Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
21 October 2018
Acts 8.26-39
Judges
19.1-30
It’s now just over a year since allegations against Harvey
Weinstein began to emerge,
giving rise
to what has become known as the #metoo campaign.
It began when
‘actor Alyssa Milano tweeted:
“If
all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted
wrote
‘me too’ as a status,
we
might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”
Since then, #MeToo has either
been used
as
a statement of solidarity on social media,
or attached to harrowing accounts
of harassment and abuse
recorded
by men and women.’[1]
What the #metoo campaign has done, possibly for the first
time,
is to
provide a global context and platform
for victims
of violence, particularly sexual violence,
to
speak up and speak out.
For most of human history,
the voices
of victims have been systemically silenced,
with their abuse denied, minimised, or justified
by those
who have presumed to speak on behalf
of those
who have not been allowed to speak for themselves.
So, a year on from #metoo,
a number of
men associated with the entertainment industry,
are now in
prison, awaiting trial, or no longer working.
Stories of abuse have been heard and believed,
and some
measure of justice has been achieved.
But then we still live in a world
where Brett
Kavanaugh can be appointed
to the Supreme Court of the United
States,
despite the
multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct against him.
Clearly, despite #metoo,
the silencing
of victims,
and the
diminishing of their testimony, is still rife;
with none other than the President of the United States,
arguably
the most powerful man in the world,
publicly and frequently mocking the #metoo movement,
and denigrating
Professor Christine Blasey Ford
who
spoke out so courageously to bring allegations of sexual assault
against
Trump’s friend Brett Kavanaugh.
In a recent article analysing President Trump’s attitude
towards women,
the
American news network CNN says the following:
‘During the 2016 presidential
campaign,
at
least 13 women accused Trump of misbehaviour
ranging
from sexual harassment to sexual assault.
They came forward in the wake of
a 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape
that
was released in October 2016
in which he is caught saying on a
hot mic:
"And
when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ..."’[2]
It goes on,
but I’m not going to repeat from the pulpit what he says next.
And so we come to scriptures,
and f you
find yourself wondering
why
a horrific story like that of the Levite’s concubine,
should sit
within the pages of our holy book,
I think the answer may be found
not only
the words of Donald Trump,
but in the
story of another biblical woman.
In the book of Esther, the eponymous heroine finds herself
elevated
from the Persian
King’s harem to the royal bedchamber,
with the King
unaware that her ethnic identity is Jewish.
When he passes a law to destroy the Jews,
Esther’s
uncle challenges her to speak out, and remain silent no more.
He suggests, problematically, that maybe her experience
of sexual
exploitation at the hands of a powerful man,
was, as he puts it, ‘for such a time as this’. (Esther 4.14)
For both Esther, and for the women of the #metoo campaign,
the time
came to speak out and put an end to silence.
In this we need to note that speaking out is always
difficult, and possibly dangerous,
and that in
no way should it ever be used, as Esther’s uncle attempted to do,
to
justify or redeem the abuse.
The abused should not be forced to speak out if they are not
ready.
But it
remains true that the voicing of victims is vital,
if cultures of silencing are to be
overturned.
And so we come to the Levite’s concubine,
who is,
herself, never permitted to speak in the biblical narrative.
What can this silenced women, from thousands of years ago,
say to us
today?
What is her message, for such a time as this?
In order to explore that, I’m afraid we need to take her
story
into the next
couple of chapters from the book of Judges.
To avoid reading them out in full,
I’m going
to use the words of Jenni Williams to summarise them for us.
She takes up the story:
‘Cutting her body up and
spreading the pieces across Israel
might
be deemed as terrible as the gang-rape,
for it denies her the chance for
burial
-
and not to be buried is the worst fate in Israel,
as
in the case of Jezebel (2 Kings 9.35-37).
But the violence does not stop
there:
the
tribes of Israel then begin a war
against
the men of Gibeah to punish them.
The Benjaminites come out for
Gibeah, which is in Benjamin.
‘For two days the Benjaminites
have the upper hand
and
40,000 Israelites die.
On the third day Benjamin is
defeated
and
over 25,000 of them die in battle,
plus
the whole city of Gibeah.
‘Once the fighting has died down
the
Israelites become concerned for [the future of the tribe of] Benjamin,
as
they have sworn never to marry their daughters to a Benjaminite,
so
there is now a real chance
that
the tribe of Benjamin might die out.
