SETTING THE CONTEXT

When I was in seminary studying the Old Testament, we had to write a paper on a passage and our professor challenged us to write it on one that we hated. My first thought was “I don’t hate any passage of the Bible.” (After all it is the Bible and we’re not supposed to hate any part of it, right?) But then I remembered this story about the Levite and his wife, I hated this text. I could not imagine that it had any value, but I love a challenge, so I decided to do what my professor asked and studied this story. I did wrestle with it for months as I did biblical research as well as prayer and mediation on it.

It is a story that deals with rape which is why we have been warning people that it is PG-13 subject matter. Parents and grandparents may want to make sure your younger children are in the nursery or Sunday School. It is precisely the kind of story that people point to and say, “this is why I quit reading the Bible. You tell me that God is loving and kind, but then there is this kind of story in the Bible.” This is precisely why I thought it was a good candidate for our CSI: Christian Story Investigator sermon series. We will close the sermon series with this very challenging story.

THE SERMON

After Moses died, Joshua became the leader of the Israelites in the Promised Land. After Joshua died came the time of the Judges. The Book of Judges represents a time of lawlessness in the history of Israel. In the book, Israel turns away from God and suffers terrible consequences. Eventually they realize that their lives are terrible and they turn back to God, crying out for deliverance. God then sends a deliverer, a judge and the people live in peace for a while. Then the people turn away from God again and the cycle starts again. In the final section of the book, there is no judge. Each story repeats the phrase, "In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes." The Book of Judges occurs before there were human kings in Israel, so Yahweh, God is the king. There is no king in Israel means that the people had turned from God and did whatever they wanted to do, a sure recipe for disaster.

Chapter 19 begins with the words “In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite,” (this is a man who was a religious worker very high on the status scale as someone set apart for the work of the Lord) “residing in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim” (which is to the north of Jerusalem in Israel, the northern kingdom), “took to himself a concubine” (a slave girl who belonged to a Hebrew family and bore children. She might be considered a second or third wife.) “from Bethlehem in Judah,” the southern kingdom. The concubine or wife got angry with him and went home, back to her father's house for four months. The Levite followed her seeking to reconcile and was offered extravagant hospitality by her father, encouraging the Levite to stay extra days. At the end of the fifth day, the Levite refused to stay any longer and left for home with his slave wife. It was beginning to get late, but the Levite refused to stop at what later became Jerusalem because it was not an Israelite town; it was in Judah. You can already hear the animosity between her country, Judah and his, Israel as the story starts to unfold. Let’s start reading at verse 14 “So they passed on and went their way; and the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin. 15 They turned aside there, to go in and spend the night at Gibeah. He went in and sat down in the open square of the city, but no one took them in to spend the night.” So here is the first sign that something is very wrong. In the ancient Near Eastern world, hospitality was an essential custom and for the Israelites it was a covenantal responsibility. They were to be hospitable as God had been hospitable to them when they were strangers (Deuteronomy 10:18-19).ⁱ Here we have our first clue that people are not following God’s way. The irony is that the Levites were entrusted with teaching the requirements of the covenant and this Levite was experiencing the consequences of the townsfolk not living up to those requirements. Whether the townsfolk were ignorant or whether they just didn’t care, the residents of Gibeah were inhospitable to the travelers. This is not good, but there was one who was different.

Let’s read on. Verse 16 ” Then at evening there was an old man coming from his work in the field. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim,” (someone from the same area as the Levite) “and he was residing in Gibeah. (The people of the place were Benjaminites.) 17 When the old man looked up and saw the wayfarer in the open square of the city, he said, "Where are you going and where do you come from?" 18 He answered him, "We are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, from which I come. I went to Bethlehem in Judah; and I am going to my home. Nobody has offered to take me in. 19 We your servants have straw and fodder for our donkeys, with bread and wine for me and the woman and the young man along with us. We need nothing more." 20 The old man said, "Peace be to you. I will care for all your wants; only do not spend the night in the square." 21 So he brought him into his house, and fed the donkeys; they washed their feet, and ate and drank.” The old man showed the family hospitality, but their comfort was short-lived. “

22 While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the city, a perverse lot, surrounded the house, and started pounding on the door. They said to the old man, the master of the house, "Bring out the man who came into your house, so that we may have intercourse with him." 23 And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, "No, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Since this man is my guest, do not do this vile thing. 24 Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing." 25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them. They wantonly raped her, and abused her all through the night until the morning. And as the dawn began to break, they let her go. 26 As morning appeared, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was, until it was light. 27 In the morning her master got up, opened the doors of the house, and when he went out to go on his way, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.”

This is a really hard story to read. The behavior of the men of Gibeah moves from inhospitality to brutal violence towards the strangers. This part of the story echoes the story of Sodom in Genesis 19 and in that story God destroys the city as punishment for their behavior. The men of Gibeah attempt to demonstrate their power and complete superiority over the stranger in town by utterly humiliating him.ⁱⁱ Isn’t this what sexual violence is about whether to men, women or children? Isn’t it always about power, about demonstrating complete superiority over the violated? We have become way too comfortable with the idea of sexual violence. It is in our entertainment, in our TV shows, our movies, our video games, even our music. When will we regain our outrage? And the church is silent, we, the church are silent. I have to confess to you that in all my years in ministry, I have preached one sermon on sexuality, one sermon. How long, how long until we consider it, take counsel, speak out.

