Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Rev. Daniel E. Somers, Dcn+

St. Andrew’s Church

Sermon

July 15, 2018

Fleshdance Flashback

            From the Kenyan poet, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, “Hunting Words with my Father:”

One morning I burst into my father’s study and said

when I grow up, I too want to hunt, I want to hunt

words, and giraffes, pictures, buffalos, and books

And he, holding a pen and a cup of tea, said, “Little Father,

to hunt words can be dangerous – but still, it is best to start early.

He waved his blue bic-pen and his office turned into Nyandarua forest….

I had no words, “Come let us go home Little Father.

When you are of age you shall find the words,” he said.

But always be careful – to hunt a word is to hunt a life.”

            Today’s scripture – its words – paint vivid pictures, not so much of a hunt, but rather that of dance.  First, we have David’s dance before the Ark of the Covenant upon its entrance into Jerusalem.  Second, we have Salome’s dance before her uncle and stepfather (yes, he was both) Herod Antipas.  Both are sexually charged, and both have consequences.

           As it stands, the passage in Samuel seems to suggest that David and those who were with him were so overcome with emotion that they engaged in festive dancing as the ark made its way toward the temple mount.  Because the act of sacred dancing to the accompaniment of musical instruments was an activity associated with early Israelite prophecy, it may simply be that David andhis followers were seized by a spirit of prophetic ecstasy.

            Yet there are certain nagging questions about David's dancing. The suggestion has been made by some that David is engaging in a ritual more associated with the worship of Baal than with the worship of Yahweh.  It is curious that the issue of David's nakedness before Yahweh is not mentioned until near the end of the story – and outside the bounds of our lection. This certainly helps to explain why his first wife Michal, Saul’s second daughter, on witnessing the dancing spectacle, “despised [David] in her heart.”

            If there was any lingering doubt about David’s comportment through the streets of Jerusalem as he led the ark’s progress, it is dispelled in the subsequent exchange at verses 20-23 between him and Michal:

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.” 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, that I have danced before the LORD. 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." And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.

            There was to be no warmth or comfort to be found henceforth in that marital bed.  As Mukoma said, “to hunt a word is to hunt a life.”

            Fast forward a thousand years, we now have the notorious story of Salome’s dance.  It is one that has inspired painters such as Titian, novelists such as Gustav Flaubert, playwrights such as Oscar Wilde, and composers such as Richard Strauss. 

Israel no longer has its own king, but rather vassals under the thumb of Roman emperors.  Herod the Great died not long after Jesus was born.  His fiefdom was then divided into four parts among his sons, who became known as tetrarchs.  Herod Antipas ruled Galilee.  He had an adulterous affair with his brother’s wife (and niece) Herodias whom he subsequently married.  Her daughter (and his stepdaughter and great-niece) was Salome.

If your head is spinning, I cannot say that I blame you.  Figuring out who is related to whom and how is a daunting task, when dealing with the Herodian dynasty. 

           In a literary device seldom seen in the Bible, Mark resorts to a flashback.  He interrupts his account of Jesus’ ministry to recount the circumstances of his famous cousin’s death, John the Baptist.  It was he who had launched Jesus on his mission at the River Jordan.  Who was John the Baptist?  He was the locust and honey eating, garbed in camel hair homespun prophet who announced a new path to salvation.  According to Mark at 1:1-8, John said, “I’ll baptize you with water but he [Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  Salvation was no longer the exclusive domain of the circumcised descendants of Abraham.  The rite of baptism and true repentance were the new path as God sought authenticity and justice.  His message resounded among those whom Jesus later happily frequented – sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes.  As noted in the Gospel of John, 1:6-9:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  The true light, which enlightens everyone was coming into the world!

His mission in short was none other than to announce to all of Jesus’ coming – a herald.  Upon the mention of Jesus’ rising fame, the narrator shifts and recalls Salome’s dance and its consequences. 

            Salome’s lapdance must have been one for the ages.   Herod was prepared to surrender half his kingdom.  Only a teenager, she had already mastered her craft.  Unlike Queen Vashti in the Book of Esther, who knew all too well the hazards of appearing in a banquet hall full of drunken, powerful men (Vashti was deposed and banished for her principled refusal as a consequence), Salome and her mother Herodias knew how to capitalize on the situation.  A freshly severed head of a vocal critic served on a platter at a bacchanal? Not a problem.