Their solution is to find a town
that
did not [fight with Israel against Benjamin, called] Jabesh-Gilead.
Everyone [there] is executed
except 400 young women who are virgins,
or
at least unattached girls of an age to be married.
They are sent to Shiloh and
married off to the remaining Benjaminites.
‘Any Benjaminite who did not get
a wife
is
encouraged to watch for the girls of Shiloh
when
they come out to dance at a festival
and then perform what is commonly
called marriage by rape.’[3]
Just when you thought the story couldn’t get any worse!
The
violence done to the woman
at
the hands of the men of Gibeah and her husband,
leads to
widespread warfare, mass killing,
and further widespread sexual
violence against women.
And whilst this story is both surprising and shocking,
and
certainly little-read and preached-upon in our churches;
it probably shouldn’t surprise us that in ancient times, as
now,
violence
against women was rife,
both within
the home and within society.
I recently completed some training from the Baptist Union
about
domestic violence;
and the figures are frightening.
According to the Home Office
·
1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse at some
point in their lifetime
·
1 in 6 men will experience domestic abuse at
some point in their lifetime
·
1 in 5 children are exposed to domestic abuse
The average number of assaults suffered
before a
domestic abuse victim first calls the police is 35,
and two women per week are murdered in the UK
by their
partner or ex-partner.
And I’m afraid that if Christians tell themselves
that
domestic violence doesn’t happen in Christian homes,
not only are they deceiving themselves,
but they
are participating in the silencing of victims,
and in perpetuating
the culture of abuse.
The Baptist Union say,
‘We would hope that Baptist
churches
demonstrate
a culture and environment where all people are safe
and
where anyone is able to express any fears, anxieties and concerns
they
have without the fear of ridicule, rejection or judgement.
Churches should be places of
refuge and safety
where
victims are supported and cared for
without
pressure or hurrying.
They should be communities that
condemn violence and abuse
and
that challenge and support perpetrators to change their behaviour.
Sadly, churches have not always
responded well
to
incidents of abuse when people have found the courage to ask for help.
This has partly been due to a
lack of understanding
about
domestic abuse and its impact,
and partly due to the misguided
use of the Bible
to
justify and perpetuate abuse,
particularly
against women.’ [4]
We live in a culture where sexual violence is normalised,
and where
assaults are written off as ‘domestics’.
Within Christian culture, too often we see
the
outworking of a warped view of biblical headship
where
the woman is in effect the property of her husband,
and the man is seen as having a godly
right to discipline his wife.
To get behind this, we need to analyse it further,
and I want
to introduce here the phrase ‘rape culture’.
This term was originally coined by feminists in the 1970’s.
And was
designed to show the ways in which society
blamed
victims of sexual assault
and
normalized male sexual violence.[5]
Emilie Buchwald, author of Transforming a Rape Culture,
describes
that when society normalizes sexualized violence,
it
accepts and creates rape culture.
In her book she defines rape culture as:
‘a complex set of beliefs that
encourage male sexual aggression
and
supports violence against women.
It is a society where violence is
seen as sexy
and
sexuality as violent.
In a rape culture,
women
perceive a continuum of threatened violence
that
ranges from sexual remarks
to
sexual touching to rape itself.
A rape culture condones physical
and emotional terrorism
against
women as the norm . . .
In a rape culture both men and
women
assume
that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable . . .
However . . . much of what we
accept as inevitable
is
in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.’[6]
Rape culture includes jokes, TV, music,
advertising,
legal jargon,
laws,
words, and imagery,
that make violence against women and sexual coercion
seem so
normal, that people believe that rape is inevitable.
Rather than viewing the culture of rape as a problem to
change,
people in a
rape culture think about the persistence of rape
as “just the
way things are.”[7]
And, I am afraid to say,
our
culture, here in the UK, in many areas, is a rape culture.
Those of us who would identify as middle class Christians,
may be
removed from much of what goes on in the wider world around us,
but those who know what it’s like in schools, gangs, and on the
streets of our city,
tell us
that sexual violence against women is rife.
The story of the Levite’s concubine
starts to
sound more contemporary by the moment.
