God Uncontained

1 Kings 8:22-30, 41-43 (NRSV)
Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands to heaven. He said, "O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and steadfast love for your servants who walk before you with all their heart, the covenant that you kept for your servant my father David as you declared to him; you promised with your mouth and have this day fulfilled with your hand. Therefore, O LORD, God of Israel, keep for your servant my father David that which you promised him, saying, 'There shall never fail you a successor before me to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children look to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.' Therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you promised to your servant my father David.
"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! Regard your servant's prayer and his plea, O LORD my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today; that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you said, 'My name shall be there,' that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays toward this place. Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive…so that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our ancestors.
"Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name -- for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm -- when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.”

How do we live with a God who refuses to be contained? Did you hear that passage from the Hebrew Scriptures this morning? I mean did you hear it? Solomon the Wise, who ruled over a greater territory than any other king of Israel, was struggling with just this question. How do you live with a God who refuses to be contained? And for people who come to this place this morning hoping, expecting to meet God here it is the most relevant question we can ask. It is the most challenging question we can ask. It is the most basic question we can ask, because if the universe really is filled with God’s presence…if our lives really are to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ who is God…if what we are about as human beings is offering our whole selves back to God in praise and worship and then following that God in discipleship…if we are called to serve the world (and we are called to serve the world) if we are called to serve in the Spirit of a wild and holy God who has a habit of tearing down walls and uniting us with people we would otherwise not be with then it is a basic question of how we, who like walls and like to keep God within comfortable boundaries, can live with a God who refuses to be contained.

Solomon got this question. He got it. He was wise enough to know that the God who called his predecessor Saul was not content to just let Saul do his own thing once he became king of Israel. God was not content to let Saul speak for God. Saul did not have a blank check to rule with no regard for what God wanted and desired for the people. He had to continually seek out God and to listen for God’s voice, and when the relationship between Saul and God got strained, the Spirit moved on to David, Solomon’s father.

David struggled just as hard, though, to be the king he should have been. We remember the boy who went out to slay Goliath, but we also remember the man who gave into his basest instincts in his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, her husband. When Nathan, the prophet, finally confronted him about what he had done, David understood that he had moved away from God. He had to seek God out again.

When David volunteered to build a house for God, a house as glorious as the palace he had built for himself, God told him to wait. That job would fall to his son. The real house building was going to be what God was going to do with David. Despite what he had done…despite his failures and his king-size flaws…God was going to make a covenant with David and his descendents. It was a crazy thing to do. What was God thinking in making this covenant?

Then again God had done it before. God took a childless geriatric couple, Abram and Sarai, and promised to make a nation out of them. God took a boy, Jacob, who swindled a blessing from his father and a birthright from his brother, and promised to be with him and his children. God took a people who were slaves in the greatest empire of the day – the Hebrews of Egypt --- and promised them that they would be a chosen people. And God stuck with the promise and stuck with them even when they proved themselves to be a pretty poor choice for God’s mercy. God has a habit of doing the unexpected thing.

So it fell to Solomon to build a house for God. The long journey of the people from slavery had finally reached an end with the establishment of the nation of Israel. There was relative peace in the land. The tribes were united. Enemies subdued. But the symbol of God’s presence was still an Ark with poles ready for easy movement from place to place. It was a good instrument for a traveling people, but for a people who felt they had found their place in the world it wasn’t enough.

So Solomon built a grand temple. With cedars from Lebanon and gold from the mountains he made a magnificent house for God. It was built high on the hill in Jerusalem, a symbol for all visitors to the city to see that God of the pilgrim people was now at the center of their city and the center of their lives. Solomon spared no expense to make the grandest house that he could fashion.

When the time came for the Ark of the Covenant to be moved into the new Temple, there was a great procession. All the elders and leaders of the tribes were gathered together. The priests carried the ark in before them. There were great sacrifices of sheep and oxen, so many, the Bible says, that they could not even be numbered. Inside the Ark were the tablets containing the Law of Moses, the 10 Commandments that the people had received when they were wandering in the wilderness. When Moses received those tablets of stone he was on a mountain talking with God and it seemed to the people that a cloud descended on the mountain. Now it happened again. A cloud filled the newly constructed temple and it was the glory of God, the presence of God made visible before them.

The symbolism seemed clear. God was coming to stay in this house. Solomon began to speak to the people and he said, “This should be God’s home forever and ever. Everyone should know that when they come into this Temple they are entering the presence of God. God dwells here.”

Yet even as he said those words Solomon was wise enough to know the problem. And he says it out loud. Standing there at that ceremony marking the completion of the people’s journey and the pinnacle of his engineering accomplishment, Solomon begins to wonder if it’s even possible to achieve what he set out to achieve. He set out to build a house for God, but he wonders, “Can God be contained in a house? Can God be contained on earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, God, much less this house which I have built.”

Then Solomon goes on to talk about how his prayer is that the Temple might be a symbol of God’s presence that the people will look toward when they need to know that God is there. When they pray for forgiveness in this place or when they face toward that place, Solomon hopes that God will hear their prayers and forgive them. And not only the prayers of the people of Israel. Solomon is also wise enough to know that God can’t be contained in a people either and so he prays that God will hear the prayers of foreigners who will seek out God’s presence and power in this Temple. All the nations will come to this place, he says.

Many of you know that I have been away for the last two weeks on a trip to Scotland. If you didn’t know that I was away, then that’s a little disappointing, but maybe it means that you were being the church and realized you could do more than you thought you could. But I was away on this journey with Joel across Scotland and we ended the trip on the small island of Iona off the western coast. It is a remote place and traveling there feels like you are going to the end of the earth, and in the days of the ancient peoples of the land, it really was considered the end of the earth because many of them didn’t know of anything that might lie beyond the western sea.

Iona has been described as a “thin place” because many people who go there feel as if the boundary between earth and heaven is very thin there. It has been a place of Christian pilgrimage for over 1400 years, ever since a strange little Irish monk named Columba came there in 563 to escape trouble at home and ended up establishing a missionary order that converted Scotland and northern England to Christianity. But walking around this island with its coves and caves and worshipping in the restored Benedictine Abbey twice a day, it is easy to see why people have continued to go there. They sense that God is there. That’s why I went back. That’s why I wanted to take Joel there. I can’t be on that island without feeling that God is there in a special way.

But it is a funny time to be a Christian in Europe. All around the land there are relics of a Christian past. On our short trip we visited the great Gothic cathedral of York and elaborate small parish churches that tell of a time when the church was at the center of the culture and lives of the people. But the churches of Europe are sparsely populated. In Britain only about 4% of the population is in a church on Sunday. That compares with about 40% of Americans.
Sitting in the abbey church on Iona one night I looked around at the people who had gathered there. It’s a motley crew. There were folks who were attracted by the music. Others who resonated with the Iona Community’s commitment to social justice and change. Young people who liked the energy and life of the place. Older folks who felt grounded by the tradition and the beauty. But all of us were there because we sensed that God was not through with us yet and that God was not through with the Church. Despite what we knew was happening to churches in Europe and in other parts of the world, we sensed that there was more and that we needed thin places like Iona to catch hold of a new vision.

