-1- Sermon (7/15/18, 2 Samuel 6: 1-19): Last Sunday we went to a Valley Cats baseball game. As they usually do, they had a few playful contests while

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1 -1- Sermon (7/15/18, 2 Samuel 6: 1-19): Last Sunday we went to a Valley Cats baseball game. As they usually do, they had a few playful contests while the teams switched sides. One of them was a dance contest between two very young boys. When the music began, one of the boys laid down on the ground, trying to breakdance. It didn t go so well grass and trying to spin on one s back is not exactly a winning combination. He kept trying though feet in the air, arms pushing against the ground, his gyrating hips doing the best they could to get a little momentum going. He refused to give up as he danced, quite literally, with all his might! There s something wonderful about that age when one is not so hindered by what others might think when they let loose. My son, when he was very young, would periodically do this. I remember one such moment when this occurred during a parade we were watching at Disney World many years ago. The music and the delight of the moment charged him up to the point where he just couldn t help himself. He began to dance, with all his might. Following his lead, I began to dance too. It was magnificent! It felt so good, so freeing. Without a care in the world, we just danced with all our might, allowing the wonder of the moment to flow through us. To this day, I vividly remember that moment with great fondness. My son wiggling his small bottom, pumping his arms, and shuffling his sandal clad feet with all the energy he could muster. I, standing next him, doing the same albeit in a bit larger size. It was glorious. Pure, uninhibited joy! I even bought a CD of the parade s music to help me remember that moment! It s something that gets hard to do as we grow older. Think about that first school dance in Middle School. Boys lined up on one side and the girls on the other. Girls nervously giggling as they point towards the boy s side. Boys doing their best to play it cool as they steal glances at a particular girl they wish they had the courage to ask for a dance. The dance floor remains largely empty as the Disc Jockey does her best to provoke some brave soul to get out there and shake their bootie. I had a friend who could dance unhindered way into his adult years. Even if he was the only one on the dance floor, he would freely sway to

2 -2- the rhythm of a song he liked. One can only imagine what others might have thought and, sad to say, even I thought. Well, surely he must have had a few too many drinks! Surely, this guy is one odd duck! As I continued to watch him, however, his eyes closed as the music washed over him, I admittedly felt a bit envious. I wished I could allow myself the freedom to do the same. Last week, we talked about how all the elders of the tribes of Israel had coalesced around David to make him King. That was followed by David s conquest of Jerusalem, making Jerusalem the capital of this newly formed nation. In today s passage, David takes another step to unite the nation he is now in control of by bringing the long-forgotten Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. It s interesting that David and the narrator of this story think of the Ark at this point. It had almost become a religious relic of the long past after the Philistines had dumped it in the backyard of Abinadab, where it sat for many years. In a moment of brilliance, however, David decided to bring the Ark to Jerusalem as part of consolidating his young nation around his leadership. On the one hand, it was probably a political move. The Ark would bring unity among the many generations that made up Israel. Believing the Ark to be the place where God sat upon the golden wings of the cherubim carved into the Ark s cover, the Ark s presence would bring tangible evidence that God was at the center of the nation. For the older generation, who might have still been a bit skeptical about David, the Ark s presence would bring a sense of the old covenant being renewed through the new covenant made with David as King. It s also clear, that David had a personal investment in this move. The joy David exhibits, the pageantry surrounding this event, and the sheer magnitude of this very public spectacle make it evident that this event is a defining moment for David. Not only will Jerusalem be the political center of David s reign but also the religious center. Not only will David s reign be shaped by the political needs of the Kingdom but also by the guidance of God who is the true King of Israel. Not only will

3 -3- David s rule bring the people of Israel together but, even more so, the worship of God will be at the center of Israel s communal life. The journey of David, moving the Ark from Abinadab s house to Jerusalem, is fraught with honest, uninhibited emotion. With the big exception of what happened when Uzzah touched the Ark (which is a sermon unto itself), most of the reading is saturated with joy. Initially, we re told that David danced along with the whole house of Israel as they journeyed with the Ark. They danced, with all their might, and there was song and lots of musical instruments. A true celebration. After a little hiatus, where the Ark was left with Obed-edom the Gittite, the celebratory parade resumes with David at the lead. Again, David danced with all his might, even stripping down to his underwear! So absorbed was he, so consumed by the moment was he, so filled with joy was he, that David danced. He just couldn t help himself. Every cell in his body was lit up with joy and hope and potential. God was returning to the center of Israel s life. God had picked David, believed to be the most unlikely of candidates, to be the King of Israel. The long fractured and warring tribes of Israel were now coming together as one unified nation. God made a promise to David that God would be with him, causing Israel to thrive, and now it was happening. Have you ever had a moment like that? A moment when it feels like the whole universe has finally lined up in your favor? All your hard work, all your efforts, all the risks you took, all the sweat and doubts and struggles that you had poured out is finally bearing the fruit you had hoped it would? Have you ever felt so filled with joy that, well, you wanted to dance?! You just needed some tangible way to express the joy and excitement you felt bubbling inside?! Not too long ago, during one of our afternoon study group sessions, something hit me about the text we were studying that filled me with great excitement. I turned to the person next to me, asking if they felt it too. I bet you just want to jump on the table right now and dance, don t you? I asked. I asked that because it s pretty much what I wanted to do. The group laughed and, of course, as often happens, they thought I was pretty weird, which is probably true.

