Naming the Nameless
Author: Allison Vincent-Beckman (from her sermon on 10/30/2022)
Our narrative text for today could be divided into two different sermons; one on the wisdom that Solomon asks God for, and the other on the women who come to King Solomon looking for a solution. King Solomon has about 6 biblical books where he is mentioned or have been attributed to him, and so today we will be focusing on the latter part of the story focusing on the women.
In the Old Testament, women are often unnamed, and this text is no different. For the sake of clarity, I want to give them names that can help us humanize them. So the woman who lost her son by accidentally lying on him will be called Nicole and the one whose son is still living we will call Diana. Now lets imagine that we know a bit more about Nicole and Diana prior to this story. Indulge me for a moment as we humanize these women a bit more. Lets say that Nicole was married to a successful potter, who made sure that everyone had the best bowls and plates for the town. Until one day where there is a terrible fire that destroys their studio and unfortunately also kills Nicole’s husband. She is then left alone, with no family, no business, and no hope.
And for Diana, she was the child of two musicians who loved to serenade their daughter with songs. One day as they are traveling to a new village, they are ambushed and Diana’s parents are killed. Diana is now left alone, an orphan and an alien in a foreign town.
Nicole and Diana find each other and realize that they are alone, but have each other when everyone else has turned their backs on them. They turn to the only work they can find, the selling of their own bodies for survival. And they both become pregnant.
Now fast forward. In the story, we see Nicole and Diana struggling to argue why the baby is their son in front of King Solomon. We see Diana say that Nicole came and took her baby and replaced it him with Nicole‘s dead child. We see two mothers who will not be left unchanged after this decision is made, because at the end of the day, one of them has lost their son. As the story continues, we see King Solomon decide to cut the baby in half, and we see the reaction that both mothers have to this decision. It is important to remember that both of these women gave birth less than a week ago and so we can only imagine the physical and emotional changes they are going through. We see Diana being willing to give the baby up to Nicole as long as the baby lives, while we see Nicole say that she is fine with the baby being cut in half. This makes me wonder, how many of us are willing to destroy everything in order to get what we want?
In the end, we see king Solomon decide that Diana is the true mother because she is the one who is willing to give up her child for the sake of his life. We see her be willing to give up and sacrifice her own happiness. In the midst of the story, we see both the sinful and the sanctified at the same time in Diana. And I will argue, that king Solomon isn’t the hero of the story, But rather it is Diana. Diana is both sinful and sanctified through her existence as a sex worker, but also a mother willing to sacrifice for the well-being of her child. In preparation for the sermon, one of the questions that was posed was “are we demonstrating that kind of love where we are willing to give up what we are trying to possess so that there is an abundance of life? “
In the text we see that the focus of the conflict isn’t on who these women are as sex workers. We as the readers are invited to see them by their humanity, and not their circumstances. What stands out to me the most about this text is the verse that says that these women were alone. In the Bible we hear over and over and over again the fighting and defending for the orphan, the widow, and the alien, but somehow these women were forgotten in the midst of this. We don’t know what their story was prior to them becoming sex workers. We don’t know if they were widows, orphans, or aliens. But we do know is that they were alone. Up until this point in the lectionary, we have seen time and time again the idea of God’s covenant with us and how we continue to fail in that covenant. The structures of government that were meant to be in place failed these women. These women are fending for themselves economically, and both had a new human being to care for without any help. We see that we failed the covenant to protect and defend these women.
If we jump a bit, we must remember that Jesus would have spent time around people like Nicole and Diana, and still found them worthy of being loved and protected. I can’t help but go back and think about Nicole. Her pain bleeds into this reading, and I would also argue she demonstrates the grief of post partum depression and then the loss of her child. I also believe the saying that “hurt people hurt people”, but I don’t think Nicole was trying to intentionally hurt Diana, I think she was just trying to somehow lessen her pain. In the midst of pain, do we look to pass that hurt along to others like Nicole did, or do we look to God to redeem us and make us whole again?
So where do we go from here? We must remember that we are all both sinful and sanctified. And we have a responsibility to speak up for the widow, the orphan, and the alien in our land. Our covenant with God demands action. And we must look to God to stop the cycles of violence.
AMEN.