Hidden in Plain Sight: Bible Stories No One Talks About
Karen Delaney – August 24, 2014
Part I
A few Sundays ago, I told Rev. Tim that I really wished someone would preach a sermon on
Reuben, Joseph’s eldest brother, and Rev. Tim asked “Why don’t you do it?”
So here goes.
But before I start—um, sermonizing—I should tell you a couple of things.
The first is that Reuben’s story is only one of many Bible stories that no one ever talks about.
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat” aside, Reuben is the one who told their
brothers to put Joseph down the dry well rather than kill him. The one who saved Joseph’s life.
The second thing is how I came to know about these stories. The summer I was eighteen, I read
the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation the way I’d read a novel or a history. I had no
guide to interpret for me, or to tell me “Ignore this section. Concentrate on that one.” because
I’d walked out of church—though not out of faith—after a short, sharp interchange with my
Bible studies teacher about the exact meaning of the verse “I am the way, the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except by me.” Mrs. Smith (her real name) said it meant all non
Christians would be consigned to hell after death. I said, “That’s not right,” and she replied
“That’s what the Bible says.”
End of discussion.
End of my participation in her class.
I can’t tell you what I was looking for when I read the Bible as I did, but I can tell you what I
found.
Stories.
Whole stories and fragments tossed into the middle of others.
Stories that would make a soap opera producer shake his head and say, “This is ‘way over the
top. We can’t use it.”
Stories we all know by heart, some of which aren’t anything like what we’ve been taught.
Stories about people we’ve never heard of.
Flash forward about 30 years, when I decided to put some of the unknown stories into readable
shape and allow at least some of those silenced people a chance to speak. That’s why the title
is “Hidden in Plain Sight—Bible Stories No One Talks About.” Not “Reuben.”
Though his is one of the first stories I put together.
Ministers are ‘way too kind to Joseph. Even a cursory reading of the text shows he was spoiled
rotten and constantly lording it over his brothers. In my father’s phrase, he was “cruisin’ for a
bruisin’” and he got it. The text clearly states that Reuben intervened to prevent violence and
put Joseph down the dry well, meaning to go back later and restore a—hopefully!—chastened
boy to their father. Reuben wasn’t there when the other 9 sold Joseph to the slavers and was
distraught when he learned what had happened. Making the best of a bad situation, he then
made up the story of Joseph’s being killed by a wild beast.
Better that than telling his father what his brothers had done.
Would any of us have done any different?
When the truth came out in Egypt, what was Reuben’s reward? Nothing. No
acknowledgement of the courage it must have taken to stand up against his brothers. No
thanks from Joseph for saving his life.
Not only that, but many later commentators have the gall to ignore the plain text and say
Reuben only wanted to save himself from the blood guilt of killing his brother.
I’m not going to tell you that Reuben was a saint. He was Jacob’s eldest, and should have been
head of the family when Jacob died. But that honor went to Judah, the fourth brother. And
that’s another story, involving another person who has been silenced: Bilhah, Rachel’s maid
servant.
From Genesis 30:1 – 8 and 35:22
Laban gave me to his daughter for a handmaid when she married Jacob. I was young. A child. I
thought Rachel was the sweetest mistress.
I told Zilpah so, and Zilpah laughed and said I only saw the face of things and not the heart. She
said that being sweet was easy when you’ve never lacked for anything you wished, but wait and
see what Rachel’s like when she is crossed.
Then Leah, Rachel’s sister, bore a son. And Rachel’s times would come and go with every
moon. Her husband laid with her as often as he could because he loved her. Still, she bore no
sons. Yet, every time he laid with Leah, SHE conceived. We said we could tell the times he
slept with her by counting up her children.
Rachel was as angry as a storm upon the hills: the kind that thunders so the sheep go mad with
fear and tumble over cliffs to get away; the kind that burns the ground instead of greening it
with rain.
She came to me as said, “When Sarah, Jacob’s grandmother, was barren, Hagar bore a son for
her. You say you love me. Bear a son for me.”
I bore her two. She named the first one “Dan,” the second “Naphthali.”
I had the care of all the children—Rachel’s, Leah’s, Zilpah’s, mine—when they grew old enough
to wean. I loved them all, but Reuben best. I loved him more than even those I’d borne myself.
He was the oldest, Leah’s son, and all the love so spoiled in her came out in him. He doted on
his sister, Dinah; loved his brothers, even Joseph, trouble from the time he learned to talk; and
Judah, oh, so careful to be sure he got is share. If not a whole lot more.
When Reuben grew to man’s estate, I learned he loved me, too. He took me from his father’s
tent to his.
We are disowned for our “impiety.” By Jacob, thief and liar, fomenter of hate between his
sons. He had no use for me.
