The Unnamed Woman at Gibeah

Based on Judges 19
Preached at Supportive Communities Network Retreat, October 18, 2011

If you’ve never heard this story of the woman at Gibeah, I’m not surprised. It’s not in the lectionary readings. We didn’t learn about it in children’s Sunday school. I didn’t hear it until seminary, when pastors tend to hear all those stories that the church doesn’t like to preach about.

Here’s the story of the unnamed woman at Gibeah: A secondary wife of a Levite man ran home to dad–we can only guess that it was because her husband did something to deeply offend or hurt her. And after the woman had been home with her father for four months, the husband returned to bring her back to his home. Despite the father’s pleading the couple left the wife’s childhood home mid-day, because the Levite man was anxious to return home. They got off to a late start, and the couple needed to stay somewhere overnight. Instead of staying near Jerusalem, the couple stayed in the town of Gibeah, because according to the husband, Jerusalem was full of foreigners, and Gibeah was inhabited by good, Israelite people.

They went to Gibeah, and were taken in by a local. But as they were eating and drinking in the host‘s home, the men of the town surround the house and asked for the Levite man to come out so they could have sex with him. The host went out to reason with these men, and pleaded that they take his own daughter and the Levite’s wife instead. The men became enraged by this, until finally the Levite man pushed his wife outside, throwing her to the voracious men to be abused, humiliated and tortured all night.
In the morning, the woman was lying in front of the door of the house—it’s not clear whether she was alive or dead. Her husband told her to get up, and when she didn’t respond, he slung her over the back of his donkey and brought her home, where he cut his wife up into 12 pieces, sending a piece of this unnamed woman to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The response to this event by the people in Israel was no less disturbing. When the Israelite leaders heard the testimony of the Levite husband (a testimony that conveniently made him look innocent to any part of her death), the eleven tribes of Israel rose up against the tribe of Benjamin, where this horrible event took place, and they killed over twenty five thousand Benjamite warriors in one day. They also killed the children and mothers of the tribe of Benjamin.

After the massacre, the eleven tribes of Israel gathered with the remaining Benjamite men, making peace with what was left of the decimated tribe. In the “peace negotiations” the elders of all the tribes of Israel were concerned that the tribe of Benjamin not die out as a result of this bloody civil war. So they instructed the remaining men of Benjamin on where they might find unmarried Israelite women that they might have. So the men of the tribe of Benjamin went out to that place and took these women into a forced marriage through rape.

And, the people did what was right in their own eyes.

This is how the book of Judges ends.

This story is full of unnamed victims –the secondary wife of the Levite, the unmarried women who were abducted, raped, and forcibly married, and the men, women and children of the tribe of Benjamin who were brutally killed–none of these victims had a voice in this story.

But, as horrible as this story was, there were variations of it all throughout our scriptures. In Genesis 19, Lot’s home was surrounded by the men of Sodom. These men demanded that the guests of Lot be sent out to be abused and humiliated. Lot goes out to the people of Sodom to reason with them and offers his daughters instead. This infuriated the people of Sodom who try to tear the doors of the house down. Somehow these guests–who were angelic visitors to Lot–manage to bring Lot back into the house to safety, and no one was hurt.

But the woman at Gibeah, this second wife of the Levite–she had no angelic visitors to help her that night. Her host did not help her, her husband did not help her. She had no voice. She was cast off without regard for her humanity.

This story from Judges 19 also makes me think of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who when we first met her in the gospel story, was in a desperate situation. She was pregnant and unmarried, leaving her in danger of death and abandonment by her family. An angelic messenger of God appeared to her, and said, “Peace be with you.” I can’t help but wonder if she was thinking about this woman at Gibeah, who was offered those same words from her host, “Peace be with you,” which in effect means, “Relax. You are safe here.” But how many times have women in the Hebrew scriptures heard this peace be with you, only to find that things were not peaceful, and they had no reason to get too comfortable. Did the words Mary heard from this angelic messenger really give her hope?

But, at least Mary had a voice in this story. At least Mary could ask, “How can this be?” At least Mary could voice her concern, and ask assurance of this messenger and of God. The woman at Gibeah could not ask for help. She had no voice, she could not ask the host for his assurances that she would be safe.

I think also of Jesus’ own death and dismemberment. Like the woman at Gibeah, Jesus’ body was beaten and brutalized. He was sexually humiliated on that cross–we like to think that Jesus was at least wearing a cloth around his most private parts, but like the woman at Gibeah, his body was fully exposed to people that hated him and wanted nothing more than to see him exterminated. His life, and his body had no value to his captors–just like the woman at Gibeah.

I also find it remarkable that during Jesus interrogation, he also has no voice. He gave it up voluntarily. In light of the story of this woman at Gibeah, I find some small comfort that Jesus also understands her silence, her powerlessness, because he experienced it in his own torture and humiliation. Jesus understands the plight of the voiceless because he himself had no voice in the most terrible moments of his life.