It just so happened that one of the nights we were there, the worship leader was John Bell, who is a Church of Scotland minister and a really fine musician and preacher who wrote several songs that have made it into our Faith We Sing hymnal. I knew him from previous correspondence when I had encouraged Drew Willson from our church to spend some time with him. As it happened, Drew went to live with John for several months last year. So here was John Bell leading worship in this place, and none of these connections are really important except that they show you the kinds of things that happen on Iona.

In his brief sermon that night, Bell said that he had been meeting with a group of struggling churches in Canada recently and had heard them ask some significant questions. They sat down to look to the future and they didn’t say, “What can we do to fix this?” The question they asked was “What is God doing in the world?” Where are we seeing God at work? What does God want to see happen? How are we experiencing God at work in the world?

Do you see the difference in asking the question this way? They did not assume that because the churches they were in were struggling that God had stopped working in the world. They didn’t even assume that even if their churches had been thriving that it would mean that God was only there. Their assumption was that God was present in the world. God had not abandoned them. God had not abandoned the people and the needs they saw around them. God was there. And the next question they asked was “What are we going to do to be partners with God in what God is doing?”

In that service, looking out the Abbey window at the ferry landing where so many people wash up on the shores of Iona every day, hoping to find hope and faith again in a world that seems to have lost both, I was tempted to think, “Could it be that all this could disappear?” What if the churches of Europe all became museums or restaurants or coffee shops? What if all the symbols of the church as an institution were lost? Would it mean that God had gone?

No, what we dare to say when we come to this place each week is that God is still at work doing miraculous, miraculous things. God doesn’t need a temple or a steeple to be present, but we need places like this to remind ourselves of God’s presence. And we give of ourselves and our gifts to make this church building a place where we don’t forget. We want our building to be excellent. We want our programs to be excellent. We want our mission work to be excellent. We want our fellowship and caring for one another to be excellent. We want our financial stewardship to be excellent. Because we want to give voice to what God is doing in us and in the world and we want to get on God’s side.

Solomon was very wise. He built a great temple but he knew that the work of human hands would never be sufficient to contain God. God is out there doing what God has always done – announcing the good news that the kingdom is coming, to the poor, to the hungry, to the last and the least. And God was wise enough not to leave the fate of the world to our hands. The only time when the future really is in our hands is when we hold the bread of communion. What God desires is partners of the work who will not be contained by the expectations of the past, but who will walk boldly into the future that God is already creating.

There are people who need to hear that this week. You’re going to meet some of them when you walk out those doors. They need to know that there are thin places like this sanctuary where they can know God’s presence. They need to know that God is not only here but also out there. And we need to be listening for what God is leading us to do next. Thanks be to God.

On Not Getting Better - II

Psalm 51:1-16 (NRSV)
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

I need to start today with a confession. I have noticed something about myself over the years and it has gotten to the stage that I just need to admit it. You know that I spent the last two weeks in Dallas teaching local pastors at the Course of Study School. What you may not have known is that I was teaching two classes on…theology. I had about 35 students between the two classes and one group was reading Reformation history and theology and the other was studying contemporary theology. And…(here is my confession)…I liked it. As much as I struggle against the fact, the truth of the matter is…I am a theologian. I happen to think that everyone who calls themselves Christian is also a theologian, but that’s another story. The main thing you need to know for the purposes of today’s sermon is that theologians think funny.

For example, during the weekend when I was there I decided to get ready for this big hike that Joel and I are taking by going on an 8-mile trek through a wildlife refuge in Oklahoma. It was 106 degrees and I had a heavy pack on and all in all it was not too smart an idea, but I need to get in shape. So I went.

I was hiking along by a small canyon and down in the creek at its bottom was a guy fishing. We talked for a minute about what he was catching (not much) and then he said, “Around the next curve there you’re gonna see some longhorns.” There was a herd of wild longhorn cattle roaming the refuge and I was hoping to see them, so I heard his news as an invitation. “Keep an eye open for those amazing longhorns.”

But what he was really saying was, “Look out because there are longhorns around the next curve!” I know that because I came around the next curve and there, staring at me with sinister eyes, was a huge longhorn, right in the middle of the path and she had a few friends near her in the river.

Now here’s where the theology thing kicks in. A normal person would have said, “Here’s an animal four or five times bigger than me. I think I’d better run.” But I think funny, remember? So I say to her, “Longhorn, what’s the difference between you and me?” It was a very philosophical moment. I had been teaching about Martin Luther and considering the question of what it means to be a human being so I really wanted to know, “What qualities separate me from this creature?”

The answer, I believe, is this: Humans have the capacity to delude themselves about who they are. Longhorns don’t have this problem. They know their role in the universe as God’s creatures. Their role is to eat grass and roam the range and charge at theologians who get too close to them in the path. It’s we humans who have delusions and begin to mistake who we are before God. Longhorns never abandon their fields and go off to start a punk rock band in their garage. Only human beings do that.

I survived my encounter in the field. Eventually I let the cow have the path and created a new one. But I didn’t stop thinking: How do we know who it is that we are in God’s eyes? How do we truly understand who we are? And to help think about this, I have a story:


“I just feel so bad, Rev. Filbert. I just don’t know what to do with it. I have never felt this way before and I know that it’s all my fault!”

Zechariah Stonecaster, known as Zack to all his friends, was sitting in the only coffee shop in the small town of Mattaponi with Eleazar Filbert, his pastor. Rev. Filbert has found that the coffee shop is a good place to meet folks, especially since it is part of Rocky Colliflower’s new grocery store that he designed especially for depressed people. Rocky got very tired of going to shop for food in grocery stores that were brightly lit and full of white tile and relentlessly cheerful. He thought some folks might appreciate a place that accepted them where they were and toned down the cheerfulness just a tad. He called it the Melon-choly Market and despite its earth tone décor and recessed lighting folks took a liking to it, or at least to the coffee shop which is the closest thing Mattaponi will ever see to a Starbucks.

Zack was talking with Rev. Filbert because he was going through a really rough time. It was mid-January and he was headed back to college after the long winter break. He should have been excited. After all, Mattaponi was not that thrilling a place and making it through a month of break there had not been easy. He got along pretty well with his mother, but they each needed some space after all the togetherness. And at college he was going to see his girlfriend, Sandy, who was going to be back from the holidays, too, and waiting for him. So he had a lot of reasons to look forward to going back. But he wasn’t. Too much had happened and he needed to talk.
“So,” Rev. Filbert asked him, “why exactly do you feel so bad?”

“Because it’s my fault. I led her on. I told her I wasn’t seeing anyone. I got more serious and more out-of-my-head every night. I told her I wanted to see her more. I didn’t stop her when she started talking like we could be a…a thing. It got way too real way too quick.”

“Wo…Zack, who is her?”

“Tara. Tara Tucker.”

“So this is somebody different from…, who’s your girlfriend?”

“Sandy. Yes. I’ve known Tara since middle school. So we hung out together some over the break and when she asked me if I was seeing somebody I didn’t think it would hurt if I said ‘no.’ And it just kind of grew from there. I didn’t intend for it to be a real relationship. I was going back to school, back to Sandy, and this was all going to be…over.”

“But she didn’t think that way.”

“No,” Zack said. “I used Tara. I mean, I was charming and romantic and kind and in some screwed up way I meant all those things that I said to her, but it was all fantasy. I messed up big time.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’ve already done it. I sat down with Tara two nights ago and told her the truth.”

