July 15, Tim Hughes Williams. Sermon: So You Think You Can Dance?

Transcription

1 July 15, 2018 Tim Hughes Williams Sermon: So You Think You Can Dance? The Epistle Lesson: Ephesians 1: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory. The Old Testament Lesson: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 1 David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2 David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the LORD of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. 3 They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart 4 with the ark of God; and Ahio went in front of the ark. 5 David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. 1

2 12bSo David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing; 13 and when those who bore the ark of the LORD had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. 14 David danced before the LORD with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. 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. 17 They brought in the ark of the LORD, and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it; and David offered burnt offerings and offerings of wellbeing before the LORD. 18 When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the offerings of well-being, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts, 19 and distributed food among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins. Then all the people went back to their homes. Sermon: So You Think You Can Dance? We are always simultaneously sinner and saint. That is one of Martin Luther s most famous formulations. We are always simultaneously sinner and saint. It s the always and simultaneous part that made it so revolutionary. Luther s German church, perched on the edge of the Reformation in the 15 th Century, was already obsessed with sainthood and sin. But they were pushed into this binary that Luther declared a false choice. Organized religion had become obsessed with performance, with perfection, with a certain suffocating legalism. Which are you? Sinner or saint? Luther pushed back with a paradox that could make everyone a little bit uncomfortable. Inside of you, he would say, is a saint. A saint that is worth acknowledging and aspiring towards. A part of you that is made in the image of God. The part of you that is already forgiven. To deny this part of yourself is to do yourself harm. But also inside of you is a sinner a self-interested and flawed person, a person who needs to be held accountable. A person who needs to be forgiven. 2

3 The truly Christian position, he argued, is to hold those two things in tension. Anything less than always and simultaneous begins to distort the truth of the grace that God has for us. The problem with always and simultaneous, of course, is that they don t make for simple stories. We like our heroes and villains recognizable. We like our lessons tidy. We like knowing who is in and who is out. Perhaps we like that clarity in our stories because it is so rarely given to us in real life. Today we get a really juicy, complicated story from the Old Testament. It s full of intrigue and mythological elements and complicated characters. I m going to spend a lot of time inside that complexity maybe more than usual. But as we go, pay attention to the notions of sinner and saint, and how they might point us towards truth-telling and towards grace. We have to start, I think, with the Ark of the Covenant. This magical God-bearing box. It first appears back in the Book of Exodus. When God gives Moses the 10 Commandments, he places them in this ornate golden box. The box has two angel figures or cherubim carved into it. The space between the two angels was thought to be uniquely holy the place where God s Spirit dwells. Because of its holiness, the Ark was thought to have particular power. God warned Moses and the people that it should never be directly touched. It was simply too holy. Whoever touched the Ark would die. Now, there s an Indiana Jones element here that is hard to ignore. If you ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you are already familiar with the Ark of the Covenant and its face-melting power. You may, in fact, think such a thing is better suited to a Spielberg movie than modern religion. I would encourage you to simply think of it like this: The Ark of the Covenant is a symbol. It represents the power and mystery of the Holy. It also represents the danger of ignoring that power. Whether or not you 3

4 struggle with the idea of a magical box, you can probably understand the dynamics it represents. In fact, I can t think of a better symbol of the duality of saint and sinner the power and danger of all we aspire to be and all we fail to be. When the people wandered in the desert for 40 years, they carried the Ark of the Covenant. Very, very carefully. They covered it with a veil. They kept it in a special tent. They carried it on special rods. They felt the weight of God s presence on their shoulders, as it were. It anchored them. They carried the Ark into battle with them because they believed they were stronger in its presence. And then one day the unthinkable happened. Their army was destroyed by the Philistines and the Ark was taken away. Granted, it made the Philistines physically ill so they got scared and returned it under cover of dark. The Ark is dangerous in the wrong hands. But when it returned, the Israelites didn t want it back either. They were scared of it now. Even more so, they were scared of being weak. They left it in the basement of the home of Abinadab, where it remained for many years, more or less ignored. This is the moment when the people concluded that they needed a king and a military. Appoint for us a king to govern us like other nations, they said to the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 8:6). No more weird boxes. No more trust in mysteries. They wanted security, stability, certainty. They just wanted to be a normal nation, like the rest. Samuel resists this request at first but God eventually encourages him to give the people what they want. Listen to their voice, the Lord says only you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them (1 Samuel 8:9). It was an ominous way to begin, for sure. Samuel appoints Saul as the very first king of Israel, but it does not go well. Saul sometimes seems to want to serve God but more often he is insecure and impulsive and obsessed with his own power. Over time he becomes particularly obsessed with one of his own soldiers David. Ever since he was a child, David 4