I wonder why this Judges 19 text is in the scripture at all. There seems to be no redeeming value in it. The whole situation just reeks of blame shifting and denial and complicity. This story sickens me. It infuriates me. It also scares me. Because as horrible as it is, it happens all the time. This is not the first time a woman has been abused and left to die.  We know it happened during slavery, we know it happened during the holocaust, we know it happened during Jim Crow, we know it happens now in Darfur, Rwanda, Iraq. We know it happens here today. It happened with Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming. The voiceless, the defenseless, the unprotected–they are victims of people who–like men of Gibeah–do “what they think is right in their own minds”.

I can relate to the impotence of the host, and the father of this woman at Gibeah. Because that is how I feel about the bad things that happen in this world. Because I don’t know what to do, I allow things to happen all around me; I feel confused and helpless to the power others exert around me. The people of Israel throughout history have felt this confusion about this story from Judges 19. Hosea says of the people at Gibeah, “They have deeply corrupted themselves…God will remember their iniquity; God will punish their sins.” (Hosea 9:9). Amos says, “the prudent one will keep silent about such a time, for it is an evil time” (Amos 5:13).

But neither of those responses seem adequate responses to the terror of the woman at Gibeah. “God’s gonna get ‘em” does not end the horror. “Don’t talk about it” certainly does not stop the violence. As people of God, as preachers of the good news, what are we to do? How are we to respond?

The story of the unnamed woman at Gibeah brings me to Jesus‘ last days on earth. When the Levite cut up his wife’s body and sent it to the twelve tribes of Israel, I can’t help think about communion. Let’s face it, communion is pretty barbaric. When you eat bread, think of my broken body. When you drink wine, think of my blood. Why on earth would Jesus want his disciples to remember that? Shouldn’t this horrible event be best forgotten, like Amos said? Or shouldn’t we be content to know that God will punish the people that do terrible things, as Hosea says?

Jesus, gathered with his disciples around the table, asked for something quite different than forgetting or waiting for God‘s vengeance–Jesus asks us to remember. Our eating and drinking needs to be a remembering of Jesus death and suffering, and remembering of the blood spilled, a remembering of his silence, his sexual humiliation, his abandonment by those that could have spoken for him.

Our communion theology as Anabaptists is broad and grace filled. We share in the ritual of communion, and we also recognize that we participate in communion every day. We give and receive communion when we gather together. We give and receive communion when we eat with friends and family. We give and receive communion when we give and receive hospitality. And in gathering together as people of God, we remember Jesus–his life, his death, his last meal with his disciples–and in doing this, his life and death have meaning for us.

Around our family table every night, we like to tell stories. My ten year old son, Willem, usually gets this going. “Mom, tell me a story from your childhood.” So, I tell him how I broke the TV as a kid and tried in vain to fix it with crazy glue, or my various trips to the emergency room as a child, or how Charlie and I met at college. Willem also asks about my mom (who he never met), why she died, what she was like, and any stories I know from her childhood.

Telling those stories can sometimes be hard. I don’t always want to talk about my mom. Because when I talk about her life, and remember the funny stories she shared with me about her own childhood, I inevitably remember her death. I don’t want to remember those days leading up to her death, where her body was broken, and cancer had silenced her speech. But, I also want my kids to know about their grandmother whom they never met. I remember her life so that her life can make a difference in their lives.

That’s also one of the reasons why we tell the story of Jesus. When we talk about Jesus life, we remember his teachings, his miracles and his activism, and it makes a difference in our lives today. It becomes our model for living. When we remember his death, we are horrified that it had to take place–that Jesus’ message of peace and his advocacy for the poor and voiceless were so threatening to religious and political authorities that he had to be killed in the most humiliating and brutal of ways.

When I think about the crucifixion of Jesus, I am drawn think about other voiceless folks throughout history that have been brutalized and killed. And it’s so easy to feel desperate and hopeless about the pointless death of people throughout history. We don’t want to remember the terrible things that have been done for the sake of freedom and democracy, in the name of Christianity, for the sake of progress.

But it is only in remembering that these nameless, silenced people begin to have a voice, and their lives begin to have meaning and significance to us. It is in telling the story of the woman at Gibeah that her life has meaning to us. We can say to her death, and to the death of countless other voiceless, brutalized people, “This can never happen again. I will not be silent about this.”

In our own context, as members of the Anabaptist traditions, and members of Supportive Congregations Network, we have to remember the stories that brought us here. The stories of people we know who could not say to their community, “I am gay.” We remember some of our own stories—our inability to come out in our communities, because of legitimate fear of shunning, shaming and persecution. We remember our own experiences of questioning the denomination’s stand on sexuality, and the alienation we experienced as a result.

