Consider It, Take counsel and Speak Up

Domestic Violence Awareness Sunday

Judges 19

Reverend Beverly Weinhold

October 14, 2007

On October 2, 2001 George W. Bush proclaimed October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. These were our president’s words on that occasion:

The social blight of domestic violence has continued to burden America into the 21^st Century. Our homes should be places of safety and comfort. Tragically, domestic violence can and does turn many homes into places of torment. The grim facts speak for themselves: almost 1/3 of American women murdered each year are killed by their current or former partner.

Recently the Department of Justice issued even more startling statistics: “Every 9 seconds in the United States of America a wife is beaten by her husband.” “Nearly 25% of surveyed women and 8% of surveyed men said they were raped and/or physically assaulted by a former or current partner.” And lest we believe that church-goers are immune, credible research suggests that there is no significant difference in the amount of violence occurring in religious versus non-religious homes. Speaking to this, Presbyterian pastor James Newton Poling adds that these statistics do not diminish with social class, race, religion or faithful church attendance…which means that on any given Sunday, 25 percent of people in the pew have experienced violence up close and personal.

These statistics are unconscionable for me as a Christian clergyperson. Like a staff member said; “this pushes me to an emotional edge. It’s like reading horrific headlines in the Boston Globe and wanting to turn the page because the news is just to hard to hear.” But as Christians we don’t get to pick and choose the news of scripture. Our options are to hide our head in the sand or to hear and heed. This is why the writer of Judges 19 concludes with the emotional plea: “Consider it, take counsel and speak up.”

When I consider this little story stuck between the pages of scripture that so offends my sensibilities, I’m struck with a question: Why was this allowed to happen? What were the accepted norms in this ancient society that would normalize violence? Close on the heels of that question comes a corollary one: Why has this same violence only escalated in civilized circles? Are the same attitudes that infected ancient Israel affecting America today? Honestly, I’ve struggled with these questions for over 10 years and come to a couple conclusions: Ancient Israel preferred denial over truth and this created a code of silence that allowed violence to escalate. And secondly, ancient Israel practiced patriarchy instead of gender equality and it encouraged oppression instead of justice.

I.

First, this ancient Israel opted for denial over truth. An old bumper sticker said; “denial is not a river in Egypt.” And if it was, it ran straight through the center of our story line. Hospitality was the rule of the day. It was a tradition with religious roots held in high regard. Because God had welcomed the Israelites when they were strangers in Egypt, the nation was expected to follow suit. But like many traditions, the host took his hospitality to an extreme. In an attempt to do the ‘right thing’ he sacrificed true righteousness. Therefore, he not only provided food and shelter but protected his male guest at all costs. His hospitality even took precedent over the precious life of his virgin daughter. But if you think the host’s behavior was wrong, the Levite’s was worse. Levites like Priests were set aside by God and called to provide religious leadership to the nation of Israel. His role would have been to model moral behavior, but instead he shoved his wife out the door to save his own skin. Instead of being a religious leader, he became a co-conspirator with his host’s code of silence.

When we think about what the Levite did in the context his actions are even more disturbing. At the beginning of our story in Judges 19, we’re told that the concubine left the marriage 4 months ago. We’re not given any reasons. But because the Levite wanted her back he wooed her with tender talk. It’s remarkable to me to see how much this ancient story parallels the cycle of domestic violence in modernity. Speaking to this, Reverend Alan Miles says that sweet talk is simply another manifestation of the cycle of violence; the abuser violates his wife, expresses deep remorse with flowers and fancy dinners and then makes a sincere promise to change. But he refuses to seek treatment and in months and sometimes even years, the cycle begins again [Leadership: 1999].

But it didn’t take the Levite years or even months to repeat the cycle of violence. He’s quick to sweet talk her home, but he’s dead silent when he shoves her out the door to a sure death. There was no dialogue here. Like victims today, this concubine had no voice. Speaking to the silence of women, the American Bar Association reports “92% of women who are physically abused by their partners do not discuss these incidents with their physicians and 57% do not discuss the incidents with anyone.” Like Simon and Garfunkles’ seventies song, victims seem surrounded by “Sounds of Silence.” Even when we feel horrified our shame renders us speechless. Like revisionist of holocaust history, we deny that such egregious behavior has even happened. And in so doing we blame the victim and bless the perpetrator. Our own unwritten ‘tradition’ to hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil makes us co-conspirators and like the Levite we collude in silence. We keep secrets.

