conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

I'm thinking about the fact that there are limits on evangelism. Some people think that if you keep at someone, flog them enough with the scriptures, they'll eventually relent. The readings today (and last week, or all last week if you're RCL) seem to indicated that sometimes people just aren't going to listen, and you need to walk away, shaking the dust from your feet.

Relentless nagging rarely wins the day, from what I've seen.

Could you say more about the Bria quotation? I don't see a link of necessity between participation in liturgy and living according to the Gospel.

I can certainly understand or imagine why Bria would *prefer* that people participate in liturgy, but his/her absolutist language of what is actually possible and not possible leaves me skeptical.

I know. Imagine. Me, skeptical... :-)

Is the context of this that David was dancing in celebration of his victory in war? In quickly reading the preceding chapter on Bible.org, that's what it seems to me. Yippee. God backed our side, let us praise Him. It was a really big battle, so let's really rock out.

It's also interesting that the Lectionary leaves out the part about Uzzah making an effort to keep the Ark from falling, but God was irate about him touching the Ark, so He killed Uzzah.

Old Testament at its best. God the warrior. People cannot touch or be touched by the holy. Thank God for Jesus where people are healed instead of destroyed by the Divine.

It's not easy to look at this passage out of context for me. The next part deals with David's wife, Michal picking at David for not living up to the dignity of his office. His response - No soup for you! - she is stricken barren or cut off from intimacy with David. All of this is a function of how people lived in this era of history, but we are really forced to cherry pick to find the passages that have the potential to mean something in our lives.

I often think that we would be better served by relegating the OT to the same place we send the hymns with non-inclusive language. If some people need these touchstones to find God, keep them available, but don't make them a part of the week to week liturgy, even in edited form.

Having harrangued, I can see that David's joy for worship, where the high and the low come together as equals in the eyes of God dancing and singing, looks like more genuine (and more fun) than a stilted liturgy, but he obviously had something big to celebrate. The conundrum for me in relating it to 21st Century life is that we need to find a way to see God as a joy for today worth celebrating, instead of a hedge against death. Our culture has a difficult time ascribing value to future events, particularly future events that have relatively little impact on our present. If we can figure out how to magnify God's presence so we feel Him before we walk in the door of the church, worship will be more genuinely joyful. But I think most people are coming to church to look for meaning in the form of God, making Worship feel a little like putting the cart before the horse.

Anyhow, I used the Bible.org site for quick access to Scripture and some background on the passages in spite of its conservative bent. In looking at it, I think you might find the last part of this link interesting. I will copy it here, but leave the link in case you want more context. Thanks for the forum.

"Finally, this chapter has a great deal to say in relationship to the charismatic/non-charismatic controversy so prevalent in the church today. There are two extremes, two polarities, and we are prone to drift toward one or the other (and sometimes one and then the other). The first is that of reckless abandon. David and the rest were so caught up with their worship they seemed to forget who they were worshipping -- a holy God. We can get so carried away with the emotional element of our worship that we lose all self-control. In the excitement of the moment, things that God has clearly forbidden somehow seem permissible, even necessary (like grabbing the ark). Uzzah was “caught up” in the excitement of bringing the ark of God back, but he forgot to pay close enough attention to God and to His Word. Uzzah died for his irreverence. Let us never forget this. Enthusiasm is never an excuse for disobedience to the Word of God.

For many, the danger I have suggested is hardly a danger. We are in no danger of getting carried away with our worship. Our worship is so stiff or so structured that nothing unplanned could possibly happen. Listen well. I am not opposed to structure, and there is much to be said for an appreciation of God's majesty in our worship. But some of us don't raise our hands or our voices because we are too proud to do so. Like Michal, we are more concerned with our dignity than with God. Let us beware of avoiding enthusiasm in our worship because we think it beneath us.

Two extremes are exposed in our text, and both are wrong. Enthusiastic worship, which underestimates the holiness of God and violates the Word of God, is wrong, and no matter how much enthusiasm you may add, it is still wrong until it rightly views God and until it rightly approaches God. Stately worship that avoids emotion and enthusiasm, purely because we are too proud to humble ourselves before God, is just as wrong. The former produces barrenness; the latter produces death. Let us seek to worship God as David and Israel eventually did, in accordance with His Word, with humility, with hearts filled with joy and gratitude, and with enthusiasm."

http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=562

Mark, you're working off different readings. Poor RCL folk are stuck with the beheading of John. Or maybe lucky RCL folks, who knows? I'll be in Tennessee.

