(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on July 15, 2018, Proper 10)
A Piece of Political Propaganda
In last week’s scripture, Israel
anointed David as their king. In
this week’s scripture, David gets to work. His first order of business is moving the ark of the
covenant to his new capitol Jerusalem.
This is a bit of brilliant political propaganda on David’s part because
the ark of the covenant is an ancient symbol of God’s presence. The ark had gone before the people in
their wilderness wandering. It had
gone with them into battle. For
much of Israel, then, the ark stands for God. If the ark is with David in Jerusalem, then it must mean
that God is on David’s side. It
must mean that David is the rightful king.
That is the history of today’s
story. David is establishing his
authority as king. Through the
ark, David is enlisting God’s support.
But hidden within this history, I
think, is a wonderful metaphor for God’s holiness in our world.
Just a Parade, Just a Prop
At the beginning of the story,
David and his entourage begin a royal procession to take the ark to
Jerusalem. The Bible doesn’t give
us too many details, other than to say that they’ve made a new cart to carry
the ark and everyone is singing and dancing and playing music. I imagine the event as a parade. I imagine people coming from far and
wide for the spectacle and the show, bringing along picnics and taking in the
pageantry of it all.
But there’s a big bump in the
parade. The lectionary chooses to
avoid it, cutting out several verses from today’s scripture. But at some point in the middle of the
procession, the oxen stumble and the ark shakes and one of the attendants
reaches out his hand to steady the ark.
And when his hand touches the ark…he drops dead, right then and
there. Which is to say, I think,
that he actually had no idea what he was dealing with. It would be as though a flaming hot pan
was knocked off the stove—and we reached out to grab it.
In other words, what we see at
the beginning of the story is a people who had lost reverence for the holiness
of God. For them, this procession
was a spectacle, a show, a parade of power by their new king David. The ark was just a stage prop. Just a token. Just a bit of ancient history.
I wonder already if this is not a
bit like our own world, where brand names and businesses continually parade
their goods before us, to the point that everything becomes just a product for
our consumption, something we use and then discard and move on to what’s
next…unaware of the holiness that lurks in our midst.
From Dread to Joy
When the attendant touches the
ark and dies, David is no longer unaware of the holiness of the ark. Suddenly he realizes that this is more
than a prop. Suddenly he senses
that this is something greater than him, beyond his control. The missing bit of today’s scripture
tells us, “David was afraid of the Lord” (6:9).
How afraid? The storyteller says he leaves the ark
alone for three months. Only after
he learns that the ark’s temporary caretaker is doing well—so well that people are
saying it must be because of God and the ark—only then, does he decide to renew
the grand procession.
But it’s here that the story
really puzzles me. Because the
storyteller says that when the parade resumes, David rejoices alongside the ark
all the way to Jerusalem, dancing with all his might. I wonder how David moves from such a deep fear—he won’t even
come near to the ark for three months—to dancing and shouting and rejoicing
alongside it. I wonder what
transforms his dread into joy.
Reverence: Fear and Awe
I think there’s a clue in the way David rejoices. Because if we look closely, we’ll
notice that his dancing and shouting is different than the pageantry of the
first procession. No longer is the
ark just a stage prop. No longer
is this just a spectacle for the eyes.
Now it’s a mystery for the heart.
Now there is a profound reverence for the holiness of the ark. The storyteller says that after the
procession moved just six steps, everyone stops and David offers a sacrifice.
The clue, then, is this. David’s joy is in fact a deep awe, a
tongue-tied wonder. In that
feeling is retained David’s deep reverence, his sense that this ark is
something greater than him, something beyond his control. But now instead of worrying for
himself, he wonders at the unknowable depths of what is beyond him.
In fact, when the storyteller says
that David was “afraid” of the Lord, the Hebrew word there—yirah—captures perfectly the movement of David’s reverence from
fear to awe. Because that’s what yirah means—both fear and awe. For the Hebrews, they were two sides of
the same coin. We experience these
two sides ourselves—fear and awe—whenever we are reminded that we are not in
control, whenever we realize that this thing called life is so much more
meaningful and mysterious than the little plans and programs that our small
selves have designed. Standing on
the edge of a mountain can fill us with this fear and awe—fear if we stand too
close to the edge and look down, but awe if we take a step or two back and look
at the world around and beneath us.
