What David Had Done (2 Samuel 12:1-15; Pentecost 19a; October 19, 2014)

What David Had Done

2 Samuel 12:1-15
Pentecost 19a
October 19, 2014

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, IA

David the King is supposed to be one of the good guys.  He’s a hero in the Bible.  He is remembered by Israel and then by Judah as the ideal king.  When things were going badly, they hoped for a king in David’s mold.  When the figure of the Messiah begins to emerge in Jewish writing and thinking, he is seen as the heir of David, the Son of David.

To be sure, there are a couple of dissenting voices.  One of them is Jesus, himself.  In the twelfth chapter of Mark, Jesus questions the idea that the Messiah must be a descendent of David.  Another voice is in biblical story that we usually call David and Bathsheba.  It’s rather shocking, if you’re not prepared for it.  It would be like finding out that George Washington, our first President and a rather idealized figure, not only did not confess to chopping down his father’s cherry tree, but also had his staff break into the offices of his political adversaries and plant listening devices, and cheated on his wife with an intern and then lied under oath about it. 

But, of course, it isn’t that shocking to us, because we’ve heard about this story already.  Not only was there the 1951 movie starring Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward that has run on late-night television for three generations, now.  A quick search of Amazon.com for “David and Bathsheba” returns nearly 4000 titles.  The story has “legs.” Something about it fascinates us.  Maybe it’s the exotic setting.  Maybe it’s the political intrigue of a royal court.  Maybe it’s the sex. 

Maybe it’s because the popular version of the story fits a well-known narrative.  You know the one I mean.  Women use their beauty to attract and distract men.  And men are powerless to resist them.  Men under the sway of “womanly wiles” will do things that they know are wrong but they just can’t help it.  The narrative shows up in court rooms and in hearings on university campuses as the “she wanted it” defense.  It shows up in the abuse and scorned heaped on Monica Lewinsky.  It shows up in high school dress codes that regulate how girls dress so that the boys won’t be distracted.  It shows up in post-revolutionary Iran in the requirement for women to wear a veil in public so that young men won’t have impure thoughts.  It’s David strolling about on his rooftop in the cool of the evening who sees Bathsheba bathing and just can’t help himself.

David just can’t help it when he sees her.  He can’t help it when he stares.  He can’t help it when he asks his servants who she is.  He can’t help it when, on finding out that she is married to a man with no connections, he then sends a servant with orders to bring her to him.  He can’t help it when he takes her to his bed.  He can’t help when, after the discovery that she is pregnant, he first tries to cover up his crime by fetching Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, home from the front in the hopes that Uriah will never suspect that the slightly early full-term baby is not his, and then, when Uriah won’t cooperate, by having Uriah killed.  He just can’t help any of it.  None of it is his fault.  Because, Bathsheba is a woman.

This is the narrative that “mansplains” men behaving badly.  Eve is the one who brought death into the world.  Pandora is the bringer of troubles, her name—Pan-dora, all-gift—an exquisite irony.  Mary Magdalene is trouble; dress her in red.  Put a scarlet A on Hester Prynne’s outer garments.  David was innocent until Bathsheba came along. 

But with the help of his general who arranged for Uriah’s murder, David not only avoided a public relations nightmare.  He even positioned himself to look like the champion of the common man.  After all, Bathsheba was the pregnant wife of a dead war hero.  He is David’s chance to pose as the protector of widows and orphans as he looked after the family of Uriah the foreigner.  He was doing God’s work.   So Bathsheba came to live in the palace and when she gave birth, it was a son.  All’s well that ends well. 

However.  Isn’t that a great word sometimes?  However, “what David had done was evil in the Lord’s eyes.”  Enter Nathan, the prophet.

Now Nathan is in a bit of a pickle.  He’s a prophet and therefore has a duty to speak on God’s behalf, whether this pleases David or not.  On the other hand, David pays his salary.  So Nathan didn’t come to the king and accuse directly: “This thing you’ve been up to with Bathsheba is wrong and you are in trouble with God!”

Instead, Nathan told a story.  A rich man had a house guest and was therefore obligated to feed him.  But instead of feeding him from his own flock he stole a ewe lamb from a man who was so poor that this lamb was the family pet. 

David was corrupt and ruthless, but he was also a child of the Torah.  And he knew an injustice when he heard it.  And this was an injustice.  And he said so: “He must restore the ewe lamb four times over because he did this and because he had no compassion.”

“You are that man!” Nathan told him. 

This is not a story of a “helpless man, powerful seductive woman,” the narrative that informs popular imagination.  David has murdered a member of his guard and taken his wife.  Bathsheba had no power to stop David.  Although there was no overt violence, no knife to her throat, and no threats made out loud, when David’s power prevented Bathsheba from refusing his advances, meaningful consent on her part was no longer possible.  What Hollywood and popular culture have portrayed as a seduction with David as the victim, was in fact a rape and David was the perpetrator.

Nathan gives David no room for the “I couldn’t help myself” defense.  David’s problem was not in a female body bathing on a nearby rooftop.  David’s problem was the sense of entitlement between his ears and no amount of clothing on Bathsheba’s body would have fixed that.  No veil can protect a young man in Iran or anywhere else from his own thoughts.  The baggiest sweat shirt and sweat pants on his female classmate will not stop the distraction happening in the head of a male high student. 

No doubt David, like a lot of men today, would like to claim to have no responsibility, no ability to respond, no power to act.  But that just won’t wash.  Men can and do regulate how they respond to their desires.  It’s up to men to behave well.  It’s up to men to stop using women as an excuse to behave badly.  It is not the responsibility of the less powerful to control the behavior of the more powerful.  Young men in this country are fully capable of keeping their eyes on their own work and we expect them to do that.  Young men have to come to terms with their own imaginations and quit blaming young women.  Even David didn’t try out the “Boys will be boys” excuse on Nathan.  He knew that Nathan would not have it.

David recognized the wrongness he had done in the parable that Nathan told.  David acknowledged that he had sinned against God.  I wonder if he recognized that he had also sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba?  He knew that restitution was in order.  He knew that a man who stole a lamb would have to give four back to set matters to rights.  But Bathsheba was a man’s wife, not livestock, and anyway David had killed the man.  To whom would restitution be made? 

There are some things that David or anyone else for that matter can do that cannot be undone.  No repair will return things to the way they should be.  Retribution is possible, but justice is not.  David will have to live with this for the rest of his life.  And that’s what David did. 

The tradition has been kind to David, perhaps kinder than he deserved.  Perhaps because David was willing to live with this burden, he was not known for his worst deeds.  I don’t really know.  What I do know is that because we are part of a tradition that can see unflinchingly the faults even of its heroes, our faults will not prevent us from carrying this tradition on.  As God looked on David’s actions with stern compassion, so may God forgive our failure, mend our faults and restore us to the fullness of God’s life.

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