Shameless
I would like to repeat the question I asked
the children this morning – have you ever done something that caused you to be
ashamed and embarrassed? I’m talking
about something you did that was public, extreme, and irreversible. I’m sure we all have had our turn at the
wheel on that one.
I will tell you of one of my most memorable
faux pas’.
I was still living on the farm in Ohio and in
the sixth grade of a little school out in the middle of nowhere. I had always had a gift for remembering words
and how to spell them – so I competed in the local spelling contests,
representing our school in the local and county competitions. Having won those contests, I proceeded to the
regional championship in Dayton, Ohio.
One more win and I would be in the finals of the National Spelling Bee
competition.
Now this was big stuff for me – we only
went to the “big city” for special shopping trips one or two times a year. Here this hayseed from nowhere was competing
for recognition on a very high and public level.
On the night of the spelling competition
there was a whole room full of kids like me who had also earned their way
there. My family and school
representatives were all there to urge me to victory. Round after round of words were spelled and
the field was reduced to ten or so participants and I was still in the
running. Then came my defining moment of
infamy; the word I was given to spell was “zinc” – a short four letter word I
knew more about than most high school students.
Not only could I spell it, I could have told them its atomic number and
mass and its valence states. It was a
slam dunk. Yet for some unexplainable
reason I spelled it with a “K” on the end – game over. I should have known better; no, I knew better
– that was downright embarrassing.
What if you could live life without fear of
embarrassment and shame? Today we’re going to explore that
possibility.
Last week, Pastor Jill told us about the
Disciples being sent out to proclaim the Gospel of Repentance, cast out demons,
and to heal the sick. They were told to
take nothing with them except the clothes on their back and the sandals on
their feet, living only on the generosity of strangers. It was a lesson in living by faith and not by
sight. I think it would be embarrassing
to rely on, even beg of, strangers to provide me with food and shelter. Yet tens of thousands do that daily right
here in America. In comparison to our
calling simple to share the love and message of Jesus to the world, our
reluctance to do so falls pretty low on the embarrassment scale.
Today’s scriptures fall neatly into that
story where the Disciples learned how being dependent tested their faith far
more than the independent lives they lived before encountering Jesus.
In 2 Samuel, we heard about King David
bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.
Imagine the sight. You are standing on a watch tower on
Jerusalem’s wall and off in the distance you see a crowd of people approaching
the city. Out in front, four men are
carrying an object on wooden poles. They
only move about 20 feet and stop, a man dressed in only an ephod is dancing in
front of the procession, then they pick it up and move another 20 feet and the
process is repeated. Curious behavior at
best – lewd behavior if you consider that the dancing guy is only wearing what
is best described as a kilt with the back half missing.
As they come nearer, you realize that the
object being carried is the Ark of the Covenant. Every time they stop they
sacrifice some animals and the dancing begins again. Then you discover that the dancing guy is
none other than your King. . . . .
David. . . .the man after God’s own
heart.
When they bring the ark into the city,
David continues to dance before the procession and holds a feast for the whole
city to celebrate the occasion. His
wife, Michal, sees all this and, as the Scriptures say, “despised him in her
heart”.
You might ask why she would despise her
husband for celebrating such a grand occasion – after all, this was the Ark of the Covenant – a
source of blessing and power dating back over 400 years to the time of Moses –
and now it’s coming to Jerusalem.
If
you read further, 2 Samuel says that Michal confronted David about this saying,
“How the king of Israel honored himself
today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ maids, as any
vulgar fellow might shamelessly uncover himself!” (2 Samuel 6:20)
And what was King
David’s reply?
“It was
before the Lord, who chose me in place of your father and all his household, to
appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord, that I
have danced before the Lord. 22 I will make
myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in my own eyes;
but by the maids of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.” (2
Samuel 6:21)
Did you catch all
of that? He said he shamelessly danced
before the Lord and the people he was chosen to lead and he would continue to
do even more things shamelessly. Why? –
because in that moment, the Lord was being exalted above all other things. It was worship – uninhibited and child-like –
he was, in the moment, truly a child of God.
Often in our
contemporary service here at NLPC, the children join in the praise songs with
dancing. That’s how children express
their joy – with dancing. They make
noise and they dance. And that’s true of
all God’s children.
Consider Psalm 150,
starting at verse 3:
Let them
praise His name with dancing and make music to Him with tambourine and harp.
For the
Lord takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with salvation. Let the
saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds. (Psalm
150: 3 - 5)
Isn’t that a great
image of celebration? God’s people,
singing and dancing and shouting, playing music, making a lot of noise and
jumping up and down on the bed. God
loves it when we do stuff
like that.
But let’s face it, the
older we get the harder it is to celebrate with that sort of freedom. Maybe at a sporting event we might let loose a
little but certainly not in the house of God. We’re too worried about looking silly and
embarrassing ourselves in front of other people.
We remember what
happened to David when he danced:
His wife hated it. But
God loved it. God loves it when we let
go and aren’t afraid to celebrate the life we have found in Him.
David knew this – he
could boldly dance without shame before the Lord and his people because he knew
he was doing the right thing. David and
Michal were worlds apart. Michal was
King Saul’s daughter, now David’s wife – she grew up loving the pomp and
circumstance that went with being the King’s kid. David was once shepherd boy who knew the
strength and power that came from walking with God. He knew that with God’s presence he could
bring down the mightiest warrior with only a sling and a stone.