“And how did she respond?”

“Ah…not too well. She was angry. Way angry. She cursed me. Threw sofa pillows at me. Called me a…a…well, you get the idea. It wasn’t pretty. In a way it was a relief to have her do that. I deserved it. But man, I know I hurt her bad. And my name is pretty much mud with her. But I had to be honest. Finally. I couldn’t let it go on.”

Eleazar looked over at the anguished young man across the table from him. “So you decided to come to confession?”

“Confession? Yes, I guess that is what I came for.” Zack was managing to look up from his latte just a bit.

Eleazar responded. “You know, come to think of it, it’s so dark in here it could make a pretty nice confessional booth. Maybe I ought to set up in here. So why are you here, Zack?”

“Well, I’ve done bad things before, but I’ve never surprised myself this much. I can’t believe what I did…that I was capable of doing what I did…the lies I told her…the lies I told myself…the deception. It kind of makes me wonder who I am. What kind of person does the things I’ve done? What do I do to get over it?”

“Hmmm, what makes you think you should get over it?”

“What makes me think…well, isn’t that what is supposed to happen in confession? You go into the booth, you say, ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, it’s been 13 years since my last confession, here’s what I did,’ the priest gives you a few ‘Hail Mary’s to say and you’re free and clear. Sounds like a pretty good system to me right now. Otherwise I don’t know what to do with all this junk I’m feeling.”

“Do you even know what a ‘Hail Mary’ is Zack?”

“No. But you could teach me. I’ll take anything. A bed of nails. A pilgrimage on my knees. A vale of tears. A self-flagellation device. There ought to be something out there for me.”

Eleazar looked at him very closely over the steam rising from his mug. He set the mug down deliberately and continued staring at Zack. Zack began to feel a little nervous. He wondered if he had said something offensive of heretical. But when Eleazar spoke it was not what he expected at all.

“Zechariah Stonecaster, you go down this guilt trip all you want to. Sure…go ahead and feel bad if you want to, but don’t think sin is something you just ‘get over.’ Don’t think you can control the switches to flip on the light again. Don’t think God needs your sentimental gestures, because God doesn’t.”

Zack almost dropped his coffee cup. “O.K…I’m feeling better now,” he said, attempting some mock sarcasm, but Eleazar wasn’t finished.

“You feel bad—great. So does Tara. Does it make it any better if you both feel bad? If you feel bad, too, does it make for some sort of justice? And can you really be equal in tears if you still have the power to choose them, if you still have the power to make some sort of penitential offering and end it?

“No, Zack, in the end feeling bad is just another power trip designed to keep you in control. It’s just one more role. Instead of being the deceptive lover you get to try out being the repentant sinner all decked out in the uniform of anguish. But you’re no less self-absorbed when you do that.”

Zack was frozen in place, wondering where Rev. Filbert had learned his pastoral care skills. He finally found his voice. “I thought maybe you’d tell me it wasn’t so bad. I thought maybe you’d want me to feel bad. I thought confession was the right thing to do, but now you’re laying it on awfully thick. Is that what I’m supposed to believe about myself? That I’m a bad person?”

Eleazar looked back at Zack with a look that was compassionate and weary all at the same time. “No, Zack, you’re not a bad person. God didn’t make junk and you are certainly not junk. You’ve got incredible gifts and confession is the right thing to do, but it means more than getting over sin or feeling bad for a time to pay for what you’ve done.”

Eleazar remembered a time when he didn’t think much of confession. He used to believe that God really got a laugh out of our insistence on it. What a waste of time! To oppress ourselves with the antiquated notion of sin instead of living out of grace and the victory that God has already won. He thought at the time that we were just deluded creatures failing to embrace our created goodness. But he knew his heart was more than that. He knew the world was more than that. He knew now that to grow into the person he had to be he had to name the sin that remained.

He looked at Zack, who still looked a little stunned. “You know, Zack, there’s something really powerful about claiming all of yourself. When I start saying…It’s all good, or I’m all good…it’s too easy to play games. I start to believe that I can get everything right. I start to believe that can make everything work by the strength of my character alone. I’m a good person. People tell me that every day. But it can feed the delusion. What I really want is a voice that tells me, ‘Eleazar, you are a sinner, but I love you—not for what you’ve done, but for who you are.’ And I hear that voice when we say the confession in church and the echo comes back, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ I hear that voice when a good friend is brave enough to confront me with a mirror.

“I need to be acknowledged for who I am and accepted anyway. And what can do that except God’s grace? I don’t want to ‘get over’ or ‘get past’ my weaknesses because if I forget them I lose sight of that grace and I start to trust in my own abilities…my own goodness.”

“So what do I do, Rev. Filbert? If you’re not going to give me some ‘Hail Mary’s, what do I do?”

“Zack, somehow you knew that confession really was good for the soul. You have started speaking truthfully. You have learned something very important about yourself—that you’re capable of deceiving yourself. It took me years to learn that. But the truth you’re looking for goes way deeper than this.

“There is this Psalm – number 51 – that is supposed to be the psalm David said after he slept with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, and then had that man killed. Horrible stuff. But at one point he says to God, ‘You desire truth in the inward being.’ You had an encounter with that inward place. The trick is staying there. And the only way to stay there is confession. Confess who you are every day. Find friends who will tell you the truth. Because the only sure things we can say about ourselves are that we are sinners and that we are loved anyway. I think that’s good news.”

Zack stared down into his now-cool latte and then looked back up at Eleazar. “Thanks for not telling me it was nothing.”

“It wasn’t. It isn’t. But you can’t let it freeze you in your tracks. You’ve got too much yet to do. And God is waiting for you to join in the work. Thanks for trusting me with your confession.”
They went on to talk about football, war, and the humiliating debacle of the latest episode of Fear Factor. They talked about everything and nothing. But both of them knew when they left the Melon-choly Market that day that they had held something holy about each other. And God was holding them…as God holds us…knowing who we are and loving us, not for what we have done, but exactly because of who we are—children of God, creatures of God. Thanks be to God.

On Not Getting Better

Perkins Course of Study School

Psalm 51:1-16 (NRSV)
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

Hoy tengo una confesión. Cuando no estoy aquí en Dallas, soy un pastor de la Conferencia de Virginia. Pero por causa de mi papel aquí en el Curso de Estudio, siempre pienso en las formas de teología. Mi confesión es esta: Aunque lucho intensamente contra el hecho, yo soy un teólogo. ¿Por que le digo esto? Porque, primeramente, creo que ustedes son teólogos también, (lo siento), y, en segundo lugar, ustedes deben saber que teólogos piensen en una manera extraña.

Por ejemplo, este fin de semana, yo estaba yendo de excursión en un refugio de animales salvajes en Oklahoma – caminando. Entiendo que no era un buen día para ir de excursión con el calor de cien grados y con un petate pesado y con las piernas en mal estado. Pero me estoy preparando para un gran viaje con mi hijo y necesitaba practicar antes.

