Not Even Named

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
December 18th 2005 The Fourth Sunday of Advent
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Not Even Named!”
Luke 1:47-55; Matthew 1:1-6; 2 Sam 11-12
So far during advent we have heard stories about three women who were named in Jesus’ genealogy. However, this week we are going to take a different tact. The reason is quite simple. The forth woman in this genealogy is actually not named. Because of this we must ask different questions than we have so far. Despite this, our basic questions remain: What does this family tree tell us about God’s family? Who are the four women in the family tree of Jesus? What does their inclusion mean for the community of faith?
Until our passage this morning, the genealogy of Jesus has included three women’s names into the list. With the woman we are talking about this morning the pattern has changed. It could have read that David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba. However, it does not. Bathsheba is referred to only as: “The wife of Uriah.” This is curious because at the time of Solomon’s birth, Bathsheba is married to David. We must conclude then that either the genealogy is wrong or there is something else is gong on. Why, if she is married to David, is Bathsheba called the wife of Uriah? What is going on?
The story of Bathsheba and her heroism is legendary. She, without much help from anyone else, must work to assure that Solomon is not killed in a struggle for power between the sons of David. In fact, her story after the birth of Solomon is worthy of a sermon series itself. However, because of the agenda of the writer of Matthew, we need to look at the events surrounding how she became married to King David. To understand this story we must go back in the bible to the book of Second Samuel in the tenth and eleventh chapters.
Chapter eleven in second Samuel opens with these words: “In the spring of the year, the time when Kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him… but David remained at Jerusalem.” Those words, “but David remained at Jerusalem,” are a literary device which clues those listening to the story that something is wrong. Instead of going off to fight the battles, King David decides to send others out to fight wars while he stays at home to enjoy luxurious living. So our story begins.
Late one afternoon, King David was lounging on a couch. He apparently became bored and decided to take a walk on the roof of the palace. While on the roof, David sees his neighbors’ wife taking a bath. David decides that he must have her so David asks his servants about this woman. David learns that her name is Bathsheba and that she is already married to Uriah the Hittite who was one of the men away at war. Despite knowing that Bathsheba is married to someone else David orders she be brought to him so that he may satisfy his lustful desires. The passage is abundantly clear about this. All the verbs are action verbs, there is no conversation between David and Bathsheba and he only calls her that woman. It is all about David and his desires.
It is clear that David does not stop to think about the consequences. In the later parts of David’s life he has become the type of leader who does whatever he wants even ignoring the wisdom of others. This should come as no surprise since he has been busy using other people. After all, David has sent the military to fight battles while he stays home living luxuriously. Instead of supporting the troops he abuses his power for personal satisfaction. This is what happens when those in power become corrupted by their own delusions of grandeur.
A short time later, Bathsheba sends word to David that that she is pregnant. David’s response is to find a way to hide his sin. He orders Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, to return from the war with news about progress. David hopes that while Uriah is home he will sleep with his wife. However, Uriah does not do this. Instead of going home Uriah sleeps on the street.
In the morning David summons Uriah to ask why he did not sleep at home. Uriah replies:
The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servant of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.
Uriah, unlike David, is loyal to the people of Israel. Despite this setback David devises another plan. That night, David brings Uriah to the palace for a night of eating and heavy drinking. Once Uriah is drunk, David sends him home. Once again, despite being drunk, Uriah refuses to go home.
Unable to cover his sin with this deception David brings others into his work. He sends a message to his commander Joab. Joab is to move Uriah to heaviest fighting. Then when they attack the city the rest of the men are to leave Uriah alone and retreat. Joab does as he is commanded, no questions asked. Uriah is dead and David is in the clear. After a period of morning David takes Bathsheba as his wife.
Throughout the story the Hebrew word take has been translated using different words. However, the verb, “take” shows up many times in this story. Throughout the story it is King David taking from everyone else. It seems to be intentionally used to point us back to a warning that God gave the people of Israel in the first book of Samuel. The warning from God comes when the people of Israel ask God for a king. This is God’s warning:
These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you; he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and females slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. (I Samuel 8:11-19)
God knew that once a king comes to power he builds militaries to fight wars of which he himself will be excused. God understands that Kings take from people, particularly the poor, and gives to the rich, most often his friends.
This is true even of King David. This is the same person was said to be a man after God’s own heart and he has done this evil. It is clear that this man of faith, David, had lost his way. It is a testimony to what happens when any community places too much power in the hands of one person, even one who has deep faith convictions. God’s warning rings true in every generation.
In this story of Bathsheba and David we see the ways David abuses power. Despite his attempts to control the results by killing Uriah and marrying Bathsheba, David is not able to ‘get away’ with his deception. Everything begins to unravel when David is confronted by one lone prophetic voice. It is Nathan, his close trusted advisor, who tells David plainly that God hates the evil he has done. Everything falls apart when David then watches as his newborn child dies a slow unavoidable death after birth. As his child lay dying, the great King David is found lying in the dirt refusing to eat.
It is at this point in the story that I begin to get a glipse of what Mary was saying in the Luke passage we read this morning. As David sat in the dirt I heard a faint echo of these words: “God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts… God has brought down the powerful from their thrones… and sent the rich away empty…” In that moment all the power and riches which David had acquired could do nothing to ease his pain of his selfish actions. So too, in that moment there was a vision of things to come with the one called Jesus the Messiah, the son of David.
Bathsheba’s inclusion as the wife of Uriah in the genealogy is meant to remind us of the reality of the great King David. This story focuses on the actions of David. His is a story that we all know well. We know that powerful people will always send the children of others to fight wars on their behalf. We know that powerful people will kill others to satisfy their own desires. We know the stories of the men of faith who become drunk with their own power. So if we know these stories why is it necessary to include them in the genealogy?
I believe it has something to do with contrast. In contrast to men and kings who abuses power and abuse women we have Jesus the Messiah shows a different way. This Messiah does not use women to satisfy his personal desires. Instead they are welcomed into the community of disciples. This Messiah does not use the ways of war and deception to show his strength. Instead we see a prince who brings peace fall to the ways of deception and delusion. The Messiah Jesus shames human power in his refusal to play by the rules of power politics.
The genealogy of Jesus should serve as the first indication about the reality of the incarnation. The incarnation is the fancy way to say that God came to live among us in the person of Jesus. What we know about this human being Jesus is this: He was born to an unmarried teenager. When he was born his mother placed him in an animal feed trough because they were homeless. He was hunted by political power brokers. If we understand nothing else about this season we must remember this: When God entered our world in the person of Jesus it was not meant to keep the world chained by the status quo. It was meant to shock our expectations and invite us into a new way of living.
So faced with these realities of all the torrid family baggage of the family tree of Jesus, we are confronted with two lingering questions. Where is God calling us to be freed from the chains of status quo? Where is God calling us to live a new way? As we look to the genealogy of Jesus, the one we call Messiah, where do we hear God calling us as a community of faith to live in a new way? May God grant us the courage to answer these questions for our lives and this community of faith, for they are after all the ones which should matter most to the followers of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the Son of Abraham, and of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba! Amen.