2 samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19
for “preaching the plenary” at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, December 2018.
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The carnival, a festival of reversals, where the oppressed celebrate as kings, has unclear but ancient origins. It is connected to early ritual gatherings marking the rebirth of the world in winter, to Roman Saturnalia celebrations, to medieval Catholic pre-Lenten festivals. In the modern era, indigenous and enslaved communities primarily celebrated carnival, and we perhaps know it most intimately in the United States with Marti Gras in New Orleans. In carnival, there is dancing, and deep erotic energy, and abundant food, and music that reverberates through bodies and streets. Carnival is a pressure-release valve, a day of uninhibited freedom to embody class and social roles usually off-limits, with the following days returning to entrenched power structures. By allowing carnival, powerful elites reinforce their domination by permitting a day of subversion, knowing that carnival ends.
But what if it didn’t?
The return of the ark of God marks a festival of carnival, enacted by King David. He returns, not with a warrior’s victory march, not with a kingly procession, but with a mighty dance. King David is returning the ark of God, which we encountered earlier when Samuel received his call, and which was then stolen by the Philistines, to a place of glory. The ark as an object has incredible energy – it is not a neutral object. There are blessings and joy pouring forth, but also death. The gap in the pericope of this text includes Uzzah simply steading the ark on the cart and dying from the contact. Earlier in the narrative 70 people died upon contact. The ark is a contradiction, unable to be fully understood, an object of God on earth.
There is so much power in the ark, and in it’s return, sanctifying King David’s reign. And he dances in response, turning his back on Saul’s model of dominion, joining with his community in the dance. There is an element of queerness in this dance. The rejection of Saul’s dominion is a rejection of the systems of oppression, and God is with David in celebration. David and the crowd are still dancing for God, even after Uzzah’s death, and the death of the seventy, even in the midst of harmful structures. It reminds me of gay club culture. Spaces to be joyful, to dance, to sweat, to mourn, are an act of resistance when we are surrounded by death. In the United States, clubs were the origin of the LGBTQ rights movement – they were some of the only spaces we could exist in the fullness of our complicated joy, and were regularly raided by the police because the oppressive structures couldn’t hold our dancing. Those raids led to resistance, and a new way of being in society, sparked by trans women of color who said ‘enough’, and turned their backs in dance and riot against the systems-as-is.
Michal recognizes the subversive nature of David’s dance. She is Saul’s daughter, from a vastly different class background than David. His dancing opposes her views of what power and masculinity are. We don’t get their full exchange here, only that she saw him dancing and despised him. But going further in the text, we learn that she despises him for lowering himself in front of God, for not behaving as a king ‘should’. She reprimands him, and David responds that he has been chosen by God, and was dancing for God. This is not the last time he will debase himself in the eyes of those around him, and this time, it is a subversion of power and for the glory of God, not for human sin.
David is playing with traditions of masculinity in his dance. Here he is a priest, and a king, but he has rejected the flaunting of power and strength that can come with those roles. He “dances with all his might”, which has an erotic connotation, and in dancing he has more in common with lower class sex workers than with King Saul. He is secure enough in his role and masculinity that he doesn’t need to posture, but instead can dance, and play, and be joyful. In this fleeting moment, in his sweat and breath, David is in full communion with God and his community.
A heartbeat of this passage is celebration, a celebration filled with joy in the return of a stolen sacred object, filled with dancing for the glory of God. A detail I love in this story is when David distributes food to everyone in the crowd. This food didn’t need to be earned, or bought, but was freely given, in the same way God provided manna in the wilderness, in the same way Nehemiah’s people freely shared food in celebration, in the same way Joseph opened the storehouses to sustain his people. King David first sacrifices to God, giving firstfruits of a fatted calf after only six steps in the journey, dancing in his priestly clothing. He gives burnt offerings and fellowship offerings at the end of the journey, still dancing, and then gives to his community. He gives abundantly, so that there are no barriers to participation in this joyous day.
David is a carnival king, who rejects the dominion of scarcity, and embraces the dancing kingdom of God. As he upends the propriety of a traditional king, he also upends modern and historic class divides, centering generosity and joy. He doesn’t act out of fear, but delight. In this passage, David lets go of historic fears – he returns the ark without holding onto the fear of more death. He dances for God without fear of what he looks like, and without fear that it will reduce his masculinity, or his anointing. By dancing, David is sharing intimacy with God, and God delights in this dance.
He dances in mourning, in celebration, in anticipation. His dance is resistance, a prayer for the world to come. The percussion beat, loaves of bread, linen garments are blessings. I can imagine David in this moment, coated with sweat and dust from the journey, heart pounding in celebration and hope, muscles sore, leaving everything on the table for God, eyes slightly unfocused in wonder and worship, knowing that he danced but forgetting the details because he was so caught up in the moment, in full communion with God and his community, blood pounding with blessing. And that feels so holy, and so subversive, and so tender.
Reed Fowler 