Veggie Tales and Me Too
Based on 2 Samuel 11
Children's Story, King George and the Rubber Ducky, a Veggie Tales story based on 2 Samuel 11 – this needs to be read first!
King George is the ruler of a wonderful kingdom, he has everything he could need or want. And what King George loves most of all are his rubber duckies. Every day he takes a bath and he has a huge cupboard of rubber duckies to choose from, all shapes and sizes and colours.
Well, one day King George gets up from his afternoon nap and goes to the window. Usually at this time of day most people sleeping, but a few houses over, the king sees Uri, one of his followers, having a bath, and with him he has a lovely little yellow rubber ducky. King George is smitten. He absolutely must have that rubber ducky. It is the most beautiful rubber ducky he has ever seen. It doesn't matter that he has much fancier ones in his rubber ducky closet, it doesn't matter that this is Uri's only rubber ducky, George is king and he wants that rubber ducky. So he takes it. His servants go to Uri's house, tell him the ducky is needed by the king and ship him off to war so won't tell anyone what happened. (War, by the way, is waged by slinging slushies and pies at the enemy.)
The king's prophet, Nathan, is furious. He comes to King George and tells him this goes against all of God's rules. At first the king is adamant, I'm king, I get to have whatever I want. He deserves that rubber ducky. Then Uri comes back from frontlines severely injured. He has had a direct hit from a pie plate and is unconscious. This is where Veggie Tales deviates slightly from Bible, but it still gets the point across. King George feels very guilty when he sees poor Uri. He brings him into the palace and has his own doctors look after Uri. Nathan keeps telling the king, only one thing will make Uri better and you know what it is. At first the king refuses. The rubber ducky is his now, he won't give it back, it's his favourite. But somehow, the pleasure of that rubber ducky is gone. It's just not the same. Finally King George acknowledges that he was wrong to take the rubber ducky, and he gives it back to Uri. As soon as does so, Uri recovers consciousness. King George talks to him, asking for forgiveness from both Uri and from God.
Sermon This is a powerful story and a disturbing one. We like David, up to now he's been the kind of hero we can look up to. He defeated Goliath by faith, he was kind to his followers, he wasn't afraid to dance with joy before God and his people. But today's story shows another side of him. Today we see him at his most human and it's not pretty.
Right from the start of the story we can see that David has changed. It is spring, “the time of year when kings go to war,” but David, the great warrior, stays home while his men go fight for him. He rises from his couch after an afternoon nap, sees a beautiful woman bathing, most likely he sees her through window as despite Leonard Cohen's lyrics in Hallelujah, the text doesn't actually say she was bathing on the roof. David likes what he sees and sends his messengers to get Bathsheba and he lies with her. Bathsheba has no voice, no choice in the matter. When the king's messengers arrive at your door, you don't say no. There is no consent here. The Hebrew word used for when the messengers get Bathsheba makes that clear, basically it means “to take with force.” David's lust satisfied, he sends Bathsheba back home and forgets about her. But then comes Bathsheba's message, I am pregnant. This changes everything. Bathsheba's husband Uriah has been away for months, there is no way he will accept the baby as his and it won't go over well if Bathsheba says David is the father. As king David can get away with a lot, but to take a married woman? One whose husband is a well esteemed warrior? That's another story. David needs to cover this up, fast. He calls Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, back from the war, and tells him to go home and wash his feet, an odd Hebrew euphemism for have sex with wife. Uriah refuses, he can't lie with his wife when his fellow soldiers are in the field.
Even when David gets him drunk, Uriah remains an honorable soldier and sleeps at the gate, rather than going home to his wife. What a contrast with David. So David gets desperate. He sends a written message back with Uriah, telling Joab, his general, to put Uriah where the fighting is heaviest and then to draw back so that Uriah is killed.