But there is a story
within the story for today. Up to verse
5, things were going pretty good for David in his quest to bring the ark to
Jerusalem. Did you catch the discrepancy
when the Scripture was read – where the ark started out on an ox cart and
suddenly some men were carrying it on wooden poles? The Lectionary, for whatever reason, skips
over verses 6-11 in 2 Samuel 6 – and it’s here things take a turn for the worse
for David. Let’s take a look at what we
missed:
When
they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the
ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. 7 The
anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he
reached out his hand to the ark;[e] and he died there beside the ark of God. 8 David
was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an
outburst upon Uzzah; so that place is called Perez-uzzah,[f] to this day. 9 David was
afraid of the Lord that day; he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come
into my care?” 10 So David was unwilling to take the ark of the
Lord into his care in the city of David; instead David took it to the
house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 11 The ark of the Lord
remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months; and the Lord blessed
Obed-edom and all his household.
Something
went wrong. Why did Uzzah have to
die?
What was his “irreverent act?” What had he done wrong?
Well, he’d touched the ark… you weren’t supposed to do that. Numbers Chapter 4 gives very explicit details about how the ark was to be handled. It tells us that only the Kohathites – a family in the tribe of Levi – were allowed to carry ark. And even they were told that “they must not touch the holy things or they will die.” But if they couldn’t touch the ark -how were the Kohathites supposed to carry it?
The ark was an elaborate box covered with gold… and along each side there were rings that were designed to hold wooden poles that the Kohathites would use to carry it.
BUT, when David and the Israelites decided to take the ark into Jerusalem they didn’t do it that way. They weren’t using poles to carry it. They had put it up on a new oxcart and were wheeling it down the road.
Why would they do that?
Why use an oxcart to carry the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem?
Didn’t someone know that the ark was never to be touched
and only carried about using wooden poles?
Why risk the wrath of God by directly disobeying a
command from Scripture?
The truth is . . . . they did know. The Scripture says they used a new ox cart to
haul the ark. If they couldn’t touch the
ark without dying, how did they put the ark on the cart in the first place? They had to use the wooden poles to do it,
otherwise someone else would have died.
They deliberately disobeyed God’s instructions to hand-carry the ark
wherever it was to be moved.
David learned a lesson in this – it’s possible to do the
right thing, but do it the wrong way. It
is possible to try to fix things or solve a problem using our own imagination
and technology and forget God and His commands and we have to answer for
that. We pray every Sunday, “Thy will be
done” and the rest of the week insist on doing things our way. Why?
Because it’s likely the way that will have the least resistance in the
world we live in. It’s ten miles to
Jerusalem - why carry the ark on foot when you can haul it on a cart? It might be embarrassing to be seen behaving
religiously in a world that is hostile to the Gospel. It’s a matter of where do you place your
faith – in your own resources or in God’s hands?
A few years ago, there was a Christian movie about a
group of youths who had just graduated from school and were committed to make a
difference in the world for God. It was
called “This is Our Time”. What they
discover is the sacrifices they have to make are far more costly than they
imagined and in the end it’s not their time, but God’s time that makes the difference. One of the lines in that film goes like this:
"So
if it's God's call, it's supposed to be easy? 'Cause that's not what Paul would tell you, or
Stephen, or Moses, or Jim Elliot and Nate Saint. Do you want me to keep going?
Because it seems to me the most obedient ones in the Bible, the ones who were
truly following God's call on a daily basis, get thrown into lion's dens and
fiery furnaces and shipwrecked and beheaded and nailed to a cross. And they’re
all praised for being the most faithful and successful in God's eyes."
They speak of some modern day martyrs – missionaries Jim
Elliot and Nate Saint - who were murdered by the aboriginal tribes they were
reaching out to. We could add countless
others from the Bible and the martyrs since who lost their lives for the simply
obeying God. But all of these people had
one thing in common – an unshakable faith in what they were doing. Like David, they knew they had their hands on
the right thing and were unashamed to express it.
It was the missionary Jim Elliot who said this:
“Faith
never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is
leading.”
Steadfast faith in
the face of adversity is the indelible mark of a follower of Christ.
I’d like to leave
you with a few Bible verses to consider as we consider our own faith.
What is faith?
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things
not seen.
It’s easy to believe in the things
we can touch, see, smell, taste and hear, but to put our trust in God whom we
experience through Scripture and the spirit within us requires faith.
Why is faith important?
Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach
him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
God is not impressed with our
successes, but He rejoices in our faith.
How is faith expressed?
1 Peter 3:15
but in your hearts
sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who
demands from you an accounting
for the hope that is in you.
You see, it all comes down to faith. Do we have faith that God keeps His
promises? Do we have faith that God’s
rewards are not here on Earth, but in His heaven? Do we have faith that when we do mission to
the poor and oppressed we are laying up our treasure in that heavenly
place? Do we have unquestioning faith
that God’s hand is in everything we see and do every day? If we have that kind of faith, we can indeed
accomplish anything in God’s way and in God’s time.
So I ask you all to shamelessly dance
the joyous dance of faith in your daily lives so that all the world can see the
hope within us.
Amen
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