But keeping secrets can’t serve justice. Truth, not secrets will set us free say the scriptures. “Consider it, take counsel and speak up,” cries the writer of Judges. Episcopal Priest Fredrich Beuchner in his Pulitzer Prize winning book “Telling Secrets” says the same thing:

We become our secrets. If we are ever to be free and whole, we must be free from their darkness and have their spell over us broken. If we are ever to see each other as we fully are, we must see by their light. “Search me, O god, and know my heart!” cries the great 139^th Psalm, which is all about the hiding and the baring of secrets.

II.

Israel preferred denial over truth and the net result was that violence was normalized. Furthermore, Israel’s practiced patriarchy instead of God’s gender equality. Let’s be clear. The woman in Judges 19 wasn’t thrown under the bus because she was a concubine living in a classest culture. She was thrown under the bus because she was a woman in a paternalistic culture. There’s a critical difference. For us the term “concubine” congers up images of harlots, kept women, and people of ill repute. The concubine in Judges 19 was none of these. Instead she was a second wife. Taking a second wife was acceptable in ancient Israel when a first wife was infertile or past the age for child bearing. That is why the Levite is called the concubine’s “husband” and her father’s “son-in-law” in the story line. Make no mistake about it. This woman in our little story was not a second-class citizen because she was a concubine; she was a second-class citizen because she was female.

Sadly, these same injustices are seen 3000 years later. In Jordan, Morocco and Syria women who commit adultery can be legally killed by their husbands. If a spouse feels snubbed in Bangladesh or India a partner can throw acid in another’s face. And in the Continent of Africa an estimated 130 million females are mutilated in an accepted ancient ritual. Of the 1.3 billion people in the world considered the “absolute poor” 70% of them are women. And 2/3’s of the world’s illiterate are women. Lest we lull ourselves into believing that “what’s out there can’t be here” we need to remind ourselves that women were not allowed to vote in the United States until 1920. And only in the last decade have woman been able to file restraining orders against abusive spouses. Furthermore, its notable that in1980 the United Nations crafted a treaty entitled “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Despite the fact that the US drafted this document and to date it has been ratified by 192 nations, two nations have held out: Somalia and the United States [People for the American Way: pfaw.org)

Gratefully both the Old and New Testaments trump genderism in every form. The writer of Genesis states the case twice for emphasis “male and female are created in God’s image.” “Male and female, God created them. In God’s image God created them.” Since both genders are created in God’s image can their be any question that they are equal. It would be a divine oxymoron to think that any part of God’s image could be inferior to another. The Hebrew Scriptures continue to turn genderism on its head when applauds Deborah as a judge, Huldah as an advisor to King David and Esther as a deliver to the Jews. The New Testament is just as radical regarding genderism. The genealogy of Jesus names three women: Mary, Tamar and Rahab…an unthinkable thing to do in the Jewish Rabbinical tradition. Jesus invites Mary to learn at his feet a right reserved for Jewish Rabbis. Priscilla’s name is placed first as a teaching team with her husband Aquilla; a Jewish literary device that indicates that she is the lead teacher proclaiming the Gospel in Acts. And finally, Paul greets Junia, a female apostle (not Junias, masculine) in the last chapter of Romans. Finally, regardless of the rubric about the Apostle Paul, his words were the definitive defense for gender equality: For there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female for you are all one in Jesus Christ.

Summary

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and today is Domestic Violence Awareness Sunday. I am deeply grateful that Pilgrim Church of Duxbury is courageously committed to topics of social justice. It is God’s call and your commitment that gives me courage to speak out. No doubt about it, it’s a hard topic to hear. It’s a hard topic to preach. It pushes us all to an emotional edge and it makes us all want to turn the page. But as Christian people we are drawn into the story line and like it or not we are we are confronted with a choice. For the concubine in Judges 19 is a metaphor not only for the ancient Israel but for our modern world. When the Levite awakes in the morning he opens the door. And there draped over the doorway is the lifeless body of the concubine; her hands holding fast to the threshold for help. Dear people, there are increasing numbers of women, children and men draped over the doorways of our churches seeking our help. We dare not deny them justice. For in the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we refuse…we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.

Therefore, as a company of believers let us commit ourselves in the spirit of Christ and “consider it, take counsel and speak up!”

Amen.