Thankful Memorial, Chattanooga
July 11, 2021
Year B, 7 Pentecost, Proper 10

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“David danced before the Lord with all his might.” 

Just picture it.  With the sounds of trumpets, cymbals, tambourines and castanets, David dances in delight before the ark of the covenant as it is brought to David’s own city where he reigns as king.  The ark of God held the original law of Moses and was carried with the Israelites throughout their wanderings in the wilderness for forty years and then into the Promised Land.  It would have been considered by the tribe to be the very seat of God, the mark of God’s presence.  After it was captured and then returned by the Philistines, David goes to pick it up and bring it “home” to its proper place with David, so that God’s presence would be with God’s anointed king.  No wonder David is excited and dances for joy before the ark on its way.  God the omnipotent, God the Creator, God who has chosen and loved David, that God is coming to live right next door! 

But you may have noticed that there seems to be a little hiatus in all the jubilant dancing right in the middle of the reading from 2 Samuel.  First, there’s the description of the joyous procession that went out from Baale-judah and then things seem to re-start when David goes up a second time, this time to the house of Obed-edom, to get the ark again.  And, if you’ve been really astute, you will have noticed that what we heard this morning from 2 Samuel skipped over about six or seven verses, which explains the odd re-start about half-way through.  What happens in those missing verses is even odder.  Uzzah, one of the sons of Abinadab that were driving the cart that carried the ark, is killed.  As the cart goes over rough terrain, the ark nearly topples and Uzzah reaches out to stabilize it.  But the ark is so holy, representative of the God who is so different, so other than us, that it is not meant to be touched by human hands at all.  And Uzzah is mysteriously struck down on the spot. 

Perhaps understandably, this event makes David have a little re-think about the whole God-as-next-door-neighbor thing.  He pauses the procession, leaves the ark where it is, and goes home without it.  And only later, after seeing that the family in whose house he left the ark receives abundant material blessings, does David go back for it a second time, having decided that the potential blessings of God’s presence at hand are worth the great risk.

But make no mistake, to be in God’s presence, to be in relationship with God is most certainly a great risk.  If the story of Uzzah in 2 Samuel isn’t enough of a warning, take John the Baptist in the lesson from Mark’s Gospel we hear today.  John, like David, is helping to bring God’s presence close to hand.  John ushers in Jesus, prepares the way for God-incarnate to be flesh-and-blood in the world.  And that is risky business.  It leads John into a courageous ministry of preaching and truth-telling, even to powerful worldly leaders like Herod and his wife who don’t really want to hear it.  And that, we learn, is the earthly end of John the Baptist. 

As David went before the ark, John the Baptist goes before Jesus, preparing the way for the physical presence of God to dwell among and alongside us.  As Christians today, we don’t go before the Christ but we are called to follow in his way.  Jesus invites us into relationship with the same God whom he calls Father, God the Creator who “has blessed us[…] with every spiritual blessing[…] according to the good pleasure of his will.”  Through Jesus, we have been adopted into the fullness of God’s love.  And our prayer is that we come to recognize such blessings “of his glorious grace” in our lives for the riches that they are and give thanks and praise to God.  Like David, may we consider that such abundance of life in God’s love is well worth the risk and may we always celebrate it with the same kind of jubilation that David expresses.  

But even as we do so, let us not forget that the God we praise is not safe.  This is the same God whose presence in the ark killed Uzzah, whose demands upon the prophet John led to his death. 

If we accept Jesus’ invitation into relationship with him and his Father, we enter into intimacy with a God who is both incarnate, flesh-and-blood, as near to us as a neighbor, as close as a sister or a brother or a lover and entirely different from us, strangely, otherworldly divine, transcendent, unknowable, and not to be taken lightly or casually.  To bind ourselves to this God, this loving, life-giving, omnipotent God in Christ, is to take on a whole host of risky businesses: of preaching the good news and truth-telling, of standing for justice when no one else does, of reaching out to the poor and the needy even when doing so challenges our own security or drains our energy, of dancing our joy and passion even if it makes us feel foolish or out-of-step with others. 

In other words, accepting an intimate relationship with God is not an easy task – or a safe one.  Indeed, coming close to God in Christ, bringing the incarnate God home with us, into our very hearts, must rightly seem entirely too dangerous and impossibly demanding to our limited mortality.  But here’s the good news: it’s not all up to us.  “O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you,” we prayed in our Collect this morning.  Today and always, we call upon God to help us so that not only may we “know and understand what things [we] ought to do,” but “also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.”  And our prayer is always answered.  Even in this risky work of being in relationship with God, God’s Spirit comes alongside of us and provides the courage and the capacity to welcome in the Lord of love.  So, despite the danger of the divine, do not be afraid, but “lift up” the gates of your hearts, “lift them high […] and the King of glory shall come in.”  Thanks be to God.  Amen.