To Lie Down in Safety
A sermon in The Other Six Days series
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
March 1, 2009
Hosea 2:16-20; Psalm 4:4-8; Luke 4:16-21

Hosea 2:16-20 On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, "My husband," and no longer will you call me, "My Baal." For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.

Psalm 4:6-8                  There are many who say, "O that we might see some good!
                                    Let the light of your face shine on us, O LORD!"
                  You have put gladness in my heart
                                    more than when their grain and wine abound.
                     I will both lie down and sleep in peace;
                                    for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety.

Luke 4:16-21     When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
                  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
                                    because he has anointed me
                                                      to bring good news to the poor.
                  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
                                    and recovery of sight to the blind,
                                                      to let the oppressed go free,
                  to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

I. Beginning: The Crisis

In 2000, the National Institute of Justice and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention co-sponsored a National Violence Against Women Survey. They interviewed a nationally representative sample of 8,000 U.S. women and 8,000 U.S. men. The survey yielded some staggering results: [1]

Intimate partner violence is pervasive in U.S. society. Nearly 25 percent of surveyed women and 7.5 percent of surveyed men said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime;

1.5 percent of surveyed women and 0.9 percent of surveyed men said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by a partner in the previous 12 months. According to these estimates, approximately 1.5 million women and 834,732 men are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States. Because many victims are victimized more than once, the number of intimate partner victimizations exceeds the number of intimate partner victims annually. Thus, approximately 4.9 million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults are perpetrated against U.S. women annually, and approximately 2.9 million intimate partner physical assaults are committed against U.S. men annually. These findings suggest that intimate partner violence is a serious criminal justice and public health concern.

Stalking by intimates is more prevalent than previously thought. Almost 5 percent of surveyed women and 0.6 percent of surveyed men reported being stalked by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime; 0.5 percent of surveyed women and 0.2 percent of surveyed men reported being stalked by such a partner in the previous 12 months.

According to these estimates, 503,485 women and 185,496 men are stalked by an intimate partner annually in the United States.

Women experience more intimate partner violence than do men. The NVAW survey found that women are significantly more likely than men to report being victims of intimate partner violence whether it is rape, physical assault, or stalking and whether the timeframe is the person's lifetime or the previous 12 months.

Violence perpetrated against women by intimates is often accompanied by emotionally abusive and controlling behavior. The survey found that women whose partners were jealous, controlling, or verbally abusive were significantly more likely to report being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by their partners

Other surveys yielded similarly distressing data (Source: American Bar Association [2]):

• Intimate partner violence made up 20% of all nonfatal violent crime experienced by women in 2001.
• In 2000, 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner. In recent years, an intimate partner killed approximately 33% of female murder victims and 4% of male murder victims.
• Of females killed with a firearm, almost two-thirds were killed by their intimate partners. The number of females shot and killed by their husband or intimate partner was more than three times higher than the total number murdered by male strangers using all weapons combined in single victim/single offender incidents in 2002.
• 84% of spouse abuse victims were females, and 86% of victims of dating partner abuse at were female.
• Males were 83% of spouse murderers and 75% of dating partner murderers

The situation is no less problematic on our campuses:

In a study carried out from February to May 1997 involving 4,446 college women, [3]

• 13% of college women were stalked during one six to nine month period.
• 80% of campus stalking victims knew their stalkers.
• 3 in 10 college women reported being injured emotionally or psychologically from being stalked.

The situation is a crisis. If a disease were affecting 25% of women and 7.5% of men, we would call it an epidemic. There'd be people walking down the street with masks on their faces. There'd be guys from the CDC in those space suits putting people into quarantine.

Domestic violence is a crisis in terms of our health and well being as a people.

II. The Home

But it is also a spiritual crisis. Because there is something very spiritually troubling about even the phrase "domestic violence"--violence in the home.

In preparing this sermon, I pulled an old high school public speaking trick--I went to the dictionary to see what definitions I could find for the word "home". The definitions for home were pretty standard--one's place of residence, etc. But then I looked down at the common phrases section of the entry and there was the phrase "at home". And it was defined in the following way: [4]

1: relaxed and comfortable : at ease <felt completely at home on the stage>
2: in harmony with the surroundings

"Relaxed and comfortable" and "in harmony with the surroundings". Could there be any bigger disconnect between what a home is meant to be, what images the word itself invokes, and the reality of a home where domestic violence is present? A home is a place of safety, comfort. And that is a spiritual necessity.

The passage we read from Hosea earlier is an interesting one. In the book of the prophet Hosea, the prophet uses an interesting metaphor to describe the relationship between God and Israel: that of a husband and his unfaithful wife. The relationship is mirrored in the prophet's own relationship with his wife. But in the drama of the wife cheating on her husband--as Israel has done by abandoning God for idols--there is nevertheless this reconciliation in hope and love. God says to Israel, you will not call me my Baal-- ba'al is the Hebrew word for "master" and "husband", but it is also the name of a Canaanite deity that a lot of the Israelites were worshiping. Instead, God says, you will call me ishi , which can mean "my husband" but also means "my man" and harkens back to the Garden of Eden, to the relationship between man and woman, ish and ishshah --a relationship of intimacy and interrelatedness. And then God continues with the pronouncement of spousal reconciliation:

I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.

