Team David or Team John - or both?

It wasn’t many weeks ago that I was up here proudly boasting about St. Clement’s wonderful showing in the Lynn Valley Day parade - we had over 20 people marching the street with signs and banners and St. Clement’s t-shirts and big smiles.

But I now confess feeling somewhat humbled by today’s first reading, in which the Ark of the Covenant was joyfully paraded to Jerusalem. Our congregation is growing, but it might be a while before we can muster 33,000 people for our Lynn Valley Day entry.  And unlike David’s men we didn’t sacrifice an ox six paces in, although Helen and the youth did enjoy a good breakfast at McDonalds ahead of time.

But after I recovered from my dismay, what I noticed was that both the reading from Samuel and the gospel story of John’s beheading illustrate two different ways we can stand up for God and for the values of our faith. For ease of reference we’ll call them the King David model and the John the Baptist model.

If we are on Team David, we are willing to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, regardless of what people think of us. King David’s joyous shenanigans as he and the men brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem were witnessed with great disdain by his first wife, Michal. Directly after today’s reading, after everyone goes home, Michal chastises King David for uncovering himself and dancing in view of the servant women as "any vulgar fellow" might do. David is unapologetic; he says he wasn’t dancing for the women, but for the Lord, and would happily abase himself more than that for the sake of God.

If we’re on Team David, we aren’t afraid to bring God into the conversation. We’re not worried what our friends at school or work will think if they see us waving "Welcome to Church" signs in the community parade. We proclaim our faith, we invite others to the party, we aren’t shy to talk about God’s role in our life, and, most important of all, we are proactive in standing up for, and exhibiting, gospel values of humility, love, and justice. In this garden of Planet Earth, we plant seeds of God’s goodness wherever and however we can.

A poster boy for Team David popped up in my news feed this week. One hundred years ago last Thursday, Scottish athlete Eric Liddell won the gold medal for the 400m race at the Paris Olympics. He is better known, however, for the race he didn’t enter, as dramatized in the inspiring movie, Chariots of Fire. As you may remember, he refused to run the 100m race that he was touted to win because it had been scheduled on a Sunday. By refusing to run on the Sabbath, he became the focus of anger and ridicule as much as admiration. The 100m sprint was his speciality, and his country had been counting on him. People hammered on his doors and shouted in the streets that he was a traitor.

Just as David was held in contempt by Michal, Eric’s God-inspired action was held in contempt by many of his countrymen. But both King David and Eric Liddell held fast to their principles. Eric Liddell soon put athletics aside altogether, despite the fame that came after his triumphant win, and went on to become a missionary in China.

So we each might ask ourselves, how do we embody the David model? How are we making our faith more alive and apparent in the world? Where do we make conscious choices to put God first? If a co-worker or an acquaintance heard from someone that you were a Christian, would that be news to them, or would they say, "Yeah, that shows." Do we need to practice being more "out there" as Christians, and if so, how might we do so in a way that draws respect from people of all faiths and none?

And then there’s the John the Baptist model. That’s not so much about adding to the good, but striking down the bad. John, as you’ll recall, was happy to start his talks by shaking his fist at the gathered crowd and shouting "You brood of vipers!" I can’t say I look to John as a model for sermon-writing, but I readily acknowledge that there is a time and a place to call out wrongdoing in no uncertain terms.

It breaks my heart, as I’m sure it does yours, to see the surging aggression and extremism in global politics and other parts of society, fuelled in part by people willing to turn a blind eye to obvious flaws in conduct and character in political or other leaders. What would the landscape look like now if years ago more people had stood up and demanded better? Would it have been possible to pluck out some of the weeds early, before they had the chance to take over the garden?

In the gospel reading, Herodius has John put to death because he publicly disapproved of her marriage to Herod Antipas. Both Herodius and Herod had divorced their spouses before marrying each other, contrary to the law of the land. Now, you might think, well, that was a personal matter and maybe there were better things for John to be worried about. But their transgression of the accepted moral code turned a private matter into a public one. Herod’s first wife was Phasaelis, who was the daughter of Aretas, king of a neighbouring territory. There was already some unrest regarding territorial boundaries, and John’s divorce of Phasaelis ratcheted tensions up even further. It resulted in King Aretas sending a vast army to punish Herod, with devastating results for the latter and the loss of untold innocent lives.

