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| Don't Curb Your Enthusiasm |
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(Please feel free to email a response or a question) July 12, 2009 2 Samuel 6 (Selections) May the Spirit of the Lord fill all our hearts today as we explore the meaning of God’s Word in our lives. Amen. On a day filled with joy, it is a delight to have such a joyous reading from the Hebrew Bible set a tone for our worship. We have celebrated a couple of baptisms and seven new members joining our congregation. We had that joyous song – “De Colores” – that we sang at the beginning of worship (tucked in there, I might add, at the request of someone who has a joyous occasion of her own – it’s Nona’s 80th birthday). Lynn and Paula made the compelling music of Gershwin come alive. And we all joined in singing the song about David’s dance as the children moved among us. So this story of David unabashedly expressing his enthusiasm for God as the Ark of the Covenant moved toward Jerusalem seems like such a good story for a day like this. But things are not always as simple as they seem. That’s true in the stories about David, one of the great figures in the Bible, and that’s true about our own lives as well. That truth about the complexity of life is one reason, I’d like to suggest, that we can take heart in the story of David’s dance. First, a bit of historical context might help. The Ark of the Covenant goes back to the stories of Moses leading the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt across the desert. On the way, Moses brought those stone tablets down the mountain with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them. The Hebrews fashioned a special box for them and called it the Ark of the Covenant. They believed that the ark was how God was present among them. This was before they had a temple, before they had a unified nation. They were a people on the move and the ark moved with them. It was a sacred object for them – and a target for their enemies. Thirty years before this dance of David, the Philistines captured the ark, but the Ark started causing them trouble, so they sent it away to a village where it ultimately came to rest in the house of a priest, who cared for it for a generation. That was the Abinadab you heard about in the reading. So David gathered 30,000 of his best soldiers and set of with the ark for Jerusalem, singing and dancing along the way. And why was David doing this? Just to honor God? Probably not. David and his army had conquered the city of Jerusalem. It was a very bloody conquest. He had consolidated his political power, making Jerusalem the center for all the tribes of Israel, unifying the northern and southern kingdoms. By bringing the Ark to Jerusalem, he could also make it the spiritual center of his new kingdom. Just because David’s motives were mixed – just because our motives are often mixed – does not mean he was not passionate about God. And so he sang and danced with joyful abandon until tragedy struck. You didn’t hear about the tragedy in today’s reading – the story was condensed to focus on David’s celebration. But along the way, one of the men accompanying the Ark touched it in an attempt to keep it from falling off the cart. The Israelites had put God in this box and to touch the box was to touch the Almighty. The man immediately died. David was most distressed. He was angry at God for what seemed like an unjust death. The tragedy had ruined his parade. He decided to park the Ark for a while and contemplate what to do next. A few months later, he was ready to restart the procession to Jerusalem, this time with even more hoopla. At the head of the procession was David, the king, the conquering warrior, wearing nothing more than a loin-cloth as he whirled and jumped and pranced and danced. He swirled around amidst the ordinary people, dancing feverishly in their midst. He surely enjoyed the adulation he was getting from the crowd, the stares from the young women watching the handsome and nearly naked young king in the prime of his life. But there is another character lurking at the edges of this story, once again reminding us that life is full of ambiguity. You heard her mentioned briefly in the reading – Michal, David’s wife, standing in the window, despising David. What was that about? And who was Michal? She was David’s first wife, the daughter of Saul, the king whom David had displaced. As Saul’s animosity toward David grew, Saul nullified the marriage and gave his daughter to another man. As David’s power grew, so did the number of his wives. He had six wives by the time he reclaimed Michal as a bargaining chip when he was solidifying his kingdom. This was not exactly one of the great love stories of all time. It sounds a bit like an episode from HBO’s Big Love. Still, Michal was David’s first wife. She may have felt she deserved a bit more respect than others. When David came in after the procession was over, she let him have it. Here’s a rough paraphrase, created by author Ralph Milton: “So, how’s the big man? Did you have fun dancing around stark naked in front of those sweet innocent girls? Did the great king of Israel enjoy himself, showing his bare buns to all those panting bimbos?” David does not take kindly to this. It was God who chose me over your father, he blasts back at Michal. He says he will dance however he wants and those young women will hold him in honor. Then he banishes Michal from his bedroom. Like I said, it’s a more complicated story than you might think. There’s an innocent victim, someone who was simply trying to save the Ark. There are the political motives of the king. There is a marital spat worthy of Desperate Housewives. But I think the point of this story goes beyond David’s ego and his sense of power. This was a celebration of God. It was exuberant. David was not trying to keep God in a box. He was not trying to make other people follow the rules. The spirit of God that filled him and infused his dance helped others to celebrate the greatness of God. The barriers of status fell away. There was bread for everyone, shared in a common place. Families returned to their homes nourished in body and spirit. They may have been down, their souls so weary, the troubles of the day may have burdened their hearts. But on this day, the spirit of God raised them up so that they could stand on mountains and walk on stormy seas. They could dance with David. That’s the invitation to us, as well. For all the ups and downs of our lives, this story invites us to find the moments when a sense of God’s presence can carry us along. For all of our Midwestern inclination to be a bit reserved about our emotions (unless we are at a sporting event or a great concert), this story invites us not to be afraid to let God out of the box in our own lives now and then. And when we sing and when we dance, it’s not just for us. The Spirit of God connects us with others so that together, we too can create a feast where all can take home the bread and raisins they need, so that the old barriers give way to a new reality. The people of Israel could dance with David. And so can we. |