Sunday: Heat Advisory
Past first light and all cleared through now and the Sun rising, but my first glance of Sunday's pitch black darkness was a blinding flash of lightning. Maybe it takes a Florida Boy to love being outside (screened porch against the bugs though) in this hotly humid warmth with an Advisory up for the day, "Heat Index up to 110°F expected for Portions of southwest Alabama and Big Bend and Panhandle Florida." Pretty nice right now, although I don't really get it that Wind is SE at zero mph.
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But today's good old time Sunday school Bible story for those parishes reading Track 1, a select portion of only 6:2-5 and 12b-19 to avoid theological unpleasantries. We are omitting the parts in [[double brackets]].
2 Samuel 6
6:[[1 David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand.]] 2 David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. 3 They carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart 4 with the ark of God, and Ahio went in front of the ark. 5 David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.
[[6 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 lurched. 7 The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him there, 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 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.
12 It was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God.”]] So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing, 13 and when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatted calf. 14 David danced before the Lord with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet.
16 As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.
17 They brought in the ark of the Lord and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before the Lord. 18 When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the offerings of well-being, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts 19 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.
[[20 David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, “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!” 21 David said to Michal, “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—I will dance before the Lord. 22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be humbled in my own eyes, but by the maids of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.” 23 And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.]]
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Any Time the lectionary framers cut out verses from the middle of a reading, I like to check and see what they're up to, because you know they're up to something. The greater story is about king David from the Time he slew Goliath, the scary giant Palestinian warrior. It's quite a story, in which the boy David wins Saul's heart by slaying Goliath, then impresses Saul by killing a hundred Palestinian men and bringing Saul their foreskins, and eventually Saul gives David his daughter Michal, who at the Time is in love with David.
When David and Saul split, (there are two different Saul & David stories, you know, this is a completely different Saul & David story from the story in which Samuel anoints the shepherd boy David because God has lost his regard for Saul), David has to flee, and Saul gives Michal to Paltiel, another man, for wife. Later, when Saul's general Abner wants to defect from Saul to David, David says he can't come unless he brings back David's wife Michal, and that happens in a sad story in which Paltiel runs, weeping, crying, as the soldiers seize Michal and take her away.
That David insists on his rights to a woman who no longer loves him tells something unpleasant both about David himself, and about the absence of women's rights in the culture of that day. In 2 Samuel 6, Michal, who already resents David for many reasons that an adult Sunday school class could enjoy sorting out, criticizes David for making a fool of himself, angering David, who, we are meant to understand, never again touched Michal. And so while David had children with other wives, and with Bathsheba another man's wife, there was no child between David and Michal that would have joined Saul's and David's lines.
There are various other passages that, intentionally or inadvertently, reveal to us that David, whom God loved so dearly, was far from a kind and loving man. David could be quite cruel. If David is your hero, maybe you need to take a closer look, read the whole story, both of them, nomesane?
At any event, the bit of theological challenge that the lectionary framers excised from this morning's OT reading: this isn't the only Time in the story that God strikes someone dead for reaching out to steady the Ark of the Covenant when it was in danger of falling. God ruled in the beginning that anyone who touched the Ark, except using poles, would die, and there were no exceptions no matter how innocent or instinctively was the act of touching. It makes for interesting Bible study, but not necessarily for good preaching, so the lectionary omits 2 Samuel 6:6-12a and we don't read it aloud in worship.
The part about David and Michal is omitted altogether. What is shown by the portion that we DO read? Something about the Holy Presence; maybe the preacher will preach on it this morning. Linda and I plan to go to the 10:30 service at Trinity, Apalachicola, and return to PC tomorrow, Monday morning.
RSF&PTL
T88&c