It is remarkable that on the first Sunday in the new sanctuary the lectionary offers a lesson from
the Hebrew scriptures on the moving of the Ark of the Covenant by David into Jerusalem. As
we gather in a sanctuary with a number of unfinished matters, I suppose we are bit farther along
than David was on his moving day since the Temple had not even been built. That would be
the task of his son Solomon.
David had chosen Jerusalem not only as a capital but also as a center of worship. Whatever
religious motivations he may have had, we can be sure that these choices were shrewdly
political. David posited Jerusalem was the site of Mt. Moriah where Abraham had nearly
sacrificed Isaac (2 Chronicles 3: 18; Genesis 21: 33; 22: 4), but the kindest thing we can say
about that presentation of Mt. Zion = Mt. Moriah = a holy place for a new nation is that it was
a stretch. Genesis says that Abraham made a journey of three days from Beer-sheba to Mt.
Moriah, but a recreation of such a trip does not place Abraham in Jerusalem.
And in all probability David's decisions to move the Ark there was political. People seemed
to have forgotten the Ark; Saul never paid it any attention. But David saw in it a symbol which
could unify the tribes around the wilderness experience and link him to the legacy of Moses.
This morning we will consider the Ark and several key players on that moving day for the Ark:
Uzzah, David, and Michal. First, the Ark itself.
THE ARK
The Ark was a sort of portable cherub throne. Cherubim were carvings of winged sphinx-like
creatures. Were our rear projection screen in place today I could show you what it looked like.
I could even show a clip of final minutes of Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which
Nazis discover how the holy power associated with the Ark reacts to unspeakable evil.
Whatever you think of Indiana Jones' movies, the point is well taken that the Ark because of its
great sacredness was potentially dangerous and must be treated with great care. More on that
later. Frederick Buechner describes the Ark this way: it was a "holy box of acacia wood
overlaid with gold" containing "who knows what but was as close as Israel ever officially got
to a representation in space of their God who dwelled in eternity. David had the ark loaded
onto a custom-built cart and made a regular circus parade of it, complete with horns, harps,
cymbals, and psalteries, not to mention himself high-stepping out in front like the Mayor of
Dublin on Saint Patrick's Day." There they were - "David and Yahweh, whirling around beforethe ark in such a passion that they caught fire from each other and blazed up in a single flame
of magnificence..." (Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures [San Francisco: Harper and Row]
1979, p. 23)
The ark was expressive of God's holy power to bring disaster and blessing. (Peter R. Ackroyd,
The Second Book of Samuel [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] 1977, p. 63) And that
takes us to a man named Uzzah.
UZZAH
What exactly happened in vv. 6ff., when Uzzah died? This is a story that should trouble you
since it appears that God strikes a man dead when he was just trying to help! Here are two very
different possible interpretations.
(1) Watch Your Step!
One commentary zeroes in on the oxen, and holds that the verb for what they did should not be
translated "slip" but "drop." Uzzah slipped because of what the oxen had been dropping. "The
cause of his death was the blow on his head from the bare rock of the threshing floor." (George
Buttrick, editor, The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. II, "Second Samuel," by George B. Caird
[Nashville: Abingdon Press] 1953, pp. 1,079) We conclude that he slipped, touched the Ark
as he fell, hit his head on the rock, died, and people concluded that since God is involved in
everything, God must have punished him for touching the Ark.
If there are any lessons to be drawn from this "take" on Uzzah's death, they are:
- don't blame God for every accident;
- in certain religious settings, watch your step!
(2) The Idea of the Holy
Walter Bruggemann sees it differently: "To touch the ark is to impinge on God's holiness, to
draw too close and presume too much." (Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel
[Louisville: John Knox Press] 1990, p. 249)
John Newton, the old British sea captain and slave trader turned minister and hymn writer (he
wrote Amazing Grace), would have agreed with Bruggemann. "IF you think you see the ark of
God falling you can be quite sure that it is due to swimming in your own head." (Interpreter's
Bible, op. cit.)
The lesson here is to respect the holy power of God to take care of Himself and not presume
to prop up divine power.
