Sermon preached by Claire K. McKeever-Burgett on Sunday, September 21, 2025
And now a story from 2 Samuel, chapter 21:1-14. There was a famine for three years in a row during David's rule. David asked the Lord about this, and the Lord said it was caused by Saul and his household, who were guilty of bloodshed because he killed the people of Gibeon. So the king called for the Gibeonites and spoke to them. David said to the Gibeonites, "What can I do for you? How can I fix matters so you can benefit from the Lord's inheritance?"
The Gibeonites said to him, "We don't want any silver or gold from Saul or his family, and it isn't our right to have anyone in Israel killed."
"What do you want?" asked David. "I'll do it for you."
"Okay," they said to the king. "The man who opposed and oppressed us, who planned to destroy us, keeping us from having a place to live anywhere in Israel—hand over seven of his sons to us, and we will hang them before the Lord at Gibeon on the Lord's mountain."
"I will hand them over," the king said. So the king took the two sons of Aiah's daughter, Rizpah—Armoni and Mephibosheth—whom she had borne to Saul, and the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, whom she had borne to Adriel, who was from Meholah. And he handed them over to the Gibeonites. They hanged them on the mountain before the Lord. The seven of them died at the same time. They were executed in the first days of the harvest.
Aiah's daughter, Rizpah, took funeral clothing and spread it out by herself on a rock. She stayed there from the beginning of the harvest until the rains poured down on the bodies from the sky, and she wouldn't let any birds of prey land on the bodies during the day or let the wild animals come at nighttime.
When David was told what Aiah's daughter Rizpah had done, he went and retrieved the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen the bones from the public square in Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them on the day the Philistines killed Saul at Gilboa. David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there and collected the bones of the men who had been hanged by the Gibeonites, and then buried them in Zela, in Benjaminite territory, in the tomb of Saul's father.
Thank you, God, for Rizpah's story. Amen.
Well, first things first, let's take a deep breath, shall we? Our scripture is a little heavy today. So maybe soften your shoulders away from your ears. Place both feet on the ground. Maybe touch your heart or your face or your belly. Give yourself some love. Breathe in the spirit of the living and loving God who is with us now. Thanks be to God.
And now a generous thank you for accepting me into your worshiping community today and into this pulpit while Margie and Wesley are away. It is truly a gift to be with you, and I'm grateful.
In the three scripture passages read just now, we have a psalmist crying out for mercy and forgiveness, a Jesus commanding that we cannot serve two masters, and a woman who refuses to leave her dead children’s bodies alone after they’ve been sacrificed for the sake of retribution and war. In the three scripture passages read just now, we see ways to grieve faithfully—not only our personal losses, but also our communal ones. We see how everything is connected, from the sacrifice of our children to the need for forgiveness to the commands of Jesus not to be divided in our devotion.
As a feminist theologian and storyteller, I read scripture—and encourage others to as well—by asking: Where are the women? Who are the women? And what must we learn from them? Feminism, after all, invites all of us—men, women, and those who identify as something beyond our very limited binaries—to advocate for the equal social, economic, and political rights of women and all who have been pushed to the margins. So reclaiming women’s stories from our male-dominated scripture texts can be a vital move toward the advocacy and support for which feminism—and, I would argue, Jesus—calls.
Hence today’s scripture readings invite us to try our hand at some feminist imagination. An imagination that centers women, places justice at the helm, and love always as our guide.
What might it be like to pray the psalm as if it were being prayed by a woman today as we witness political violence run amok? The dissolution of democracy, the silencing of free speech, and the open, unabashed defilement of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and unhoused people, to name a few?
What might it be like to explore Rizpah’s grief and sorrow and heartbreak as a mother whose children have been sacrificed at the altar of violence and war? Might Rizpah’s grief be the grief of millions of us mothers in the United States who watch as our lawmakers care more about protecting guns than they do our children? And what might Jesus say to us about serving two masters—and what or who those masters might be in this year of our Lord, 2025?
What causes Jesus to weep? What grieves the heart of our Lord? After all, what good are our prayers and our songs and our sermons on Sunday if they make no meaning in our lives on Monday? Do we not come here to be transformed? Do we not come here on this holy day to make the other days a little more holy, too?
So here now, beloveds, renderings of scripture for today, so that tomorrow we might find our own faithful ways to grieve, and in so doing, love the world, our neighbors, ourselves, and God with the rigor of a people who know what it means to follow Jesus and the women whom he followed.
A rendering of Psalm 79:1-9. Imagine this prayer being prayed by a grieving mother:
Holy divine mother of all, Creator, Comforter, God. Do you see how they defile and ruin the people and the world you love? Do you see how they sacrifice our children at the altar of the almighty gun? Do you see how they scoff at our tears and make waste of our blood? Oh, how I burn with rage. Oh, how I long for you to strike down the rulers who make you and those of us who love you a mockery.
