The Old Testament reading for this Sunday, July 25 is a pivotal tale from the King David saga. It is a familiar tale with familiar names: David, Bathsheba, Uriah. It is a stunning account of that favored King who acts in such un-kingly ways. In the time that kings go out to battle, David stays behind in Jerusalem. Prowling about on his rooftop, he is able to see what only kings can see in an Orwellian scene: his subject’s private bathing behavior.
In this case, the subject is treated much like an object. And yet, she is a person with a name: Bathsheba. Her husband, Uriah, is one of the “Thirty”, a band of elite soldiers loyal to the King. She was not parading around for David’s view, as some films and commentators have misogynistically imagined. Rather, she was taking a mikvah, a ritual bath to cleanse herself of impurities.
Bathsheba, fully compliant with the purity laws, is assaulted by a king who is a man “after God’s own heart.” And yet, he is as far from God’s heart in this passage as he has ever been. The contrast between Bathsheba and Uriah on the one hand, and the lurking King on the other could not be more severe. So David, now stripped of the title King in this narrative, takes without asking. He treats Bathsheba as property and there can be no meaningful sense in which she could consent. The power dynamic obviates such notions.
Uriah will not dare enter his own home because the ark of the Covenant is still out in the field. He will not resume relations with his wife, as David cunningly tries to arrange, because to do so would have violated the sense of religious purity during battle apparently so strongly felt in ancient Israel.
All of this is leading up to another pivotal passage where the Prophet Nathan will confront David with the enormity of his sin. We, in turn, quickly flip over to Psalm 51 and imagine those words as David’s confession of sin and beautiful repentance. True enough, and there are lessons aplenty about how sin corrupts in that Psalm, and about how repentance is required.
And yet, the notion I’ve been turning over in my mind this week on the way to the sermon is about all the people and institutions that were required to acquiesce in the formation of this society that led to such abysmal behavior. There were generals and soldiers, messengers and secret police. Court bureaucrats and citizens. Religious leaders and thinkers. Shopkeepers and farmers. Uriah and Nathan, a soldier and a priest, manage to come out as resisters to the system in different ways. They said “no” to power and power’s claims.
But many said yes. What are the ways in which this powerful and enigmatic story continues to write itself onto the contemporary scene of our own lives? Perhaps one way forward is that we might be called to an act of courageous witness in the church, in our vocation, in our family.
When conflict arises, we don’t get an easy out by blaming leaders for their inevitable fall from grace, no matter how egregious and precipitous. By our participation in institutions and shared public life, we help authorize and create a culture. To follow Jesus means that if we are to be faithful, our witness is going to be countercultural and full of grace.
Uriah’s act of defiance; Nathan’s act of prophetic courage; Bathsheba’s suffering at the hands of a rapacious male; Joab’s “just following orders”…all of these characters are more than literary artifacts. They are portals which open us to the possibility of seeing how our own life might be required to change.
I have found when approaching Scripture that the text more often than not demands something of me personally. I am sorting through the text and its demands. Perhaps you might hear something, too.
Rev. Daniel Headrick, Associate Pastor