Bueno – estaba caminando en el sendero allí y vine a la vuelta de una curva y allí, en medio del sendero, mirando me con los ojos siniestros, estaba una vaca con grandes cuernos – un longhorn. Pues, mira que es la diferencia entre un teólogo y una persona de buen sentido: Otras personas, en esta situación, piensen a sus mismos, “Aquí estoy con una vaca cuatro o cinco veces mas grandes que yo y necesito hacer una salida, rápido!” Pero yo pienso en una manera extraña porque no soy una persona normal. Recuerde mi confesión – soy teólogo. Entonces mi primer pensamiento no era “Corre!” pero era, “¿Bevo? ¿Puedo te llama ‘Bevo’? ¿Bevo, que es la diferencia entre tu y yo?” Era un momento muy filosófico.

Porque, resultando de mi clase aquí sobre Martin Lutero y la etapa de la Reforma, pienso otra vez sobre: Que significa ser humano? y Cuales son las cualidades que separan humanos de todas los otros animales de la creación? Y la respuesta, yo creo, es esta: Humanos tienen la capacidad para que se hagan ilusiones acerca de sus mismos. Un longhorn no se hace ilusiones acerca de su mismo. Ella sabe que su papel es comer hierba y vagar por la tierra y cargar contra teólogos que vienen demasiada cerca de ella. Las vacas son criaturas de Dios y ellas hacen lo que Dios a ha creado hacer. Somos nosotros – los humanos – que se hacen ilusiones y empezamos a creer que somos algo más que criaturas. Las vacas no abandonan sus campos para formar grupos de punk rock en sus garajes. Solamente los humanos pueden hacer esto. Entonces la necesidad de conocer quien somos. Y la cosa que Lutero, y Wesley y todos los santos de épocas pasadas es que nosotros no conocemos quien somos.

“I just feel so bad, Rev. Filbert. I just don’t know what to do with it. I have never felt this way before and I know that it’s all my fault!”

Zechariah Stonecaster, known as Zack to all his friends, was sitting in the only coffee shop in the small town of Mattaponi with Eleazar Filbert, his pastor. Rev. Filbert has found that the coffee shop is a good place to meet folks, especially since it is part of Rocky Colliflower’s new grocery store that he designed especially for depressed people. Rocky got very tired of going to shop for food in grocery stores that were brightly lit and full of white tile and relentlessly cheerful. He thought some folks might appreciate a place that accepted them where they were and toned down the cheerfulness just a tad. He called it the Melon-choly Market and despite its earth tone décor and recessed lighting folks took a liking to it, or at least to the coffee shop which is the closest thing Mattaponi will ever see to a Starbucks.

Zack was talking with Rev. Filbert because he was going through a really rough time. It was mid-January and he was headed back to college after the long winter break. He should have been excited. After all, Mattaponi was not that thrilling a place and making it through a month of break there had not been easy. He got along pretty well with his mother, but they each needed some space after all the togetherness. And at college he was going to see his girlfriend, Sandy, who was going to be back from the holidays, too, and waiting for him. So he had a lot of reasons to look forward to going back. But he wasn’t. Too much had happened and he needed to talk.

“So,” Rev. Filbert asked him, “why exactly do you feel so bad?”

“Because it’s my fault. I led her on. I told her I wasn’t seeing anyone. I got more serious and more out-of-my-head every night. I told her I wanted to see her more. I didn’t stop her when she started talking like we could be a…a thing. It got way too real way too quick.”

“Wo…Zack, who is her?”

“Tara. Tara Tucker.”

“So this is somebody different from…, who’s your girlfriend?”

“Sandy. Yes. I’ve known Tara since middle school. So we hung out together some over the break and when she asked me if I was seeing somebody I didn’t think it would hurt if I said ‘no.’ And it just kind of grew from there. I didn’t intend for it to be a real relationship. I was going back to school, back to Sandy, and this was all going to be…over.”

“But she didn’t think that way.”

“No,” Zack said. “I used Tara. I mean, I was charming and romantic and kind and in some screwed up way I meant all those things that I said to her, but it was all fantasy. I messed up big time.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’ve already done it. I sat down with Tara two nights ago and told her the truth.”

“And how did she respond?”

“Ah…not too well. She was angry. Way angry. She cursed me. Threw sofa pillows at me. Called me a…a…well, you get the idea. It wasn’t pretty. In a way it was a relief to have her do that. I deserved it. But man, I know I hurt her bad. And my name is pretty much mud with her. But I had to be honest. Finally. I couldn’t let it go on.”

Eleazar looked over at the anguished young man across the table from him. “So you decided to come to confession?”

La perspicacia de Martin Lutero era que pecado es tan extenso en nuestras vidas que no podemos vernos a nuestros mismos correctamente. Esto es algo que personas modernas no quieren oír. Vivimos en la época de la Aclaración – the Enlightenment – y conocemos muchas cosas. Mucho más que en el pasado. Y ‘pecado’ es una palabra que no nos gusta. Porque significa que tenemos que sentirnos mal. Y nadie se quiere sentir mal.

Pero lo que es importante sobre pecado no es un sentimiento de sufrimiento o desgracia o tristeza. Dios no tiene necesidad de nuestros sentimientos malos. Pero Dios quiere que conozcamos quien somos frente a su amor. Juan Wesley, una vez dijo que, “El pobre pecador que no esta despierto, cualquier conocimiento tendría sobre otras cosas, no tiene conocimiento de si mismo. Entonces, el no sabe nada que hasta ahora debe saber. No sabe que es un espíritu caído, cuyo solo trabajo en el mundo presente es recuperarse de su caída, recobrar la imagen de Dios en que el fue creado.” Para saber el camino hacia la perfección, tenemos que saber que estamos heridos y necesitamos curación.

En nuestro pasaje bíblico esta día, tenemos un salmo que es asociado con un gran confrontación entre David y el pecado que impregno su ser. Después de su adulterio con Betsabé y el asesinato del esposo de Betsabé, no había una manera que David pudiera ver lo suyo como limpio. Pecado reinó en su alma y en su cuerpo. ¿Y que pudo ofrecer a su Dios? Solo una vida rota. Solo su ser…parte de sus victorias y sus coronas y sus riquezas.

El habló a Dios y dijo, “¡Lávame más y más de mi maldad y límpiame de mi pecado!, porque yo reconozco mis rebeliones, y mi pecado está siempre delante de mí.” Luego habla extensamente de su pecado. Antes de su nacimiento el problema de su pecado ya es. ¿Y que quiere Dios? “Tu deseas verdad en lo intimo, y en lo secreto me has hecho comprender sabiduría.” ¿Donde esta la problema de nuestro pecado? No es en los hechos de las manos, pero en lo íntimo, en lo secreto, en las profundidades de mí ser.

“Confession? Yes, I guess that is what I came for, isn’t it, Rev. Filbert?” Zack was managing to look up from his latte just a bit.

Eleazar responded. “You know, come to think of it, it’s so dark in here it could make a pretty nice confessional booth. Maybe I ought to set up in here. So why are you here, Zack?”

“Well, I’ve done bad things before, but I’ve never surprised myself this much. I can’t believe what I did…that I was capable of doing what I did…the lies I told her…the lies I told myself…the deception. It kind of makes me wonder who I am. What kind of person does the things I’ve done? What do I do to get over it?”

“Hmmm, what makes you think you should get over it?”

“What makes me think…well, isn’t that what is supposed to happen in confession? You go into the booth, you say, ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, it’s been 13 years since my last confession, here’s what I did,’ the priest gives you a few ‘Hail Mary’s to say and you’re free and clear. Sounds like a pretty good system to me right now. Otherwise I don’t know what to do with all this junk I’m feeling.”