But Reuben does. And Reuben thrives.
Part II
I did say that some of the stories would be rejected by soap opera producers as “too out there.”
So far back in time, it’s hard to know what is myth and what actually happened. Was there a
family who left Canaan and went to Egypt, whose descendents returned and founded the
country of Israel? Was there a man with twelve sons and did those sons become the fathers of
Israel’s twelve tribes? Did Reuben really take his father’s concubine as his own?
I wish I knew the answers. I can say that the more outrageous the story passed down from
generation to generation, the more likely it is to be based on a real incident. And I can also say
that stories passed down like that have a bad habit of replaying themselves in real people’s
lives.
Whether Jacob was real or imagined, having the story of his blatant favoritism of one son over
the others (and one wife over the other) elevated to Holy Writ implied that such behavior was
acceptable in a righteous man.
And never mind about how “God works in mysterious ways for the good of all.” Just because
God makes something good out of something evil does not excuse us from naming that evil and
doing something about it.
Jacob left a terrible legacy.
That legacy played out in the life and reign of David, who we now know was a real person.
Most of the last half of II Samuel is taken up with the war between David and his son, Absalom,
with Absalom cast as the spoiled second son who felt entitled to the throne and David as the
weak willed father who just couldn’t say “no.” Absalom killed his eldest brother, Amnon, which
started the war, and was in turn killed by Joab, David’s general, to put an end to the fighting.
David lamented Absalom’s death, but no one else did. In the Kidron Valley, there is a small
monument called “Absalom’s Pillar.” All passers by are encouraged to throw stones at it to
show their contempt for the rebel. Naughty children used to be brought to watch and told
that, unless they behaved, they, too, would wind up like Absalom.
Except.
The story of the father/son war runs from Chapters 13 to 19 in II Samuel. But, if you go back to
Chapter 12, you’ll find that Amnon was the favored son and the real reason Absalom killed him.
The person to tell this story is Tamar, David’s daughter. Absalom and Amnon’s sister.
From Second Samuel, Chapter 12
I was afraid of Amnon. Brother though he was, he lusted for me. He would catch me unaware
and press against me, try to touch the secret places of my body.
Or I’d find him staring at me, the way a hungry jackal watches a gazelle.
And he was eldest of my father’s son. Sometimes he’d talk of what he’d do when he was king
of Judah. Of the power he would wield. The waves and concubines he’d have. Then he would
look at me, and I would want to find the darkest corner of the house to hide.
And then he ailed. “Sick to death” they said, and nothing would avail unless I came and fed him
from my hand.
I was afraid. I asked my father, “Can’t another feed him? Must I go?” My father—all my
family—was angry. “Amnon is your brother! Help him in his need!” I had no words to tell
them what I feared.
I went, and Amnon raped me. Then turned me from his house as though I were some unclean
thing he’d picked up on his shoe.
I was unclean.
I am unclean. The places where he touched I want to burn away. I want to take the combs we
use to card the wool and scrape my skin until it bleeds. And still I won’t be clean!
I shut myself inside my room and mourned—poured ashes on my head as though I’d lost the
person dearest to me. As, indeed, I had.
My brother, Absalom—who shared my mother’s womb as well as father’s seed—my brother
was the only one who asked what happened. Absalom was next in age to Amnon—they were
rivals for our father’s love. I should have thought before I spoke, but just to tell another what
had happened east my heart. And Absalom was hurt for me. He held me and he let me weep
and promised he’d avenge my wrong.
Two years had passed. Absalom slew Amnon and rebelled against our father and was killed in
turn.
If I had never told, would Absalom still live?
If I had just avoided Amnon….
If.
I ask and ask these questions. No one ever answers me.
My father looks at me and all I see is pain. My brothers and sisters seem to look right through
me. I can’t bear to see my face reflected in a mirror.
If I die, the pain will stop. I’m sure it will.
I’m almost sure. And that’s what holds my hand when I would take my life, as I have thought of
doing every part of every day.
Part III
No one knows what happened to Tamar. The only other time the name appears is II Samuel is
for Absalom’s daughter.
I could go on and on, telling these stories. There’s Hagar, the only woman who actually spoke
with an angel. There’s Miriam, Moses’ and Aaron’s sister, whose song of jubilation is thought
to be the oldest part of the Old Testament. There’s the Syro-Phoenecian woman who taught
Jesus that his message and his healing weren’t just for the Hebrews.
And the men! The elder brother of the prodigal son. Thomas called Didimas. Abiathar, high
priest under both Saul and David.
These are all people whose voices deserve to be heard. But not now.
If you take away only one thought, our friend, Con Edwards, said it best: “Please remember
that Reuben is more than just a sandwich.”