No mother should have to take off her shoes and run toward her children’s school as gunshots ring through the air. Why, God, why must we live in such absurdity? Will you not come and meet us with compassion? Will you not help us, oh God, for the glory of your name and for the sake of the world you so love? Forgive us. Deliver us. This is my grieving prayer laid bare before you.
Holy divine mother of all, Creator, Comforter, God, broken in two, I scream into the void. And somehow, some way, I hear you screaming with me.
And now hear from Rizpah after the murder of her children. Note that Rizpah means “a hot burning coal” in Hebrew.
I am Rizpah. Rizpah is my name. I am a mad woman. A burning coal, a hot ember left sizzling in the morning fog after a long night of burning. Men and their wars do nothing but kill, leaving the rest of us to dance or to die.
I burn with rage. Sackcloth and ash spread on the edge of the mountain. I flail and fling to keep the birds and animals from devouring your flesh. Skin of my skin, bone of my bone. I stomp, I stamp, I gyrate, I shake. I am a red dust storm of fire and inferno. I am a mother.
I burn with sadness. Each of you were born in the dark of the night, exactly two years apart. You shared a birthday like twins. Though you weren’t conceived in love, I loved you with every simmering inch of my body. And I love you even now. Your bodies spread across 2x4s for all the world to see. A sign, a harbinger of war. No one is sacred, not even the children.
I burn with exasperation. Must I scream? Must I shout? Must I move the earth once again for the madness of murder to end? What god requires a sacrifice? What lord says, “Give me their blood”? Only the gods and lords of men.
I burn with compassion. My hands, extensions of my heart, cast spells, create sparks. Keep vigil. Even the wild beasts stay away. Even the birds with their hungry beaks do not devour your flesh. I stand guard with lavender and oil. I anoint you with tears and temper. I preserve you with empathy and connection. I protest your deaths and the deaths of all. Every life is worth saving.
I burn with justice. If they are going to trade you like animals, then the least they can do is bury your bodies. If they are going to sacrifice you like lambs, then the least they can do is return you to the earth.
There is an old tale of bones—brittle and dead—who get up and dance. Renewed by the breath of God, they begin to move. Resurrection song. I don’t see your bones move as we place them in the red earth. But later that night, as the coals burn under the moonlight, I swear I hear them rattle underneath my bed, which I’ve made on top of your graves. I was once your home. Now I make my home where you are.
I burn with love. Love is a verb. They say it moves. It acts. It resurrects. It lives. Even in death, even in wars in which the innocents pay the price, love makes its way to the top of the mountain or to the bottom of the sea. To the rubble of destruction or to the broken glass on the concrete floor. It waves the wild animals and birds of prey away. It flings, it flails, it stamps, it stomps. Love dances. Love never dies.
I am Rizpah. Rizpah is my name. I am a mad woman, a burning coal, a hot ember left sizzling in the morning fog after a long night of burning. I am love. Love is me. And my fire will find you and set you free.
And finally, beloveds, a rendering of Luke 16:1-13. In the words of Jesus and the women who walk alongside us today as we grieve—the genocide in Palestine, the war in Sudan, the violence we witness daily in word and deed here in the United States. Here now, a Jesus and a circle of women who speak even here, even now, so that we might hear and heed their call.
Jesus tells us, his followers, this story:
There were rich people who bought and sold and traded and protected guns. The people were summoned by their leader, and the leader asked, “Do I protect the guns, or do I protect the children?”
The rich ones, flummoxed and confused, looked at one another with exasperation. “Can we not protect both?” they asked.
“Perhaps,” the leader replied, “if we regulate your guns, give you less access to them, create stricter laws and guidelines to keep them out of the hands of people who will use them to cause harm. But this will mean you giving up some of your power.”
The rich people shook their heads and cried, “No! Why? We cannot give up power.”
Their leader then replied, “You cannot serve both God and guns. You will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and guns.”
With that, Jesus looks at us, his followers, tears in his eyes, and turns to walk away. But before he leaves, he turns back and asks us, “Will you lay your weapons down and follow me?”
We certainly live in times that require grieving faithfully, which requires honesty, which requires hearts laid bare, which requires listening to the women and others who have traditionally been pushed to the margins. So look to the edges and see who stands there, who prays there, who sings there, who preaches there. Listen to them and follow them, heeding their wisdom and their way—only and always if it is a way of love.
Yes, beloveds, we certainly live in times in which grieving faithfully—along with the psalmist who questions, with Rizpah who demands justice and respect, and with Jesus who weeps on behalf of our divided devotion—might be the catalyst we need for change. Might be the balm that keeps us soft and healing. Might be the inspiration we need to show up wherever we are in love.
Yes, beloveds, we certainly live in times that call for faithful grieving, which, if we dare, just might set us and others free. May it ever be so. Amen.