Dancing for God

Most of the characters in the Bible are not “saints” — that is, they are not models of perfection, but real people with both foibles and faith.  Take King David, for example, who is dancing for joy in today’s text …

PS:  The pastoral prayer (about summer discipleship) is at the end of the sermon.

 Dancing for God

Psalm 24; 2 Samuel 6:1-19 

David danced. He danced with all his might. He danced with the whole house of Israel, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.

He danced with joy because he was bringing the Ark of the Covenant home.

Most of us know more about the Ark of the Covenant from watching the Indiana Jones movie than we do from reading the Hebrew Scriptures. The Ark held, by tradition, the tablets of the law that Moses had received. It was a very holy thing, this Ark, and a very powerful one. So perhaps we are not too surprised that David danced so vigorously and joyfully.

Actually, he danced twice. The first time was when the Ark was brought up Baale-judah. But there was an, uh, incident on that journey. The details are left out of the official lectionary reading for today – but they are very instructive. The Ark was being transported by the sons of Abinadab. One of the sons, Uzzah, reached out and touched the Ark, apparently because the cart (being pulled by oxen) shook. And for that, he was struck down by God and died. David, seeing this happen, reconsidered his plan to bring the Ark home, and instead detoured to the home of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months. Only after David observed that Obed-edom the Gittite and his household were blessed by the presence of the Ark did he again set out for his home town. And yes, he danced again.

All of this happened more-or-less in the middle of David’s life. And it was a long and eventful life. His biography begins in the middle of the book of 1 Samuel and continues through the end of 2 Samuel. [These two books, by the way, are separate only because the story they tell was too long for a single scroll when the scriptures were kept on scrolls.]

We first hear of David when the prophet Samuel calls him in from the fields and anoints him the King of Israel – a somewhat awkward event, since Israel already had a king at that time: Saul. Later, Saul will suffer from great melancholy, and David will be called to the palace to play for him on his lyre. While still a lad, he will defeat the mighty Goliath by killing him with a stone and sling shot. He will be part of the life of the royal court, and become fast friends (or perhaps more than friends) with Saul’s son Jonathon. He will fall in and out of the King’s favor many times – sometimes fighting on his behalf, sometimes fighting him as an enemy. He will have several opportunities to kill Saul, but not take advantage of them; at the same time, he will often order the slaughter of other enemies. After he becomes king, he will commit adultery with Bathsheba, then repent when confronted by the prophet Nathan. He will continue to fight the Philistines as well as his own countrymen, and will lose his beloved son Absolom in one of those battles.

What is remarkable about David’s long and complicated life story is that even though he is held in the highest esteem as the greatest king of Israel, and even though Jesus will be known as his descendent, even so – we are told both the flattering and the unflattering details of his life.

That’s in marked contrast to the way that we usually tell the story of the lives of holy people. Most biographies of saints – religious or secular – are more hagiography than biography. They are written, not as history, but as casebooks of ethical behavior and spiritual purity. The goal is to inspire us, to give us role models of perfection that we can try to emulate.

That is not what we find in the story of David. Instead of consistency and perfection, we find inconsistency and imperfection. Take an hour this afternoon, if you can, with an easily readable version of the Bible, and read David’s story. The narrative sometimes backtracks, sometimes is repetitive, and sometimes is confusingly contradictory. But it is fascinating. It is fascinating because David is intensely human. He has both noble moments and ignoble ones. He is sometimes magnanimous and sometimes vindictive. His relationship with Saul shifts too many times to really keep track of. He moves through intrigue that includes international relationships as well as familial ones.

I don’t think that the account of David’s life in these Hebrew texts is intended to invite us to be like David. I think it is intended to tell us that we already are. Or to put it the other way around, to tell us that David was very much like us. Our lives are messy and complicated; we owe allegiances to family, friends, colleagues, not to mention a variety of principalities and powers. We are sometimes ennobled by our passions, and sometimes led into dishonorable and distressing situations by them. Some of our friends become enemies, and some of our friendships endure even through death. Sometimes we listen to God, and sometimes we do not – or maybe we cannot.

So what does it mean to us that the most shining star in our spiritual ancestry is not a saint, but rather a passionate, charismatic, inconsistent leader? How should we feel about his odd combination of compassion and vengeance, loyalty and violence? What kind of religion looks back to honor someone like this?

The answer, I think, is that we are part of an ancient tradition that is deeply embedded in the realities of human life. Contrary to some contemporary versions of Christianity, in which the chief concern is being “saved” in the life to come, our faith’s chief concern is how to live in the life that we have now. And I think we want our answer to that concern to be a way of life that is sustainable over the long haul. That is to say, we seek a way of living faithfully through the ups and downs, successes and failures, virtues and vices of our own histories. It needs to be faith that acknowledges, somehow, that we are not likely to have a smooth path in our spiritual journeys.

Because we are going to have rough times, we need sacred texts that are deep and rich enough to provide sustenance in a variety of situations at a variety of developmental stages in our lives. We need rituals and sacraments that we can return to, time after time, and find new meaning. We need faith communities that provide both support and challenge to us, and spiritual friends who will speak the truth in love. We need opportunities to confess when we have acted badly, to repent when we have made mistakes, to make amends when we have harmed others; and we need opportunities to hear, again and again, that we are cherished, loved, and redeemed by the powers of love, mercy, and healing.

And … we need to dance. For our spiritual lives to move forward with integrity and faithfulness, we have to be joyful as well as earnest. We have to recognize those moments in our lives holy celebration is called for. It is not enough just to smile at baptisms and confirmations, cry at weddings, and mourn at funerals. David teaches us that encountering the word of God, reconnecting with the words and symbols of divine of power, gathering with “all the house of Israel,” are moments of great gladness. Such moments are not best marked only by meetings, resolutions, greeting cards, or gifts to charitable organizations. They are often marked best by dancing: by moving with the music of the harps and lyres and all the rest, by gathering our children and our elders, and by swaying and stepping together (whether in unison or not).

David danced for God. Let’s join him.

Prayer for July 12, 2009

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

God of all seasons, the summer heat that slows us down leaves us more time to think about our own lives. Instead of taking joyful rest, we find ourselves ruminating over past mistakes, shortcomings both real and imagined, and dreams that have not come true.

Bring your cooling and gentle healing to us, so that we may let go of our fussing and worrying. Sooth our injured feelings, and draw us into a wider perspective that will make it easier to let go of our resentments. Quiet our fears, and fill us courage to meet the challenges of our lives. Reconcile our aspirations with our aptitudes and energies, so that we can know the delights of accomplishment and completion without the burden of exhaustion.

At the same time, Lord, help us to be soulfully quiet so that we can hear your words of correction and direction. Let the slower pace of our summer lives make us better at discernment, and less likely to jump to decisions based on our anxieties. Help us to appreciate the gifts of slowing down and taking time, and to use these gifts to reshape our lives where they bulge with business or warp with weariness.

Do not, we pray, let the languor of this weather decrease our compassion, or dampen our ardor for peace and reconciliation. Teach us, we pray, the ways of summer discipleship.

All this we ask in the name of the one who lived in the heat of the Middle East, and who fed the multitudes with loaves and fishes, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now I the words that he taught us: …