This unnamed and unvoiced woman’s story
echoes down
the millennia to us,
as she screams in pain at us through the pages of our
scriptures,
forcing us
to confront the horrific realities
of
our own time, our own culture,
our own friends, maybe our own lives
and
our own families.
And her dismembered body challenges us, as it challenged
Israel of old;
asking us
what we are going to do
about the grim reality of sexual
violence, domestic abuse,
and the
systemic silencing and shaming of victims.
A key determining factor in our response, I think,
will be
where we see God in relation to this issue.
The Israelites in the story saw God as being firmly on their
side,
as they
went to war with the Benjaminites
to avenge
the death of the Levite’s concubine.
Their self-righteous crusade to rid the land of evil,
ended up
compounding not only the sexual violence against women
by
a factor of over 400,
but also
triggering mass warfare
and
the death of tens of thousands.
We need to be very careful before we think that God is on
our side,
if we are
the powerful, setting out to avenge someone who has been wronged,
because we will almost certainly be blinded to the darkness
of our own hearts,
and end up
magnifying rather than correcting the evil.
This is why I remain very cautious about the culture of
scapegoating
that we see
in our society,
where individuals who have transgressed are targeted,
and become
the focus of our communal angst at their wrongdoing.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that men who abuse women are
prosecuted,
I’m glad
that victims are discovering a voice,
and are
speaking out the truth of what has been done to them.
But that doesn’t let the rest of us off,
and
pointing vehemently at the evil ‘over there’
can simply be a deflection mechanism f
or the
abuse that we’re ignoring ‘in here’,
in our own institutions, lives, and
families.
You see, God is not on the side of the righteous avenger,
God is
always on the side of the victim.
God is with the voiceless, the silenced, and the abused,
fare more
than God is with the powerful and the self righteous.
Do you remember the story of Philip and the Ethiopian
Eunuch,
and their
conversation on the road outside Jerusalem,
not so far
from where the Levite’s concubine was raped to death?
Philip hears the Eunuch reading from the prophet Isaiah,
and asks
him if he understands what he is reading.
The passage is from what we would call
the
suffering servant song of Isaiah (cf. Isa 53.7),
Acts 8.32-33
"Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a
lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his
humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his
life is taken away from the earth."
The Eunuch asks Philip a key question,
‘About whom’,
he says, ‘does the prophet say this,
about
himself or about someone else?’
And in this he captures the problem that Christians have had
in
interpreting this passage from Isaiah ever since.
You see, it’s not about Jesus,
but it is
about Jesus.
In the context of Isaiah, at the time he was writing,
the
suffering servant is the nation of Israel.
The silenced victim, humiliated like a lamb before its
shearer,
is Israel
in exile in Babylon.
The one whose life is taken away in violence,
is Israel,
God’s people.
And so Philip starts to speak to the Eunuch,
and he uses
this scripture to speak about the good news of Jesus.
And he, like we, sees in the life and death of Jesus,
the
activity of God in the vulnerable and the victimised,
he sees God present in the violence against the innocent,
he sees God
on the cross,
just as Isaiah saw God in the exile of Israel.
And if Philip and the Eunuch had turned the pages of their
scriptures a few pages back,
and the
Eunuch had read the story of the Levite’s concubine,
I wonder if Philip would also have said,
that in her
too is found the presence of God.
Maybe the good news of Jesus that Philip proclaims on the
road outside Jerusalem,
is that God
is present, in Christ, with all those who are victims.
They may be silenced, but God is listening to that silence,
hearing the
silent screams of those who cannot speak out.
God is present in Christ in agony on the cross,
God is
present with Israel in exile in Babylon,
God is
present as a young woman is raped to death outside Jerusalem,
God is
present as 400 young women are given to men as their wives,
God is
present as women who have gone to dance at a festival
are
taken away and raped into marriage.
And God is present when women are raped and killed
on the
streets and in the parks of our city,
and God is present when women are abused
in homes,
even Christian homes, by their husbands,
and God is present whenever a victim is silenced.
And as the people of God in our age,
we too need
to learn to hear the voices that cry out in silence,
and we need
to learn that God not on our side,
but
rather is present with, and in, and through,
all
those who face violent and voiceless futures.
We cannot ignore this story from our scriptures,
and we
cannot turn away from the reality of our world,
because to do so is to perpetuate a culture of violence,
that Christ
came to change.
[3]
Jenni Williams, God Remembered Rachel, p.52-3