“Do you even know what a ‘Hail Mary’ is Zack?”

“No. But you could teach me. I’ll take anything. A bed of nails. A pilgrimage on my knees. A vale of tears. A self-flagellation device. There ought to be something out there for me.”

Eleazar looked at him very closely over the steam rising from his mug. He set the mug down deliberately and continued staring at Zack. Zack began to feel a little nervous. He wondered if he had said something offensive of heretical. But when Eleazar spoke it was not what he expected at all.

“Zechariah Stonecaster, you go down this guilt trip all you want to. Sure…go ahead and feel bad if you want to, but don’t think sin is something you just ‘get over.’ Don’t think you can control the switches to flip on the light again. Don’t think God needs your sentimental gestures, because God doesn’t.”

Zack almost dropped his coffee cup. “O.K…I’m feeling better now,” he said, attempting some mock sarcasm, but Eleazar wasn’t finished.

“You feel bad—great. So does Tara. Does it make it any better if you both feel bad? If you feel bad, too, does it make for some sort of justice? And can you really be equal in tears if you still have the power to choose them, if you still have the power to make some sort of penitential offering and end it?

“No, Zack, in the end feeling bad is just another power trip designed to keep you in control. It’s just one more role. Instead of being the deceptive lover you get to try out being the repentant sinner all decked out in the uniform of anguish. But you’re no less self-absorbed when you do that.”

Zack was frozen in place, wondering if Rev. Filbert had learned his pastoral care skills at Perkins. He finally found his voice. “I thought maybe you’d tell me it wasn’t so bad. I thought maybe you’d want me to feel bad. I thought confession was the right thing to do, but now you’re laying it on awfully thick. Is that what I’m supposed to believe about myself? That I’m a bad person?”

Eleazar looked back at Zack with a look that was compassionate and weary all at the same time. “No, Zack, you’re not a bad person. God didn’t make junk and you are certainly not junk. You’ve got incredible gifts and confession is the right thing to do, but it means more than getting over sin or feeling bad for a time to pay for what you’ve done.”


El relato que estoy contando en ingles ahora mismo es una lección sobre confesión. Yo he tenido tiempos en mi vida cuando tuve que hacer frente a mis debilidades, mis heridas, mis pecados. A veces pastores pueden creer que, por causa de su profesión, no tienen que preocuparse con los lugares en sus vidas donde Dios ya necesita trabajar. Pero yo he descubrido que es precisamente en estos lugares que empieza comprender quien yo soy.

Confesión nos pone en un lugar donde podemos ver quien somos en los ojos de Dios. Y como dijo Luter, somos, al mismo tiempo, pecadores y justificados. Por causa de Jesucristo, el pecado no puede tener la victoria última. Por causa de la misericordia y gracia de Dios, crecemos más y más en la vida de gracia y nuestros hechos conforman más y más a Jesús cuando caminamos en el camino de un discípulo. Pero, si queremos tener un conocimiento de quien somos con todas nuestras posibilidades y todas nuestras debilidades, necesitamos entender que somos pecadores—pecadores liberados, pero todavía pecadores.

Esta es la razón que los miembros de Alcohólicos Anónimos empiezan cada junta con esta introducción: “Bueno, yo soy Alejandro y soy un alcohólico.” Es la identidad que les ayuda verse a si mismos en realidad.

En la misma manera, tenemos confesión como la parte de nuestros cultos que introduce quien somos. El propósito de confesión no es sentir mal. No es un ejercicio en degradación o un recuerdo que somos gusanos. Confesión es una puerta abierta, una invitación a Dios entrar en nuestras vidas y encontrarnos donde estamos. Entonces, yo quiero decir siempre, “Yo soy Alejandro, y soy un pecador.”

También siempre quiero tener personas en mi vida que pueden decirme la verdad para que yo pueda saberlo en lo intimo y en lo secreto de mi ser. Quiero amigos que pueden decirme no solo que yo soy una persona buena, pero también cuando estoy en un apuro. Personas que pueden decir, “Alejandro, eres un pecador, pero te amo – no por lo que ha hecho, pero por quien tú eres.” Y pues necesito oír las palabras de la Biblia, “Cuando éramos aun pecadores, Cristo murió por nuestros pecados. En el nombre de Jesucristo, tu eres perdonado.”


Eleazar remembered a time when he didn’t think much of confession. He used to believe that God really got a laugh out of our insistence on it. What a waste of time! To oppress ourselves with the antiquated notion of sin instead of living out of grace and the victory that God has already won. He thought at the time that we were just deluded creatures failing to embrace our created goodness. But he knew his heart was more than that. He knew the world was more than that. He knew now that to grow into the person he had to be he had to name the sin that remained.

He looked at Zack who still looked a little stunned. “You know, Zack, there’s something really powerful about claiming all of yourself. When I start saying…It’s all good, or I’m all good…it’s too easy to play games. I start to believe that I can get everything right. I start to believe that can make everything work by the strength of my character alone. I’m a good person. People tell me that every day. But it can feed the delusion. What I really want is a voice that tells me, ‘Eleazar, you are a sinner, but I love you—not for what you’ve done, but for who you are.’ And I hear that voice when we say the confession in church and the echo comes back, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ I hear that voice when a good friend is brave enough to confront me with a mirror.

“I need to be acknowledged for who I am and accepted anyway. And what can do that except God’s grace? I don’t want to ‘get over’ or ‘get past’ my weaknesses because if I forget them I lose sight of that grace and I start to trust in my own abilities…my own goodness.”

“So what do I do, Rev. Filbert? If you’re not going to give me some ‘Hail Mary’s, what do I do?”

“Zack, somehow you knew that confession really was good for the soul. You have started speaking truthfully. You have learned something very important about yourself—that you’re capable of deceiving yourself. It took me years to learn that. But the truth you’re looking for goes way deeper than this.

“There is this Psalm – number 51 – that is supposed to be the psalm David said after he slept with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, and then had that man killed. Horrible stuff. But at one point he says to God, ‘You desire truth in the inward being.’ You had an encounter with that inward place. The trick is staying there. And the only way to stay there is confession. Confess who you are every day. Find friends who will tell you the truth. Because the only sure things we can say about ourselves are that we are sinners and that we are loved anyway. I think that’s good news.”

Zack stared down into his now-cool latte and then looked back up at Eleazar. “Thanks for not telling me it was nothing.”

“It wasn’t. It isn’t. But you can’t let it freeze you in your tracks. You’ve got too much yet to do. And God is waiting for you to join in the work. Thanks for trusting me with your confession.”

They went on to talk about football, war, and the humiliating debacle of the latest episode of Fear Factor. They talked about everything and nothing. But both of them knew when they left the Melon-choly Market that day that they had held something holy about each other. And God was holding them…as God holds us…knowing who we are and loving us, not for what we have done, but exactly because of who we are—children of God, creatures of God. Thanks be to God.

Dios esta aquí con nosotros. Dios conoce todas nuestras vidas. Y Dios nos ama, conociendo quien somos, conociendo lo que hemos hecho, pero amándonos, precisamente por causa de quien somos...hijos e hijas de Dios. A Dios, damos gracias. Amen.

