The Park Road Pulpit
Sermons from Park Road Baptist Church
Russ and Amy Jacks Dean, Pastors
The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,
the world, and they that dwell therein;
for God has founded it upon the seas,
and established it on the rivers.
The priest spoke those words and sounded the shofar (the ram’s horn), and the procession began. Crowds lined the street. There was a cacophony of noise, a rainbow of color, smells hanging in the air -- and in the atmosphere, something tense. This was more than a feast of the senses – there was something Mysterious about it.
The feeling made Ahio nervous and ecstatic, and there he was at the front of this sacred parade. He and his brother had dreamed of this moment since they had been selected to march with David, the King of all Israel, and with the ark that contained the literal presence of Adonai Sabbaoth – the Lord of Hosts.
Soon after they began this parade, one of the clumsy oxen stumbled and caused the other to jerk in reflex, and as the young son of Abinadab turned, the image he saw froze in his mind. The ark of God had tumbled over, almost on its side, and the cherubim on the top were suspended, awkwardly, in the air.
To their left, in this frozen frame, he saw his elder brother, Uzzah, straining forward, his hand on the gold ornamentation which adorned the side of the ark. And on his face, that look which Ahio would never forget. It was the look of surprised confusion, as a child caught off-guard by a parent’s misplaced rage. That dying look on his brother’s face would never leave his mind. That look, and what it was that Uzzah had seen, would forever trouble him.
As he reflected again on this scene, a third image came to him, but it too remained with him for life. Held there between two awkward angels and a dying man was the image of David, the King of Israel, dancing before the LORD, this terrible God. And the look on David’s face, too, was unforgettable. As if Ahio had opened the wrong door of the palace at the wrong time and had wandered into something terribly private, the intimate and spiritual ecstacy on David’s face embarrassed the young boy. David danced shamefully, yet shamelessly naked before all of Israel and his terrifying God.
David has been praised for his act of uninhibited worship. He was King, yet he danced in praise of a greater sovereign. We are often encouraged to follow his lead -- especially we who sit in ordered, liturgical praise. And the question is worth asking: “How shall we praise this God?” The God who breathed life into the first Adam and who experienced bodily death in the second Adam, must surely desire that we worship with our bodies in appropriate ways. I believe David can be our teacher here.
But there were others watching David, who saw another dance.
Even before she saw the crowd, she heard the mayhem of the great celebration. Drums, trumpets, cymbals, praise, laughter… As Michal looked for him, her heart pounded. She had loved him from the moment she had laid eyes on him. He was good-looking and strong, and she loved for him to sing his ballads of love.
But she could read his eyes, as all women can, and in them, she knew his heart. She knew that his songs were not for her. He only sang to her. As much as she loved him, she knew that his commitment was contrived. After all, he was just a man, and a King at that. And Kings lusted for far more than love.
The huge crowd was in view now, and from her lofty window she could see the whole procession, but she could not find him. Where was his chariot? His royal robes? When she did recognize her husband, reeling like a drunkard in that dancing crowd, she seethed. What hypocrisy! What pretense! What manipulation! As much as David lusted for the love of women, he lusted more for power, and what Michal, the daughter of King Saul knew was that David’s dance was a sham. A show for the priests. She saw the mighty David dance in his own glory, because he knew that the return of the ark virtually ensured his political fortune -- against the Philistines, and in the eyes of the religious elite. Now that David had his “god in a box,” he no longer needed her. Like so many others, she too was expendable, for with the ark in his possession, old King Saul was no longer a threat to David. And she wept for herself, for she knew then that she would die barren, unloved, without purpose.
I do love the Bible. It is an audacious book. This Book of God dares to be honest enough not to “pretty-up” its characters before calling them “men after God’s heart.” Of course scripture does not make explicit my interpretation of this scene. But since it does not gloss over David’s many other failures, I hope you allow this possibility as we consider what this strange text might mean for us today.
After Bill Clinton was elected President for his first term, the pastor of the church we then served was invited to an inaugural prayer service. In that service, the President was invited to sing. He rose and sang with confidence the third verse of an obscure hymn. He sang a capella. He sang from memory. Bill Clinton sang before God. But which god?
Though undoubtedly recognizing the President as a highly complex and conflicted character, some people heard through his music the deeply-rooted traditions of his faith heritage, and a sincere spirituality. But many heard in Bill Clinton’s song only political arrogance and religious hypocrisy. Before which god was he really singing?
