When Kings Go Off To Battle

“When Kings Go Off To Battle”

Tenth Sunday After Pentecost

2 Samuel 11:1–15

July 28, 2024

Burnt Hills United Methodist Church

Video from Livestream (starts at 16:33)

Content warning: This sermon addresses sexual violence, sexual abuse, rape, and abuse of power.

What do we do when our heroes fall?

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about a minor setback or a slight fall from grace sort of thing. The kind of falling I’m talking about is more fundamental. It’s one that makes us, as observers, realize that our hero was never really a hero at all.

I experienced this myself when I was a teenager. See, I’m a Rochesterian through and through, so the Buffalo Bills will always have a special place in my heart, but at the end of the day, my true allegiance lies with the Green Bay Packers. I’ve been a Packers fan since I was five years old. And, since I grew up in the 90s and 2000s, as far as I was concerned, the Packers were synonymous with one person.

Brett Favre.

If you asked me back then who my hero was, I probably would have said, Brett Favre. He started playing with the Packers the year I was born, so I felt a special connection to him. He was tough—never, ever missing a game for injury or illness or even his own father’s death.

Just to give you an idea of how much I idolized Brett Favre, the first thing I remember buying with my own money—money that I, myself actually earned—was a regulation-sized football. And, because I was a weird little kid, I decided to name this football.

And church, I kid you not, I named that football Brett.

Now, I’m going to gloss over some of the nitty gritty details, but as the early 2000s transitioned to the late 2000s and early 2010s, things started to fall apart.

There was this whole “will he retire, won’t he retire?” sort of thing. Then he announced his formal retirement from the Green Bay Packers and the NFL. Then a few months later he said psych. Then he was traded to the Jets and played a season or two with them before he accepted a trade to one of our chief division rivals: the Minnesota Vikings. 

Brett Favre did eventually retire, wearing his iconic number 4 jersey as a Minnesota Viking, and I was crushed.

And yet, even as I glossed over details between 2007 and 2011 that moved Brett Favre from hero to villain in my eyes, there was one story involving him that I skipped over. It was a story that was, looking back at it now, far more troubling than 18-year old me gave it credit for. 

In 2010, New York Jets sideline reporter Jenn Sterger came out and publicly disclosed that Brett Favre sent her, as ESPN reported it at the time, “racy text messages and lewd photos” while he was quarterback for the Jets in 2008. 

Brett Favre, a man with uncounted political, social, and financial power in the New York Jets organization. Brett Favre, the man who could do no wrong and was the face of the organization, tried to lure Jenn Sterger, another employee in the organization, into his hotel room with unwanted text and video and picture messages and voicemails. Brett Favre sexually harassed Jenn Sterger in an attempt to engage in unwanted sexual acts with her.

Yet another example of a person who wielded immense power over their subordinate who tried to put their subordinate into a position where they couldn’t say no to their advances. Not if the subordinate valued their own future careers. Not if the subordinate valued their own reputation. Not if the subordinate valued their own safety or their own lives.

And far, far too often it’s been the case that the powerful’s attempts came to pass.

In my own life, there have been well-known stories of it being done by Presidents of the United States and talk show hosts. Supreme Court Justices and stand up comedians. Movie producers and legislators. Musicians and pastors. Movie stars and star athletes. 

More often than not, the news cycle moves on. 

More often than not, the social order collectively forgets that the abuse or attempted abuse ever happened.

These things happen, we say, it’s just boys being boys.

I was aware of the Brett Favre and Jenn Sterger story as it was unfolding, but I have to confess today that that story didn’t really play into the calculus of my views surrounding Brett Favre at that time. I wasn’t mad at my hero because he sexually harassed Jenn Sterger. I was mad at him because retired with the wrong logo on his jersey. 

Shame on me.

What do we do when our heroes fall?

