Sermon - Dancing Naked

2 Samuel 6:1-19

Dancing Naked

July 15, 2012                                                                           James Sledge

One of the things I still miss from my time in Raleigh, NC in the late 1990s is the campus radio station at N.C. State, WKNC.  It was student run station that played songs rarely on commercial radio.  One Sunday while driving home from church I turned on the station expecting the reggae program normally on at that time.  Instead I heard bouncy pop tune with a chorus that went, “He’s dancing naked!” over and over.  It was quite a toe-tapper, and I soon found myself singing along, “He’s dancing naked!”

Programing at WKNC was always dependent on whether the student DJ woke up and got there in time. The reggae DJ must have overslept because the “Rez Rock Show,” short for Resurrection Rock was still on in the reggae hour.  It was a Christian rock and roll program, and the Christian band singing “He’s dancing naked!” was singing about King David.

Actually David wasn’t completely naked.  Our scripture says that he had on an ephod, a little apron or loin cloth.  Dancing around with nothing but a loin cloth is hardly what one would expect from a king.  It’s embarrassing.  David’s wife certainly thinks so.  She looks down on David in disgust.  And if you read a little further than we did this morning, she tells David what a fine spectacle he made of himself and calls him “vulgar.”  Michal was the daughter of King Saul, so she had some knowledge of how royalty should behave – certainly not like David.

You have to admit, it’s pretty strange behavior for a king, a head of state.  (Think how people would react if President Obama suddenly ripped off his clothes at a state dinner and started offering prayers in his underwear.)  Had David taken leave of his senses? 

A little background may help. David is bringing the Ark of the Covenant, which held the Ten Commandments, into his new capital of Jerusalem. 

The ark was Israel’s most sacred object and represented the real presence of God.  The outstretched wings of the two creatures atop the Ark were thought to form a throne where Yahweh sat.  In earlier times the tribes of Israel carried the Ark into battle to guarantee that God was with them.

But the Ark had fallen out of Israel’s story.  It had been captured in battle by the Philistines decades earlier, then quickly recovered.  But ever since it had been sitting at Abinadab’s house, forgotten all during the time the Saul was king over Israel.  But now, David remembers and decides to bring it to Jerusalem, the new capital of his new kingdom.  Certainly this is a religious act, but it is also a political one.  Bringing the ark to Jerusalem will place this old religious symbol in David’s new capital, and those who object to David’s rule on religious grounds, who think only Yahweh should be called king, will now have to make pilgrimages to the new capital, legitimizing it in a way.

David sets out to bring the ark to Jerusalem with great fanfare.  There is a festival like atmosphere as the procession starts out from Abinadad’s house with the ark.  But then something terrible happens.  The oxen pulling the Ark stumble.  Uzzah, one of the drivers, reaches out to steady the Ark and dies on the spot.  David and the writer of these Scripture verses are quite sure that God has struck Uzzah down for daring to touch the Holy Ark. 

David is angry at God.  God has ruined his plans and put a damper on the celebration.  But David is also afraid, and he begins to wonder about his plan to bring the ark to Jerusalem.  David is keenly aware of his own political motives.  David is a man of faith, but he is also shrewd, charismatic, and ambitious, not above trying to manage Yahweh’s presence to his own advantage.  But the death of Uzzah is a terrifying reminder to David that Yahweh will not be managed, will not be controlled and enlisted in anyone’s political plans, (something that many present day politicians [and preachers,] would do well to remember). 

And so David waits.  He waits for some assurance from God.  He waits for a sign, and he thinks he has it three months later when he hears that the owner of the home where they left the ark has been richly blessed.  So David goes again to bring the ark to Jerusalem.  But this time they do not go six paces without stopping to offer a sacrifice to God.  David remembers who is in charge now.  He will not presume to control God.

As the ark enters Jerusalem, David goes wild, dancing and whirling about in that little loin cloth.  David is lost in his happiness, in his joy at how God has blessed him.  He dances naked and throws a party with plenty of food for everyone, rich and poor alike.

David’s wife Michal thinks he should be ashamed, thinks he should be embarrassed, but he is not.  For at that moment, David is released from all the restraints of convention.  God is doing a new thing with Israel, and David loses himself in it.  He has been caught up in the Holy Spirit.  David will later be caught up in the corrupting influence of power, and his kingdom will be wracked by turmoil and rebellion as a result.  But right now he is overcome with religious fervor, thrilled to embarrass himself for God, even if his wife cannot understand, cannot see past social conventions about how kings should act.

Michal sometimes comes across as a stuck up snob, as the goat of this story, but she has her supporters.  After all, she is for decorum and proper behavior.  She’s for upholding societal norms, for doing things decently and in order. No doubt many in the crowd that day agreed with Michal, but dared not speak against the king.

Now I’ve never known of a pastor ripping off his clothes and prancing around nearly naked – and I have no plans to do so – but pastors do embarrass their congregations on occasion. Pastors sometimes become involved in movements or causes and engage in protests, even getting arrested. There are congregations that appreciate and encourage such action, but there are very many more congregations where it will endanger your job.  It’s not necessarily about the cause being right or wrong but about decorum, how religious leaders should act.

A little over a week ago, the General Assembly of our denomination met.  In one closely watched vote, commissioners rejected a proposal to change the language in our Book of Order describing marriage as a “contract between a man and a woman” to one between “two people.”  The vote was close, 48-52%, but prior to that vote, advisory delegates voted. At our General Assemblies, these advisory delegates vote first, and those votes are shown to commissioners before they vote. And the Young Adult Advisory Delegates voted in 78% favor of changing the language on marriage while the Theological Student Advisory Delegates votes 82% in favor.  But their “advice” went unheeded.

In the aftermath of this vote, many are pointing to the disparity between younger Presbyterians and the, mostly, much older pastors and elders who had the only votes that counted.  Did these older commissioners remain faithful to time honored, biblically based tradition despite younger delegates’ overly exuberant willingness to dismiss it? Or was this a dancing naked moment where older commissioners played Michal to the advisory delegates’ David? Was the old guard simply unable to see the new thing God is doing, unable to feel the winds of the Spirit blowing?

In his letter to the church at Rome, the Apostle Paul writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God— what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Caught up in the Spirit, David certainly lost all sense of conformity to the world.  But Michal could not join in.

Perhaps one of the more difficult questions for people of faith is discerning where we are called to go out of step with the world and dance naked.  I think most all of us recognize that the world is not the place God calls it to be, that it needs to be transformed.  We sometimes forget what we’re saying when we recite the Lord’s Prayer, but we do want God’s reign to come.  We do want God’s will to be done: for war to cease, weapons to be melted down and turned into farming tools, the poor lifted up, and the sick healed.

But for the moment we live somewhere short of God’s kingdom. We live in the world as it now is, and we’ve learned how to manage here.  We’re comfortable here.  And when we think about it, we realize that very often we are quite conformed to it.

But if God is doing something new in Christ, and if we are called to show it to the world, then there have to be places where our non-conformity shows.  There have to be places where we are caught up in the Spirit and “dance naked.”