she bore a son, and he named him Solomon. The LORD loved him, 25 and sent a message by the prophet Nathan; so he named him Jedidiah,[b] because of the LORD.

The Ammonites Crushed

26 Now Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites, and took the royal city. 27 Joab sent messengers to David, and said, “I have fought against Rabbah; moreover, I have taken the water city. 28 Now, then, gather the rest of the people together, and encamp against the city, and take it; or

I myself will take the city, and it will be called by my name.” 29 So David gathered all the people together and went to Rabbah, and fought against it and took it. 30 He took the crown of Milcom[c] from his head; the weight of it was a talent of gold, and in it was a precious stone; and it was placed on David’s head. He also brought forth the spoil of the city, a very great amount. 31 He brought out the people who were in it, and set them to work with saws and iron picks and iron axes, or sent them to the brickworks. Thus he did to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

Footnotes:
a. 2 Samuel 11:11 Or at Succoth
b. 2 Samuel 11:21 Gk Syr Judg 7.1: Heb Jerubbesheth
2 Samuel 12 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
2 Samuel 12:14 Ancient scribal tradition: Compare 1 Sam 25.22 note: Heb scorned the enemies of the LORD

2 Samuel 12:25 That is Beloved of the LORD

2 Samuel 12:30 Gk See 1 Kings 11.5, 33: Heb their kings

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

We may be uncomfortable with the weight of unearned and sometimes unconscious privilege. That is alright. We probably ought to be uncomfortable – or as Martin Luther King, Jr. might say, we ought to be maladjusted.
It’s been a very long time that the experiences and the voices of whole groups of people have been marginalized, dismissed, minimized, and rendered invisible. People are hurt. People are traumatized. People’s lives are forever diminished or truncated in some important way. People are angry. All of these responses are legitimate and need to be validated.
Healing comes after recognition.
There is a deep grief that comes with marginalization and dismissal that forms layers of suffering on top of the initial assault or oppression.
There is a need to live that grief and pain before anyone can honestly “move on” as so many have tried to do in their lives – – with various levels of success.

Abiding Anger (Jonipher Kwong)

I need a fishbowl where I can bracket hope for a while
I need a container to let my grief fill the cup before I pour it out I need to feel the pain, the sorrow, the crushing of my soul
From racism, sexism, heterosexism, capitalism
I need to be in touch with raw anger
I need to weep until my eyes become bloated
I need to stay awake at night, sleepless from the rage inside me Don’t get me to hope just yet
Let me abide for a while with my Holy Lamentationi

If I suffer,
Let me abide with my lamentation in Love.

If I cause or allow suffering on account of my privilege and power, Let me see the truth and let me be corrected in Love.

When confronted with the damage done to others because of our knowing or unknowing wielding of privilege, we must respond. How we respond is a choice – an important choice. It may be a matter of growing awareness, a matter of respect for our accuser, a matter of repentance, a matter of recognizing and accepting accountability, a matter of living into our faith.

What can we do?

We can be open to the experiences of others without judgement
We can work at developing a better sense of awareness of the ways in which unequal privilege damages all of us
We can listen
We can believe
We can validate and support
We can be curious, open minded and open hearted about the historical and contemporary experiences of people not like us
We can take responsibility
We can work as hard and as long as it takes to change our world
We can Love

I wonder. Who is our Nathan? Who will step forward and call out the privileged rich, the privileged powerful, the privileged men in our day who act ways not that different from King David. The details and the settlings are contemporary, but the effect on women is the same – three thousand years is a very long time to wait and be still.

Today. Now. We say, “Time’s Up.”

The lynching of black people did not stop when black people cried out. It stopped when enough white people cried out.

The killing of black men will not stop when black men take a knee. It will stop when enough white people take a knee.

The abuse of children will not stop when children cry out.
The abuse of children will stop when enough grown-ups cry out.

The abuse of the poor will not stop when the poor demand justice.
The abuse of the poor will stop when enough wealthy people demand justice.

The sexual assault and rape of women, and some men and too many children, will not stop when women demand change.
The sexual assault and rape of women, and some men and too many children, will stop when enough men demand change.

O Nathan, our vulnerable people suffer and our powerful and privileged people are blind or cruel. Where are you now? Who will speak truth to power?
Maybe it will be me. Maybe it will be you. Surely it will need to be us.

Let us pray……

I Pray This Day for the Courage to Be … (Maureen Killoran) The courage to be humble in the face
of inequity and pain,
to know that the power has been given me

to make a difference, although not to end all suffering or to save all the whales that populate our days.

I pray for the courage of endurance,
to keep acting in the midst of despair,
to keep trying in the aftermath of failure, to keep hoping in the emptiness
that follows loss or change.

May courage give me patience
and may I ever know Love’s healing presence at the heart and center of my days.ii

Blessed Be. I Love You. Amen.

 

i “Abiding Anger” by Jonipher Kwong in To Wake, To Rise – Meditations on justice and resilience. William G. Sinkfold, Editor.Boston: Skinner House Books, 2017. Page 39.
iiii “I Pray for the Courage to Be…” by Maureen Killoran in To Wake, To Rise – Meditations on justice and resilience. William G. Sinkfold, Editor.Boston: Skinner House Books, 2017. Page 30.