Our scripture lesson this morning is the story of one of our greatest biblical heroes' greatest fall. It’s a story that has been portrayed countless times in countless ways. Artistic representations of the beautiful Bathsheba seducing King David. Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward. Richard Gere and Alice Krige.

But when we examine the actual text of the story, we see that these interpretations are adding a lot of details that aren’t actually there.

Because, contrary to whatever editorial heading you might see in your bible introducing this text, this is not a story about adultery. This is not a story about two persons engaging in a consensual, albeit torrid and scandalous, extramarital affair. Nowhere is any of that present in the text. 

Here is what the text does tell us.

One. David shirked his duties as king and commander of the army. While other kings of other nations were accompanying their armies off at war, as was the custom, David stayed behind and sent his army out to fight his wars, while he lounged on his couch.

Two. He gets up and moves to his roof, and it’s from there that he sees a beautiful woman bathing. Her name is Bathsheba, and we eventually learn that her husband, Uriah the Hittite, and her father, Eliam, are some of David’s closest advisors and counselors—part of his “thirty mighty men” listed at the end of this book. Even if David, somehow, didn’t know who Bathsheba was, he did know her family.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up seeing this scene play out with Bathsheba bathing outside for all Jerusalem to see her. Your faith was strong, but you needed proof / you saw her bathing on the roof / her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you. 

But, is that what the text actually says?

The text doesn’t say that David saw Bathsheba on her roof. The text doesn’t say that Bathsheba is on her roof at all. The text says that David sees her from his roof. 

We also learn that Bathsheba was ritually purifying herself after her period. It was often the case that this kind of ritual purification happened in known places that were reserved for only that purpose—a place where she should have been safe from a negligent king’s wandering eyes.

When we actually look at the text closely, I simply do not know how anyone can walk away with any interpretation of Bathsheba seducing David during this scene.

What the text actually shows us is David being a peeping Tom.

So, the text tells us one: David neglected his duties as king and commander of the army. Two: David spied on his neighbors while they bathed. Three. Bathsheba does not consent to her sexual encounter with the King.

How can she?

Throughout this part of the story, she is portrayed as an object for the King’s gratification. David sends his messengers to take her and bring her to him.

Bathsheba isn’t given the choice to say no. Bathsheba isn’t given the option to refuse. Whether she submits or not, David is going to have his way with her. 

In this story, David is the supreme sovereign, his will be done.

The text gives absolutely no hint that there was mutual affection or attraction here. We’re not treated to a montage scene depicting courtship or them falling in love. The text doesn’t show Bathsheba giving her enthusiastic, informed, and ongoing consent. 

 The Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, priest and Hebrew Bible scholar par excellence, translates this verse this way: 

David sent emissaries to kidnap Bathsheba and she came to him then he raped her.

What do we do when our heroes fall?

The text tells us, one. David neglected his duties as king. Two. David spied on his neighbors while they bathed. Three. David raped Bathsheba. Four. David tries to sweep his crime under the rug to avoid any accountability.

If it were up to David, what happened between him and Bathsheba would remain between him and Bathsheba. Their little secret, as it were. But it wasn’t going to work out that way because, through his rape, David impregnated Bathsheba. 

And this is where the story turns.

The verb to send, שָׁלַח (shalach) in the Hebrew, appears ten times in this entire passage. The overwhelming majority of the time, David is the one doing the sending, and it’s a sign of his power over others. David sends Joab and Uriah and all his soldiers to fight his war. David sends his servant to find out who Bathsheba is. David sends his emissaries to kidnap Bathsheba so that he can have his way with her. But then, when she realizes that she has become pregnant through David’s crime, Bathsheba sends a message to David. What has been a verb that has highlighted David’s power over others is, for the only time in this entire passage, being used by Bathsheba to reclaim that power for herself.

Though Bathsheba was not bathing on her roof for all of Jerusalem to see her, she would make sure that all of Jerusalem would know what David did to her.

And that’s what would have happened, if David didn’t move heaven and earth to protect his own power. 