DAVID
According to verse 8, "David was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon
Uzzah." The Hebrew scriptures are "not embarrassed by the thought that the ways of God
should seem so strange to men that they react thus." (Ackroyd, op. cit., p. 66)
David is too wise to give in to anger. He begins to process his feelings, assessing the power
of God and the political realities. In verse 9, he asks, "How can the ark of the Lord come under
my care?" David discovers that there is more to the ark than its use as a political tool for
prestige and unity. "There is an awesome presence to which heed must be paid." (Bruggemann,
op. cit., p. 250)
Three months pass and we meet a man named Obed-edom the Gittite who has been engaged in
the risky business of hosting the ark. The Bible records that the Lord blessed him and all his
household for his efforts. (verse 11) David, never a man to pass up the chance for a blessing,
decides it is time to try again and move the Ark to Jerusalem.
The rites involved bringing the ark into the city with numerous sacrifices along the way, ending
with the installation in the sanctuary followed by distribution of food and drink to the people
were typical of the ancient near eastern religions. (Harper Collins Study Bible - The New Revised
Standard Version, Wayne Meeks, general editor [New York: HarperCollins] 1989, p. 476)
We can catch a distant glimpse of such processional joy in today's second hymn, We're
Marching to Zion, and in today's Responsive Reading, Psalm 24.
The bearers of the Ark advance six steps, the precise number suggesting a particular ritual (verse
13). Or it could have been just enough steps to test whether or not someone else was going to
be struck dead. Life starts again with royal extravagance. (Bruggemann, op. cit., p. 250)
The word for David's dancing implies a circular motion, possibly whirling (Ackroyd, op. cit.,
p. 69) The dance has been seen as "a Canaanite ecstatic dance that became something of an
orgy" and on the other hand as a "legitimate liturgic dance, the bodily expression as proper
worship." (Bruggemann, op. cit., p. 250)
This bit of dancing by David brings us to the third major player after Uzzah and David, a
woman named Michal, first wife of David.
MICHAL
It is a perfect day for everyone except Michal. Verse 16 says that she despised David in her
heart. Why did she detest him so? Time for a "crash course" on Michal, a woman whom
scholars used to dismiss as someone with an "attitude," but whose point of view is now being
appreciated by feminist theologians. (The Pleasure of Her Text, edited by Alice Bach MurderThey Wrote: Idealogy and the Manipulation of Female Presence in Biblical Literature, "The
Case of the Nagging Wife," by J. Cheryl Exum [Philadelphia: Trinity Press International] 1990,
pp. 49-54)
Michal was the daughter of Saul, first king of Israel, and the sister of Jonathan, David's best
friend. The reward for killing Goliath was rumored to be the hand of the daughter of the king
(1 Samuel 17: 25), but no such princess was forthcoming. Saul gave the offered daughter,
Merab, to someone else. (1 Samuel 18: 17, 19)
Michal would become the first woman in David's life. Saul offered her to David as a wife if
he would go out and kill a hundred Philistines and bring back their foreskins. Saul's hope was
that David would be killed in this venture and that he would be rid of him. I wonder how
Michal felt about being a runner up prize to her big sister, Merab, and then having her father
using her as bait for a trap!
(Later when David lusted after Bathsheba and wanted her husband Uriah killed, he sent him into
battle, a trick he was now learning from Saul!)
David accepted Saul's trap/challenge and came back from battle not with one hundred but with
two hundred Philistine foreskins. Saul keeps the bargain this time and gives Michal to David.
I wonder how she felt about exchange of Philistine foreskins as a basis for a marriage! (1
Samuel 18: 17ff.)
In spite of these sorry circumstances the Bible says that "Michal loved David" (1 Samuel 18:
20). Careful readers of the David saga pick up on how torn she was between her father, Israel's
first king, and her husband, Israel's second king and her father's rival. One verse calls her
David's wife (1 Samuel 19: 11); another calls her Saul's daughter (II Samuel 6: 16).
David drove Saul crazy personally and politically. On the political front he had to listen to the
women sing "Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands" (1 Samuel 18: 7). On
the personal front his son Jonathan and his daughter Michal loved his chief rival and threat.
David drove Saul crazy, but only David could comfort him with his lyre playing, a kind of early
music therapy (1 Samuel 18: 10ff.).
Finally, Saul could stand it no longer and sent soldiers after David. Michal got him out of the
house under the cover of darkness, put an image in his bed with a pillow at the head, and told
her father's soldiers that David was sick. Don't ask me what a nice Jewish couple like Michal
and David were doing with an image lying around the house - I have no idea! (1 Samuel 19:
11ff.)
While David was on the run, Saul gave Michal in marriage to another man, a certain Paltiel.