            One could point to these stories of sexual titillation, capricious behavior and debauchery and draw some rather obvious contemporary moral lessons. I will resist that temptation – it’s too easy.  One with a bit more effort could draw an analogy to this tableau and the perils of demagogy: an angry and confused body politic, seduced by the wild, lurid promises of a telegenic demagogue, allows its liberties to be sacrificed, but that trope also is too transparent – or is it?  No matter.

            While Mark strives to portray Herod as a befuddled, but conflicted patriarch cornered by his women, Luke’s portrayal at 23:10-11 of Herod at Jesus’ trial in Jerusalem on the eve of his execution is anything but sympathetic: “Herod with his soldiers treated [Jesus] with contempt and mocked him” as the chief priests and scribes stood by, “vehemently accusing him.”  Hunting for words from Jesus was to hunt for his life.

            So what are we to make of these dances?  And can there be any pure joy found in our embrace of Holy Scripture as     its characters dance before us?  The dances of David and Salome cannot be our lodestar.  Rather, it should be the dance of God itself that we should join. In fact, Jesus is the Lord of the Dance.  In the non-canonical Acts of John, Jesus leads the disciples in a dance to a mystical hymn he sings following his last supper.  In our presentation hymn today, we will sing of him as such, Lord of the Dance.

As I mentioned to you a few weeks ago in a sermon on Jesus’ parables of seeds and creation, we are active participants with God in the ongoing act of creation.  As I have reflected more on that insight and today’s lections, I am indebted to Dancing with God by the womanist theologian Karen Baker-Fletcher. 

To be a Christian, a disciple, according to her is to join our lives to the life of the Trinity. We are to enter into the work that God started way back at the dawn of time, in Genesis 1, and is continuing to do today, even in the most broken places, especially in the most broken places.  God did not call it quits after the sixth day, satisfied with his handiwork for all time.  It is ongoing.  To do so is to dance with God, the Trinity in Unity, as it in turn dances.

God does not literally dance in the way we human beings think of dancing. The word dance in this context refers to the dynamic, ongoing movement of God in creation as God continuously creates and recreates, making all things new. God moves creation to literally and metaphorically dance. Even the dense, subquantum particles of energy that make up rocks, which appear to be static, are dynamically moving in relation to one another. The word “dance” and the phrase “dance of life” are metaphors that refer to this movement. God, Jesus said, is “like the wind.” One cannot see the wind, but one experiences its movement in the world. Similarly, one cannot see God, but one experiences God’s movement in the universe.

For Baker-Fletcher, the three elements of the Trinity indwell one another in one divine nature, dynamically, relationally dancing around and within one another.  Much like the movements of fireflies on an early July evening – it’s magical.  Julia and I have the good fortune to be able to do so every July in an unspoiled floodplain a short distance from our house. Each dynamically and interrelationally participates in the one work of divine love, creativity, justice and righteousness through distinctive actions. The Holy Spirit empowers and encourages the dance, which is the dance of life.  It can be defined by what it is not – it is not the dance of the egotistical, euphoric victor à la David nor is it the dance of the debauched à la Salome.

The grace of God moves through the entire Trinity. It is present in God the Creator who is like a parent, which reflects God's dynamic, providing, nurturing love. It is present in God's dynamic, creative relation of incarnate, passionate and redeeming love. This is the power of God in Christ who is the Word and Wisdom of God. It is present in God's compassionate, comforting, and resurrecting love, which is the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the power of the Holy Spirit who unites the first two. All three relational actions of the divine community create and love, inviting us to join in.  In hunting these words, one is hunting eternal life.

            May we who are Christian, realize that when we truly follow Jesus – with all our hearts, minds, strength and souls, loving our neighbors as ourselves – we are the miracle. We are the miracle when we live in the wholeness of divine grace toward all creation. This is the good news of Jesus, the Christ! This is the dance with God, the holy dance!

            With that exhortation in mind, I would like you to do me a favor.  On each of the index cards that I am passing out, please 1) identify a person or persons whom you believe would enjoy or benefit from a pastoral visit (it can be you – don’t be bashful), 2) specify a service or program that you would like to see implemented here at St. Andrew’s, and 3) imagine an outreach program for the larger community that you think St. Andrew’s could and should engage in – one that fills a pressing local need.

            This will be immensely useful to me and your vestry as we begin our “dance” together.  You can hand them in at coffee hour today, to the wardens when convenient or to me when I rejoin you on August 5th.

               Thank you.