Sermon preached at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church on June 13, 2010

Dirk G. Lange

Our Scripture texts this morning take us to the heart of life... to deep emptiness, where even our bones wither away and to profound happiness. The stories we heard this morning touch a deep place within us, one of disdain and one of compassion, one of righteous anger and one of gladness. Both the Old Testament and the Gospel have women as central figures. And these women – we know only the name of one “Bathsheba” – these women stand in our midst this morning. One is abused, victimized and silent. The other one, initially humiliated, is then empowered and freed.

You all know the background of the Old Testament story. David and Bathsheba. Bathsheba is the victim. In the Scripture, it is written that David sent for her, took her, and laid with her (2 S 11:4). She was raped by David. And she remains his victim throughout the story. She is never given word. We never hear her voice. We only know that she deeply mourned her husband who was murdered through David’s scheming. God is deeply troubled by this disregard of human life, this self-centered focus and blatant disrespect that his chosen servant David shows to another child of God. God is deeply troubled by Bathsheba’s plight. This is not what was to happen. And God sends Nathan the prophet to confront David in his guilt. David, so full of himself, falls straight into the trap: “The man who has done this deserves to die.” And Nathan responds, “You are that man!” But violence, the violence done in this case to a woman, perpetuates itself. Even David’s admission of guilt and his subsequent penance, did not change the inherent, devastating power of violence. Violence engenders more violence.  We see it in David’s case… Bathsheba, though living, is probably wishing herself dead. Bathsheba is probably living a spiritual death. And the child David fathered – the child, another innocent life in this story – dies as well. God does not kill this child. The structures of violence that David has created around himself have killed this child. The innocent die from our self-centered preoccupation. The violence we engage – even the harsh word spoken – engenders a spiral of violence the consequences of which we are seldom aware.

We leave Bathsheba standing among us, perhaps sitting here in a pew. Silent. Abused. Waiting.

And then we hear another story. The violence spirals forwards. Another story of abuse…  A woman who is known in town as a sinner, that is, a woman who is abused by many men. Totally dejected, treated as a piece of property, she even struggled to earn some money from that silent abuse. This woman too is victim to the power of men. But obviously, something else has happened to her. She encountered Jesus. She has encountered a man who was looking not for his own interest but for her interest. She encountered in Jesus a man who touched her, not with physical lust, not with eyes of desire as David did Bathsheba, but a man who touched a place deep with her, a place no one else could really touch but Jesus… a place where all of life becomes new, unfettered, regenerated, reborn. It is as if she had been washed clean by that touch, as if waters had washed away all that kept her prisoner.

All of a sudden, the woman knew a place in her own heart that was deeper than desire, deeper than lust, deeper than self-accusation, deeper than despair, deeper than hopelessness. All of a sudden the woman knew that happiness of which the psalmist speaks. Happy! Happy deep in the body! Happy because God does not impute the sin, the violence, the aggression… Happy because God does not define her by what men have done to her. Happy because God defines her in mercy! Mercy is now the measure of life!

In her happiness this woman comes to the table, washes Jesus’ feet, anoints them with oil. And all the “David’s” in the room are sitting around the table looking at her in scorn. They look at her in the eyes of their self-interest, with the eyes of judgment. They do not see what God sees! At the table, Jesus repeats out loud, perhaps more for those poor men than for the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace!” Daughter, you are free. You are not bound by these men. You are not bound by the power that this culture values. God is never bound. Faith has saved you! Faith – that gift of God given in the encounter with Jesus – faith has saved you! Your faith… no, not your belief, not your ability, not your good work, not your own self-definition of who you are – no, none of that, but your faith, that means Christ (for Christ is your faith!) now your faith saves you, Christ living in you saves you. Christ deep in your body opens the door to deep happiness. Not I live, but it is Christ lives in me. The faith God has awakened deep within you... that faith frees you from all convention. Go now out in peace! And be peace in the world. The cycle of violence is broken. The innocent one is rescued. The child lives.

And this faith is given you every day, every time you come to this table. This faith comes to us in bread and wine, body of Christ. It comes to us as Jesus here, together. “For there is no more intimate, deep, and indivisible union than the union of the food with one who is fed.”  At this table, in this sacrament, “we too become united with Christ, and are made one body” (LW 35) not only one body with Christ but one body with each other in Christ. Faith comes to us here as we eat and drink together, as we encounter each other around this table. For the gift we are given, the gift of Jesus given at this table, is the gift of each one to the other.

The Holy Spirit is working in the world and bringing many to this table! So we too go out into the world, watching for the Spirit’s work, keeping our doors open. We invite them into our story… the story of dying and rising with Jesus, the story of sharing a meal around a table rather than figuring out who is right and who is wrong, the story of reconciliation breaking the spirals of violence. Come! With prayers, let us set the table. Let us kneel at Jesus’ feet, come with your tears and with your gifts, come with your sorrows and your hopes, come God wants you at this feast of forgiveness, the heart of life.