When Kings Go Out to Battle
A sermon in The Other Six Days series
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
February 14, 2010
2 Samuel 11:1-15, 27b-12:9; John 15:12-13

2 Samuel 11:1-15, 27b-12:9 • 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; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants 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.” Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”

But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD, and the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.”

John 15:12-13 • “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

I. BEGINNING

The story of David and Bathsheba has been one of the more famous stories to come out of the Biblical tradition. It is one that has found its way onto stage and screen. It is one that has been interpreted in various ways in those adaptations. Mostly it has been interpreted as a love story between David and Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. In the Gregory Peck version, Bathsheba is the neglected wife, forsaken by her all-too dutiful husband. In the Richard Gere version, Bathsheba might even be the abused spouse, whom David rescues from oppression.

As entertaining as those versions might be, neither of them is the Biblical version, which is not really a story about David and Bathsheba at all. It is a story about power, infidelity, and not keeping faith with those who keep faith with you.

The author tells us something is amiss at the very beginning of the story:

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; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem

It is the time of year when kings go out to battle...but David remained at Jerusalem. From the very beginning of the narrative, we are told that David is already failing his obligations. He is not at the front with his men, he is safely at home in Jerusalem. And it is there, in Jerusalem, that he gets into trouble. While walking on the roof of his palace, he sees a beautiful woman, Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and he sends his servants to bring her to him. He sleeps with her and later learns that she has gotten pregnant.

David, seeking to avoid scandal, brings Uriah home from the front lines and suggests he spend a weekend with the wife, hoping that thus Uriah will never know the child she carries is not his. But here’s where the plan goes awry. Uriah is too loyal:

Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants 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.”

David then sends Uriah back to the front with orders for his commander. The commander is to put Uriah in the front lines and when the battle becomes pitched, the other troops are to withdraw and leave Uriah to die in battle. This plan is carried out and Uriah is killed. David takes Bathsheba as his own.

It is at this time that Nathan the prophet comes in and tells David a story about a rich man who stole a poor man’s only lamb and killed it and served it to some travelers. When David is incensed and demands to know who this man was who did this, Nathan responds:

“You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; ... Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

And this event serves to be an enduring curse on David’s house and his dynasty. It is a crime that is not only one of lust and desire, not only of unchecked kingly power. It is a crime of the utmost infidelity to one who was putting his life on the line for David’s kingdom. Uriah was a soldier in David’s army, a Hittite fighting for the people of Israel. David owed him more that betrayal. He owed him his fidelity.

II. INFIDELITY TO THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED

How are we doing in being faithful to those who serve?

Over 23 million Americans are veterans, eight percent of whom are women. 3.1 million of whom are receiving disability compensation, with 280,830 rated at 100% disability. 380,509 are currently being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. [1]

Are we meeting the needs of those who have served? Are we ensuring that those who have served even have places to live?

Over 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. And twice that many experience homelessness over the course of a given year. [2] The vast majority are single, most come from poor, disadvantaged communities, 45 percent suffer from mental illness, and half have substance abuse problems. 47 percent of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam Era. More than 67 percent served our country for at least three years and 33 percent were stationed in a war zone. [3]

III. WHAT IS OWED

So, what is a nation’s responsibility to its veterans?

Twenty years ago or so, I was a student studying abroad in Moscow. One of the first things you notice about that city is that everywhere—on the subway, on buses, in ticket lines—there was preferred options for veterans of World War II. Or as the Russians called it, the “Great Patriotic War”. If you were a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, you got special seats on the bus and subway. You got to cut the line at the ticket window. There were many privileges that came with being a veteran of that war. My grandfather is a WWII veteran, and I don’t think he’s ever gotten a bus seat because of it. Now, of course, the Soviets lost twenty-four million people in that war, 14% of their population, and it cast a huge shadow over their national consciousness. I suppose giving the veterans free seats on the bus was the least they could do.

In his famous novel Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein posited a society in which only veterans had the electoral franchise, because only they had risked everything for the body politic. I am not sure that soldiers risk their lives for the body politic. Or as we are fond of saying in this country, that they give their lives “for the flag”. Soldiers do not die for abstractions. I am sure that soldiers risk death for one another. They put their lives on the line to protect their comrades in arms, the only ones who really understand what they have gone through. They live out that idea that Jesus expressed that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

But it is we who are the beneficiaries of that self-sacrifice. It is we who are the ones whose way of life relies on there being sentinels along the walls, on the keepers of the watch, who put their very lives at risk, everything they have.

This is not a sacrifice we can take for granted. We cannot use their sacrifice for our gain, as King David did. We cannot ignore our responsibility to those who would give everything for home and country.

And so, what is our responsibility to our veterans, beyond free bus seats and political abstractions? It seems to me that two things are owed to those who serve.

A. After the battle

We owe the men and women who protect our hearth and home homes of their own. That there should be men and women who stood in harm’s way for us, who have nowhere to lay their head at night should be morally repugnant to us.

That there should be a veteran who lacks for adequate medical care, is an indictment of our hypocrisy.

That a veteran should lack an opportunity for an education, to develop a skill and a trade, to re-acclamate into civilian society once the sword is lain aside, should embarrass us.

Many of our veterans have experienced horrors that we cannot imagine. That we should ask of them such a sacrifice and not provide adequate psychological care is a disgrace. Especially given the fact that the suicide rate among veterans is twice what it is among the general population. [4]

Those who put their lives and their bodies in harm’s way deserve the best the nation has to offer upon their return.

B. Before the battle

But there is one other important thing we can do. If we are going to continue to ask for brave young men and women to stand on that wall, to guard that line and to give everything for the rest of us, the least we can do is ensure that they do not have to do so unless it is absolutely warranted.

We can ensure that when ‘kings go out to battle’ the interests of soldier, sovereign, and citizen are protected.

V. END

This is not a political question. This does not break down by party or ideology. This is a moral question. There are fellow citizens who have put themselves in harm’s way, often at great personal, physical, psychological, and emotional cost. We cannot rely on that sacrifice and not do something to honor it.

Two individuals of good will may disagree as to the need to engage in a particular war or action. What they should not disagree about is the need, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “to care for those who shall have borne the battle, their orphans, their spouses...”

David did not honor the man who was willing to put his life on the line for the kingdom. Instead, he took everything that man had: his wife and ultimately his life. This failing would be a curse upon his household. We are called to do more. To honor those who are willing to stand on that line, who—in the words of the hymn we just sang—“more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life”. To keep faith with those who keep faith with us, when ‘kings go out to battle.’

 

Notes
[1] http://www1.va.gov/vetdata/
[2] http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.cbsnews.com/