Dancing In Holy Places
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle B
Dancing in holy places -- that's the theme of this text. I don't know about you, but sometimes in parish life you just don't feel much like dancing, especially when as a pastor you have to deal with several deaths in one week, and still have to get up and preach with a smile on your face. In a reversal of that British movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral, I remember one week when I was in the parish when we had "Four Funerals and a Wedding," and it was a bittersweet time for all of us.
With two expected deaths (seemingly expected, that is, because when is death ever really expected?) and two tragic deaths, one a car accident and the other a plane crash, the only dance some of us seemed to be doing that week was the dance of death. Maybe that's not all bad. Sometimes when parishioners come on Sunday mornings you can tell by the looks on their faces that the only dance they care anything about is the dance of death. So if they are going to dance at all they come to church dancing the blues because, as with Job, life has been hard. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes it's just so hard. No matter how much we try to put the bright face on it, no matter how many wise theologians we listen to, no matter how many times we read Rabbi Kushner's fine book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, the hurt just doesn't go away. Worst of all, the "Why?" question never gets answered, maybe because there isn't an answer to it this side of heaven.
So dancing in holy places has to start first of all with this sad and mournful dance of death like those long, slow marches to the cemetery in New Orleans with the band playing the blues and the dance steps measured and slow because everyone feels the pain -- a dull, dark ache that just won't go away.
In a fascinating twist, some scholars see Michal at the window in this light. Oh, you can read your way through all the speculations about her and the reason she wasn't down there dancing with David. One is that the woman at the window is a literary motif in Hebrew literature and a sculptural motif in ivory plaques in several Middle Eastern countries. One is associated with the cult of the goddess Kililu -- known as the queen of the windows because her name means "the one who leans out windows," or the Cypriote goddess called Aphrodite Parakyptousa, which in Greek means literally, "Aphrodite Peeping-Out-The-Window," which referred to love poetry where the bride stands waiting in her chamber for her lover's entrance, something that reminds us of a wedding.
Another meaning I'd never noticed before goes like this -- Michal at the window represents the anxious or grieving bride or mother waiting often in vain for a young man who has disappeared or perished. Think about it. David is returning from an important expedition that involved at least two battles. He could have been killed. Michal is the woman at the window awaiting her husband's return after war.
I asked a young widow, whose husband was killed in a plane crash, how she first heard the news and she said that one of her husband's closest friends and colleagues drove up her driveway with a somber look on his face, the kind of look military officers and chaplains display when they approach certain marked houses knowing that the loved ones are peeking at them through the curtains as they bring the somber news of soldiers who have fallen in battle. As the body count increases daily in Iraq, I can't get this scene out of my mind. David's wife, Michal, is the woman at the window wondering if she is going to be doing the dance of death, waiting there at the window for a husband who might never come home like mothers and fathers waiting at the window for sons and daughters they will never see again.
The first dance is the dance of death. You'd think that would be the one David would be dancing. After all, David was still mourning the death of Saul and the death of Jonathan. Later, it would be the passing of his first child by Bathsheba, and later than that, and even more traumatic, it would be the death of his beloved Absalom. "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33). David knows how to dance the dance of death. The scripture says that he went up to the gateway and wept and wept. He covered his face and wept like families who have lost loved ones. The widow I talked to said she cried so much that her eyes had nearly swollen shut. The first dance is the dance of death, the one you'd think David would be dancing.
However, instead of the dance of death he was doing what might be called the "dangerous dance." The "dangerous dance" was the bold and political dance that testified to a new relationship with God and a new way of living, a way that would no longer kowtow to the old ways of doing things, a way that said, "The world is not about death and murder, but about new relationships where we love God and love neighbor as ourselves." Of course, in his time this was a radical message. It was a message that said death will not dictate or rule our lives or beat us down so far we'd never be able to get up again. It was a daring and bold move that David took that day, a dangerous dance to be sure.
David knew he needed something, some old symbol that everyone could rally around, something that no one would question, even the oldest and most traditional among them. Suddenly he remembered the Ark of the Covenant that had lain dormant for nearly twenty years. It had been shelved in Kiriath-jerim on a hill in the house of Abinadab. Because the Israelites feared it and looked upon it as a hazardous, unpredictable object representing the very presence of God, they were stunned to see David entering Jerusalem dancing around it with a dance of joy and celebration. It was a brilliant, strategic, and political move on David's part, a dangerous dance at best, to celebrate his victory over the Philistines and bring the Ark home to its rightful place all in one bold and stirring act like a huge Fourth of July fireworks celebration. It was like pulling the American flag out after its having been packed away for twenty years or more and waving it before the people.
