David_M11 December 2, 2007
Mardi Dolfo-Smith and Ken Shigematsu
The Cry of Tamar
Text: 2 Samuel 13: 1-21
Big Idea: If we are the victim of sexual violence, there is no shame, but we must get help. If we are perpetrator of sexual violence, we must receive God’s forgiveness and transformation and get help. Regardless of who we are, we must help to stop sexual violence.
A story has hit the headlines recently – it’s so horrific that Amnesty International has called for a letter campaign to the King of Saudi Arabia.
It’s about a woman, anonymously known in the Saudi press as “Qatif Girl after the town she is from.
When this 18 year old woman was 16 she struck up an online friendship with a boy of her age. When she was married, the boy began to blackmail her, with a picture that he had of her, threatening to expose their past friendship, which was culturally forbidden, to her new husband. When she met with him to reclaim the picture, she was attacked by a gang of men and raped. After the traumatic experience, her life dramatically changed: “Everyone looks at me as if I'm wrong. I couldn't even continue my studies. I wanted to die. I tried to commit suicide twice," she said of her experience just after the attack”
This part of her story is not unique – women all over the world have experienced assault and judgment from their friends and family.
What is shocking abut her story is the response of the Saudi courts – when she took her case to court she was sentenced to 90 lashes for being in a state of "khalwa" -- retreat with a male who's not a relative – apparently she was seen as culpable in her own rape.
What is even more horrific, that when she challenged her sentence in the press, the General Court of Qatif increased the punishment to 200 lashes and six months in jail!
Not only did she undergo the trauma of multiple rape but she was now considered partially responsible for what happened to her, sentenced to be cruelly punished.
Although in the west, our legal system does not punish victims of sexual violence, they too live with the consequences of others violent acts against them/Although the lashes against the girl from Qatif are shocking to us – the sentiment that women are somehow culpable or tainted as a result of an assault is still an underlying concern in Canada
What happened to Qatif girl is a real fear for women all over the world. In Canada, according to Statscan in 2003, there are approximately 1400 sexual assaults per day. This figure is equal to one woman or child being assaulted every minute of every day. Statscan estimates that 1 in every 2 Canadian woman experiences some kind of sexual assault.
Because of this, women’s lives are lived differently than men’s, - most women live with this daily fear of assault.. On the street when a man is walking behind a woman, she has to assess whether or not she is being followed and plan how to fight back or escape.
This issue of the vulnerability of women to assault has been an issue throughout history. This morning we are going to look at a text that is hardly ever preached on and hardly ever makes it to the public readings at worship services. Old Testament scholar, Phyllis Trible, includes this as one of the most terrifying stories in the Old Testament in her book entitled Texts of Terror.
At this time I am going to invite who is part of this community to come and read our passage.
Amnon and Tamar
1 In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David.
2 Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.
3 Now Amnon had an adviser named Jonadab son of Shimeah, David's brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man. 4 He asked Amnon, "Why do you, the king's son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won't you tell me?" Amnon said to him, "I'm in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister."
5 "Go to bed and pretend to be ill," Jonadab said. "When your father comes to see you, say to him, 'I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.' "
6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, "I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand."
7 David sent word to Tamar at the palace: "Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him." 8 So Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it. 9 Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat.
"Send everyone out of here," Amnon said. So everyone left him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, "Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand." And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. 11 But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, "Come to bed with me, my sister."
12 "No, my brother!" she said to him. "Don't force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don't do this wicked thing. 13 What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you." 14 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.
15 Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, "Get up and get out!"
16 "No!" she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me."
But he refused to listen to her. 17 He called his personal servant and said, "Get this woman out of my sight and bolt the door after her." 18 So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. She was wearing a richly ornamented robe, for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore. 19 Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing. She put her hands on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went.
20 Her brother Absalom said to her, "Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother. Don't take this thing to heart." And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom's house, a desolate woman.
21 When King David heard all this, he was furious. 22 And Absalom never spoke to Amnon again; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar.
In vs 1 the text tells us that Amnon fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom. In verse one we read
The text says that Amnon “fell in love” with his half sister Tamar. But, it would be more accurate to say that he “fell in lust” with her. We read that Amnon became so obsessed with Tamar that he made himself ill. She was a virgin and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.
In the Hebrew, the text literally says, “She was a virgin and it seemed impossible to ‘do her’.” Amnon doesn’t so much want Tamar, as he wants to “do” Tamar.
C S Lewis has observed that a man in lust, as opposed to a man in love, does not so much “want a woman” as much as he wants an experience for which a woman happens to be a necessary apparatus. Love focuses on another; lust focuses on us.
Amnon clearly does not want Tamar as a woman so much as he wants an experience to satiate his sexual lust. He doesn’t love her. How do we know that?
We know this because, according to verse 14, Tamar has made it clear that she does not want to have sex with her half brother, but he refuses to her listen to her. And since he was stronger than she, he rapes her.
As Robert Alter, the Hebrew literary scholar, points out, the language of verse 14 is very terse. Amnon overpowers her, abuses her, and beds her. In verse 14, the term “force” in Hebrew can also be translated “oppress and humiliate.” The “polite” translations render verse 14 as “lay with her.” But, according to the original Hebrew, the usual preposition “with” is omitted in verse 11, so the text in verse 14 reads more literally, “he laid her,” not “he laid with her,” but he “laid her.” Very impersonal.
