July 19, 2009
When (and Why) God Gets Testy - 2 Samuel 6:1-11
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadWill Willimon is now a bishop in the United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. For about twenty years before that, though, he was the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. Fortunately for him, he had a lot of family who rooted for Clemson, and they would invite him to get away from the desert of Duke to the promised land of Clemson. He tells the story once of going to Clemson to watch Duke get beat in football. Right before the game, he went to the concession stand and was returning just as Clemson ran down the hill to the cheer of 80K fans. And then Duke ran in to whatever they could muster, probably the goal posts. And then, as he was crawling over everybody in his row to get back to his seat, about to spill his drinks and hotdogs, somebody gave an invocation. As he sat there, balancing his hotdogs & drinks, and having just witnessed the adoration of 80 thousand Clemson fans in Death Valley, he wasn’t so sure that God was all that honored by having some poor preacher invoke his blessing.
I have been that preacher before, not in a Clemson game, but worse, at a fraternity party. I am the National Chaplain of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and one of my jobs is to say the blessing at every meal at our biannual convention. The last meal we have is a supper, and it’s a time to get together and celebrate, you know, to have a fraternity party. I was reminded of that by one of the participants who told me before I prayed that I should keep it short and not very serious. “Remember,” he said, “you’re praying right before a fraternity party.”
I have thought a great deal about that since then, and I think I may need some forgiveness for that. My praying before 500 guys who are about to take a bottle, and put their mouths on one end and turn the other end towards the sky over and over again all night, indicates that I either have a meaningless, superficial, or very detached God, or that I don’t care much about God, none of which is true. I do believe that God is honored when we pray, and we should pray together often. But I also think that if we’re only going to treat God as a block to be checked, or as a very small and superficial part of a very big and rowdy fraternity party or football game or successful business or busy life, then we may as well go ahead and spare God and ourselves the agony.
King David learned that lesson the hard way in today’s Scripture reading. In very many ways, this is David’s inauguration. David was anointed King of Israel in the previous Chapter, but this is when he really brings it home. Immediately after he was anointed, David roundly defeated Israel’s arch-enemy, the Philistines. So now, after having been named King and whipping the Philistines, it was party time. And it was also time for everyone in Israel to see that David was indeed the new King. King Saul was dead. Saul’s party was dead, and anyone else who had a remote desire of being King was also dead. What better way to establish himself and his new reign and his new city in the eyes of his people than to bring back the sacred Ark of the Covenant? Moses originally got the Ark of the Covenant from God at Mt Sinai some 300 years earlier. The Ark of the Covenant had been, for hundreds of years, the symbol of Israel’s God. And it wasn’t just a symbol. God was in it somehow. The Ark was inseparable from Israel itself. The Philistines had stolen the Ark in battle fifty or so years earlier, but now it was back. What better way, then, for David to establish his Kingship, to consolidate his power, to silence his opposition than to bring this sacred symbol back into his new capital for everybody to see?
There is nothing wrong, mind you, with acknowledging God. We’re doing that right now in Church, after all, as well we should. And there’s nothing wrong with worshipping God on God’s own terms, and in a way that glorifies God and God alone. That’s part of what David was doing. But I also can’t help but think that another part of what David was doing was using God for David’s own benefit, to strengthen his own power, to fatten his own coffers, and to glorify his own image. Whatever David was doing, God did not like it. David assigned the duty of carrying the Ark to Uzzah and Ahio. Uzzah was behind the Ark when it stumbled and started to fall. So Uzzah grabbed it, and mistreated it, and defamed it, and he died. And David’s party was ruined. God ruined David’s party and ended Uzzah’s life. It seems that God gets a little testy when we take him for granted, or when we use him for ulterior motives.
