Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, July 28, 2024: 2 Samuel 11:1-15; Psalm 14; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21
This summer we’ve got some of the Bible’s greatest hits. Today is no exception: first, the story of David and Bathsheba, and then John’s account of the feeding of the 5000.
I am interested right now in two characters who are barely given space or voice in these two stories: Bathsheba, and the boy who had the five barley loaves and two fish.
David sees Bathsheba, who is “very beautiful”, finds out who she is, and sends messengers to her. Now, David is the King. When the King sends messengers, you don’t refuse. So, even though she is purifying herself after her period (when she would have been unclean), he “lay with her”. In all this, she is apparently passive and has no power: this is a rape. Her one action is to send a message to David that she is pregnant, and he calls her husband back so the child could plausibly be his. Uriah returns, but does not go to his house. So David ensures that he is killed in the next battle, but can be assumed to be the father of Bathsheba’s coming child.
David is, in all this, pretty terrible. But this week I found myself wondering about Bathsheba: did she love Uriah? Did she have other children? Her message that she was pregnant suggests this was not her first child. Did she enjoy her time with David? What happens to her after Uriah dies? What happens to the child or children? So much of the story is missing: her story doesn’t matter.
In the Gospel, there’s another person I started wondering about: the boy with the loaves and fishes. Were the loaves and fishes for his family? Why did he give them away? What prompted his generosity, which enabled Jesus’s demonstration of abundance? What did his family eat, once their food had been shared among 5000? What did he think about what happened?
For the writers who compiled our scriptures, these questions are, of course, irrelevant. But it’s useful to think about them, because we’re not always the center of the story. We regularly have walk-on parts in other people’s stories. And often we’re not the good Samaritan, but the innkeeper who helps. Or sometimes, like Bathsheba, we’re caught up in events we can’t control. We are, needless to say, the center of our own story, but that’s not always the one that matters.
Bathsheba, in a situation where she could not control things, still made sure David knew his responsibilities. As far as we know, they had no further contact. She did what she could, and she didn’t let David off the hook. Sometimes that’s all we can do: make sure we’ve named what has happened.
The boy in the Gospel has food, and he shares what he has. As far as we know he gets no return. He does what he can. And that’s sometimes where we are: we have something that can help, and we do what we can.
It’s useful to remember that sometimes we are bystanders, who do what we can in often complicated situations. That’s also comforting, because we do not always need to be the heroes. Most of our lives are not heroic. Last week we reflected on encountering Jesus in the everyday, unspectacular way. This week we are reminded that our actions may seem unspectacular, but are no less important.
As we go through life, it is good to know how to remind abusers of their responsibilities, and to do what we can. And it may seem little, but without the generosity of the boy, there would have been nothing to feed the 5000. Miracles often grow from small acts.