Then after he rapes half sister, we read in verse 15, “Amnon hates her with intense hatred; in fact, he hated her more than loved her.” Amnon said to her, ‘Get up and get out!”
16 "No!" she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me."
But he refused to listen to her. 17 He called his personal servant and said, "Get ‘this’ (the word woman is not included) out of my sight and bolt the door after her."
It is clear that Amnon was not in love with Tamar, but in lust with her, part of the reason we know this is because after he has been “with” Tamar his so-called love quickly turns to hate.
We are not exactly sure why he hates Tamar now. It may be the fact that because Tamar, though beautiful, perhaps the actual sex for Amnon was not as fulfilling as he had imagined... Though some men fantasize about raping a woman—women don’t want to be raped… (BTW, contrary to myth, the most satisfying sex doesn’t occur in the context where person is being violated against their will, according to Drs. Judith and Jack Balswick authors of Authentic sexualities and various other experts the most satisfying sex occurs in the context of a committed marriage).
Or perhaps Amnon hates Tamar because she is now a reminder to Amnon of his sin and guilt. Perhaps he now realizes he has done something that will potentially compromise his chances of becoming the next king. He was King David’s first born, and so the heir apparent to honor, but now that he has raped his half sister, perhaps he sees that he may not ascend to the throne…
We know that Amnon acts out of lust, and not out of love because he does, Amnon is obviously not thinking of Tamar’s well-being, but his own.
After Amnon rapes Tamar, he sends her away.
Strangely, we see Tamar, in verse 16 objecting to this: 16 "No!" she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me."
This is not Tamar living up to some warped view that women stay with those who hurt them, that women readily accept mistreatment by those they love.
No – Tamar is a strong and wise woman, she is appealing to the cultural laws of her time. For him to discard her was worse than her staying with him.
So why does Tamar want to stay with Amnon after he’s raped her?
Because a woman’s virginity was so important in the culture, and no man would marry a woman who was not a virgin, a rapist was required to marry the woman he raped, if she was not already engaged, and he was never allowed to divorce her (this which is strange to our ears was a protection for the woman and her family). This is the cultural reality and the only hope for Tamar – now that Tamar has been violated by Amnon forcibly satisfying his lust, marrying him is Tamar’s only hope for marriage and family and a legacy for herself.
This is a cultural value that is polar opposite to our western values and ways of understanding the value of meaning of a woman’s life.
But Amnon refused to listen to Tamar’s cry, he would not hear her and he called his personal servant and said, "Get this woman out of my sight and bolt the door after her." (this – zoth – no object).
Tamar recognizes in this rejection, that her life will now be totally different from what she hoped and dreamed of, no husband, no children, no legacy… but a sentence to a life (that in her culture) would be considered a emptiness and barrenness
She begins to grieve putting ashes on her head, tearing her beautiful robes and weeping loudly,
The narrator reports that she lives a desolate life, in her brothers house, the Hebrew word desolated, is usually used of place or things, but is used 3 times to describe the lives of women with husband and children – as barren, lifeless, devoid of comfort or hope (again this is a cultural value that is very different than ours).
In vs thirteen, in Tamar’s first speech, attempting to dissuade Amnon from raping her, she tells him of the disgrace that she would experience if she was violated by him. As we see by her dramatic response of tearing her clothes and weeping as he sends her away Tamar does experience this great shame and disgrace, Amnon robs and diminishes her at what she saw as the core of her being, her ability to give and carry life.
It is extremely common for women and men who have been sexually violated to feel shame – and to have their families and even the legal system heap shame on them as well – as we see illustrated in the story of the Qatif girl.
Shame is a feeling that there is “something wrong with me” that I am dirty and I can’t get clean. People who live in shame often feel alienated from others, inadequate and hurt.
shame is distinguished from guilt in that guilt is a feeling that “I’ve done something wrong” and guilt around sexual assault may look more like “I feel like its my fault that this happened to me, or I should’ve been able to stop it.If only I would have locked the door.” People who have been assaulted often experience both guilt and shame- they continue to think through how they could’ve protected themselves better, what they might have done to make themselves less vulnerable to assault - guilt is easier to deal with than shame.
In dealing with guilt – it helps to have the right information- that the blame lies with the assaulter, to forgive oneself for mistakes that might have made one more vulnerable to the attack (in Tamar’s case, she maybe felt guilty for going alone to her brother’s room –even though her father commanded her too).
But Shame, the feeling that there is something wrong with me is harder to deal with.
Often friends and family contribute to the shame - they don’t want to see our pain and they give us platitudes –like Absalom did to Tamar “don’t take this to heart”, they tell us its time to get over it.
People who wall themselves off from others in a place of pain and shame, often continue to live as “the powerless victim” and their lives can become defined by the violation (as Tamar’s became).
In processing shame, a community of supportive listeners can become extremely powerful. To have people sit with us, listen to our story and love us anyway can lead us out of our feeling of alienation.