When power is threatened, power will do everything it can to protect itself.

David has Uriah killed in battle and then marries Bathsheba so that this baby she bore, which was once proof of his crime, can be twisted into the fruits of their marriage. 

David managed to save his image. 

David managed to hold onto his power.

And, thanks to his machinations, David ultimately isn’t held accountable for his crime. Not really, anyways. 

After we get past chapter 12 of 2 Samuel, when Nathan the prophet proclaims judgment on David for his crime, this story is never mentioned again.  

The news cycle moves on and the social order collectively forgets that it ever happened.

David gets to die peacefully, of old age, on the throne, and he’s remembered as Israel’s greatest king.

"In The Ashes" by Pauline Williamson (2019) depicts

 Bathsheba mourning her dead/dying son. Used with the 

artist's permission.

That’s not to say there are no consequences experienced for David’s actions. They’re just not directly felt by David. Nathan warns him that, because of his crime the sword shall never leave your family’s house, and that’s exactly what happens.

Because of David’s crime, Uriah, her husband, is killed in battle.

Because of David’s crime, Bathsheba’s son quickly dies.

Because of David’s crime, his son, Amnon, rapes David’s daughter, Tamar, his half-sister. 

Because of David’s crime, Tamar’s brother, Absalom, murders Amnon. 

Because of David’s crime, Absalom rebels against David and plunges all of Israel into a bloody civil war. 

How many households lost their sons and fathers in that war, all because of David’s crime?

What do we do when our heroes fall?

It can be really easy to look at stories like this that are in the bible and say, well, thankfully, we’ve all progressed past all that, but you and I know that that’s not the case. Sexual violence like this is still experienced throughout and across all facets of our social order.

We know the statistics at this point. One in six women report experiencing attempted or completed sexual assault, and one in thirty-three men do the same, and we know that these assaults are overwhelmingly perpetrated by intimate partners or acquaintances. We know that sexual violence intersects and compounds at disproportionate rates for marginalized identities. We know that almost half of all transgender people report experiencing sexual assault. We know that Indigenous people are twice as likely to experience sexual violence as people of any other race. 

And we know that people who are in power still abuse their power in ways that leave deep and lasting scars on individuals and communities. And church, we are not exempt from this. I, myself, have been a part of Christian communities—United Methodist communities—led by pastors who violated that sacred trust bestowed upon them by their congregants. Those communities are still dealing with the consequences of those pastors’ actions.

We have to address it. We have to talk about it. We have to shine a light on it so that it doesn’t continue to fester in the dark. 

We have to teach and model for one another what healthy boundaries are. That a yes is not a yes if it is coerced. That a yes is not a yes if it’s not freely and enthusiastically given. And, yes, we have to explore together what real, restorative, and transformative accountability and justice looks like in these cases. Justice that moves beyond punitive measures and towards restorative actions.

And what do we do when our heroes fall? What do we do when the people to whom we look up, the ones who we put on a pedestal and trust with leadership and power over individuals and communities, what do we do when they are the ones who abuse that power in such a way that its consequences will spiral and ripple out like a giant, heavy stone cast into a still lake, for years and years after the fact? What do we do when our heroes fall?

One thing you’re going to learn about me very quickly is that I, myself, do not have all the answers to all the questions. I doubt that any one individual does. But I do know this. When the ones we call our heroes fall, we hold them accountable for their actions. We care for the ones whom they harmed. We transform the systems that gave them that much individual power. And we look inward and ask ourselves why we made them our heroes in the first place. 

I wasn’t mad at Brett Favre when he sexually harassed Jenn Sterger. I was mad at Brett Favre because he had the wrong logo on his jersey when he retired. Shame on me. 

Part of my repentance for my sin looks like holding space for all of us to not keep letting the news cycle keep on spinning, to not keep letting the social order collectively forget that it ever happened. To imagine a day when sexual violence has been eradicated and laboring to make that vision a reality, together.

May it be so. Amen.