I don’t remember exactly what I prayed at the fraternity party, but I am almost certain that it went something like this: I thanked God for the food that he had given us. I always do that. And I probably also asked God to bless that food so that it would nourish our bodies, and for God to use our bodies in service to him. I might should have thought about what I was praying, and how that prayer might affect things. I might should have thought about the fact that God really is God, and we aren’t. That’s a pretty big confession, you know, that might have an impact on our fraternity party and on our lives after the fraternity party. And I might should have thought about the fact that God actually heard me praying on our behalf there. Of all the millions and millions of people praying that night, God actually heard 500 guys at a fraternity party. And what would it mean for God to bless the food that we ate that night, and (this is the scary part) use it so that he could use us to serve him? That’s a scary thought when you think about it. From everything I know about God, if God really used us to serve him, like a master would use his slaves, then God might send us to all those people who could never afford college to begin with, much less a fraternity. God may send us to places where we’d really rather not go, and that might, to say the very least, have an effect on everything. Of course, that was not the point that night, from what I can tell. God at one time was very important in that group, but they have long since outgrown God. So instead we used God to check the block, to get it out of the way, to honor our proud but ignorant past. Instead of using God, maybe our prayer should be that we would be so blessed that God would use us. And if we’re going to pray that prayer, then we better be really careful, because God just might really be God after all, and God just might hear us when we pray that prayer, and God just might answer it.
A couple of years ago a friend of mine invited me and my family to his son’s first birthday party. The invitation said to bring swimming suits because there would be swimming at the party. So, being the team player that I am, I wore my swimming suit, which, I must admit, was just about as old as I was. It was ugly, and it was short, and it was inappropriate. Because at the party, everybody else was wearing blue jeans and dresses, and here I was in this bathing suit that was ugly and short and out of fashion even in the 9th grade. I was, needless to say, the comical relief of the party, and I learned a very valuable lesson. Make sure you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into when you agree to something.
The same holds true for Church, too, you know. It’s not that we need to be sure to maintain a certain dress code. We might want to leave the 20-year-old bathing suit at home, but otherwise, apparel is no big deal. What is a big deal, though, is that we don’t just come to sing a few old hymns that we sang growing up, or make an appearance, or to hear an inspiring message. We can do that driving down 485 on your way to work. But we come here at a time and place that we have designated as holy to praise and to meet God Almighty. And when we do that, we might ought to think long and hard about what we’re getting ourselves into.
This passage is foreign to us because we can’t identify with the Ark. We don’t have such sacred symbols like that anymore. Well, if the Church is what we say it is, then you’re looking at three sacred symbols. Do you know what happens in the water in this Baptismal font up here? People’s lives are transformed in it. God gives us a new name in that water. Do you know what happens on this table? It holds the very body and blood of our God, Jesus Christ. It may not be the physical body and blood, but more than that, it’s the “real” body and blood of Jesus. The gift that God gives us there costs him his own life. And do you know what happens at this pulpit? It really is, I hope and pray, the very Word of God, the same Word that created this vast world, and that became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. If it’s anything other than that, it’s a waste of time. If the Church is what we say it is, then we better be careful with it. It’s not about us, or what we do, but what God has done and will do. And when we mistreat that, or fail to appreciate all that it means, then God gets a little testy. This is not our building, or even the community’s building. It’s God’s building, and God’s house. It may be made with human hands, and it may have human frailties in it, and it may be full of sinners every Sunday morning, but let it be known to one and all that this is the house of Almighty God.
God forbid that we take that for granted, or even worse, that we use it for ulterior motives. God forbid that we only come here to be seen, or to check a block, or because it’s what we have always done. When we pray, “thy Kingdom come,” as we always do on Sunday morning, or when we sing “Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and Holy Ghost, who was in the beginning and is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen,” or when we dedicate our lives to God’s work, as we do every Sunday morning, that’s an awesome and radical concept that will drastically transform our lives into something awesome and frightening and unimaginable to us. There was once a King named David who did all that one day on his own terms and partly for his own purposes, and he had a very bad party. And there was once a man named Uzzah who treated the symbols of his faith as if they were just plain old objects, and he died. And then there’s us, here today, in God’s house, around God’s symbols, invoking God’s blessing and seeking God’s forgiveness and dedicating our lives to God. We might want to think long and hard about what we say here, and how and why we say it, because we just might get it.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