The horror in the story continues. This is a patriarchal society and so the old man may be acting appropriately according to his culture, but he takes a big fall from grace in my book; he is no longer portrayed positively to me. He offered his virgin daughter and the Levite’s wife to this brutal crowd, the very thought turns my stomach. The action was still an outrage, but it was the lesser of two evils according to the customs of his day. The Levite cruelly threw his wife out to the mob and locked the door. He also “did what was right in his own eyes.” He did not protect his wife. He did not honor his marriage covenant. We are left with the chilling image of her battered abused body lying near the door with her arms outstretched her hands reaching across the threshold seeking safety and finding none. She had many strikes against her: she was a woman, a slave, from the “other” (enemy) nation. Where was her welcome? Where was even a modicum of protection? Isn’t everyone due that amount of hospitality? Isn’t there a minimum that every person is due for they were formed by the Creator just as we are and that makes us family? Could that be what Jesus was getting at when he told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? (Matthew 5:44) So what does that say to us when the Pew Research Center found 46% of Mainline Protestant Christians, 46% of us feel that the use of torture against suspected terrorists can often or sometimes be justified?ⁱⁱⁱ How can Jesus’ teaching be held next to any behavior that almost all of us would agree is torture? Consider it, take counsel, speak out.

The story of the Levite’s wife shows us the kind of chaos and violence that is inevitable when human beings “do what is right in their own right eyes.” This story is so relevant. It has been played out in history so many times. Did you know that the SS Nazis who rounded up the Jews during World War II and who ran the concentration camps had “God is with us” inscribed on their belts? We know that they lied for we know the true Emmanuel, the true “God with us” is Jesus the Christ and his standard was “love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) We have seen the violence in Darfur, in Sudan, in the chaos of Somalia, in the slums of India, Mexico, and Los Angeles. We can see the inhumanity and violence close to home from human trafficking to domestic violence. I started out as such an optimist, but I have to admit that the tendency toward self-absorption and violence is not an aberration in history, but a constant prospect when we turn away from God and the ways of God. This is sin. Consider it, take counsel, speak out.

Let us return to our story. 28 "Get up," he [the Levite] said to her, "we are going." But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey; and the man set out for his home. 29 When he had entered his house, he took a knife, and grasping his concubine he cut her into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel. 30 Then he commanded the men whom he sent, saying, "Thus shall you say to all the Israelites, "Has such a thing ever happened since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until this day? Consider it, take counsel, and speak out.' "

As if the story could get any worse! The Levite was so callous to the pain of his concubine, he not only sleeps through the night while she is brutalized, but he commands her to get up. The horror is accentuated because we don’t know if she is dead or alive. Then what’s up with the dismemberment? It has to mean something; dismemberment similar to the one here does occur in another place in Scripture in 1 Samuel 11:7 only there it was done to oxen. The message was sent out to call people to honor their covenant. It was used to tell them, “this is very urgent; we have to defend ourselves from a grave threat.” The implication, in fact, was “if you don't answer this summons this is what is going to happen to you.” The haunting refrain is the clue “Consider it, take counsel, speak out.” If we do not learn, we will continue the cycle.

This terrible story bears a very important message. I think Biblical scholar, Clinton McCann said it well, by documenting the terrifying effects of a people turning away from God and [doing what is “right in their own eyes”] which is self-absorbed and idolatrous, this story calls people in every age to repentance. It calls us to a more excellent way – the way of loyalty to God that finds expression in the pursuit of justice and righteousness especially for the powerless and the vulnerable. It is loyalty to God and God’s ways that yields peace (shalom) and life rather than hostility, abuse, violence and death. There would one day be a king of Israel, who would truly embody God’s justice, righteousness, and mercy, and we know him, he is Jesus the Christ. He has gathered up a people to be devoted to loving the world as God loves the world that is our call as Christians.^iv Not that we don’t have our own failures, God knows we have failed in living this calling, but by God’s amazing grace, God has taken our flawed efforts and touched the world through us.

This story is a warning to us. As our political climate has become more and more polarized, it has become harder and harder for us to have a dialogue about social issues in the church. We have watched people we cared about leave this community, a community they loved because of disagreements over something said in a sermon or in a meeting or by another official in the church over a social issue. It has become so toxic we measure every word we speak with fear. Is our love for each other so frail? I fear that if we divorce our faith from the political and social issues of the day, we set ourselves up as a nation like Israel in the story. I do not want my children and grandchildren left to a country that has lost its moral grounding in God’s will and ways and is descending into moral chaos. I want to be able to wrestle with the complex issues of our day with my brothers and sisters of faith. I want to hear the different understandings and opinions of the people in my church, people I respect who have a deep faith and a clear relationship with Jesus Christ. I want to wrestle with them together with the difficult issues of today. I don’t expect to have the same opinion; I do expect more than a civil discourse, but a holy conferencing grounded in our love for each other and for God through Jesus Christ. This terrible story, the story of the Levite’s wife reminds us of what happens when people don’t have God in their lives and when they do whatever they want to do. It reminds us how much we need God at the center of our lives individually and collectively. Consider it, take counsel, speak out. Amen.