Those last lines are a beautiful vow and outline for us what a covenant relationship between husband and wife ought to look like: taking one another forever, in righteousness and justice, steadfast love and mercy, in faithfulness. So that all violence cease and the spouse can lie down in safety.

Violence within a relationship is repugnant to God. It is not the mark of the Christian life. And it is not, despite the abuser's frequent protests to the contrary, indicative of love. Violence in the home, in relationships, is more than physical violence--it is very much a spiritual violence, too. Because spouses and partners are meant to be people of trust, homes are meant to be places of safety.

As Christians, as followers of Christ, we cannot sit idly by while such devastating spiritual violence is unleashed in our world.

III. The Liberating Christ

Now some will point out that Jesus himself suffered unjust violence and did not resist. Some may point out that Jesus himself was rejected at home.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have the story of Jesus going to his home synagogue in Nazareth and not being well received there. But Luke alone places this story at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. Luke alone includes the story of Jesus reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah.

There is, of course, a good reason for this: Luke is presenting for us a portrait of Jesus as one who is to fulfill the promises of the prophets of old: one who brings good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, and most importantly, one who proclaims release to the captives and lets the oppressed go free.

Who proclaims release to the captives and lets the oppressed go free.

There are few so captive as the victims of domestic violence. Few who experience oppression of the kind where the very people they should be able to trust, the very people who should be protectors are threats, the very places that should be places of safety are dangerous and unpredictable places to be.

We in this community talk a lot about justice. This is a community that has a heart for justice. And when we talk about oppression, we often think in big terms: the oppression of the people of Burma by a brutal military regime. The oppression of minorities, and classes, and races, etc. But it is entirely possible for one person to oppress another. And this kind of oppression happens far too often. This kind of oppression must be opposed with all the force and energy we would bring to a large systemic form of oppression.

When Jesus stood at the podium in the Nazareth synagogue and spoke words of comfort and hope to those who were captive and oppressed, he was talking no less to the women, children, and men who suffer from domestic violence than he was to the teeming multitudes who suffer political tyranny.

And we as his disciples cannot ignore this brand of injustice. We cannot ignore the oppressed in the home. For we are disciples of a master who frees the oppressed, and children of a God who makes us to lie down in safety.

IV. END

So, what is it we are meant to do?

I have a good friend who has spent pretty much her entire legal career working on issues of domestic violence and the prevention of violence against women. She has told me that there are a number of reasons that advocates give for why women stay in abusive relationships: economic situation, child custody, fears of being killed, nowhere else to go, and so on. So I suppose we could start there.

We can provide resources for battered women to make the economic situation less dire. We can support women's shelters and advocacy networks that offer battered women a place to go, and a network of legal support upon arrival.

We can support efforts to train law enforcement and judges in the challenges of domestic violence and stalking. Acts like the Violence Against Women Act or other local laws that protect women and abused partners.

We can support changes to the legal system that can help those who face domestic violence. Time was in this country it was considered a legal impossibility to rape your wife, because the husband had a legitimate expectation of sex within a marriage. That is no longer the law and it is a good thing, too. We can challenge the legal system to ensure that the law is something that protects those who are weak, those who are oppressed and abused, not those who perpetrate the violence.

There's a lot we can do to level the playing field and give women a way out. But there's something else as well. The whole saga with Rihanna and Chris Brown, for example. Now, I will confess, prior to the day before yesterday, I had never heard of these people. But three different friends mentioned her to me within a day's time and she was on the cover of the People magazine this afternoon at the checkout lane at the Giant, so I guess maybe God's trying to tell me something. Well, as many of you no doubt know, Rihanna is an R&B singer who was dating hip-hop artist Chris Brown. The two were in a fight that people overheard, she was taken to the hospital, and later a photo was leaked showing battered Rihanna. Charges of batter were apparently pending. They have since reconciled and many people are bewildered. Some might note that the strangest thing about this story was that Rihanna did not have the same reasons to stay that other women have--that is, economics, places to go, child custody, and so on.

And so it seems to me that there are people who have different obstacles other than financial or legal: they have spiritual obstacles. Perhaps they feel that no one will listen to them. We can listen to them. Perhaps they feel that they ought to be able to take it from a loved one. We can stand with them in solidarity. Perhaps they feel that they have somehow deserved this abuse. We can remind them of their human dignity, and their status as a beloved child of God. Christians can offer a way out there as well.

We have a message of hope to preach. We have a message of love and reconciliation. We must stand beside those who are abused. To let them know they are supported. To let them know they have a safe place to go in a time of trouble. To stand up for justice against attackers. To let those who suffer know that there is a way out. To let them know that they are not alone, and that we, like Christ, stand in solidarity.

And we must also keep the abuser in our prayers and concerns, as well. For there is spiritual brokenness on the part of the oppressor, too.

And we can model in our own relationships what true love and acceptance are like. We can raise our children to understand that violence in the home is unacceptable. We can through our witness create cultures and communities of peace-making, both on the global stage and in the home.

For we serve a liberating Christ who proclaims release to the captives, and sets the prisoner free. A Christ who was sent by a God who shows us what loving relationship is, and who seeks that we all should lie down in safety.

Notes
[1] http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles1/nij/181867.txt
[2] http://www.abanet.org/domviol/statistics.html#prevalence. (Internal citations omitted)
[3] Id.
[4] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/home[1]