Rooting out small sins before they have big consequences is part of what people on Team John want to do. And I hasten to say that if we’re on Team John, we start by holding a mirror up to our own failings and remaining robustly attentive to those as well.

Now, sometimes it is easy to see and condone evil acts (in ourselves or others) and it is important for society’s sake that we do so. Sometimes, though, when we are trying to weed a garden we can have a tough time identifying which plant is which, or we can pull up the good with the bad. I’m certainly not advocating that we become over-aggressive officers on the Morality Police squad. When we speak out against bad actions or bad actors clumsily, thoughtlessly, or without compassion, we can risk being self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, or self-interested.

Perhaps we can manage that risk by noticing how the "self" is at the centre of all those negative qualities, and put God at the centre instead. Instead of being self-aggrandizing, we can give glory to God and make sure we ourselves are walking in humility, always conscious that we have more to learn from the world and the varied people who live in it. Instead of being self-interested, we can be interested in speaking up for the common good and for a society that supports the wellbeing of all.

You still might get your head handed to you on a platter by people who disagree with your message, but if you have acted from a place of compassion, temperance and love you will have little cause for regret. So perhaps some of us need to all on our John side more often, and be more engaged and courageous in our care of God’s garden.

I said at the beginning that both the David model and the John model carry risk. Getting your head on a platter is a more obvious risk; the dressing down David got from his wife over his parade antics seem rather mild by comparison. But the prescribed lectionary reading omits a passage that describes an event that took place in the middle of the procession of the Ark to Jerusalem. After they had started out, Uzzah, one of the men who is guarding the Ark, holds out his hand and steadies it when it is shaken by the oxen. According to the scripture, God is so angry at Uzzah for touching the holy ark, even for the best of reasons, that he strikes him dead.

You likely find God’s act inexplicable, and so did King David. He was angry at God, and became afraid. David decided he didn’t want to risk having the Ark of the Covenant in his keeping, so he took it to someone else’s house instead, where it remained for three months. Our lectionary reading picks up after the point that David has regained confidence in walking alongside the Ark of the Covenant, and the procession to Jerusalem resumes.

We, too, risk being vastly disappointed in God.  When we feel like we have been God’s constant companion and enthusiastic cheerleader, and then something terrible and inexplicable happens in our life or to a loved ones, it can sometimes derail us. How devastating it is that the faithful Sabbath keeper and Olympic hero Eric Liddell, who stayed fiercely committed to his ministry in China even after the Japanese invasion, died in an internment camp at age 43. We rail against an unfair world in which so many good and innocent suffer, while evil can too often flourish. Like David, our trust in God may be upended and we might even call a time-out from a relationship we feel has let us down.

Great joy and great suffering are inevitable companions in life’s journey, and we do not always know when or where we will meet them. There is no map that will allow any of us to avoid suffering entirely. But as Christians, we know that wherever our road takes us, we will find our way more surely, and persevere more ably, with God at our side. David resumed his journey with the ark after three months apart from it; from what he said to Michal at the end of the joyous procession it seems his faith was stronger than ever. And Eric Liddel’s dying words, we are told, were of complete surrender to God. We pray that our own experiences of the dark times ultimately lead us back to an active trust in God’s loving kindness.

Walking in God’s way, whether on Team David or Team John, may feel risky at times. But we risk more by staying at arm’s length, by not engaging in honest self-examination or by failing to advocate for a more just and peaceful world. There is much at stake in this garden we live in, and much work to be done to restore it. If that isn’t our job as Christians, I don’t know what is. I have shared with you this prayer before, but feels especially right to pray it together today.

May God give us the grace never to sell ourselves short;

grace to risk something big for something good;

grace to remember that the world is too dangerous for anything but truth

and too small for anything but love.

So, may God take our minds and think through them;

may God take our lips and speak through them;

may God take our hearts and set them on fire.

Amen.