Standing before an irreversible passage, like marriage or death or
college, can fill us with this fear and awe—fear if we dwell on the inevitable
loss of what we know, or awe if we wonder at the possibilities and surprises
and new life before us.
How does David get from fear to
dancing and shouting and rejoicing?
I think he took a step back from the cliff and saw the view. I think that in the presence of the
ark, the world suddenly swelled and thickened far beyond his own aims and
ambitions—and as scary as that was at first, it was also breathtakingly
glorious, like glimpsing the world from above.
The Disenchantment of Our World
David encountered the holiness of
God in a box container, an ancient artifact full of history and meaning for the
Israelites. Some people in ancient
Israel actually thought that that box contained God. But as they would discover later when their Temple was
destroyed and that sacred box went missing, the ark did not contain God. God was still with them, even in
exile. God was in all the world.
We hear that news in today’s
psalm, where the psalmist declares, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in
it” (24:1). We hear it also in the
reading from Ephesians, where Paul proclaims that the mystery of God’s will is
“to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth”
(1:8-10). God is in
everything. Everywhere. Everything in heaven and on earth
belongs. It was not just that box
that was holy. All the world is
filled with God’s glory. All the
world is worthy of our awe—our dancing and shouting and rejoicing.
But you wouldn’t know that living
in our society today. Where
people chase after money and things but find only emptiness. Where beauty is not a wonder to behold
but a thing to consume and dispose.
Where science explains more and more of our world, but instead of marveling
at the mysterious connectedness of life, we see only more ways of exploiting
the world’s resources for our short-lived gain. As sociologist Max Weber prophetically announced at the
beginning of the last century, our world has become “disenchanted.” Everything is merely a tool, a means to
our ends. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is holy.
To Re-enchant the World
A story is told in the Jewish
tradition of a community where a man stood accused of adultery. The leaders of the community demanded
from the rabbi a harsh punishment upon the sinner. In response, the rabbi prayed, “O Lord, your glory on
earth—in this community—has become invisible. In contrast to its invisibility, the object of this man’s
passion stood before his eyes, full of beauty and enravishing his body and
soul. How could I punish him?”[1]
In other words, the problem was
not just with that single man. The
problem was with a community that had become blind to the depths and glory of
God in all the world around them.
Their world had become so disenchanted that the only thing this man
could find to marvel at was one woman. He could not see the holiness of God—he
could not feel fear and awe—in his wife or in his children or in the strangers
on the street, all of whom carried secrets and had intricate histories, all of
whom had come from somewhere and were going somewhere too, just like him. He had no sense that there was more to
life than he knew, that life was greater than just him and was ever unfolding
into something wonderful. He could
not see the terrifying valley beneath, or the terrific vista before him.
Part of the reason our world has
lost its enchantment, I think, is because the world has ceased to goggle at
God—to look at the world wide-eyed with wonder and reverence and curiosity,
seeing not tools for advancement or means for our own ends but gifts for
treasuring and pondering and celebrating.
There is no more dancing and shouting and singing, like David did before
the ark. But that is our call. To re-enchant the world. Our story of faith says that in the
beginning, everything was good, and Jesus came to insist on this truth, to
proclaim this gospel, that everything and everyone belongs, that God is
gathering up all things in heaven and in earth into a good and beautiful and
true creation. Why shouldn’t
we be dancing and shouting and singing?
God in everything and
everyone—just the thought is enough to make us goggle at all the world. Everything sacred, full of depth and
mystery and unforeseeable possibility—and we on the cusp of it all.
Prayer
Holy God,
Alive in all the world—
Awaken us to your glory;
Open our eyes to see around us
Neither the props of everyday
life,
Nor the means to our own ends,
But a world full of mystery,
Inspiring deep reverence, curiosity,
and care.
And may our goggling
Help to re-enchant the world
With your love. Amen.
[1] Adapted from
the story told by Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence (New York:
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967), 21.
No comments:
Post a Comment