And Tripp... that quote is not so different from worship leading to life vs. death. HA!

Rich,

You know, all of what you said is good and actually helpful. And, not beacuse I cave to such pressure, the reading for Sunday includes Uzzah's death. The RCL folk often do this with their readings. I can only speculate as to why. I find that it is worth putting in to begin a conversation...one just like you have created here.

I think that there are helpful ways of talking about it...in terms of power (That word again.), place in the cosmos, largeness, smallness, our comodifying God into a set of thoughts and philosphies as opposed to understanding that God is All Powerful and not our theo-philosophical plaything. In spite of the absurdity that may be inferred from Uzzah's demise, perhaps we should learn a lesson about how the ancients understood life and experienced their place in it.

God is not our plaything. Worship is not a set of rites only, but an encounter with Someone living.

Megan,

Ion Bria is (Well, was...he passed on a few years ago.) an Orthodox priest. So, he does have a bias. But don't we all. I find his bias helpful, however because he wants to keep us from thinking, as I said to Rich above, that worship is simply a set of rites or rituals. If we actuall mean what we say in worship (and the Ortho's say a whole lot!), then how we live from day to day should reflect this. One cannot live without the other. If we actually encounter Christ in our gathering and in the bread and wine, then how is it even remotely consistant to not assume we encounter God in the rest of our life together? This is an oversimplification to be certain, but it gets to the point.

If I am recalling our previous conversations rightly, the liturgical thing on Sunday (because it is a part of the institutional practice?) gets in your way. You find it harder to be Christ-like because of it and not the other way around. Is this close?

Bria might then say that the worship life you have encountered is false or at least lacking. To him it is all of a piece. We have communion every Sunday because Jesus said to. (Do this whenever you gather in remembrance of me.). This assumes a gathering community. What regularity is not important, but that it gathers. It, like Jesus, worships. Jesus prayed on hilltops and in the Temple. Jesus worshiped. We too, I say as a Baptist, then should do the same. Worship is thus essential. Gathered worship is essential as well as solitary meditation and prayer. These are Christ-like efforts. And, as worship and meditation are ways of being in relationship with God, so too is feeding the poor. Bria connects it all in the same way.

We feed the poor because Jesus, who became poor for us, has fed us and has asked us to feed the poor. It is that simple.

Susie,

Yep. True enough.

Tripp,

Thanks. I meant it to be both helpful and challenging. It is an odd duality to see what the church needs as an institution and yet to see how the means to fill that need creates personal faith challenges.

So, what do you believe was the cause of Uzzah's death? If we take the position that God's power is only beneficial toward life, can we assume that Uzzah took ill quickly and that this was the explanation? Or, is it more likely that someone in David's retinue saw the touch and then took Uzzah aside and said "Thanks for saving the Ark, but you know that your life is forfeit because of the touch"? I am more inclined toward the second, given the zealotry that goes with the rescue of an icon like the Ark.

I am a little curious why you used the word "cave"? Because none of this is certain, all we have is dialogue and thought to come up with positions. I think we both are trying to be open minded within the context of our training. The fact that your view is not cast in stone (but your core faith is) is the key to your success in the CCW. You won't offend me until you lock into an opinion that you back up with the phrase "Because I said so." or "Because it just is."

Someone explain it to me. Am I just not funny? Or is it that the internet does not convey my humor (sarcasm) well? Sigh. Whine. (That was meant to be funny, too.)

Heh.

I said cave to be funny...because I said so, that's why! I am aware that some may think I am giving in to pressure from within the congregation to express an interpretation I may not believe. Obviously, that is far from the truth.

You know, I dunno about Uzzah. It is a huge puzzle for me as well. If we hold to a Trinitarian theology, then the God who struck down Uzzah is the same who died for him. Yeah, there it is. Incredible. Complicated. I just don't know what to do with it. The Bible.org stuff is interesting in trying to make sense of it, but their debate is so far removed from our own.

Uzzah was struck down because he was too tactful? Ha! LOL. Oy veh. They don't really mean it that way of course, but I could not help but go there.

Uzzah could have been struck down as you said. Also, I have had images from the first Indiana Jones film running through my head as well. Interesting.

Keep me in your prayers as I prepare this sermon. It should be a doozy!

We're RCL, but using the option for the Amos reading. And, as it turns out, I'm preaching on the psalm anyway - mercy and truth, righteousness and peace.