Desert Healing

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Then the apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and all that they had taught. He said to them, “Come away to a wilderness place all by yourselves and rest awhile.” For many people were coming and going and they had no time even to eat.

So they went in the boat to a wilderness place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them and they ran together by land from all the cities and arrived before them. Upon arriving he saw the great crowd and had compassion on them for they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began to teach them many things…

Upon crossing over to the land, they came into Genesserat and weighed anchor. When they got out of the boat, people immediately recognized him and ran about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. Wherever he went, into villages, cities or farms, they laid the ill in the markets and called to him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And all who touched it were healed.

The story takes place in the desert. And beyond. Jesus’ disciples have returned from their mission. Do you remember their mission? A few weeks ago we talked about the ministry of moving in and that’s what the disciples have been doing – moving into homes and villages and proclaiming the good news and healing the sick and casting out demons. They have amazing stories to tell of what has done. They all want to tell the story.

“Jesus, you’ll never believe what happened! Jesus, the demons obeyed us. Jesus, people walked. People spoke. People believed!”

But they couldn’t tell the story. Jesus had become so popular now that the crowds were gathering in every town he entered. They could not even sit down to a meal now. The crush of people was that great.

It was an ominous time. John the Baptist had just been killed by Herod. The disciples may have worried that if Jesus attracted the same sort of attention that John had attracted, his life would also be in danger. So when Jesus suggested that they head out into the desert, away from the crowds, so that they could tell their stories, they agreed eagerly.

So they got into a boat and set out from shore, headed to a deserted stretch of the lakeshore where they could be alone. It was just Jesus and the Twelve headed out to the wilderness, like Moses and the Twelve Tribes so many centuries before. But Moses discovered on that trip out of Egypt that going to the desert didn’t mean that things were going to get quieter. The needs of the people still remained. They complained because they had no water. They complained because they had no food. They complained when Moses went up on the mountain to receive God’s word. They seemed always to be in need.

Finally God led Moses up on a mountain, Mount Abarim, to look at the land towards which they were traveling. It was a land he would never enter and Moses knew it because God had told him that he would not go in. Moses was concerned about the people he had led these many years. He spoke to God and said, “Lord, the people need someone to lead them into this new land. They need someone to lead them into battle, to listen to their complaints, and to direct them in your ways. Otherwise the community of the Lord will be like sheep without a shepherd” [Numbers 27:12-17]

God heard Moses’ concern and told him to find Joshua, a man of charisma, to lead the people. So Joshua became a shepherd for Israel. Now you need to know that the name Joshua, when it was translated into Greek, sounded a little different. It was translated as Jesus.

So now here is a Jesus once again leading people into the wilderness. But it’s not just the disciples he’s taking. The people in the towns see him in the boat and they follow. They run along the shoreline. They head out into the wilderness with no food, no provisions for the day. Why are they running after Jesus? Because they have needs. They have hurts. They know that they need to hear his teaching, to feel his touch, to just touch the hem of his garment. These people – these thousands of people – follow because they have found life and they refuse to let it go until they are made whole.

So when Jesus and the disciples land, hoping for a quiet retreat, there are five thousand men there, plus women and children. Jesus looks at them and has compassion on them, because he sees, like Moses, that they are like sheep without a shepherd. He teaches them, feeds them (the whole crowd with five loaves and two fish!), and sends them on their way.

But they show up again in the next town. And the next. They show up on roadsides and on farms. They are in the city and in the desert. These poor, wounded, lost souls will always be seeking Jesus because they know what they need. They need to live. They need to really live.

Henri Nouwen, who was a great contemporary spiritual writer, talks about how awareness of our brokenness can lead us to life. We are all broken people, Nouwen says, and many of our conversations with one another are dominated by stories of how broken we are. But our temptation as human beings is to walk away from the pain and suffering we are experiencing when the path to healing is to step toward it.

Nouwen says, “My own experience with anguish has been that facing it and living through it is the way to healing. But I cannot do that on my own. I need someone to keep me standing in it, to assure me that there is peace beyond the anguish, life beyond death, and love beyond fear. But I know now, at least, that attempting to avoid, repress, or escape the pain is like cutting off a limb that could be healed with proper attention.”[i]

Why did all of those thousands go to the desert to see Jesus? Why did they seek him out in the streets, and houses and byways of the land? Because they sensed that Jesus knew. Jesus would not ignore their suffering or minimize it or pretend that it wasn’t there. It was safe for them to unbind their wounds in Jesus’ presence. They did not need to fear being vulnerable. They did not need to cover over the pain. If Jesus was coming into their lives, he was going to enter their lives at the point where they needed him the most.

But, of course, Jesus didn’t just heal them so that they could be relieved of their pain. Jesus is not content merely to take away something that we don’t want. Jesus is not some spiritual morphine making us forget the pain so that we can go on in lives that are prone to delusion and distortion. When Jesus heals, he wants transformation not pacification. Jesus wants new life not old habits. Jesus wants you to be a new person conformed to the image of Christ. Things will change.

There’s a Burt Reynolds movie that is now almost thirty years old called The End. In the movie, Reynold’s character, Wendell Lawson, receives word that he only has six months to live. Wendell decides that he doesn’t want to wait for the end to happen to him so he begins to contemplate ending his own life. The movie is actually a comedy and it ends when Wendell decides that he’s going to end it all by swimming out into the ocean and drowning. He’s that miserable.

As we see him swimming away from the shore we get to hear Wendell’s thoughts. Initially his thoughts are all about finally carrying out his plan to do himself in. He gets many, many yards from shore and he realizes that he has gone so far that he probably couldn’t get back now even if he wanted to. But he also realizes something else. He wants to live.

So he turns back to shore and he begins to pray to God. He’s bargaining hard: “Oh, God, help me! If you’ll only help me get back to shore I’ll change my life. I’ll start going to church. I’ll give fifty percent of my income to the church. Fifty percent, Lord! I’m talking gross!”

He’s starting to see the land get closer now and he suddenly realizes that he’s going to make it back. He says, “I’m going to make it, Lord! I’m going to live! I’ll start giving that ten percent, Lord!” Before he even makes it back to shore, Wendell is stepping back from changing too much. The question still remains, “Does he just want to escape the pain or does he want to really live?” If he really wants to live, he’s going to have to accept that God will do some messing around in his life.

What is it that you would take into the desert for Jesus to heal? What wounds are still open? What relationships are broken? What grief is still lingering? What anxiety is still unrelieved? What illness is holding you in its grip? What demons are keeping you in their power?

Maybe it’s something you’ve been praying about for a long time. Maybe you’ve asked others to hold you in prayer as well. And maybe it seems like these prayers have gone on for many, many days.

Maybe it’s something you’ve been trying hard to conceal and that you find it hard to admit even to yourself. You’re not sure how you can open your hands to offer it to God. You’re not sure you even want it to be taken away because if it were gone it would require some major changes and change is hard. But our choice is the same – Do we merely want to escape the pain or do we want to really live? To really live requires accepting the healing that Jesus has to offer.

