Bible reading: 2 Samuel 11:1-17

The following spring, at the time of the year when kings usually go to war, David sent out Joab with his officers and the Israelite army; they defeated the Ammonites and besieged the city of Rabbah. David himself stayed in Jerusalem.

One day, late in the afternoon, David got up from his nap and went to the palace roof. As he walked around up there, he saw a woman taking a bath in her house. She was very beautiful. So he sent a messenger to find out who she was, and learned that she was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David sent messengers to get her; they brought her to him and he made love to her. (She had just finished her monthly ritual of purification.) Then she went back home. Afterward she discovered that she was pregnant and sent a message to David to tell him.

David then sent a message to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent him to David. When Uriah arrived, David asked him if Joab and the troops were well, and how the fighting was going. Then he said to Uriah, “Go on home and rest a while.” Uriah left, and David had a present sent to his home. But Uriah did not go home; instead he slept at the palace gate with the king’s guards. When David heard that Uriah had not gone home, he asked him, “You have just returned after a long absence; why didn’t you go home?”

Uriah answered, “The men of Israel and Judah are away in battle, and the Ark of the Covenant is with them; my commander Joab and his officers are camping out in the open. How could I go home, eat and drink, and sleep with my wife? By all that’s sacred, I swear that I could never do such a thing!”

So David said, “Then stay here the rest of the day, and tomorrow I’ll send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. David invited him to supper and got him drunk. But again that night Uriah did not go home; instead he slept on his blanket in the palace guardroom.

The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah. He wrote: “Put Uriah in the front line, where the fighting is heaviest, then retreat and let him be killed.” So while Joab was besieging the city, he sent Uriah to a place where he knew the enemy was strong. The enemy troops came out of the city and fought Joab’s forces; some of David’s officers were killed, and so was Uriah.

Message.

Some of you may remember something called “The Nine O’Clock Service”. This was a revolutionary form of worship intended to reach out to young clubbers who would never think of attending an ordinary church service or who, if they did, would find even modern styles of worship very alien. The Service pushed 1980s and 90s technology to its limits with its creative use of computerised images and sounds; it offered an overwhelming immersive experience. NOS, as it was called, started in an Anglican church in Sheffield but became so popular that it had to move to a Leisure Centre. Each service needed a large group of volunteers to prepare, set up, and run through the programme; once the service was over everything had to be dismantled. The demands on the crew were relentless, but the results were stunning. Christians from all over Britain – and elsewhere – were dazzled; a second service was opened in San Francisco; the future seemed bright.

And then everything went horribly wrong. Questions had been asked for some time about the service leader, Chris Brain’s, dodgy theology which fused traditional Christianity, New Age spirituality, ecological issues, Eastern religions and much else. Was this really the historic faith of the Church? Volunteers, who of course had ordinary day jobs as well, complained about their heavy workload. Brain himself seemed to be adopting an increasingly lavish lifestyle and becoming ever more authoritarian, surrounded by a group of devoted (some may have said sinister) black-clad assistants. Finally allegations of Brain’s sexual relations with young women in the congregation came to the surface. The tabloid press went wild and the Church of England had to act: the service was shut down, Brain was defrocked, counsellors were brought in to support the service’s survivors. That was back in 1995, but the story is not yet over as, earlier this year, Chris Brain was charged with 33 counts of indecent assault and one of rape relating to 11 women. His trial will take place next June and he will plead “not guilty”. He may, of course, be acquitted: but it seems unlikely.

Chris Brain was clearly a charismatic and gifted leader who inspired great loyalty, a religious entrepreneur with a hugely creative mind. However it appears that there were unattractive sides to his character which became more and more apparent as his fame and status grew. King David in the Bible was a fearless warrior, a great king who brought stability to his nation and a man who loved God. He was also a womaniser and a murderer. And – sadly – it’s those sordid and shocking aspects of his life which are highlighted in today’s reading.

I guess that we’re all familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba. What I want to do today is set in within a context of both temptation and the abuse of power. So let’s go back to the beginning, when we’re told that Israel is once again fighting the Ammonites – this war has been going, on and off, for years; but at this time the Israelites have a particular advantage over the Ammonites as the previous chapter tells us how they were abandoned by their allies. The military campaign is successful and the city of Rabbah (today’s Amman) is under siege: but David has become a stay-at-home general, almost unheard-of at a time when people expected their king to personally lead their army into battle. So why did David stay in Jerusalem? A parallel passage in Chronicles suggests that he may have been preparing to carry out a census of his people, but there’s no hint of that in today’s passage. Could it be that David was beginning to rather enjoy the blessings and benefits of being king, that he felt he deserved some rest and luxury? We don’t know; but the writer of our story does sound a bit critical of his decision and feels that he was failing in his royal duties.

Well, we all know what happens next: David, possibly feeling a bit bored, wanders around the flat roof of his palace. He is transfixed by what he sees below him: a beautiful woman bathing. He can’t take his eyes off her and makes the snap decision, “I must have her for myself”. He makes enquiries, finds out who she is, brings her to the palace, and sleeps with her. And this fits in so neatly with the unpalatable fact that David is a collector of women. After his marriage of convenience to Saul’s daughter Michal (who actually loved him at first), David marries both Abigail and (in the very next verse) Ahinoam; he also has children with a sequence of other women:  Macaah, Haggith, Abital, and Eglah – and that’s before we bring in servants or slaves and prostitutes with whom a king could have unfettered sexual access. In other words, David’s adultery with Bathsheba was nothing new, it was one of the “perks” of being king.

