8th
Sunday after Penecost
July 15, 2018
2 Samuel 6:1-23
The Old Testament story we read this
morning is one we so often read as a story about the ark of God being brought
to Jerusalem, the end of its travels and nomadic life. And we tend to focus on
the part about David dancing before the Lord, half-naked, and doing his best to
cut a rug. This time, though, what caught my eye reading this passage was the
one verse about how Michal, David’s first wife, because he had many wives, the first woman he married, watched him
dance and despised him for it. The
lectionary ends this passage on a high note, after David gives bread and cake
to everyone in the crowd and everyone goes home. But I extended it this morning
to include the confrontation between Michal and David that happens after that.
David, coming off a huge high, having finally, successfully, brought the ark of
the Lord to Jerusalem on the third try, having led a grand celebration with all
the people, blessing them and giving them bread and cake, then returns home to
bless his household, too. And you can imagine Michal there, waiting for him,
arms crossed, foot tapping, that
look on her face, and the
sarcasm that drips from her mouth, “How the King of Israel has distinguished himself today! Half-naked,
in front of his slave women, just like a dirty old man!”David denies it, says,
“No, I was dancing before the Lord, not the slave women,” yet at the same time,
David knew they were watching him,
too. And so of course he’ll be held in honor by them, they got to watch their
gorgeous king dance half-naked![1]
And the last line is that Michal had no children. Not that she was barren, but
that she was childless, meaning that David, her husband, chose not to sleep
with her. In what appears to be a story about great celebration, bringing the
ark to Jerusalem, its final home, yay, in the midst of that story, is another
story, a story of brokenness. You see, the problems between Michal and David
began a long time ago.
Michal was the younger daughter of King
Saul. After David defeated Goliath, King Saul offered his older daughter to
David to marry. David said, “No. Who am I, or who is my family, to become the King’s
son-in-law?” Basically, I’m a poor shepherd, my family isn’t well-to-do or high
class, I don’t belong in the royal family. I’m not good enoughKing Saul
accepted that. But then he found out his younger daughter, Michal, was in love
with David. So he offers Michal’s hand in marriage to David. David said the
same thing, I’m not worthy to be the King’s son-in-law. So, King Saul had his
servants tell David that the price to marry Michal is 100 dead Philistines
(because Saul was trying to get rid of David and he expected the Philistines to
kill David before David could kill 100 of them). And now King Saul had a deal. David
could prove his worth, and David did,
killing 200 Philistines, and Michal
and David got married. However, King Saul kept trying to kill David, but since
Michal loved David, she helped him escape from her father. After that, David
married other wives and had children by them, and King Saul took Michal and
gave her to another man! Some time went by, and King Saul died. After grieving
for him, David then got ready to take the kingship of Israel, the one promised
to him by God through the prophet Samuel so long ago. He made an arrangement
with a guy named Abner to unify Israel and make David King. David gave Abner a
condition, though: to bring Michal back to him, away from that other guy. Abner
did, and the other guy followed her, and wept, until Abner told him to go away.
It appears Michal might have found love and acceptance with this other guy, and
it sounds like she, also, might have been sad to leave him. Anyway, shortly
after this, and a few battles, David became King of Israel, and not long after
that, he tries to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, bringing us to
today’s story.
This time when Michal saw David dancing
in the street was probably the first time she had seen him again after all
that. It sounds like she’s no longer in love with him. It sounds like she had
found love with that other guy and David took it from her. It sounds like David
didn’t actually want her as a wife, but as a possession, a political pawn, just
like her father, King Saul, had used her. And so she tells David the truth
about himself, when she first sees him again. “You were dancing like a fool,
like you have no shame, like you didn’t care who was watching, but the King
always has to be aware of who’s watching. And you knew who was watching. You
knew they were eating it up. They liked it and you knew it.” She may have said
it with a bitter tone of voice. She may have said it self-righteously. She may
have said through tears. She may have said it calmly and matter-of-factly.
Regardless, it reveals a lot about her brokenness and pain. “I loved you, and
you didn’t love me back.” “I covered for you, lied for you, saved your life! And you didn’t come
save me when my father took me away.”
We are on week three out of four
exploring how Henri Nouwen outlines the life of God’s beloved. We are taken,
chosen by God, each of us special in God’s eyes. We are blessed, we are
affirmed, we speak words of blessing to others who also need to hear good
things spoken of them. And we acknowledge that we are broken. More
interestingly, Nouwen writes that “Our brokenness reveals something about who
we are… The way I am broken tells you something unique about me. The way you
are broken tells you something unique about you.”[2]
The way Michal was broken tells us something unique about her. Unrequited love.
