Whose Terror Is it Anyway III:

“The Unnamed Concubine from Bethlehem”

Judges 19:1-30

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

LENT III

February 24, 2008

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

 

Today, we look at our third “Text of Terror”. At a time before Israel had a king, they were lead by various judges. Judges 19 speaks of a leader of the people and his concubine. It’s an enigmatic story. You have a brutal priest (the person is a Levite and that was the tribe of the priests), his concubine, her father who shrewdly protected his daughter for as long as he could, a gang rape and murder of the concubine whose name we never know, and finally her dismemberment. It’s a gruesome story which holds several similarities to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In speaking about this text after church last Sunday, Mel Roy commented how if the gang rape that didn’t happen in Sodom can be used to condemn homosexuality, why isn’t the gang rape that did happen in Gibeah (Judges 19) used to condemn heterosexuality? Better yet, why is it not even remembered? The last verse of the chapter begs us to: “consider it, take counsel and speak out”. Good advice. Maybe that’s what this Lenten series is all about.

            Kim asked me after church last Sunday if these texts are so horrible, why did they get retained in the cannon?  If they are so terrible and paint people in such a bad light, why are they still here? 

There are a couple of possible answers.  The first is that they were not seen as terroristic texts by the editors of the Bible.  Maybe they thought that they illustrated a point here or there, which says a lot about the biases of the Biblical writers and their editors.  It shows that misogyny was alive and well in Biblical times and gets reproduced inasmuch as we unquestioningly take the Bible as the authoritative document.  If misogyny is okay in the Bible it must be okay in our lives.

            The other option is that the stories are here for us to argue with, to learn from and to make sure the subjugation and abuse of women never happens again.  The truth is probably somewhere in between these two realities.  I know that I will take the advice of the writer of Judges, “Consider the text, take counsel and speak out.”  That’s what it’s about for me.

            So let’s consider the text. 

            We need to notice a few things about the scripture passage.  The first is that there is no king in the land.  Not that having a king necessarily helps things, especially if the king does not follow the law, but the point is that there is anarchy.  There are no rules of behavior.  In this kind of setting any vile thing can happen.  And it does.  By the end of the book of Judges, you have the annihilation of the people of Gibeah in retribution for the concubine’s murder.  But then, so as not to completely wipe out the tribe of Benjamin, they capture 600 virgins to match the 600 surviving men from Benjamin’s tribe.  The rape of one becomes the rape of 600 more.  One of the survivors from the tribe of Benjamin was Saul who would become the first king of Israel.  The book of Judges ends with a repeat of the statement from the beginning of Judges 19:  “in those days there was no king in Israel ; all men did what was right in their own eyes.”

            The next thing to notice is that neither the Levite nor his concubine have names.  In fact, none of the people in the story have names.  But one thing is clear, the violence happens to the women, the concubine in particular.  In times of warfare it is easier to do your job as a warrior if you objectify your opponent by taking away their names.  They are not people, they are gooks, or rag-heads, or godless imperialists.  It makes it easier to forget that we are cut from the same cloth if names are forgotten or devalued.

            The Levite is said to have spoken tenderly to her—spoken to her heart (19:3).  He obviously had feelings for her.  But at the end of the story his feelings are closed off and cold.  In fact, at the height of the siege from the men of Gibeah, the Levite throws his concubine out to them.  Whereas he has spoken to her heart earlier, now he cares little for her.

            The Levite shows no remorse.  His dismemberment of the concubine (was she alive or dead?) was cold and heartless.  He did not grieve her rape and murder.  Instead, he grieved what could have happened to him at the hands of the men of Gibeah.

            The concubine’s father was crafty and an advocate for his daughter.  Far from being comic relief, he shrewdly tried to placate the Levite and bought time for the woman.  It reminds me of the negotiations that Abraham and God got into in Genesis 18.  Abraham asked God to spare the people of Sodom if there were only 50 righteous, then he talked God down to 40 and eventually 10 righteous people.  The concubine’s father tried to butter up the Levite with food, drink and hospitality, extending their stay while trying to save his daughter’s life.  It ultimately did not work and the issue of hospitality will again play a central role in the end of the chapter.

            The men have all of the power.  They determine what is good and what is evil.  The good seldom happens to the woman.  While this power dynamic is obvious from the story, look how it is accentuated in the last several verses.  When the men of Gibeah want to “know” the Levite, the master tells them to “not act so wickedly.  Since this man is my guest, do not do such a vile thing.”  But he then offers the men his own virgin daughter and his guest’s concubine saying, “ravish them, and do whatever you want with them, whatever you think is good; but against this man don’t do such a vile thing.”  Rape of men is vile but rape of women is good?  That’s what the text says. 