As David danced before that ark, I believe he was in fact dancing between two gods: the God of Israel and the god political establishment. Human egos are too large, and the lines are too fine and gray. And Jesus did teach that we should render even to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s These words have always troubled me. What should Christians render to Caesar – who himself claimed to be a god?
A year ago I stood in the beauty of a cathedral-like sanctuary in Birmingham, Alabama, vaulted ceiling, slate floors, stained glass windows. I watched as a full military color guard marched in lock-step as the American flag took center stage, that all who worshipped God, there, could rise and pledge their allegiance. It was a moment of incredible, internal conflict for me -- not because I’m not proud to be American. Not because I don’t appreciate our military. Not because I’m not patriotic. But as I struggled through “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States...” I was also hearing “Thou shalt have no other gods before me...” No other allegiances. And I became aware that we had all been asked to dance, right there in the sanctuary, between God and America.
I am not an expert in the American political/religious landscape. I’m hardly a critical observer. But I do believe that our society is deeply troubled, dancing between these two gods. In my 20 years of awareness I have observed a wide-spread confusion about faith convictions in light of political convictions. These two decades have seen the rise and fall of a so-called “Moral Majority” and the establishment of the politically motivated “Christian Coalition.” In 1980 Jimmy Carter, who openly refers to himself as a “born-again” Christian was defeated, almost single-handedly by “born-again Christians,” in the landslide election of Ronald Reagan. (In a televised interview that I watched, newly-elected President Reagan couldn’t even define the term.) We have observed the alliance of religious fundamentalists and Zionist (meaning pro-Israel) Jews. And we are still at war in this country over a myriad of hot-button issues from abortion to capital punishment to prayer in school. And President Bush has now entered the fray with his call for “charitable choice.”
In their book, Resident Aliens, Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas argue persuasively that Christian approaches from both the “left” and the “right” are fundamentally wrong, because they both assume “that the American church’s primary social task is to underwrite American democracy” (p.32). In so dancing between these two gods, most American Christians have essentially abandoned church – forfeiting its power and position and privilege to a government which, at best will still be... secular!
Willimon and Hauerwas also refuse to say we need to go back to the “good ole days” or back to “good old-fashioned values” or back to any past. They refuse to mourn the “loss” of America’s so-called “Christian” climate because, “The loss of Christendom,” they claim, “gives us a joyous opportunity to reclaim the freedom to proclaim the gospel in a way in which we cannot when the main social task of the church is to serve as one among many helpful props for the state” (p.39).
We have danced too long between these two gods.
When Jesus Christ said to Simon Peter, “I will build my church upon this rock,” he gave us a new citizenship, a new home. Paul referred to “our citizenship in heaven,” and claims that it is “from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ...”
With God alone should we dance.
For regardless of what the world and its human leaders see, there is but one God, and
The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,
the world, and they that dwell therein;
for God has founded it upon the seas,
and established it on the rivers.
Let’s Dance!
Amen!
God of All Nations
Heavenly Father
Loving Mother
Friend of the weak and the powerful
This day, around the globe
Your children wave their banners:
Banners which they have made
Of Cloth and Color
Of shape and Symbol
Banners of arbitrary design
Which decorate homes and buildings
Which are flown in the face
of the outsider
To send a very non-arbitrary message
Which says:
You are not one of us
You are not like us
You do not belong to us
God of All Nations
Heavenly Father
Loving Mother
Friend of the weak and the powerful
We are grateful for cultures and traditions
For heritage and history
For our own people
And this day, we give thanks for America
For the freedoms which it provides its people
For government of the people, for the people,
by the people
And for our forebears
who have made this possible
But America also needs forgiveness,
For we have claimed as “ours” what is not ours
And in doing so, we have trampled the rights
And crushed the lives
of thousands of unknown
Brothers and sisters
who are “not one of us”
But who really are, just like us.
So this day we pray for forgiveness
For the flags which we have unfurled
To fly in the face of brothers and sisters
Across the hall
Across the city
Across the world
As we celebrate a national holiday
Make us mindful that
Russians and Cubans
Afgans and Pakistanis
Chinese and Indonesians
Britains and Argentines
Are just like us
That their children
And their dreams, like ours
Are born in great hope
And die in great grief
God of All Nations
Heavenly Father
Loving Mother
Friend of the weak and the powerful
Teach us to dance today
Under but one banner
And that is your banner
Of self-giving love
So wrap us in that Love
That we might fly freely
Till brothers and sisters everywhere
Are, One.
Amen.