Found love with someone else, which was taken away from her from the first guy
who didn’t love her. Now she’s back in his house again, powerless, and watching
him make a complete fool out of himself. Each person suffers in a different
way, in a way that no one else does.[3]
And there is no comfort, no consolation, in comparing your pain and mine. It’s
not helpful. It’s not comforting. It’s not a competition. We each have our unique
brokenness, just like our unique chosenness and blessedness.[4]
Nouwen believed that in the West, the
most painful suffering is feeling rejected, ignored, despised, and left alone.[5]
Michal wasn’t western, but that was also her suffering. Used as a pawn by her
father. Ignored by her husband, until she’s used as a pawn by him, too. And
left alone. I’ve heard it said that we live in an age when we are more
connected than ever, thanks to the telephone and the internet, and yet we are
more lonely than ever. I see it in some of you. I’ve felt it myself. The
Beatles sang about it 50 years ago, “Ah
look at all the lonely people. Ah look at all the lonely people. Eleanor Rigby,
picks up the rice, In the church where a wedding has been, Lives in a dream, Waits
at the window, wearing the face, That she keeps in a jar by the door, Who is it
for. All the lonely people.”[6]
There
is some good news here, if you’ve been wondering. While our natural responses
to pain are to avoid it at all costs, or ignore it, or deny it, or get angry about
it, Nouwen offers two healthy responses to suffering. First, to befriend it. He
says “the first step to healing is a step toward the pain.”[7]
You have to face it, acknowledge it, live through it, and yet the irony is that
you cannot do that on your own. You need a good friend, a loved one, a trusted
mentor, to keep you standing in it and to assure you that you will get through
it.[8]
That is what real care is. Going with someone to that doctor’s appointment.
Being a shoulder to cry on and an ear always willing to listen. Keeping your
arms open to hug. It’s hard to face brokenness. Even if you’re lonely, you
don’t have to do it alone. Don’t be afraid to ask. Ask anyone here, and they’d
gladly help. The funny thing about loneliness is that you can feel alone even
when you’re not. It’s a tricky feeling that can’t always been trusted. You can
feel alone in a crowd. You’re not alone, you’re in a crowd, yet you feel that
way. And that’s a good time to tell that feeling, no, you’re wrong. I’m not
alone. There are others here with me and Jesus is always with me. So you can go
away.
The
second healthy, helpful thing to do about pain is to put it under the blessing.
As I mentioned two weeks ago, it’s easier to believe we live under a curse.
It’s easier to believe negative things about ourselves. It’s easier to believe
that we’re unlovable than to know that you are loved, and loved so much. So,
when we follow that curse instead, pain becomes a confirmation of our negative
feelings about ourselves.[9]
I’m not good enough, and so of course I’m broken. I’m not worthy of being
healed, so of course I’m sick. I’m no good, so of course bad things happen to
me. I love how Nouwen phrases it: “We are easily
seduced into connecting events [in our lives] over which we have no control
with our conscious or unconscious evaluation [of ourself].”[10]
We are ‘easily seduced’ into explaining our brokenness as confirmation of being
cursed! We say, or think, things like, “Of course bad stuff always happens to
me! I’m a magnet for it! I’m cursed.” Instead, we must pull our brokenness away
from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing.[11]
Remember what we read during Advent and Christmas, “The people who walked in
darkness have seen a great light.”[12]
We don’t have to stay in the darkness. We can come out into the light. Or, as
the hymn says, “I want to walk as a child of the light.”[13]
Yet this is hard. I can sing to you but I can’t sugarcoat it. It’s hard because
“The powers of the darkness around us are strong and our world finds it easier
to manipulate self-rejecting people than self-accepting people.”[14]
It’s easy to feed someone’s fears and anxiety about not enough and scarcity and
not good enough. But when someone knows they are loved and accepted and they
have confidence in that, it’s much harder to get them to buy into fear and
scarcity and not enough, because they know they are enough.
Putting
that brokenness under the blessing, under the light, means remembering that
even in the midst of brokenness God loves us, no matter what. It means
remembering that you are special in God’s eyes. It means that any negative
things others may say about you, negative things you may say about yourself, do
not matter. What matters is what God says about you, which is that you are God’s
beloved child, made in God’s image and uniquely you. And you are blessed. You
are loved, even in the midst of brokenness. God is always with you, even in the
midst of brokenness. No brokenness is too broken for God. God’s the master
physician, the master healer, the one who is about redeeming and restoring
brokenness in the world God created.
I
don’t know which way Michal went, toward the curse or the blessing. The last
thing we’re told about her is that she was childless to the day of her death.
We’re not told whether she felt cursed by her life or whether she found peace
with it. It’s easy to believe from what we know of her story that she felt
cursed and never enough and lonely. She certainly would have gotten that
message from her father and her husband. Yet she had the courage to speak the
truth to David. Maybe that came from a place of quiet confidence that David
couldn’t hurt her anymore. Maybe. Either way, it shows she faced her
brokenness, she acknowledged her life wasn’t great, she’s one of those in the
bible who doesn’t get a happy ending.[15]
Yet she serves as a reminder that David wasn’t a golden boy, that David wasn’t
worthy of the Lord’s favor on him, and this is even before Bathsheba! Michal
was blessed when she figured out she couldn’t be manipulated anymore. She knew
the truth and she was secure in it. After all, the truth will set you free. It
was probably a long journey for her to get there. These things take time. Yet
God was with her, too, and there is a whole chapter in Isaiah dedicated to the childless
woman.[16]
It calls on her to sing and rejoice, do not fear, for you will not be ashamed,
and the Holy One of Israel will redeem you. May the Holy One of Israel redeem
you, too, in the midst of your brokenness. In the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[2] Life of the Beloved, Henri J.M. Nouwen,
p. 87
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid., p. 88
[5]
Ibid., p. 89
[6]
“Eleanor Rigby,” Beatles, 1962
[7] Life of the Beloved, Henri J.M. Nouwen,
p. 93
[8]
Ibid., p. 95
[9]
Ibid., p. 96
[10]
Ibid., p. 97
[11]
Ibid.
[12]
Isaiah 9:2
[13]
UMH 206
[14]
Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
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