2 Samuel 6: 1-5, 12b-19
Ephesians
1: 3-14
How Can We
Keep From Singing… or Dancing?
Rev.
Elizabeth Macaulay
July 16,
2006
I had thought to have a flat out celebration today in
worship.
An unambiguous singing and flinging out of joy.
But the
newspapers will not be stilled. The
rockets and talk of war in the
He who was called by God to be anointed king of
His story
of the dance before God is our text for this day and while we hold it before
our hearts let us also hold the vision of the violence that is in the
Some
background information might help here.
David was the shepherd boy who took what was at hand and used his unique
gifts to find favor in the court of Saul.
He was a man of great charisma.
He was a man beloved of God.
And he was
a consummate strategist and politician.
He spent years in battle seeking to reunite the kingdoms of
The message
to the people was clear. The entry of
the Ark of the Covenant into the city of
And so we join him as he dances his joy before God and
before his people.
While we
know him to be a man capable of deceit and manipulation, we join him as he
dances before God in the streets of the city he has fought so hard and paid so
much blood to claim.
(Read 2
Samuel 6: 1-5, 12b-19)
From a
dance of joy meant to celebrate victory and worship, both, we turn to a vision
of what it is to be a community in Christ.
While the
authorship of this letter credited to Paul is questioned, the message of
Ephesians is so crucial to us now and always:
As a people seeking to live into wholeness, we must unite or
die.
So I
commend these words to our hearts on this day of troubling newspaper headlines
and joy searchings.
(Read
Ephesians 1: 3-14)
This is how dancing before God took place in the Boundary
Waters this last week.
Ten of us -
six confirm ands and four adults - spent four nights sleeping on God’s good
earth and paddling on the waters of God’s good grace.
One of the
adults who came along is a woman of sixty years. She makes me look anemic in the energy
department. She taught physical
education for years and continues to coach swimming and she is a breast cancer
survivor and Teri Bumgarner (who isn’t here this Sunday, she’s at her cabin for
a family gathering) danced in a most unlikely way last week.
Because we
had bear visitations, we had to keep everything under lock and key. Our toothpaste, our coffee, our food,
anything that smelled remotely good or interesting. You know, the things you reach for first
thing in the morning. Like toothbrushes.
So when the
morning came, we had to retrieve our goods from the place where they were
stored, on a very rutty and boulder strewn path through the woods.
We had a wheelbarrow to haul things in. You can imagine how that worked given the
terrain.
So I want
you to picture this. Food for our
camp. The trunkloads of toiletries the
girls had brought along as necessary items.
Our water. All balanced in a
wheelbarrow.
And Teri Bumgarner
at the wheel. Rolling that precarious
cargo over boulders and ruts and roots and she laughed so hard most of the way
with the sheer joy of the challenge of it.
Tell me
that is not dancing before the greatness of God - embracing a challenge with
the attitude of laughter.
She’s my hero.
More joy dancing.
Tuesday
night, after portaging canoes and paddling much and sleeping on the ground, my
body gently suggested to me that I needed to go to bed. So I left most of the crew still gathered
around the campfire, and took to my sleeping bag.
Twenty
minutes later Amanda came to get me. “
I joined
the circle around the fire just as the northern lights quit dancing and the
full moon rose and the stars were amazing and we turned in 360 degree feasts of
awe as God danced before US in the stars and the northern lights and the huge
lush of the moon.
And we paid
homage to the gift through the wonder of our hearts. We were dancing before the throne of the holy
with a reverence born of such profound gratitude.
And I
prayed - dear God, let my grandchildren know what it is to experience this
beauty. Help us to care for your earth
in such a way that generations may gather under this sacred canopy.
So . The last dance
image I share is this. My bear story.
It goes
like this. On Thursday morning, the day
we were to strike camp and leave, the bear paid a visit at four AM. It quieted down, maybe even went away for
awhile, but was back at five. Throwing
things around the kitchen, maybe mad that we hadn’t gone out and purchased more
Hershey bars to replace the ones it had inhaled on an earlier visit. It wiped out our chocolate!
When it was
clear that it wasn’t going to leave soon on its own account, Scott and Alex got
out of their tent and started to make some noise.
They scared
it away. Right toward Teri’s and my
tent. It passed within feet of us and
although I didn’t see it, I sure knew it was big because it made a racket as it
entered the woods near us. And then it
seemed to stop. It felt to me like it
was laying in wait for we of the full bladders to leave our tents.
We had no
noise makers. We were protected by the
flimsy shell of our tent - a substance I figure would have been like a tortilla
shell for that bear as it ate us.
I had my
guitar in the tent, because I hadn’t wanted to take chances that it might get
thrown around by the bear,. I wanted
that bear GONE, so in my search for something to make noise with, I pulled out
my guitar and started strumming and singing a “go away bear” song as loudly as
I could. I figured if the city of
It worked.
We went back to sleep.
The bad music worked.
But I will
tell you, and I think I echo the thoughts of the rest of the camp. I was awfully glad that I had a community of
noise makers and bear chasers and fear sharers with me.
And there
was joy in the morning - an appreciation of the might of the creatures of God’s
creation and our own place in that creation.
We shared together a sense that we had come through a
difficult time - together.
I am
reminded, both by these texts shared this morning and by the jumble that is our
lives, that there is no such thing as joy without its corollary - struggle.
Teri laughs
with her whole body as she hoists canoes and navigates impossible pathways in
part because she has fought with her whole body for the gift of a cancer free
life.
The joy of
seeing the stars and the moon and the northern lights is tinged with the
awareness that the integrity of this world we tend is sorely challenged and we
must be passionate stewards of the earth or our children’s children will only
be able to imagine what we take for granted.
And, the
strength of our camp community was blessed by the struggles we experienced
together - paddling, cooking, brushing teeth, cliff jumping, singing, praying,
and bear surviving together.
As we
struggle to understand how missles can continue to rain down on neighbors in
Through
Christ Jesus, neither Jew nor Greek nor Israeli nor Lebanese nor American nor
Gentile, but citizens of God’s creation.
A people
called to honest struggle in this world that seeks to divide us so violently,
one from the other.
And, a
people called to use the rhythm of the struggles of our lives to lead us into
flat out joy. Every chance we can get.
Dear God, we know the struggles are real.
But joy. Oh, God,
help us to take it in and dance for all we are worth.
Amen