We need to reimage what is valuable in a life, we live in a culture that does not like broken things, it likes beautiful healthy and whole things. Even the Christian culture is like that – we want everything to be fixed. We want God to make sure we have nice pleasant lives. Learning to live in a reality that “normal” is being one who is broken and on a journey to healing frees us of the shame of living with an expectation that there should be nothing wrong with us.
As we move into relationship with Jesus – we come out of places of alienation and our adequacy comes not from ourselves but from Jesus. We invite Jesus to be present to grieve with us and to comfort us.
When it comes to sexual assault, shame “there is something wrong with me” does not belong to the victim, guilt – “I have done something wrong”, does not belong to the one who is injured.
The shame and the guilt are not Tamar’s – the guilt is Amnon’s
If you have been violated, the shame and the guilt are not yours – the guilt belongs with the one who has wounded you. Jesus can bear your pain and your shame.
At Tenth, it is our hope to become a community who supports those who have been traumatized by violence and assault, a community that is characterized by love and support for our wounds and our brokenness.
We also want to be a community where sin and guilt are not covered up…
If you are a perpetrator, if you have abused someone sexually or in some other way--you cannot break the cycle on your own, you need an intervention--get help!
See a counselor, a psychologist, some kind of guide. It requires great courage, but you will be giving a gift to yourself and to others.
Break the cycle (Use an actual bicycle wheel to illustrate). Stick an object in the spokes of the wheel to break the cycle. It may be that you were abused in some way or did not receive the love that you needed. Break the cycle. Get help. Though you cannot reverse what you have done, you can mitigate the harm potential harm you might inflict on others in the future.
Finally, whether you are a victim, a perpetrator or neither use your influence to stop sexual or other kinds of violence. Eli Wiesel, the famous author and holocaust survivor, says, “What hurts the victim more than the cruelty of the aggressor is the silence of the bystander.” David though great in so many ways did nothing.
There are times when we must use our strength to stop violence. Walter Wink in his book the Powers That Be points out that women who are abused are sometimes told by their pastors to “turn the other cheek” and let men continue to brutalize them, totally mistaking Jesus’ intent to empower the powerless. If we re-enter the freedom Jesus sought to establish in his teaching about non-violence, we would instead counsel the abused woman to move take some kind of refuge, but to expose the man’s behavior publicly, and break the vicious cycle of humiliation and pain.
According to many social workers, the most loving thing abused person can do is have the abuser arrested. This brings the issue out into the open, puts him under court injunction that will mean jail if the abuse continues, and positions him so that his self-interest is served by joining a therapy group for abusers. This could begin a process that might not only deliver the woman from being abused (not always, but the one abused is typically a woman or younger person), but free the man from the spiral of abuse, as well.
If we are a man or woman or have a position of influence (whether we work in medicine, law, education, business, government, etc) we must use our power to help others.
We also must use our strength to work with victims to make sure that justice prevails. As a young pastor I was asked by someone to help a young woman who he suspected was in some deep trouble. The man thought this young woman had been drugged and perhaps violated in some way. I tried to make phone contact with the young woman. I was not able to reach her by phone, so I went to the apartment where she was apparently being detained. I intentionally did not buzz the particular apartment she was in, knowing that I probably would not be let in. So, I just started buzzing the other apartments at random. Someone let me in. I went to the apartment, knocked on the door heard some footsteps and hesitation… I was eventually let in and took the young woman out of the apartment. I suggested to the woman that we go right away to go to a clinic to have some kind of test done to see if she were drugged. She didn’t want to go. I took to clinic her to anyway, saying let’s at least rule out you weren’t drugged for your peace of mind. She took the test and it became clear that she had been drugged. She had been given some kind of drug to knock her out and would have killed her if the dosage had been higher.
I encouraged her to work with me to pursue some kind of criminal action against the perpetrator. She was reluctant to do so--afraid that he might come after her. I said, “If we don’t do something, he is going to do this to some other young women.” She reluctantly agreed. We ended up taking him to court (actually based on her complaint--it was the Crown who officially pursued the case based on the complaint). I, among others, ended up testifying in this case, and through this court case it was revealed the man had had a habit of inviting young women to his apartment to baby-sit for him or work on some project and drugged them by putting some kind of substance in hot chocolate and then sexually molesting them in some way. He ended up going to prison.
As men, women we need to come alongside people and help them pursue justice for their harmed…
As a community we want to be a safe place for people to voice their hurts and let us as the people of 10th be the kind of people who break the cycle of violence by taking a stand for justice of others..
Mardi will now lead us to the table:
Jesus was a different kind of king – one who became the servant of all. Jesus bore our guilt and our shame. Darrell talked last week about Jesus death on the cross providing forgiveness for our sins.. not only did he die to bear our sins but he died to bear the sins done against us – our grief and our sorrow
For those who have been sexually assaulted, violated and harassed, Jesus, himself bore the weight of that sin that was done against us. He comes to us, not to shame us or to condemn with us, but as the one who suffered horrific violations, joins with us in places of darkness – bringing light and life.
(The sermon can be heard on line at:
www.tenth.ca/adio)