But as more and more of us remember, and tell our stories, we find that in the sharing of these stories that have been silenced for so long, that we experience unity. Our re-membering brings us unity in the body of Christ.

In remembering and retelling the story of the woman at Gibeah, we weave her story into our own story. We cannot save her, we cannot put the pieces of her body or her life back together, but we can re-member her by recognizing her suffering, and trying—in our own small, often inadequate way–to ensure that violence, misogyny, and ignorance, and power mongering end in our communities, and in churches, in our denominations, and in the church universal.

When we re-member the woman at Gibeah, we become one body, and one community of faith with the suffering ones in this world. Our voice becomes her voice, our suffering is her suffering, and our pain is her pain. And we do not deny people that are part of our community, we do not scapegoat them, and we do not hurt them. They are part of us and to that end, we work to care for an nurture those that are part of us.

Today, we re-member the dis-memberment of the woman at Gibeah. We recognize that her story happens in every age. This story has happened to us, and to the people we know. We take this story of suffering, silence and powerlessness, we talk about it, and it becomes ours. We re-member her and in doing so welcome her into our fellowship. Today we say, this cannot happen anymore. We will not be silent about this. We will replace her silence with our voice. Because is not some distant story, hidden in the Hebrew scriptures, and overlooked by the lectionary readings, she is one of us. She has a name. She is part of our community, woven into this group of people for whom we care deeply. Today, we remember the woman at Gibeah, our sister, friend, neighbor and fellow traveler.

AMEN.

Occupy Church

Sermon preached at Germantown Mennonite Church
October 16, 2011
Matthew 22:15-22

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the Occupy Movement over the last few weeks. For a group that the media tries to portray as disorganized, with divergent interests, Occupy Wall Street—and closer to home, Occupy Philadelphia—appears organized and united.

The facebook feed from Occupy Philadelphia is about requests for food, water, medical supplies, tents, blankets and clothing. It’s announcements about how we can be involved, when their general assemblies are taking place—those are where the group makes decisions about what will happen next with the movement in Philadelphia.

What is most impressive to me, is that Occupy Philadelphia is committed to feeding everyone that is occupying City Hall. Everyone. That includes the chronicly homeless, the folks that were already occupying city hall when the movement began. This movement is not just young, idealistic, middle class bored white kids—it is people of every race and culture, and class, each with their own individual concerns, but each with an overall concern for our society, our care for each other and our care for the environment.
The occupiers have become a community, looking out for each other. Those that have extra share with those that have nothing. They respect the space where they have gathered—they are keeping city hall’s plaza cleaner than it might have been if no one was occupying it—and they are showing respect for each person that comes to them.

It has been reminding me of what we saw happening in the early church. In the book of Acts, followers of Jesus would gather together to share a meal—they would bring what they had, and it would work. Just like we bring food to a potluck, except the stakes were higher. For people that had nothing, and for people who were under attack for believing in the resurrected Jesus, the food they shared when they gathered was vital. It was not just a substitute for going out to lunch after church, it was an act of social justice, an equalizer among people that had varying levels of ability to provide for themselves.

The early church shared each others burdens, making sure there was food and shelter for all. This was a spiritual community, a community built around their experience of the power of Jesus in their lives. But it was also a community of social justice. The early church, loosely organized, looking very different in each city, but shared in common its communal nature. People looked after each other.

For the Occupy Philadelphia movement, as I hear them chant, “This is what democracy looks like,” I’m always thinking, This is what I long for the church to look like.

In our text today, we hear some of the most confusing words of Jesus. In fact, over the last few weeks, as we have worked our way through the gospel of Matthew, Jesus has become more and more difficult to understand, and his words are more and more controversial. First, Jesus talked about the vineyard owner sending his servants to the tenants, who ignore him until the owner sent his son, who the tenants kill. When the Pharisees realized that Jesus is talking about them being the tenants who kill the landowner’s son (Landowner is God, Son is Jesus), this sets them off. It is this explicit parable that makes Jesus a marked man, doomed for death.

Then, Jesus goes on with another parable. This one is about the wedding feast—the text we heard preached by Randy Spaulding last Sunday. All are welcome to table. When the banquet owner could not get a positive RSVP from his friends, then he went to the street, and invited anyone in that needed to eat.

Finally, Jesus ended the trilogy of radical stories with this one that we read today. “Give to the emperor, the things that belong to the emperor, and give to God the things that are God’s.” In our Matthew story today, the Pharisees, along with the Herodians (who are in charge of keeping Jewish ruler, Herod, in power) come to Jesus and try to trap him. They say to Jesus in a typical Torah debate style, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?” These Torah scholars were pretty pleased with themselves for coming up with this question. If Jesus said that it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, he would alienate the people who hated the Roman occupation and Caesar. If he said it was unlawful to pay taxes, the people will be pleased, but Jesus will then be liable for arrest by the Romans.