Some say healing is something lost to early Christian history. They say it is a carryover from an age that still believed in supernatural power and transformations that could now be explained scientifically. But don’t tell that to people who have experienced healing – who know that what God wants is not us at our best but us as we are – with all the hurts and wounds that we must have from being human. If we conceal those hurts because we believe that’s the part of us God can’t do anything about, then we have given up the heart of the gospel. Christ came, not because of our merits, but because of our wounds. That is what we are called to offer to God.

So come to the desert. Come to seek the balm of Gilead. Come to seek the sun of righteousness that rises with healing in its wings [Mal 4:2]. Come to seek the Christ who walks among us, who has compassion on his people, and who will not leave us like sheep without a shepherd.

What do you have to bring? Jesus is waiting. For you. Thanks be to God.

[i] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved, [New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1992], p. 95.

On Being a Little Suspicious

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19
David gathered all the young men of Israel, thirty thousand in all. David and all the men with him set off and went from Baalah of Judah in order to bring up from there the ark of Elohim which is called by the name of Yahweh, Lord of Hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim. They set the ark of Elohim on a new wagon and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzziah and his brother, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new wagon and they brought it from the house of Abinadab which is on the hill with the ark of Elohim on it and Uzziah's brother walked in front of the ark. Now David and the whole house of Israel were dancing with all their might before Yahweh with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, castanets and cymbals...
So David went down and brought the ark of Elohim from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. When those carrying the ark of Yahweh had taken six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fatted calf. David danced with all his might before Yahweh. David wore a linen ephod. David and the whole house of Israel brought up the ark of Yahweh with shouting and the sound of trumpets.
Now, as the ark of Yahweh came into the city of David, Michal, daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw the king, David, leaping and dancing before the Lord and she despised him in her heart.
They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before the Lord. After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings a and the offerings of well-being, he blessed the people in the name of Yahweh, Lord of Hosts, and distributed food among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins. Then all the people went back to their homes.

There was a time when I thought God was calling me to get a PhD. I went back to school at UVA and began to study philosophical theology, which, if I do say so myself, is about the most obscure degree you can get. There are not many want ads in the paper asking to hire philosophical theologians.

As part of my preparation for that degree I had to take German. So the first course I took in going back for my degree was a short summer course in German. Our teacher was a native German speaker and the entire class consisted of us struggling through several German texts while she guided us like some expert puzzle master. The whole intent was that we should READ German, so we didn't have to worry about pronunciation or writing. All we had to do was to ask questions of a text - to try to figure out how the words went together and what their significance was.

Now none of this is really new because this is also my favorite way of reading the Bible, too. Have you ever had this experience? You read a passage from the Bible and it is so strange-sounding, so foreign to your experience that you have to go back and read it again. Sometimes you find yourself saying, "It can't really say that, can it?" And sometimes it does.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the Bible is sometimes so foreign to us that it's like reading in another language, even though it's in English (assuming you're reading an English translation - if you've got the original, it IS another language). But this foreignness of the Bible is only natural when you consider that it is a very old book, 3,000 years old in some places. It was written by people who lived in very different times with very different social customs. And it's only when we take the time to enter the world of the Bible that we can sometimes see what's going on. That's why interpretation is still the responsibility of every responsible Christian. Every generation has to find the key that will unlock the pages so that the Bible can live.

So this morning I want you to help me do some detective work with the Bible and the passage we read from 2 Samuel. We've been hooking up with the stories of David for several weeks now - David and Goliath, David’s lament at the death of Saul - and today we read this strange little story that almost nobody has heard of - the story of David entering Jerusalem with the ark of God.

But you've only heard a piece of the story so far this morning. The lectionary, a list of Bible readings which I tend to follow, gives us two portions of the story and leaves out some in the middle and some at the end. Now let me warn you about that. Whenever somebody tells you, "I'm going to read selected verses from 2 Cauliflower chapter 13," you need to be suspicious, because those verses are in there for a reason and the reader is leaving them out for a reason. Hopefully they're only being left out so that the reading doesn't go on for hours and hours. But today, we need to be very suspicious, and I'll tell you why.

OK - first let's recap what's going on. The first part of the reading is 2 Samuel chapter 6 verses 1 through 5. David has become king following the death of Saul. He has managed to keep the tribes of Israel united, despite the fact that he is a southerner and the northern tribes don't get along too well with the south. I know, I know. Believe me, it was a problem in ancient Israel, too.

But David recognizes that to stay united the tribes need a new, neutral site as their capital. So he chooses the recently-conquered city of Jerusalem in the hill-country right near the border of the north and the south. A stroke of political genius. All he needed was a symbol to bring into the city - a symbol that would unify the people. What he needed was the Ark of the Covenant.

Now we tend to think of this as a very important symbol for our ancestors in Israel. After all, Raiders of the Lost Ark wouldn't have been nearly as successful a movie if the thing Indiana Jones was looking for - the ark - weren't so valuable. It was important. The ark contained those stone tablets given to Moses on the mountain top in the wilderness - those tablets with the 10 Commandments. Maybe you've heard about these.

Anyway - a very important thing, but somehow it had been languishing away in somebody's basement for several years before David decided to bring it up to his new capital city. Well, maybe not a basement, but it was an out of the way place. In the Bible story, the last time we've seen the Ark of the Covenant is after a disastrous defeat for the Israelites at the hands of the Philistines. The only reason the Israelites got it back then is that God's presence was so overwhelming that it caused the Philistines to break out with hemorrhoids. (You think, I'm making this up, don't you? 1 Samuel chapter 5. I'll get you reading this Bible yet!) Anyway, when the Philistines had had enough of this they sent the ark back to the Israelites and they had stuck it in the house of Abinadab who lived on the hill.

The ark was important to Israel because it was the place where God chose to be present among the people. It was considered God's traveling throne and when Israel held the ark they were blessed. The ark had accompanied them through the Jordan River after all those years wandering in the desert. The ark had been with them as they conquered the Promised Land.

But the ark was also considered holy and not only holy but powerfully holy. Holiness in the Old Testament implies being set apart and full of God's presence and God's presence is so great that human beings can not stand to be close to it. When Moses talked to God on the mountain, the people were told not to touch the mountain. When Moses asked to see God, God only allowed Moses to see the back, because God's face was too glorious and holy. And the ark was holy as well.

But somehow, in the midst of wars with the Philistines and intrigues in the palace, the ark had been neglected. So David decided to bring it up to Jerusalem, the new capital city of the new Israel. And that's where we began reading. David gathers thirty thousand men. They get a new wagon and place the ark of God on the wagon. Abinadab's sons, Uzzah and Ahio, were guiding the cart on the journey. David made a big spectacle of the procession. He danced along with all the attendants and they sang and there were lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and castanets. It was quite a festival as they left the house of Abinadab for Jerusalem.

Well, that gets us through verse five. Now the lectionary has us skip down to the second half of verse 12 where it says, "So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing". Sounds like just a continuation of the story, doesn't it? David is dancing with the instruments in verse 5 as they head to Jerusalem, they're rejoicing in verse 12 as they head with the ark to Jerusalem. The same big happy parade, right?

Wrong. Anybody else wonder with me how the ark got from the house of Abinadab to the house of Obed-edom? I know they're both long, unpronounceable Hebrew names, but they ARE different. Well, the answer is that there was a death along the way and this is actually the second parade. See? You miss all the dramatic stuff if you're not suspicious.