Since the Ark stood for the old ideology of Israelite jihad or "holy war" and pointed to the dangerous and raw presence of God, thus embodying the unity of Israel's various clans and tribes, in this one bold and dangerous dance, David brought the old conservatives over to his side as he pointed to a new era for the people of God that meant a new way of living and relating to one's neighbor. He thus pulled an enormous coup by putting the old traditionalists into a tight spot. They had to make a choice. Because of his popularity and the fact that he had the Ark, they had to go along. They had nowhere else to go. So, instead of doing the dance of death, David is doing the dangerous dance with joy and celebration.
Why? This must have been what Michal was wondering. It must have been what the older brother was wondering when the prodigal came home and the father threw him a party, and all he could hear as he came in from the field was singing and dancing. "What is going on with David?" they must have been asking themselves. Has he completely lost it? Does he know something we don't know? Does the prodigal's father know something we don't know? Perhaps so -- perhaps he sees deeper into the heart and purpose of God than anyone else could see.
I visited with a mother whose sixteen-year-old daughter, Meredith, had been killed in a car accident, the second child this mother had lost that way. And I visited with the widow whose husband went down in that plane. I was stunned to see the deep faith, hope, and love each woman had. In the presence of so much tragedy, tears, and pain, both, with scared and yet brave faces kept saying, "We want uplifting songs at the memorial service. We want emphasis on resurrection, hope, and joy. We want to celebrate their lives." Like David dancing that day, it made me want to ask, "Do they know something we don't?"
That must have been what David's wife, Michal, kept asking him as she watched him dancing with so much joy. It wasn't just that he didn't have much on, a symbol of the fact that he'd stripped away all the pretense of religion, all the trappings and protocol of proper worship and was focusing on his spontaneous devotion to the living God. "Does he know something I don't know?" It must have been what the older brother kept asking as he watched with shock and dismay all the partying and celebration. It must be what some people ask when African Americans and charismatics show so much joy and frivolity, dancing as David did long ago, not just the dance of death not the dangerous dance, which demonstrated a new theo-political reality. No, it was more like "destiny's dance," the "dance of the divine." What was this "divine destiny dance"? It means a singing and a dancing that testifies to God's presence with us no matter what happens to us or our loved ones. It means believing in God and praising God even in the midst of our sufferings, even in the darkest nights of our souls. It means dancing with an unfettered, unashamed extravagance.
The divine destiny dance means letting go and sharing our joy as we share our goods and ourselves with others even as David gave people bread and raisins and fruitcakes for their spiritual journey as a symbol of our giving with each other and especially with the poor. It means not just tapping our toes on the sideline but getting into the dance. It means knowing that there are times when we just need to let go and realize we won't have a heart attack if we show a little bit of enthusiasm, God forbid! Vic Pentz, pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, in a sermon at the Presbyterian General Assembly, wondered what had happened to the full-hearted awe that Scottish Presbyterians brought to America. Pentz noted that Scottish Presbyterians who came to this country were rough-hewn rednecks, the inventors of the log cabin, people who said "critter" instead of creature and "widder" instead of widow, who were always "fixin' to do something" and whose "young'uns growed up." As people with strong passions for what they believed and quick tempers when someone challenged them, Pentz noted that they were easy to provoke into a fight, a part of our heritage we haven't lost. But, said Pentz, "the next time you tune into a country music station, that's Merle Haggard channeling your Presbyterian heritage." So the greatest legacy these old Scots left to us was their enthusiastic, awestruck worship of God, the sense that something is happening here that makes a difference to us and to our loved ones, especially those who have gone on to be with God.
Thus David's divine destiny dance, full of joy and hope, is our dance, too, one that we do no matter how hard life has been because our Lord Christ danced on Easter morn and we can, too. I don't know about you but that's the only thing that gets me through a week with lots of deaths in a church.
Don't you see? All of life is a dance and we spend our lives learning the steps. God spends all that time trying to get on our dance cards; trying to show us that no matter what happens to us we never have to dance alone and we really should "dance with the one who brung us." I think the sixteen-year-old girl named Meredith whom I buried years ago understood all that. At a wedding reception not long after her funeral, I felt a tap on my arm and looked down and saw one of the little girls in our church asking me to dance, and suddenly imagined sweet Meredith, dancer that she was, tapping Saint Peter on the arm and taking a turn on heaven's dance floor.