As it turned out, Jesus didn’t go in either of those directions. He was too clever for all that. He took this issue in a whole new direction. Jesus said to the Pharisees and Herodians, “Show me the coin used for the tax.” And the Pharisees and Herodians—while standing in the temple with Jesus—pulled out a denarius, a Roman coin with the image of the emperor on it. You should know that having this Roman coin in the temple was akin to idolatry. Here in the temple they expose their idol in the form of a Roman coin. Jesus here exposed their idolatry in the temple, in front of God and everyone. Embarassing.

But, Jesus continued. “Give to the emporer what belongs to the emporer, but give to God what belongs to God.”  Give to the emperor—or in our case, give to the empire—what belongs to the empire. And give to God what belongs to God.

What is Jesus talking about here?

What exactly belongs to the empire, and what belongs to God?

The answer is disappointing to some, and terrifying to others. We want Jesus to set some bounderies on what belongs to whom, how much of a percent we give, how much we should give to the empire, and how much we get to keep for ourselves. The answer Jesus gave us is not about how much to give, or whether it is lawful to give. The answer Jesus gives us is a reminder that everything we have belongs to God. The empire can have our coin, because what is truly important is that what is Gods is given to God to be used for the building of the kingdom.

And that, my brothers and sisters, is much more frightening than giving just ten percent. That is much more frightening than limiting the work of God to what we take off the top of our family budgets. All that we have belongs to God. This building, our material possessions, our families, our hearts—they all belong to God.

None of this is ours.

The question left implied in this text is this: will we give to God what already belongs to God? Or will we hold on to these things for our personal, financial, and spiritual security?

Because as co-creators in the work of God—or maybe better said—as co-conspirators in the work of God, the work doesn’t get done when we act like the good news is just for us. The work doesn’t get done, when we treat our possessions as if they actually belong to us, and hoard the resources. More specifically, more directly, God’s people don’t get fed when we don’t share our food with others. God’s people don’t get housed when we don’t share our homes with them. God’s people don’t have opportunities for justice, when we don’t share access to resources, power and networks.

Which brings me back to occupy Philadelphia. These folks—who come from all walks of life, are doing the work of God. They are feeding each other, making sure everyone is warm and clothed, and providing medical care for everyone. They are doing what the early church did.

Using social media, they are gathering the resources they need to care for each other, and showing the government—both local and national—that this is what it means to have “liberty and justice for all”. And, it’s been a kick in the pants for some of us in the church. This is what it means to “do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.” This is what the early church tried to do. They tried to live the good news with their lives and hearts, and all that they had belonged to God.

This Occupy Philadelphia movement is reminiscent of the Peasant revolts during the birth of the radical reformation. While the gospel was being un-domesticated by reformers who were putting the word into the hands of the people, instead of keeping it safely in the church, the everyday people in Europe were declaring their disgust with the government for overtaxing the poor, while allowing the rich to go untouched. This was an opportunity for the people’s concerns, and the people’s story to be joined with the gospel story, and the liberating message of Jesus. And it changed forever how we do church, and how we read the gospel.

The Peasant revolt wasn’t perfect. Early Anabaptists used violent means to try to built a just society. It was a disaster—many, many people died. But they learned from it. And they changed course.

They learned—as they sought justice—that spirituality must be part of this movement. They learned—as they prayed and studied the scriptures together—that Jesus’ call to all people was the way of peace, and required that they put it all on the line. Because everything they had belonged to God.

And while Occupy Philadelphia is not a religious or spiritual movement per se, there are people at these events that are making this connection. Some of you in this very congregation have seen the connection between the life and practices of Jesus, and the demands of the movement.

Today, there has also been a call among us to remember the need for food in our community. It is world food day, and many of you have brought extra food, remembering that so many in our neighborhood don’t have enough, and recalling that Jesus fed the 5,000 with very little.

There has also been a call to give what we have to the Occupy Philadelphia movement. Katie has called us to bring in blankets, water, food, and other things to support the calls for justice going on at City hall.

Today is also a celebration of communion, an ongoing theme for the month of October here at Germantown Mennonite. As we remember the last meal with Christ, we recall that this is more than a symbolic act, this is a spiritual act, and a justice act. We remember that even as Jesus knew his days were numbered, he made sure there was sustenance for his faithful followers. Those disciple—though they were quite dense at times—gave all that belonged to God, back to God, because they believed Jesus had the power to make a change. As followers in the way of Jesus—as co-conspiritors in the work of God, we too are called to give it all up. Not just 10 percent—we are called by God to give back to God what already belongs to God. And we are called to share all that we have with others—giving strength for the journey in the form of bread and wine (both the spiritual kind, and the physical kind). God calls us to the table to give it all up for the sake of the kingdom.

AMEN.