            So we have considered the text, now we are to take counsel.

            Kim suggested to me last night that maybe the reason these texts were kept in the Bible were so that women would see that they had no power—that their place was to not question for fear of retribution, being thrown to the wolves and cut to pieces by the knife of your supposed protector or overseer.  That’s not the case of all the women in the Bible.  Ruth and Hannah come to mind.  But the texts of terror are there and women do not fare well in them.

            Robyn Linde wrote me an e-mail this week from her new home in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts.  She told me that the examination of these texts of terror were pivotal for her life.  Reading Phyllis Trible’s book, “Texts of Terror”, caused her to reconsider the simplistic faith of her childhood.  She even said that it made her flee from the church.  She said that it wasn’t until she came to UBC that she was able to reconnect her spiritual life and her life as a feminist.  She thanked UBC for tackling these texts of terror.  Taking counsel meant for her that she did not need to stay in that black and white religion of her upbringing.  She could take even a terrifying text such as this one and use it to deepen her rage and eventually her faith.

I heard a number of veterans speak on Tuesday at Peace, War and the Heartland.  I was especially moved by the stories of the female vets who were survivors of rape by their own comrades.  They spoke about how people went into a place where survival required shutting off your feelings.  They spoke about how foxholes make more atheists than converts—so brutal, base and other-worldly is war.  It’s no wonder that when they come back and try to fit in to “normal” society that they act out or internalize their horror at what they did or witnessed.  Many self-medicate.  Many continue to act out.  Many seethe with rage and despair.  And few find solace in religion.  What a sad commentary.

            So, we consider the text and then we take counsel.  We find those places where our lives intersect with the text and we try to think about where we are and where we ought to be in this world.  This leads us to the third thing.  Speaking out.

            Here’s how Phyllis Tribe ends her chapter on Judges 19:

“Misogyny belongs to every age, including our own.  Violence and vengeance are not just characteristics of a distant, pre-Christian past; they infect the community of the elect to this day.  Woman as object is still captured, betrayed, raped, tortured, murdered, dismembered, and scattered.  To take to heart this ancient story, then is to confess its present reality.  The story is alive, and all is not well.  Beyond confession we must take counsel and say, “Never again.”  Yet this counsel is itself ineffectual unless we direct our hearts to that most uncompromising of all biblical commandments, speaking the word not to others but to ourselves: Repent.  Repent.” (Trible, 1984:87)

            We look at the world, the texts of terror within them and we dare to speak out.

            We hear the stories of warfare and resistance, and we join Michael Lubke, the Minnesota 8 and the UBC hundred and we speak out.

            We hear about sexism and the terror of abuse and we speak out.

            We hear about the way people are sucked into lives of prostitution and we produce the play “Body & Sold” as a way of speaking out.  

            We experience abuse or injustice and we hold each other close as we speak out.

            We listen to the texts of our lives.  Some are terror-laden, some are not, but we all long for a world where everyone s treated fairly and no one need be scared for their lives or their livelihoods and we speak out.

            Every time we have a rainbow on our Bible we speak out saying this is a safe space for people regardless of who they love or how they identify themselves and we speak out.

            When we advocate for full marriage rights for all people we speak out. 

            Sometimes it’s hard to speak out.  I was in my dentist’s chair the other day and the dental hygienist started speaking about how the woman who caused the school bus accident in Southern Minnesota was an illegal immigrant.  She said that she hoped that it would be a wake-up call so that we would keep them out.  She had sharp instruments in my mouth.  But she did give me an opportunity to respond and I dared point out the potential for racism in such lines of thinking.   I spoke about how we are nation of immigrants.  I spoke about how complex it is and how the IMF and the World Bank create situations in other countries that make the playing field uneven while US folk tend to get the rewards.  Luckily we were almost done at this point, but I needed to speak out, sharp instruments or not.

            We are here to consider the texts of scripture and the texts of our lives.  We are to take counsel one with another and one with God.  Then we are to speak out. 

When we do all of that, then maybe we are making the church and the world a safer place for all people.  Whose Terror is it anyway?  It may be ours.  It may be a neighbor.  But when we hear about or see terror, I know we will consider the text, take counsel and speak out.  That will make all the difference.