5 was sort of golden boy. He defeated the giant Goliath, which elevated him to celebrity status as a solider. He s pledged his allegiance to Saul but Saul can only see him as a potential threat to the throne. There is not time here to tell you all the drama and double-crossing that occurred between these two men but suffice it to say that Saul made not one but two attempts on David s life, all the while pretending to be his friend. He encouraged David to marry his daughter Michal, while at the exact same time sending him into impossible battles, hoping he would die before the wedding. Only this plan backfired spectacularly because David didn t die. He emerged more famous than before, and Michal fell in love with him, and they were married. When Michal learned that Saul intended to kill David in his sleep, she woke him up and warned him and lowered him out of the palace from a window. She saved his life. From this time on, David lived in hiding from Saul. There s no indication that he attempted to contact his wife during those years. In fact, he took other wives and Saul arranged for Michal to be re-married as well. Then, right at the end of 1 Samuel, both Saul and his son are killed on the battlefield. After a series of bloody battles, David accumulates the power to become the new king of Israel. He attacks and conquers the capital city of the Jebusites, renaming it for himself. Jerusalem means City of David in Hebrew. Throughout it all, we see this duality of sinner and saint in all the characters but most especially in David. He has a passion for God and he also has an ease in manipulating people that is uncomfortable. His climb to the throne is littered with dead bodies. There s no other way to say it. A key piece of David s climb to power was a demand that he be reunited with Michal. In requesting that she join him in Jerusalem, he names the exact price he paid for her dowry. Her more recent husband was devastated by this news, weeping and following her as she was taken to Jerusalem. Some commentators take note of the difference between David s measured, calculating claim on Michal versus the agony of her current husband. 1 Claiming Michal as his wife 1 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative,

6 reconnects David to the lineage of Saul, easing his transition into the throne. Even after forcing her to leave her true love and join him in the palace, David s loyalty remains with his other wives. To have a child with Michal, after all, would create an heir in the line of Saul, and he has no intention of creating that kind of problem. When the time comes to enter Jerusalem with an entourage of 30,000 men and claim the throne, David remembers the Ark. He s probably only heard of it in stories. They go to the house of Abinadab and dig it up. He doesn t seem to know or care about the veil or the poles. They put it on a cart and head off towards the city. Now here s the moment when the Lectionary decides to skip verses 6 through 11. Whenever this happens, if you are a reasonably suspicious person, you will immediately flip to your Bibles to see why. The two sons of Abinodab are charged with pushing the Ark of the Covenant on its cart. The cart is being pulled by oxen and on a rocky patch of road the cart becomes unstable and the Ark threatens to fall off. The son named Uzzah reaches out to stabilize it and upon touching the Ark he s struck dead. The people forgot that rule also. This puts a damper on the parade, to say the least. David is angry they actually hide the Ark away again for three months. Three months are edited out of this reading! When the parade resumes, it is with considerably more caution. After only six paces, David offers sacrifices. The marching band seems to have been reduced to only trumpets. The Ark has a way of reminding you that God is God, and you are not. We are always and simultaneously sinner and saint. I find it so irritating that some committee decided to cut Uzzah s death out of this story. Presumably because it ruins the parade. Because it casts dispersion on David s leadership or worse, on the character of God. Uzzah s death is unjust. He was just trying to help. It doesn t make anybody look good. 6

7 I will just say this. When we sideline the mystery and power of God in the pursuit of our own power, the road to the throne is littered with bodies, and more often than not they are the bodies of unknown people. They are sacrificed so that we might have the simple story we prefer. We would rather not say the names of the deceased. We would rather cast them as the sinners and ourselves as the saints. But the truth is always more complicated. So say their names. The parade finally reaches Jerusalem. David dresses in a linen ephod, which is a sort of priestly undergarment, and he is dancing wildly before the Lord. It s sort of an inspired choice, as far as spectacle goes. David is a warrior king, after all, lean and muscled, dancing in what amounts to a pair of underwear. It is provocative and also casts him as a sort of priest, as he leads the Ark back into the city. This whole scene electrifies the crowd and really irritates David s wife Michal. She s watching him from up in a window and when she sees him leaping and dancing the Bible says that she despised him in her heart. Later she will dress him down for parading through the streets half-naked. How the king of Israel honored himself today, she says, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants (6:20). It s such an astute read, because what David intends for humility, Michal recognizes as pride. His nudity is not humble. The Emperor literally has no clothes. It was for the Lord that I danced, David snaps back. It was for the Lord who chose me in the place of your father (6:21). The sixth chapter of 2 Samuel ends with a pronouncement from the narrator: And Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death (2 Samuel 6:23). 7

8 Almost every time I ve ever heard this statement discussed, it s rendered as a punishment for Michal s bad attitude. It s so tempting to accept that interpretation because it follows the narrative of David as great leader and his nagging, spoil-sport wife. But when you dig into the full story, it s so obvious that her barrenness is simply punishment for speaking the truth. We are living in a moment of reckoning for powerful men. A rare moment of truth-telling and accountability that is bringing down the Harvey Weinsteins and the Kevin Spaceys and more recently some high profile pastors the pastor of Willow Creek, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention. Sometimes it has been painful to see these men brought down, because they represent something to us. They represent the pathway to sainthood. They represent a certain kind of power that makes us feel safe. If and when we feel tempted to rush to these men s defense, or to minimize or conceal their accusers we should stop and ask ourselves who is really being served. How many bodies are hidden? How many women are tucked away in towers, unseen and unheard? How many parades captivate us and titillate us with an intoxicating combination of military power and sex and religion? It s a little bit astonishing to me, actually, how relevant this ancient story can feel. David emerges at the end, unscathed, and that feels relevant too. But he s also unearthed the Ark. He s made space for the mystery and power of God and brought it back into the center of the city and this will have profound implications for everyone, especially him. His story will continue in weeks to come. 8

9 In the meantime, I find both comfort and challenge in the notion that the Gospel is always about truth-telling, however uncomfortable it may be. We are always and simultaneously sinner and saint and the Gospel is pushes us to speak that truth because it is only on the other side of that truth-telling that we find ourselves in the true presence of grace. So tell the truth. Say their names. Uzzah. Michal. Sandra. Philando. Anthony. Akai. Michael. Amber. Freddie. Tamir. Not a saint on the list. Nor a sinner. Always both. Just like you and me. 9