Rooted and Grounded in Love (July 28)

Readings, 2 Sam 11:1-15, Ephesians 3:14-21
Image, Girl Sitting Alone in the ‘Sea Grill,’ a Bar and Restaurant (1943/1989) Esther Bubley

In this story, King David rivals Shakespeare’s Richard III for unbridled villainy. And like so many stories of depraved abuses of power, it strikes an ominous note from the beginning. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle… David remained at Jerusalem. This is not unintended irony, something is amiss. Remember, when a youth, David volunteered to face Goliath alone. Now when kings go out to battle, David stays home. Not only is he avoiding responsibility, it hints, narratively, at the potential for trouble. For if all of Israel have been sent out to war, who remains in the city to oppose the whims of the King? The picture the narrator paints is one of King David, a man alone, in a city of women.
 
And David spies one such woman, Bathsheba, benignly attending to the banality of bathing. It is notable that the reason David is able to play the voyeur is because he lingers in the king’s house – raised above the rest – and from this perch he is able to look down. Spying something he likes, and sensing no possible opposition, refusal, or discovery, David sends for Bathsheba and (as the text euphemistically states) lies with her. I stress euphemistically here, because like the heading assigned to this reading in many Bibles (“David commits adultery with Bathsheba”), this language elides the abuse, obfuscates the unequal power dynamic, and seeks to make neat the ugliness of this scene familiar to far too many who have been called into the office or home of a superior and realised that there is no way to say no without risking their safety, security, or livelihood.
 
Tragically for Bathsheba, the violence does not end on this day. For Bathsheba falls pregnant, and suddenly David discovers that his act is perhaps somewhat more discoverable than he believed. Should Uriah return after a season of war, he will discover Bathsheba pregnant and all eyes will fall upon the one man in town with power and opportunity.
 
David devises a plan. He calls Uriah home from the front, urging him, go down to your house and wash your feet. Which, speaking of euphemisms, is a common one for sexual intimacy. However, to David’s shame, Uriah refuses. While David has no problem sleeping in a palace, Uriah will not rest under his roof while his comrades spend their nights in tents. David tries again, this time plying Uriah with wine in the hope that alcohol might shake his commitment to abstinence. Yet even drunk, Uriah has more integrity than the king. With no other cards to play, David betrays Uriah to his death, ordering him to be abandoned on the frontlines, to die far from the bed he refused, the wife he loved, and the city he served. Condemned by his king to die in a moment of confusion wondering why everyone drew back while he walked on. When news of his death reaches Bathsheba she makes lamentations, after which, David brings her once more to his house – making her his wife, and the unborn child his own.
 
Our domestic violence work has exposed us to too many heart wrenching stories not to find here parallels of male entitlement, coercion, and abuse. The Me Too movement has exposed too many stories to not find parallels in a man weaponizing power to gain gratification without paying heed of the consent or discomfort of the object of his desire. It is far too late in the day to try and soften the edges of this story, to euphemistically distract from its monstrosity, to rush to excuse, forgive, or forget. For to follow such a path does little to honour the past, and less to protect the future.
 
It is no accident that David’s actions recollect the warning issued to Israel when they demanded a king. A king, God forewarned, will take your sons to be his soldiers, your daughters to be his perfumers and cooks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king. The people were not put off, demanding a king so that we may be like other nations, and because (ironically enough) a king shall go out before us and fight our battles.  
 
I bring up this warning not to imply anyone in the story deserved their treatment, or that David should receive a pass since this is just what kings do. Israel’s desire to be like other nations represents a failure in their calling to be a people set apart to be a witness to the other nations. Far from longing to be a simulacrum of worldly nations, Israel’s call was to witness to what is possible when a people order their lives as subjects to the God of freedom. In just the same way, when the church longs for kings, we too fail to live up to our calling to be a community created and sustained by grace. When we seek to secure our identity and survival in individuals and systems of human power, we invariably lose our way as a people who follow a crucified messiah. When we long for a power that conforms to the way power is distributed and demonstrated in the world, then the vulnerable and marginalised in our community will invariable bear the harm that such power tends to yield. For the impulse to bestow sovereign authority and protect the reputation of leaders, clergy, or past pillars of the community lies beneath so much of the reprehensible abuse scandals that have caused irreparable harm to individuals, communities, and the church itself.
 
And so we ask, how do we avoid such an impulse? Avoid creating environments where all-too-worldly power might be given divine blessing to act without fear of opposition, refusal, or discovery? It is not as simple as willing. Israel asked for a king because they suffered under corruption from within and threats from without, they asked that they might secure their survival and flourishing in the land God promised. So too the church has longed for, empowered, and excused abuses of power because it has looked and quivered at its precarious place in the world as a pilgrim people, whose very life depends on the arrival of Christ and his sustaining grace. All this to say, if we’re going to resist the appeal of worldly power, it will not happen by accident, we must act to be rooted and grounded in love.
 
For it is only with deep roots in love, firmly grounded in the Spirit’s power, that we become secure enough in our calling as the church to resist the lure of worldly power. Too much harm has been hushed away because we feared the church was not strong enough to survive the scandal. But if we devote ourselves to the collective work of tending to roots and grounding ourselves in love, we might be able to trust that telling the truth about David, let alone the truth about those who have come after, will not bring us down but set us free.
 
The truth sets us free to place our trust and identity not in the corrupting power of mortals, but the generous life-giving power of God. This is why we gather and go. To tend to the roots and clear the ground we pray, we approach to the table of grace, we build up each other in love and good deeds, we visit each other and place our calls, we serve food and talk over morning tea, we set flowers and sing praises, we listen to scripture and hear the word proclaimed, and we go forth in grace to love and serve the world, to learn from others and form coalitions for the common good. And we do this (and much more) again and again and again because this is how roots grow deep. To ground ourselves in Christ’s love as the sole power which secures our identity and shapes our life cannot simply be decided (for the lure of worldly power is just too strong). It must instead be determinatively pursued together through spiritual practices, fellowship, and the work of justice, listening, and truth-telling. It is by this that our inner being will be strengthened with power through the Spirit, by this that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, by this we are filled with the fullness of God, and by this that we are rooted and grounded in love.