Proper 12 (B) + The faithfulness of Bathsheba + 7.26.15

Detail of Face,
Bathsheba with King David's letter,
Rembrandt van Rijn
(www.nationalgallery.org.uk)

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(2 Samuel 11:1-15, Ps. 14, Ephesians 3:14-21, John 6:1-21)

Is there anyone who feels more helpless than Bathsheba in today’s passage? Your husband is away in battle, you are isolated due to being purified because of your period, and the king happens to decide that you are the one who will suit his whims? I saw a painting of Bathsheba by Rembrandt, showing her holding a note from the king, perhaps his summons. And her eyes are downcast, and though she is beautiful, she also looks so sad. As far as we know, she was a faithful wife to Uriah. But David is the king, and he has decided that he desires her, and he is willing to break many rules to make that happen. First, he is willing to break several commandments—adultery, murder, coveting another person’s wife, perhaps false witness? He is also breaking two other social and religious codes—the purity code—not followed now in the same way but nonetheless important in that time, and the soldier’s code. This, we are told, is the time when kings go to war with their troops. Why is David the Goliath-slayer home?
We are reminded of today’s collect, or prayer of the day: it addresses a God “without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy.” Because David is focused on his own desires and not God’s will, he is eschewing every law that gets in his way.

And Bathsheba is the one who suffers. Taken from her husband, made a lover and then a wife, one commentator points out that her only words in this whole passage are “I am pregnant.”[1] And yet, such potent words. She is pregnant, with a child who will sadly die, an event that David sees as punishment for his sins. But Bathsheba is also pregnant with faithfulness. She is faithful to God even as she endures loss after loss—of husband and child—and she waits—she lets God be God and waits for him to work—and eventually will come Solomon. You may remember Solomon, the king whose name means peace. He is famous for being the wisest monarch in Israel’s history, and the ruler during a long time of peace. And at his side was his mother, Bathsheba.

The psalmist—David perhaps? Says here in Psalm 14: “The LORD looks down from heaven upon us all, to see if there is any who is wise, if there is one who seeks after God (vs. 2).” And looking at David’s actions, one would tend to agree with his decision that all are faithless. But then we turn our eyes to Bathsheba. And the psalmist is proved wrong. Faithfulness abounds. She is pregnant with faithfulness.

I would like to imagine that this is because she trusts in God. In Ephesians we are reminded that through us God can do more than we can ask or imagine, and Jesus shows this tenfold in this sign of feeding the five thousand near the Sea of Tiberias. Just five pieces of barley bread—the bread harvested around Passover season[2]—and two fish feed a multitude. God’s faithfulness in Jesus, blessing breaking and sharing, and the people’s response, a miracle make.

Sister Simone Campbell, the founder of NETWORK, a religious and lay activist group that is famous for the “Nuns on the Bus” movement, talks about this account, as it occurs in the gospel of Matthew. She says:

“Remember the story in Matthew — in the Gospel, and they're out in the countryside, and the Apostles say, ‘Send them back to town, they're going to get grumpy.’ And Jesus says, ‘Feed them yourselves.’ And the Apostles say, ‘we don't have it.’ Well, at the end of Matthew's account, he says, ‘5,000 men were fed to say nothing of the women and children.’ Well, now that made me mad. … So I meditated about that. As you can tell, I have an odd spiritual life. So I thought about it, and I realized they only counted the ones who thought it was a miracle. Because the women had brought food from home. They shared it. … But the guys — I mean, don't you have this — don't you experience this all the time? Guys will show up. There’s food on the table. “Wow, food. What a miracle. Isn’t that great? It was like elves produced it.”[3]

Now you may not agree with what Sister Simone says here, and hopefully I have not offended the men! You may feel that Jesus did multiply in blessing, and that is good too. But I thought that where Sister Simone went with this that was interesting. If we live in quiet faithfulness and let God be God, like Bathsheba and like the women that Sr. Simone imagines sharing their food stores, God can do so much more through us. God can multiply our lives and gifts like loaves and fish, and God can bring us peace.

You see, I think it is interesting here that, between two miracles—the loaves and fish and the walking on water—the people want to take Jesus by force to make him their leader. Do you remember when he was in the desert and Satan offered him the kingdoms of the world? He has already rejected this idea. He knows its danger. We see how absolute power, unchecked by God corrupts in David’s story that we read today. But those who wait on God like Bathsheba find God’s power in their brokenness.
Let us hear Sister Simone Campbell’s poem, “Loaves and Fish:”

“I always joked that the miracle of
loaves and fish was sharing,
The women always knew this.
But in this moment of need and notoriety,
I ache, tremble, almost weep at
folks so hungry, malnourished, faced
with spiritual famine of epic proportions.

My heart aches with their need.
Apostle-like, I whine, what are we
among so many?
The consistent 2,000-year-old ever-new
response is this:
Blessed and broken, you are enough.
I savor the blessed, cower at the broken, and
pray to be enough.”[4]

Amen.

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[1] Rolf Jacobsen, Karoline Lewis and Matt Skinner, “Working Preacher’s Sermon Brainwave Podcast #428” (For July 26, 2015) https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=652.

[2] Obery M. Hendricks, Jr, “Footnotes to John,” New Oxnard Annotated Bible (3^rd ed), 157 New Testament.

[3] Krista Tippett, “Transcript for Simone Campbell—How to be Spiritually Bold,” OnBeing June 10, 2015, http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/7658.

[4] Ibid.