Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.
“Marion, don’t look at it. Shut your eyes, Marion. Don’t look at it, no matter what happens.” Indiana Jones speaks these words to Marion Ravenwood in the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant in an attempt to harness its awesome power. Stephen Spielberg’s take on what happens next was probably inspired, in part, by the passage we read from 2 Samuel this morning.
Rival archeologist and Nazi stooge, René Belloq, dressed in Hollywood’s take on the garments of a high priest and holding a replica of Moses’ staff, utters incantations in Aramaic, and the top of the Ark is removed. When they look inside, initially they find only sand—the natural accumulation of millennia in the desert. But, before long, a swirling portal of light and cloud begins to fill the Ark. Ghostly spirits leap from the vessel and begin to fly around.
Then, in an instant, the Nazi’s curiosity turns to horror. Divine power, represented by fiery beams, begins to emanate from the Ark, killing and consuming anyone it touches. In what was a cutting-edge special effect back in 1981, the heads of Belloq and the Nazi leaders standing with him are liquified by the fire and then explode. Finally, when God had finished consuming all who thought the Ark could be used for evil, its cover falls back into place, slamming shut the container of divine power, effectively resealing the presence of God within the sacred chest.
In today’s Old Testament reading, we see the power of God spill out from the Ark and consume Uzzah, the priest, because he dared to underestimate its holiness, but this story is a little harder for us to understand, because Uzzah wasn’t a bad guy, and he didn’t wear a Nazi uniform.
In last week’s reading from 2 Samuel 5, we heard the leaders of the twelve tribes proclaim David as the king of all Israel. He established Jerusalem as his capital city and fortified it as the place from which he would reign. But something was missing. The Ark of the Covenant was the literal seat of God, the place where the Lord of Hosts came to dwell among God’s people. For two decades, the Ark had been kept in the home of Abinadab, only brought out a time or two during military campaigns. But David was the king after God’s own heart, and he wanted to bring God’s presence and power into his capital city. So he led a procession of priests, choristers, dancers, and officials down to house of Abinadab to retrieve the Ark and bring it into the City of David.
But something went wrong. Along the way, the cart being led by the oxen was shaken, and the Ark of the Covenant began to fall. Without thinking, Uzzah reached up his hand to steady the holy seat of God to prevent it from falling to the ground. In an instant, the Lord struck him dead. Although it is missing from our translation, the biblical text lets us know that what Uzzah did was an “irreverent act,” but I’m not sure that really helps us understand it. As a child, I remember hearing this story and being confused. How could the God who loves me punish with instant death a man whose instincts had led him to save the Ark from falling in disgrace?
Of course, it’s more complicated than that. The problem started earlier, when the sons of Abinadab loaded the Ark onto a shiny new cart, built solely for this purpose. But the Ark isn’t supposed to be transported on a cart. The Bible makes it clear that the Ark must be carried on poles because it is too holy to be touched by human hands. That might sound like a silly detail, but, when we’re talking about the actual throne on which the Lord, the God of Hosts, chooses to sit, it matters.
When God struck Uzzah down, David became angry, and I wonder whether it was because, in that instant, David recognized that he should have known better. Quickly, his anger changed to fear as he realized that the carelessness with which he had approached this entire operation could be his downfall. “How can the Ark of the Lord come into my care?” David asked in a panic. So he left the Ark at a nearby house and cancelled the celebration and sent all the revelers home.
This same episode is recorded in 1 Chronicles, a book of the Bible that tells the history of God’s people from a priestly perspective. That account makes the issue clear. According to the Chronicler, after David had decided to try again, the king said to the priests, “Because you did not carry it the first time, the Lord our God burst out against us, because we did not give it proper care” (1 Chr. 15:13, emphasis added). The second time, in both accounts, the priests get it right, and they carry the Ark into the holy city, and David goes dancing before it.
The death of Uzzah is not the only part of this story that challenges our assumptions about God. As the king led the procession into Jerusalem, wearing a linen ephod and dancing with all his might, Michal, his first wife and the daughter of Saul, David’s predecessor, looked on with contempt. She despised him in her heart, the Bible tells us, and that comes as no surprise. Although, on the surface, it seems clear that the reason Michal holds David in scorn is his unseemly, anything-but-regal behavior, there’s more going on than the king’s embarrassing display.
Michal had been scorned. Her father had given her away as a wife for David, and the scriptures tell us that she loved her husband. In the Bible, Michal is the only woman who is ever said to have loved a man, but her love was not reciprocated. [1] When David was being hunted by her father, Michal helped him escape, choosing love over loyalty to Saul. But, by the time David and Michal were reunited, the would-be king had already begun to collect a harem of wives and concubines. In a political negotiation with one of Saul’s sons, David asked that Michal be returned to him in order to legitimize his claim to the throne. So she took her place, the first of David’s wives now reduced to a status she shared with more women than she could count.
Of course Michal was angry—angry at how David and her father had treated her, angry at the way that nothing had changed, angry that her husband, the king, now danced into town, exposing himself to all the women and girls who looked on. But the Bible doesn’t make David out to be the villain we think he is, at least not in this passage. Eventually, there will be consequences for his adulterous behavior, but this story isn’t about our sense of justice. It’s about the importance of losing ourselves in the awesome presence of God.
David wasn’t dancing for the women and girls who looked on, nor was he dancing for Michal. He was dancing for God—shamelessly, recklessly, passionately consumed with zeal for the Lord. Regardless of the unspoken reasons for Michal’s contempt, the criticism she expressed was that of a king who embarrassed himself by dancing the way a common, ordinary, vulgar fellow might dance. But, as David’s reply makes clear, God didn’t choose him to be king because he was a dignified politician but because ordinary people were able to see in him a man who belonged to God.
I don’t like the fact that God killed Uzzah because he dared to touch the untouchable Ark of God. And I don’t like the fact that Michal is portrayed in the wrong even though her contempt for David is not only understandable but justified. But, standing in the awesome presence of God, it doesn’t matter what I want or what I think or what I wish were true. The holiness of God must consume every aspect of our lives. It shapes us, not the other way around. Yes, our God is loving and merciful, but it’s not up to us to decide how and when that love and mercy are manifest. And thanks be to God for that! Can you imagine how quickly we’d find a way to substitute our self-seeking rationalizations for the eternal goodness of God?
Although much has changed since the Old Testament was written, human nature hasn’t changed at all. I am confident that the ancient Israelites who told and retold this story were as sensitive as we are to the unfairness of Uzzah’s death and the heartache that Michal felt. They didn’t like them any more than we do. But they told this story for the same reason we read it today—because we need to be reminded how easy it is to forget that God’s holiness is the source of our moral life. It always takes precedence. It must be the fount of our aspirations, the all-consuming compass that guides our every move.
When we forget that and begin to think that God’s power is something we can use to suit our needs and conform to our desires, we set ourselves up for the kind of moral catastrophe that exceeds even a Hollywood script. As history has shown, the consequences of wrapping our sinful ambitions within a religious veneer are disastrous in any generation. The biblical story of the Ark of the Covenant teaches us to recognize that regardless of the uniform its bearers are wearing.
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1. Gafney, Wilda C. Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne. Westminster John Knox Press; Louisville: 2017, 129.