This lasted for about seven years, during which time David apparently made no effort to contact
her. Eventually David negotiated for her return, not because he loved her but because she was
a symbol of unity between the house of David and the house of Saul. I wonder how Michal feltabout being a political pawn! (1 Samuel 25: 44; 2 Samuel 3: 12ff.)
The Bible gives us a pitiful picture of Michal and her second husband of approximately seven
years, poor Paltiel weeping all the way as Saul's soldiers escort them toward David. When
Michal is turned over to David, she discovers that he now has other wives. (2 Samuel 3: 2-5)
During her years with Palatiel, David has apparently made no effort to see her. (Exum, op. cit.,
p. 50) The Bible is silent about what passed between them during this reunion. I wonder how
she felt about this marital reunion!
Finally in today's text we see her glaring down at David from her window. "...the portrayal
of a woman at a window, either a goddess or a (sacred) prostitute, is a frequent theme in ancient
pictorial art. Jezebel will be at a window prior to her death in 2 Kings 9: 30. Wisdom in
Proverbs 7: 6 warns a young man about a woman who spies him from her window as a target
for seduction. (Ackroyd, op. cit., p. 71) There are ancient near eastern ivories at the Walters
Art Gallery depicting such ominous women. And Michal is one of them, but I hope you will
agree that Michal had reasons for despising powerful men in general and David in particular
long before David's dance before the Ark. "It is little wonder, then, that when Michal has her
big scene in 2 Samuel 6, it is a veritable emotional explosion." (Ibid.)
The Bible says Michal had no child by David (verse 23). Now you tell me why (and your
answer will reveal where your sympathies lie. Why she childless because:
(a) God punished her despising David on his big day?
(b) David would have nothing to do with her?
(c) Michal would have nothing to do with him?
In today's text, she despises David. I hope by now you see that she had her reasons. Here are
three more:
(1) She may well have despised David for reminding her too much of her father Saul who was
sometimes out of control. (1 Sam. 10: 9-13; 19: 20-24);
(2) She may have been offended by his unroyal behavior. After all, Michal is a princess; she
knows how a king ought to act, and it is not like this!
(3) She may have been enraged over his clothes, or the lack thereof. Clad only in an ephod,
a breech cloth-like garment, David was exposed to "those girls." The remark about these
women in v. 22 implies that after the service David will choose others than Michal to
consummate the celebration. (Ackroyd, op. cit., p. 71)
THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD
Uzzah, David and Michal, our major players, are really supporting characters. The presence
of the Lord is what the Ark is all about. And David, in spite of his political motivations and
in spite of his treatment of Michal across the years, understood this point.
The presence of the Lord is everything. David danced because he felt he was engaging inworshipful self-humiliation in the presence of the Lord. (Meeks, op. cit., p. 476)
David's dance is about the Lord, and his discovery that the Lord is everything - he does not
need political manipulations or dynastic marriages to consolidate power. The presence and the
power are of the Lord. David has discovered what his greatest descendant would one day say,
"Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory."
Israel lost its heart to this wonderfully attractive man. The Bible says he was "a man after
God's own heart." (1 Samuel 13: 14) David and the Lord were "present" to one another, a
relationship of the heart, bound by ties of deep love. We see this union in the whirling ecstasy
of David's dance; we hear it in his Psalms; we see it supremely in the One who was born in a
manger in David's royal city, Jesus, the Son of David.
Here the love, the presence, the oneness are perfected. Here is the One who is a presence
among us, the Word made flesh, God's presence and power drawing as close to us as possible,
a holiness summoning us to come and to join in the dance of his disciples who revel in the
presence of their Lord.
The joy of the Lord can transform political power brokering and manipulation of human pawns
into praise.
I saw a religious poster which said, "Jesus can turn water into wine but he can't do a thing with
your whining."
No so, the joy of the Lord can turn whining into praise, despising into dancing. It's true - we
don't have to be bitter; we can be better. Jesus was not bitter when a Roman governor and a
handful of Jews undercut the finest judicial and religious systems the world had seen and thrust
him on a cross. He cursed neither God nor his fate. Instead, he prayed, he forgave, he
committed his spirit.
Moving day is about movement,
not just of a piece of furniture called an Ark into a city called Jerusalem,
not just of a people from a temporary sanctuary into a new one.
Moving day is about the movement of the Spirit of God, inviting us to come and be one with
the presence of the Lord and to know energy, joy and oneness with the Lord.