Dancing in holy places -- that, my friends, is what life is all about. Amen.
With two expected deaths (seemingly expected, that is, because when is death ever really expected?) and two tragic deaths, one a car accident and the other a plane crash, the only dance some of us seemed to be doing that week was the dance of death. Maybe that's not all bad. Sometimes when parishioners come on Sunday mornings you can tell by the looks on their faces that the only dance they care anything about is the dance of death. So if they are going to dance at all they come to church dancing the blues because, as with Job, life has been hard. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes it's just so hard. No matter how much we try to put the bright face on it, no matter how many wise theologians we listen to, no matter how many times we read Rabbi Kushner's fine book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, the hurt just doesn't go away. Worst of all, the "Why?" question never gets answered, maybe because there isn't an answer to it this side of heaven.
So dancing in holy places has to start first of all with this sad and mournful dance of death like those long, slow marches to the cemetery in New Orleans with the band playing the blues and the dance steps measured and slow because everyone feels the pain -- a dull, dark ache that just won't go away.
In a fascinating twist, some scholars see Michal at the window in this light. Oh, you can read your way through all the speculations about her and the reason she wasn't down there dancing with David. One is that the woman at the window is a literary motif in Hebrew literature and a sculptural motif in ivory plaques in several Middle Eastern countries. One is associated with the cult of the goddess Kililu -- known as the queen of the windows because her name means "the one who leans out windows," or the Cypriote goddess called Aphrodite Parakyptousa, which in Greek means literally, "Aphrodite Peeping-Out-The-Window," which referred to love poetry where the bride stands waiting in her chamber for her lover's entrance, something that reminds us of a wedding.
Another meaning I'd never noticed before goes like this -- Michal at the window represents the anxious or grieving bride or mother waiting often in vain for a young man who has disappeared or perished. Think about it. David is returning from an important expedition that involved at least two battles. He could have been killed. Michal is the woman at the window awaiting her husband's return after war.
I asked a young widow, whose husband was killed in a plane crash, how she first heard the news and she said that one of her husband's closest friends and colleagues drove up her driveway with a somber look on his face, the kind of look military officers and chaplains display when they approach certain marked houses knowing that the loved ones are peeking at them through the curtains as they bring the somber news of soldiers who have fallen in battle. As the body count increases daily in Iraq, I can't get this scene out of my mind. David's wife, Michal, is the woman at the window wondering if she is going to be doing the dance of death, waiting there at the window for a husband who might never come home like mothers and fathers waiting at the window for sons and daughters they will never see again.
The first dance is the dance of death. You'd think that would be the one David would be dancing. After all, David was still mourning the death of Saul and the death of Jonathan. Later, it would be the passing of his first child by Bathsheba, and later than that, and even more traumatic, it would be the death of his beloved Absalom. "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33). David knows how to dance the dance of death. The scripture says that he went up to the gateway and wept and wept. He covered his face and wept like families who have lost loved ones. The widow I talked to said she cried so much that her eyes had nearly swollen shut. The first dance is the dance of death, the one you'd think David would be dancing.
However, instead of the dance of death he was doing what might be called the "dangerous dance." The "dangerous dance" was the bold and political dance that testified to a new relationship with God and a new way of living, a way that would no longer kowtow to the old ways of doing things, a way that said, "The world is not about death and murder, but about new relationships where we love God and love neighbor as ourselves." Of course, in his time this was a radical message. It was a message that said death will not dictate or rule our lives or beat us down so far we'd never be able to get up again. It was a daring and bold move that David took that day, a dangerous dance to be sure.
David knew he needed something, some old symbol that everyone could rally around, something that no one would question, even the oldest and most traditional among them. Suddenly he remembered the Ark of the Covenant that had lain dormant for nearly twenty years. It had been shelved in Kiriath-jerim on a hill in the house of Abinadab. Because the Israelites feared it and looked upon it as a hazardous, unpredictable object representing the very presence of God, they were stunned to see David entering Jerusalem dancing around it with a dance of joy and celebration. It was a brilliant, strategic, and political move on David's part, a dangerous dance at best, to celebrate his victory over the Philistines and bring the Ark home to its rightful place all in one bold and stirring act like a huge Fourth of July fireworks celebration. It was like pulling the American flag out after its having been packed away for twenty years or more and waving it before the people.
