Sermon, 2021.7.11: "The Warning and Hope of the Dance"

 

Ben Miller

“The Warning and Hope of the Dance” 

A sermon preached at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Rapid City, SD)

VII Sunday After Pentecost, 2021.7.11

Season After Pentecost: Proper X (Track 1), Year B

II Sam 6.1-5, 12b-19 · Ps 24 · Eph 1.3-14 · Mk 6.14-29

We have two dancers in today’s readings. 

Today in Mark 6, in a kind of flashback sequence from the Evangelist, the daughter of Herodias, Herod’s wife, dances at the birthday party of King Herod. Sometimes the text says the daughter is actually Herod’s daughter, also named Herodias; while other times the text says the daughter is Herod’s daughter-in-law. But the point still stands: this whole sequence is creepy. You’re supposed to be creeped out! This is the sorry fate of John the Baptist, who in Jesus’ words was “greatest among those born of women” (Matthew 11) — executed at the reluctant order of a king because he “liked what he saw.” Mark 6 today demonstrates one reason why Herod is a name that lives in as much infamy for the New Testament as Pilate or Judas.

Meanwhile, in II Samuel 6, we have another dancer: King David himself. David has taken back the Ark of the Covenant, and is bringing it up to Jerusalem. He is consolidating his power as the new King of Israel, and the Ark is this powerful symbol and means of unity for the new capital city. Perhaps this is why David was girded with a linen ephod—a priestly garment. He acts as a priest in addition to a King today with his behavior around the Ark.

And this is a high point in Israel’s history. Way back in I Samuel, before Saul had been King, the Ark had been captured by the Philistines. “Look at where we are now!” Israel might proclaim.

There is more that unites these two readings than mere dancing. It’s politics. Again, you you can’t escape politics in the Bible. You just can’t. The modern American separation of church and state didn’t exist in the Bible.

Politics unites both of these readings because both of these dances happen in the shadow of kingship: David’s and Herod’s. And it’s important to contrast these today. In Mark 6 political and religious forces collude with horrific consequences. And in some sense II Samuel 6 today is an antithesis: here David dances in response to the presence of something magnificent and holy, embodying and symbolizing the national feelings of Israel in this moment.

And this collective role of David, this collective role of Herod, is significant because, as we all know, politics always has an audience.

Notice how David is not alone in this reading. There is someone watching him from the window: Michal, the daughter of Saul. And what does the text say? She despised him in her heart. Why is this? Well, we didn’t read the rest of the chapter this morning, but later in the chapter she confronts David and says he made himself look like a fool with his dancing. This is the only clear and explicit reason the text gives for her feelings. But I would venture there is another reason. You see, Michal is a prize for David. because she is the daughter of Saul. Last week I mentioned that in the beginning of II Samuel David bargains with Abner, Saul’s general, to obtain Michal in marriage, so that David can have an in-law claim to the throne of Israel. This is Michal’s existence now: as a prize. As a pawn. As a reminder of the inferior King that David has replaced. Of course she would despise David. 

So even in the midst of this national religious celebration, with Michal’s feelings toward David the Holy Spirit has given us a clue about all the ambivalence represented by David’s kingship. Politics always has an audience, and often that audience is the people whom the politics marginalizes. 

And meanwhile, who is watching the dancer in Mark 6 today? Herod. His court. His picked men and gentlemen and “leading men of Galilee.” And this is what pressures him to give the command to execute John the Baptist. He is sorry to do it, but he has to keep up appearances. Politics always has an audience.

So you see:
David dances, and Michal watches, despising him.

Herodias’ daughter dances, and Herod watches, adoring her. 

The Church today is not so different from the situations of David and Herod. 

Like Herod, we become caught up in the need to keep our disgusting and sinful oaths to people. And in doing so we execute prophets that God sends to us. Make no mistake that throughout its history, and even today, the Church is sometimes seated with King Herod, aiding the power of Rome, rather than being seated with our true King, Jesus, advancing the power of the Gospel.

Make no mistake that without God’s help, without God’s judgment and correction, the Church will fail to honor and listen to the people God sends it. We must rely on God to not only do what is just, but to learn what is just and to desire what is just. 

And yet. Like David, a person whose kingship is defined by its sins and triumphs in equal measure, God still has a special purpose for the Church. Like David, God gives the Church His the treasure of His own presence. God has given the Church an Ark for us to dance around with abandon. 

David’s dancing models the deeply ambiguous reality of the Church in this day and age — that even in the midst of the Church’s sins, the Church continues to celebrate and dance before the Lord Jesus with our institutions, and our rituals, our ceremonies, our devotion. And like Michal, we can do so in a complicit way—neglectful of those the Church has hurt. And what good is that? In the end, it is no good at all. I despise your ceremonies, the Lord declares in the prophet Amos; Let justice roll down like waters.

So in one sense, David models a good and beautiful response to the gift God grants the Church.

And in another sense, David also models the deep and sinful complicity of the Church with his dancing.

So David’s dancing is both a warning and a hope today for the Church. In that sense he truly acts a priest today in addition to a king. Because that’s what priests did for Israel—they modeled and mediated a relationship with God to the people. And this relationship, until the redemption and re-creation of all things, is one of warning and hope. 

We live under warning and hope. The Church cannot, in this day and age, ignore Michal. That is our warning. We have done that for too long. Yesterday I heard this church set up a booth at Rapid’s Pride, and I heard good news. I heard of new beginnings for some people who were hurt by the church. I heard of brokenness beginning to be healed. 

This is a wonderful start. This is the proper disposition of the Church today: repentance.

And we live under hope: we strive to dance with abandon, with that earnest celebration and joy and gratitude that are fruits of the Holy Spirit given to us in Christ. This is the hope of the Gospel.

I want to conclude by turning us toward that hope with the reading from Ephesians 1 today.

Ephesians describes the true basis of the Church—not its sins, but the redemption purchased for us by Christ. 

If we are to hope for anything, it is not because of what the Church achieves, but because of the inexpressible mystery of what God has given us: 

He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Every spiritual blessing.

We have nothing to dance for and nothing to hope for without this blessing. 

In Christ we have redemption through his blood,

the forgiveness of our trespasses,

according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.

My hope today is that we may truly receive this blessing, this redemption, and this forgiveness. Because God’s grace and promises, this salvation by the blood of Christ that we in the Church did nothing to earn, poses to us our responsibility. 

In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,

… were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit … to the praise of his glory.

If we are truly marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, then let us live to the praise of his glory. Let us live as a people who know how to repent, who know how to repair the brokenness around us, who know how to recognize the prophets around us, all in gratitude of the grace that God lavishes upon us in Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, 

“Peace I leave with you, my own peace I give you”; [John 14.27]

Look not on our sins, but the faith of your Church,

and give us the unity of that heavenly City; 

where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, 

ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Word count: 1504