How far David has fallen. From the faithful shepherd king to rape and murder. It seems that David has no regrets, no sense of wrongdoing. As soon as Bathsheba's time of mourning is over, David marries her. Again, there is no voice, no choice for Bathsheba. Not only do you not say no to a king, but a widow was one of the most vulnerable people in that society. She has to accept the protection marriage offers. David sees nothing wrong with what he has done, but God does. God is very displeased and sends the prophet Nathan to talk to David, telling him that wonderful story of the rich man with many sheep who took the one precious lamb from the poor man. David's anger is kindled against this terrible rich man, he says the man is so selfish and cruel he deserves to die. And Nathan says those oh so painfully accurate words, you are that man. David's repentance is immediate and heartfelt, “I have sinned against the Lord.” There are no excuses, no trying to lay the blame elsewhere. He knows he deserves to die, but God forgives him because of that heartfelt repentance.
This is where the Bible story differentiates from the Veggie Tales version. In the Veggie Tales version King George is able to give Uriah back his rubber ducky and ask for his forgiveness. In the real story it's too late for that. There are many lessons to learn from this story, many ways to approach it. Today I would like to focus on two, what I call Veggie Tales and Me Too, and I believe each is valid. The Veggie Tales approach uses what I call Rubber Ducky wisdom. The problem with the story of David and Bathsheba is that it's a little too extreme for many of us. Murder is certainly not in the range of experience for most of us, and while adultery is unfortunately a little more common, it's still not something many people experience and if it has touched people's lives, it's often not something they really want to re-examine. And so this story, which has so much to say to us about ourselves and our relationship with God, tends to get swept under the carpet, ignored. But the Veggie Tales version, with King George and his rubber duckies gets under our skin. After all, who among us has never coveted something that belongs to another person? Whether it belongs to our neighbour, our friend or is something you see on tv? And who among us has never had moments of greed, wanting more than we need, convincing ourselves that we deserve it and it doesn't matter who else might suffer so that we can get what we want? The story of David and Bathsheba points out that coveting and greed are never right, are never healthy and never lead to happiness. The story also is a stunning example of the power of repentance. Being called to account forces David to realize that his power as king is nothing compared to God's power and that without God in his life and without being in right relationship with God, life is empty, not worth living. So the story does have aspects that speaks pretty directly to us and how we live today in our very materialistic society where we are told that we deserve the best and to go out and get what we want.
But if we only look at it from the Rubber Ducky perspective, we are missing something important, something that gained prominence last year with the Me Too movement. This story is about consent, or lack of it, this story is about abuse of power. Bathsheba is the women who fought off Harvey Weinstein's assaults and Trump's groping hands. She is the young men who were violently pursued by Kevin Spacey. She is every woman or man who ever tweeted or wrote or thought the words, me too. Sadly in the Bible, we don't know if Bathsheba ever gets an apology. David acknowledges to God that he has done wrong, but according to the Bible, says only, I have sinned before the Lord. We don't know if he ever says to Bathsheba, I have sinned before you. We can only hope that he does.
So what does the Me Too perspective on the story teach us today? It teaches us the destructive power of coveting that which is not ours, whether it's a rubber ducky or another person. It shows how destructive it is to take another person without their consent, to treat them like an object. It's the opposite of what our faith teaches us, of what Jesus emphasized with his life and teachings. It also shows us the power of naming that destructive behaviour and the power of true repentance for that behaviour. If Nathan hadn't named David's sin, David never would have acknowledged it and repented for it. Without that process of repentance, David most likely would have continued on his path towards being like other kings, power hungry, focused on self, forgetting God, forgetting the needs of his people. This powerful, humbling experience forces David back to the roots of his faith, the same roots in which Jesus is grounded, and reminds him that he is nothing without God. It doesn't mean he never makes other mistakes, but he never wanders so far from God again or from who he is called to be as king.
There's a message for us as individuals and as society in that, isn't there? Beware of the destructive power of coveting in own lives and beware of the destructive power of not naming it, of downplaying it, of tacitly accepting it, in our society. David and Bathsheba live among us today. May God empower us to name when we are David, coveting that which is not ours and using whatever power we have to take it. May God help us to name when we are Bathsheba, feeling that our voice and choice have been taken away from us. And may we see when we are called to be Nathan, to name when and where power has been abused, in order to bring ourselves and our society back to right relationship with God, back to a place where all are treated with equal respect and honor and compassion.