What happened in those verses that the lectionary skips is that the new wagon has to go over a threshold along the way and Abinadab's son, Uzzah, who is walking along beside the ark, reaches out to steady it and ZAP! - He is struck down on the spot. Now I know this sounds harsh. After all, the ark might have fallen if Uzzah hadn't reached out to hold it. But, remember this is holiness and Uzzah had reached in where mortals should fear to tread. It's very difficult for us to understand, but the holiness of God, the presence of God with that ark was so great that it could not be casually approached. Those who came to it needed to be ritually prepared. Uzzah and his brother were not just carting around a wooden box - this was the ark of the Lord.

But if it makes you feel any better, David didn't understand any better than us either. He was angry and more than a little upset with God. He was even afraid of God and he thought to himself, "How can I take care of something as dangerous as this ark is?" He was also probably thinking, this is really putting a damper on the parade and how's it going to look to take this ark into my new capital city under a cloud?

So he calls off the parade. He finds somebody who'd be willing to take the ark in, who happens to be Obed-Edom the Gittite. And he leaves it there for three months. He probably would have left it there a lot longer than that, too, except that he got the word that Obed-Edom the Gittite was being blessed by God because of his hospitality of the ark. Obed-edom was increasing in wealth. Obed-edom, a Gittite for crying out loud!, was getting the blessing David sought. So he orders up another parade and heads out once more to bring the ark up to Jerusalem. But, of course, you wouldn't know this if you weren't suspicious.

But this is not just an entertaining, and strange, interlude. Perhaps the preparers of the lectionary were trying to protect us from some real ugliness, but we really can't understand God or David without this interlude. David, who was so pious and so trusting in God as a twelve-year-old fighting Goliath, had grown up to be a complicated adult. At times he is daring, dashing and devoted to God. At other times he can be opportunistic, deceitful and even devious, as we see in the episode with Bathsheba. Politically he was nothing but successful. As a man of God, he is sometimes faithful and sometimes forgetful. In this case it seems that God is merely a tool to him, and the ark is an instrument that is useful when it seems to bring blessing and useless when it seems to bring a curse. David, it seems, can take it or leave it. And at any rate, the narrator keeps referring to Jerusalem as the "city of David" - not the "city of God."

God, on the other hand, appears in this missing passage more forcefully than anywhere else in the whole chapter. God is the holy one of Israel - the God who is so powerful that he demands full attention - or else!, as poor Uzzah found out. God refuses to be set aside or used for political games, even if they are the games of God's chosen king, David. God will be God, blessing whom God wants to bless, and continually calling for the love of God's people.

So that's the situation when we get to the ark's entry into Jerusalem. There is more dancing and singing and music. There are sacrifices to God and it all ends with David putting on the short linen outfit of a priest and blessing the people in the name of God while doling out gifts of food to all the people around. A wonderful ending in verse 19. The people go to their homes and you can just see them saying to themselves, "Yes, this David is going to be alright. Cakes and raisins for everybody. He's alright."

But the chapter doesn't end there. And neither does the story. Only the lectionary has you stop with the easy, happy ending. Remember - be suspicious. There's more here.

You do get a hint of what's to come in verse 16. That verse tells us that someone is watching this parade from a distance. Someone is not down among the crowd receiving the blessings and the goodies from David. Verse 16 says that "as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David (there's that reference to David's city again), Michal, daughter of Saul (the former king), looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart." Wo - now this is harsh! She despised him? It gets even worse when I tell you that Michal was David's wife!

What could cause this animosity? Well, you'd never know from just that one verse. It's only when you hear the rest of the story, (as Paul Harvey would say), that you understand what's going on. Verse 20 tells us that David returned home after the sacrifices to God in order to bless his household. But Michal comes out to meet him, and, as if to remind us what's important about her, she is described again as the daughter of Saul - not as his wife. So maybe the fact that David has taken her father's place has upset Michal.

But what she goes on to say is that David has embarrassed himself by putting on this skimpy loincloth outfit that the priests wore and dancing up and down in front of his maidservants like any old exhibitionist would. So perhaps it is David's lack of dignity that is disturbing her. That's what she says. Maybe the unspoken claim is that her father Saul would never have done something like this.

David seems to take it this way and he goes on to say to her that his dancing was not to display himself before the people, but to honor the Lord. "I danced for the Lord," he says. Then to rub in his position a little more he says, "You know, the Lord, who chose me instead of your father and all his household and made me prince over Israel. My maidservants do not hold me in contempt because of this dancing, but they honor me."

The next verse, verse 23, tells us of the complete silencing of Michal. "Michal the daughter of Saul had no child until the day of her death." If that nasty argument with David never got resolved, you can understand why. The atmosphere had definitely turned sour and the irony is that David, who was coming home to bring a blessing to the household, ends up with a curse - and his household was never at rest for his whole reign. If David thought he could control God's blessings by bringing the ark into the city, he certainly failed.

So the last scene in the story is not the contented walk into the sunset full of the blessings of the day - cakes and raisins and a glorious king. The final scene is of emptiness and strife. The only figure who stands uncompromised is God. Though God's story is often told through very fallible human beings - God refuses to be controlled or contained.

The God we come to know in Jesus Christ is one that we often talk about in soft ways because we like to think of Jesus as open and accepting and warm. Which is exactly how we are supposed to picture him. God does reach out to us.

But the story of the ark reminds us that God is also a wild and holy God who cannot be contained. But…God chose to be contained. God chose to come among us in Jesus Christ despite the fact that God is beyond every created being. One writer I read recently talked about wondering how painful it must have been for the God who created the universe to come to us in human form. God comes to confront us and to challenge us to be transformed and in doing that God won't be limited to the sweet sentimentality of a Hallmark greeting card. God will call us to confront that wild and holy spirit within us that calls us to something beyond ourselves.

The danger for us is that we have lost all sense that the words we invoke for God refer to actual holiness. Because we want so desperately for the world to make sense on a horizontal level, we have given up on the vertical level. Transcendence is a word we have lost hope in so that God seems to be more a term or a concept than an actual being overwhelming the universe with God’s presence.
There was a movie a few years ago about tornado chasers in Oklahoma. In Twister a scientist's girlfriend accompanies him on her first tornado chase. After a close brush with the funnel cloud of the tornado she looks at him and says, "When you said you were a tornado-chaser, I thought it was just a metaphor."

Well, in our day in age, to be known as someone who really believes in a God who is wild and holy and who wants to change us, is to be a tornado-chaser. When it stops being a Sunday morning thing and starts being an every day thing – this Christianity stuff seems a little too out of control to the rest of the world. When your faith stops being a socially acceptable thing to do, it’s a little too dangerous. When you try to change your life and change the world to reflect what God wants it to be, it’s a little too uncomfortable to the world around us. God is no longer a metaphor.
But if we downplay the faith we have….if we forget how powerful God really is…well, then we might as well be like David, content to let God languish in Abinadab's basement or Obed-edom's closet. If we only talk about God in here on Sunday, maybe God will stay locked up and unable to disturb our lives.

But God cannot be contained. And Obed-edom's blessings will never be ours until we take the risk of seeking the living God. Scary? Yes. But David, confused and conflicted as he was, did it dancing. So can we. If we're just a little suspicious of the too-easy endings, and a little more open to the God who wants to meet us and change us…forever. Thanks be to God.