But let’s get back to the story which – let’s call a spade a spade – is one of rape or, at least, coercive abuse. For it’s David who is taking control here: Bathsheba has no voice in the matter. David sends men to take her – we don’t know if she protests violently or comes quietly but, either way, she knows she has no choice. The king has uttered his command, his men will do anything that’s necessary to bring Bathsheba to him. And, even in the bedroom, Bathsheba can hardly say “no”: what might happen to her if she resists? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Bathsheba is the victim, as so many other women have been, of a powerful predatory male who sees her as his “catch”. David held all the cards and knew how to use them.

There are people who have said, “Ah, but Bathsheba brought it all upon herself by bathing on the roof of her house”. Let’s consider this for a moment. Firstly, the story doesn’t say that she was on the roof: the only person on a roof who’s mentioned in this story is David. Despite the paintings which we’ve all seen, Bathsheba was probably taking her bath in the inner courtyard – overlooked by the royal palace. Did she even know that she could be seen? Perhaps not; or perhaps she believed that David had indeed gone off to war as everyone expected, so wouldn’t be there to see her. And, in any case, there no sense that she was behaving provocatively.

Second, David didn’t need to stay on his roof, gawping; he could have said, “Wow, that’s a beautiful woman” and then turned away. Third, we read that David made enquiries about Bathsheba: that shows us the way his mind was going. Today he’d have sought her out on the Internet or Instagram; not to put too fine a point on things, he was stalking her. Finally, we know that David – of course married several times himself – found out that Bathsheba had a husband, Uriah. That didn’t deter him for one minute; after all, Uriah was away at the front and didn’t have to know what had happened, did he?

But then Bathsheba drops a bombshell: she’s pregnant. How is David going to keep his affair secret? Uriah been away with the army: he’ll know that the child isn’t his. What will happen to David’s reputation if the truth comes out? – he may be king, but Uriah is a respected hero. I won’t go into details of the cunning plan which David devises to cover things up by getting Uriah killed. It was murder by any other name, yet David (or so he thought) would be able to keep his hands clean and say, “What a shame he died, but that’s what happens in warfare”. As I’ve said, it’s a sordid tale, and next Sunday we’ll look at what God (who’s been conspicuously absent) thought about it.

So what can we learn from this story? One thing is to notice what James writes in his letter about needing to break the chain of one thing leading to another: “When a person is carried away with desire, lured by lust, and when desire becomes the focus and takes control, it gives birth to sin. When sin becomes fully grown, it produces death”. At any point along that path David could have stopped himself and said, “No, I won’t, it’s wrong”. But he didn’t, nor have countless other people in an infinite variety of situations. We’re all tempted by one thing or another (it may not be sexual); the question is what we do with that temptation. Do we, like Oscar Wilde, claim that “it’s impossible to resist”? Or do we remember that one of the Holy Spirit’s “fruits” is self-control? “No” is an always an option – at least for those with power.

That brings to what’s perhaps the main point I’d like to make. It’d one which takes us back to where we started, and one which is agonisingly modern. It’s that David horrifically abused his position of power; he believed that he was entitled to do whatever he liked and he ‘used’ people without thought for the consequences. Bathsheba and Uriah were both victims although totally innocent; neither could refuse to obey David’s demands in a society where the king’s word was law. And things haven’t really changed, as we all know how powerful men today – politicians, business leaders, film makers, police and many others – have abused their position and committed violence against women (and abused it in other ways, too). This has become an all-too-frequent headline on the news and protest against it has given birth to the #MeToo movement which tells women, “You are not alone”.

But far too many continue to suffer in silence, often in their own homes and at the hands of their partners – who may even justify their actions by quoting the Bible: “Let wives be subject to their husbands in everything”. I’m sure that St Paul never intended to say that men have carte blanche to do whatever they like to their womenfolk – after all (and as Moira has reminded me more than once!) he also tells husbands to love their wives “as Christ loves his Church”! We must be very careful not to use theology to justify or excuse actions which, deep down, we must know are wrong. A particularly dangerous situation exists in religious organisations (including churches) whose members believe that their leader is “divinely anointed”, can do no wrong, and must never be challenged. As a recent report into abuse stated, those leaders must “recognise the power differential inherent in their relationship with congregants, and their responsibility to make sure that they do not misuse their position”. David needed to learn that.

This has not been an easy message to deliver, nor has it been an easy one to hear on a Sunday morning; I realise that. Yet it’s one I had to give if I was going to be faithful to the Bible text, one I had to give if I was seeking to relate the Bible to life today (and, believe me, I could have said a great deal more). This ugly story of 3000 years ago speaks to us across the centuries because what it says is all too familiar. Just this week – you probably heard it – a report by the National Police Chiefs’ Council said that over a million crimes of violence against women were recorded during 2022/23; these included sexual assault, stalking, harassment, domestic violence, and controlling and coercive behaviour. The true figure is probably twice that number. Obviously not all the men who perpetrated those acts were in the same privileged position as David; nevertheless this grim statistic should shock us – and make us wonder what God makes of it?

As I say, this has not been a comfortable message to give or listen to. I’d like to finish by reading you a hymn.

https://www.hopepublishing.com/Images/HymnodyPDF/HW9008.59.pdf.

Elena Shirley Murray © 1996 Hope Publishing Company.

CCLI Licence 870095.