Since the Ark stood for the old ideology of Israelite jihad or "holy war" and pointed to the dangerous and raw presence of God, thus embodying the unity of Israel's various clans and tribes, in this one bold and dangerous dance, David brought the old conservatives over to his side as he pointed to a new era for the people of God that meant a new way of living and relating to one's neighbor. He thus pulled an enormous coup by putting the old traditionalists into a tight spot. They had to make a choice. Because of his popularity and the fact that he had the Ark, they had to go along. They had nowhere else to go. So, instead of doing the dance of death, David is doing the dangerous dance with joy and celebration.
Why? This must have been what Michal was wondering. It must have been what the older brother was wondering when the prodigal came home and the father threw him a party, and all he could hear as he came in from the field was singing and dancing. "What is going on with David?" they must have been asking themselves. Has he completely lost it? Does he know something we don't know? Does the prodigal's father know something we don't know? Perhaps so -- perhaps he sees deeper into the heart and purpose of God than anyone else could see.
I visited with a mother whose sixteen-year-old daughter, Meredith, had been killed in a car accident, the second child this mother had lost that way. And I visited with the widow whose husband went down in that plane. I was stunned to see the deep faith, hope, and love each woman had. In the presence of so much tragedy, tears, and pain, both, with scared and yet brave faces kept saying, "We want uplifting songs at the memorial service. We want emphasis on resurrection, hope, and joy. We want to celebrate their lives." Like David dancing that day, it made me want to ask, "Do they know something we don't?"
That must have been what David's wife, Michal, kept asking him as she watched him dancing with so much joy. It wasn't just that he didn't have much on, a symbol of the fact that he'd stripped away all the pretense of religion, all the trappings and protocol of proper worship and was focusing on his spontaneous devotion to the living God. "Does he know something I don't know?" It must have been what the older brother kept asking as he watched with shock and dismay all the partying and celebration. It must be what some people ask when African Americans and charismatics show so much joy and frivolity, dancing as David did long ago, not just the dance of death not the dangerous dance, which demonstrated a new theo-political reality. No, it was more like "destiny's dance," the "dance of the divine." What was this "divine destiny dance"? It means a singing and a dancing that testifies to God's presence with us no matter what happens to us or our loved ones. It means believing in God and praising God even in the midst of our sufferings, even in the darkest nights of our souls. It means dancing with an unfettered, unashamed extravagance.
The divine destiny dance means letting go and sharing our joy as we share our goods and ourselves with others even as David gave people bread and raisins and fruitcakes for their spiritual journey as a symbol of our giving with each other and especially with the poor. It means not just tapping our toes on the sideline but getting into the dance. It means knowing that there are times when we just need to let go and realize we won't have a heart attack if we show a little bit of enthusiasm, God forbid! Vic Pentz, pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, in a sermon at the Presbyterian General Assembly, wondered what had happened to the full-hearted awe that Scottish Presbyterians brought to America. Pentz noted that Scottish Presbyterians who came to this country were rough-hewn rednecks, the inventors of the log cabin, people who said "critter" instead of creature and "widder" instead of widow, who were always "fixin' to do something" and whose "young'uns growed up." As people with strong passions for what they believed and quick tempers when someone challenged them, Pentz noted that they were easy to provoke into a fight, a part of our heritage we haven't lost. But, said Pentz, "the next time you tune into a country music station, that's Merle Haggard channeling your Presbyterian heritage." So the greatest legacy these old Scots left to us was their enthusiastic, awestruck worship of God, the sense that something is happening here that makes a difference to us and to our loved ones, especially those who have gone on to be with God.
Thus David's divine destiny dance, full of joy and hope, is our dance, too, one that we do no matter how hard life has been because our Lord Christ danced on Easter morn and we can, too. I don't know about you but that's the only thing that gets me through a week with lots of deaths in a church.
Don't you see? All of life is a dance and we spend our lives learning the steps. God spends all that time trying to get on our dance cards; trying to show us that no matter what happens to us we never have to dance alone and we really should "dance with the one who brung us." I think the sixteen-year-old girl named Meredith whom I buried years ago understood all that. At a wedding reception not long after her funeral, I felt a tap on my arm and looked down and saw one of the little girls in our church asking me to dance, and suddenly imagined sweet Meredith, dancer that she was, tapping Saint Peter on the arm and taking a turn on heaven's dance floor.
Dancing in holy places -- that, my friends, is what life is all about. Amen.
