Our reading today is a strange story! On the whole it describes a joyous occasion – David dancing before the Lord with all his might! But there are awkward interjections – the death of Uzzah while steadying the ark and the contempt of Michal, David’s first wife, expressed at the end of our reading.
I am reminded, reading this passage, of another procession – the one that takes place in the literary folktale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, by Hans Christian Anderson.
In that story, as you know, an emperor obsessed with his own appearance is duped by con- men, posing as tailors, who promise to make him a suit of the finest clothes with one unique quality – they are invisible to anyone incompetent or stupid. They begin work on cloth no one can see, and each one of the emperor’s ministers who come to inspect the work – not wanting to appear foolish – declare the clothes to be the finest they have ever seen! The emperor, too, sees nothing, but hearing the effusive praise of everyone else, declares the outfit truly magnificent!
Then the day comes (this is an illustration by Vilhelm Pederson, Hans Christian Anderson’s first illustrator) when the emperor “dressed” in his new clothes parades through the streets and the whole city now – afraid of appearing foolish or just afraid – goes along with the pretence – the whole city that is except for one young child who calls out, “But he hasn’t got anything on!”
So, how does that story relate to this story – apart from the angry comment Michal hurls at David (in verse 20) that he too hasn’t got anything on? (Like this street art by Edward von Lõngus critiquing Estonia’s political leaders in the 2015 elections.)
What this story does – though like any good critique it dances around the subject – is reveal that David, like the emperor obsessed with his appearance, is a ruler obsessed with power; power that ultimately be his undoing.
In the previous chapter, chapter 5, David is declared king of all Israel. He captures Jerusalem, a city that strategically straddles the line between Israel and Judah and renames it after himself, the city of David. We’re told he takes more concubines and wives, and more sons and daughters are born to him. And he has a decisive victory over the long-time enemy of Israel, the Philistines. All of this is summarised; chapter 5, verse 10, “David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.” There is a clear promise in this – and a clear reason to celebrate! God has blessed David, and David’s rise to power is, importantly, tied to his faithfulness to God. But, here in chapter 6, there is, literally, a misstep.
David decides to bring the ark of God, the symbol of divine presence and blessing to Jerusalem. It is an act of piety (yes, he is honouring the ark of God) but also a sign of his political acumen, bringing all power, political, military and religious, under his control.
And with this dual motivation he arranges a great public parade; 30,000 men, a fancy new cart – mentioned twice! – and David himself and all the house of Israel dancing, accompanied by full orchestra; singers, lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals!
But then the oxen stumble and Uzzah touches the ark and dies. The music cuts out, and David hits pause on his plan to bring the ark to Jerusalem.
In the backstory, in incidents throughout 1 and 2 Samuel, we have been told that the ark of God – of the Lord of hosts – is not benign – but an embodiment of God’s holiness and otherness, God’s unrestrainable holiness. In 1 Sam 4, when the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, take the ark into battle as a ‘Hail Mary’ against the Philistines, it backfires. And then, when the ark is captured, it stages its own release, making itself so unwelcome in Philistine country (1 Sam 5 and 6 are a wild read!) they send it back to Israel, to Beth-shemesh. There it is welcomed with relief and joy, but some (depending on the translation, who did not rejoice or who opened the ark) are struck down. And so, the people of Beth-shemesh say, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? To whom shall he go so that we may be rid of him?” And the people of Kiriath-jearim come forward and so, for the next twenty years, the ark of God is cared for by the house of Abinadab and his sons.
It is in this context that the death of Uzzah occurs. It sounds odd and unjust to us, but it is a clear reminder – to David – that the power of God cannot be manipulated or appropriated for political purposes; that he is king because God has chosen him.
And so, David takes a time-out, a three month pause during which he, like the people of Beth-shemesh before him, asks, “How can the ark of the Lord come into my care?” (Though there is some political expediency about this too. David takes the ark to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite, a foreigner, a Philistine who has remined living in the land, to see what will happen to him! Obed-edom is the canary in the coal mine! Obed-edom lives! In fact, after three months, David is told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom [the foreigner, the Philistine, I love the way Scripture sometimes subverts the main story!] and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.”)
And so, with more care the second time, David resumes the progress of the ark to Jerusalem. This time, having gone just six paces, he sacrifices an ox and a fatling, and he changes up the orchestra! Now we have only a chorus of trumpets. And David, it says, specifically David and not just with all the people, danced with all his might girded in a linen ephod, the dress of a priest. (Michal is not entirely correct. He is not naked.) Perhaps these three months have been a time – not just for blessing Obed-edom – but also for humbling David!
“Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord?” says our psalm, a psalm attributed to David, “And who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.”
Is the David of this second procession truly a man with clean hands? With no political motivation? No desire to employ religious manipulation? Does the David of the second procession truly have a pure heart?
According to Old Testament professor Richard Nysse, the answer is no. But that doesn’t mean it’s all over for David. He writes, “David’s motives are not pure and yet God is involved. Sin is real and faith is real; at times they are concurrent in one event and one character. The narrative leaves room for both readings. Perhaps it even insists on both readings, and thus depicts a world that has resonance with our own.”