4 -4- It happens, though, somewhere in the wrestling, somewhere in the back and forth of dialogue, somewhere in the thinking, and the praying, and the singing, and the communing at this table of bread and juice and the gathering around this baptismal font, something brilliant, every now and again, opens up. It s almost like God tears open the heavens for a moment, allowing the unhindered intensity of holy glory to shower down upon us. I wonder what would happen if we were so tuned into this kind of expectation that it became a question of when instead of if? I wonder what would happen if we, like David, allowed ourselves to believe that this thing we do here is no small thing? These sacraments we celebrate really are a celebration? These Biblical texts we wrestle with and these prayers we say, even when they feel repetitive and redundant, really are a conduit through which God s glory passes? I wonder what would happen if one day, we just said to ourselves, Ah, the heck with it! The heck with appearances and what people think! I m going to allow these things to have their way with me! I wonder what would happen if we sang our hymns with all we had, sour notes and all? I wonder what would happen if we read and felt the words of the prayers we prayed, allowing them to sink deep inside of us? I wonder what would happen if what we heard and thought and experienced here were allowed to pierce through our thinking and doing the rest of the week? Would we begin to feel our bodies sway to some rhythmic sound we had not heard before? Would our feet begin to unconsciously move because they just couldn t help themselves? Would we wake up on Sunday mornings with all the child-like enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning? Would we become more aware of God s presence than we ever thought possible? Would we discover that God s promises really are powerful and really do have the ability to have a greater impact on the world than we ever imagined? Might our dancing be contagious, spreading like wild fire through our communities and maybe even our messy politics? Would it lead to even more moments of exuberance as we sense all things coming together under the mighty umbrella of God s

5 -5- glorious grace, much like David felt as he accompanied the Ark to Jerusalem? Might there even be a bit of swagger to your body when the usher hands you a bulletin? Might it make it difficult for you to stand still when the sound of hymns fills this sacred space? Might I notice a bit of a bounce in your step as we shake hands at the end of worship? Might there even be some dancing on the table downstairs during coffee hour or during one of our study groups? Well, I don t know but it sure would be fun to try, wouldn t it? It sure would be good to feel again that wondrous moment when, with all my might, without a care in the world, I danced with my young son as we watched a parade go by. Parades do that, you know. They make you dance, especially when that parade celebrates the arrival of the true King of Glory even as the crowd shouts, Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord! To God alone be all the glory! Amen.

6 -6- Congregational Prayers and Lord s Prayer: Leader: The Lord be with you. People: And also with you. Leader: Let us pray God of glory, of divine music that fills creation with rhythmic hope; of grace that causes feet to stomp and arms to flail with contagious exuberance, we give you thanks for this day. We give you thanks for your grace that turns even our mundane days into spirited parades of victorious song. We give you thanks for the way you have gathered us together, different though we might be, imperfect though we are, into a community that s able to celebrate your arrival with joy. Loving God, tear open the heavens and shine upon us, we pray. Let its glow surround us and shape us. Chip away at the thick walls we hide behind for fear that we might be found out. Remove the masks we disguise ourselves with because we worry that we might stand out as odd or maybe even irrelevant. Pierce our hesitations with a determination to allow the music of divine grace to shape our thinking and doing in all that we risk and do. Free our tongues to sing the wonders of your ways even when it is met with demands for us to keep silent. We pray all of this as we consider how limited our imaginations have become and how void our lives are of your new song. Instead, we hear the drumbeat of war and violence and cruel competitiveness. We hear the sour notes of greed and jealousy and rejection. We know all too well the arrythmia of sorrow, illness, diseases that ravage our bodies and our minds, of hopelessness that plunges us into depths of darkness, and of worry so profound that it allows our minds to think of little less. Gracious God of perfect pitch, sing to us, heal us and heal those things that do such harm to your creation. We pray this as we especially name these prayers we now offer in our silence or aloud

7 -7- We ask this in Jesus name who taught us to pray All: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.