It’s hard to be a human. The growing pains of learning how to live in these bodies, the search for belonging and friendship, the daily need to provide food and shelter and a future for our loved ones, the questions of purpose and meaning that gnaw at us. Being a human is filled with all manner of gray complexity and daily struggle woven together with daily joy.
But this story of King David in 2 Samuel we heard today is not a story of how it’s hard to be human. It’s not a story of King David’s relatable and human struggles.
Rather, it’s a story of a man who has so consolidated his power as king that he looks down on everyone else, taking what he wants, using violence as a tool for his greed.
David raped Bathsheba and worked to cover up what he did, and then ultimately commited murder.
This is not a story of adultery or personal sexual struggle. It’s a story of sexual violence and the power structures that enable this violence.
The story begins with David forsaking the level plain of the battle-field with his men, shirking his military duty to lurk back at the high palace he has built for himself. There he’s at the center of control- he looks down on others and takes for himself what he sees. In his palace he collects wives and unnamed concubines. When he speaks he expects others to respond in obedience.
Bathsheba is forced to obey his orders, his military commander Joab obeys. It’s only Uriah who disobeys the king’s orders, refusing to go home to sleep while his fellow soldiers are still at war and the ark of the covenant is in a tent. And for this disobedience Uriah pays with his life.
This King David is no longer the boy David, who stared down Goliath or David the heroic faithful soldier leading his troops in victory. This David has isolated himself through a life of acquisition – and his act of sexual violence and murder only precipitates the crumbling of his kingdom.
The Bible is consistent in emphasizing again and again that any human empire or kingdom will eventually fall. And the Bible consistently emphasizes that God’s loving kindness endures forever, that God’s faithfulness will always outlast brutality and violence and empire. God remains the refuge of the hurting.
But in this story of David and Bathsheba and Uriah – God is not named as a character. God does not appear in writing. We get no easy resolution.
Psalm 14 begins with honesty about the sort of world that the David and Bathsheba story illustrates. The Psalmist describes God looking down from heaven to see if there are any wise and good people to be found among humanity. And the picture God sees is bleak. All there is to look at is greed and inhumanity and perversion and corruption.
The Psalmist calls these folks “fools.” These folks are fools because they gobble up other people around them as if fellow humans made in the image of God were commodities to be consumed. To treat others like trash is to not believe in God.
But for God none of us is disposable.
Our Psalm goes on to call God the refuge of the poor…and the one who delivers and restores the wellbeing of God’s people so they will rejoice and be glad. But it’s a Psalm spoken in a time in which this restoration hasn’t yet happened, it’s a prayer from a place where the outlook is still grim. It’s the assurance that God remains with the vulnerable, no matter how much the greedy and corrupt take advantage of others.
The taught thread that runs through the fabric of our faith is this persistent belief that God is indeed present and with us, even through unspeakable horror.
Even when a king violates and covers up and murders. Even when we have experienced the ripples of violence in our own most intimate relationships. Even we see again another Black person killed by police in their own home. Even when bombs continue to rain down.
We cling to the thread that our God is who Psalm 14 proclaims God is – the refuge of the poor and the liberator and restorer of the fortunes of God’s people. And even when God doesn’t show up always as a named character – we choose to believe that God is still there.
God remains with you through every part of your life, every part of your story. God was there with Bathsheba, even though the story doesn’t give voice to the fullness of who she was. God was with Uriah as he fought in a war he didn’t want to be in. God was with the servants and slaves and soldiers who were “just following orders.”
And as we will hear in our text next week – God is there offering the firm prophetic voice of accountability, to people like David, to perpetrators of violence.
As hard as they are to hear – I am glad that we have stories like this one in our Bible – so that we can remember that anyone who has experienced violence within a system of hierarchy isn’t alone. So whether you find yourself identifying with Bathsheba as you carry your own painful memories of past harms, or with Uriah and the other servants working within in a horrible web of power, or maybe you identify most with King David as you reflect that in your daily life you’ve got lots of authority and responsibility, lots of folks listen to you and respond to your ideas and commands…
I hope that wherever this story hits you that you can cling to the God who relates to us, not as a King who looks down from on high, viewing Creation as something to be consumed and owned and abused.
But I hope that you cling to the God who is the refuge of the poor, a God who is the liberator of all who ache. I hope that you remember that God never stays far away – but that the God we see in Jesus always comes near, and sits with us, to teach, and to give thanks and to help us share what we have with generosity.
That’s the choice that’s before us everyday: We can look down on others from the lonely perches built by our own greed, viewing everyone and everything as commodities for our taking.
…or we can, like Christ, give thanks for every single thing and person in our life, and share all we have with others, and watch, as by God’s grace, these gifts multiply beyond our own expectation.
That’s what happens when the crowds meet Jesus, who is the bread of life: they are fed beyond their imagination. What they bring to him – the crusty bread and the briny fish and their hopes and dreams and worries and fears – through the blessing of gratitude that Jesus offers becomes something nourishing. A curious crowd becomes a beloved community.
And through God’s love in our own lives, the stories we carry, even those moments of deep tragedy, have the possibility of being transformed into new life. That’s what we long for when we show up for church each Sunday, not knowing what will happen, but trusting that God will show up for us again this week.
We offer what we have to one another – our questions, our money, our laughter, our tears, our listening ears, our compassion, our voices, our silence – and we trust that God is present in all of our stories, and weaving something beloved out of them…just as we are woven into God’s story.
As Psalm 14 says,
“Fools would confound the plans of the poor, But the Lord is their refuge. O that deliverance would come in this land! When the Lord restores the fortunes of God’s people, we will rejoice, all will be glad.”
May it be so.