Perhaps this is why our story ends on such an awkward note. Verse 16: “As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.” It is painfully true that, like David in verse 18 we might have a public life in which we can “bless all the people” but in our private life, our personal life “when we return to bless our household” (verse 20) we run into trouble. It is easy to condemn Michal as a nagging, critical wife, unable to embrace a husband and king who shows such public adoration for God. And the text hints at this, telling us that she had no child to the day of her death. But there are also political forces at work here. She is the daughter of Saul. (Have any of you seen Game of Thrones?) David cannot afford for her to have children, for Saul’s line to continue. And there are personal heartbreaks at work here, too. Michal was David’s first wife. She loved him, we’re told twice in 1 Samuel 18, the only time in Scripture a woman is described as loving a man. In 1 Samuel 19 she helps him escape from her father Saul. But now David’s allegiances are elsewhere. No wonder she now despises him in her heart.
Sin is real. We know this in our own lives and relationships; in the events we can never undo and the scars, that despite all our efforts, remain. Who among us can ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who can stand in God’s holy place? Who has clean hands and a pure heart?
None of us – is the answer. But like David, all is not over for us either.
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23 tells us. We know this verse well. But we need to know the next verse just as well! Romans 3:24; “And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus!”
Sin is real and faith – faith that springs from God’s love and redemption – is also real. Faith that picks us up – with humbler and more open hearts – when we fall down (and fall down and fall down and fall down) is also real. Faith that enables us to dance again before God with all our might is real. Sin is real and faith is real.
As a quiet end for today’s service, the choir are going to sing Geoff Bullock’s, Have faith in God, which is so appropriate as Geoff’s life, too, has parallels with this story.
Some of you will have read or heard interviews with Geoff Bullock describing his part in the rise of Hillsong – the church’s name was originally the name of Geoff’s band – and how what he calls organisational Christianity – maintaining the hype of organisational Christianity – the great public parade – took a toll on his marriage, his music and his mental health.
In an article titled ‘Geoff Bullock: No Longer the Golden Boy’ he says:
It’s easy to say, ‘Come to our church. We have great lights and great music.’ I used to say that. But I never said, ‘Listen. Come and meet the people who know what pain is like, and what brokenness is like. Come to meet people who are going to make you feel at home with your failure, because they’re not pretending to be anybody. And come and meet Jesus, the person who gives us the ability to keep starting again and not feel so despairing that we give up.’
Sin is real and faith is real. Are we prepared to be real and admit that? To be a place where people acknowledge what pain is like and what brokenness is like? Where others who have failed can feel right at home? And most of all where people can meet Jesus whose love picks us up and helps us start again – not feel so despairing that we give up. Whose love enables us to dance.
Who can ascend to the hill of the Lord? Are we prepared to reveal our hearts and our hands to God?
Before we sing our next hymn, let me invite you to read with me a lovely little prayer I came across this week expressing the full humanity – the very real sin and the very real faith – of David.
O God,
sustain us in the complexity of our humanity
as you sustained David–
playing the harp of youth,
throwing stones at giant problems,
loving our friends beyond wisdom,
dancing [in] worship,
mourning children,
breaking our hearts in psalms, and
longing for warmth in our old bones. Amen.
(From Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, copyright © 2002 Consultation on Common Texts admin. Augsburg Fortress. Posted on Thematic, Intercessory and Scripture Prayers for the RCL, Vanderbilt Divinity Library.)
Service Prayers
Opening Prayer
Lord of the dance,
creator of whirling winds and shimmering flames,
of the earth in all its beauty.
Move in us this day.
Breathe life into our songs of praise
our prayers and the reflections of each of our hearts.
Set our hearts ablaze to your word, to do your will.
May our worship
bring joy to you, Lord.
In Christ’s name we pray, Amen. (Re-worship – amended slightly.)
Prayer of Intercession (Nancy Townley, The Lord of the Dance – amended slightly)
In the beginning…… the dance began to swirl and ponder.
In the beginning, all was dark.
and the dance cast forth bright light.
In the beginning, the earth burst forth with wondrous things,
and the Lord of the Dance saw that it was good and blessed it all.
In our beginning, Loving God, you blessed us, and the dance went on,
through our lives, into all that we have done.
Sometimes the dance was slow and plodding;
at other times it was sprightly and fast.
Yet in the midst of it all, you, the Lord of the Dance is with us.
Lord, we pray especially this morning for the elderly in our congregation – whose steps in the dance might be slow, but yet are so beautiful.
We pray especially for Max Callan and Colin Gray and Jean Daly and Eunice Martin and Dorothy McMaster and Dawn Waterhouse.
And we pray for all who are struggling with poor health at this time, that you will embrace them in the dance.
We pray for our church, for its ministry in our community, we give thanks for the work of catherine Stafford in the garden over the past four years and we pray for our garden and all who grow things there, for our playgroups and all who play there, and the other activities.
We pray for our young people and especially today I pray for Elijah and Sean and Saskia and Zach who are heading to this tournament in Birmingham. Watch over them and teach them new steps of the dance – new steps of life with you.
And we give thanks for those whose dance of life is just beginning.
We give you great thanks this week for the birth of Percy Franks Fox and we pray for your blessing on this family – Joey, Kyle and Neve and Percy – that they may know dance with joy and care and forgiveness and grace all their lives.
This dance, called Life, is everywhere—
in the light and in the dark.
It is in places of hope and in places of deepest sorrow and tragedy.
How shall we dance our dance for God?
We shall live lives of hope and peace,
bringing the good news of Jesus Christ
and all that he taught to us,
so that others may join the dance.
Praise be to the Lord of the Dance,
the Lord of Creation, the Lord of Life! Amen.
~ written by Nancy C. Townley, and posted on the Ministry Matters website. http://www.ministrymatters.com/
Benediction
Children of God,
go forth dancing, singing, praying and praising.
Dance joy into sorrowful places!
Sing hope into places of despair!
Pray at all times.
Praise God this day and always! (Re-worship – slightly amended.)