Devotions
Rev Gav
Undignified
2 Samuel 6:12-19
Then King David was told, “The Lord has blessed Obed-edom’s household and everything he has because of the Ark of God.” So David went there and brought the Ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the City of David with a great celebration. After the men who were carrying the Ark of the Lord had gone six steps, David sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. And David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. So David and all the people of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and the blowing of rams’ horns.
But as the Ark of the Lord entered the City of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked down from her window. When she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she was filled with contempt for him.
They brought the Ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the special tent David had prepared for it. And David sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings to the Lord. When he had finished his sacrifices, David blessed the people in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. Then he gave to every Israelite man and woman in the crowd a loaf of bread, a cake of dates, and a cake of raisins. Then all the people returned to their homes.
Reflect
Today’s Bible Reading is the account of David’s second and successful attempt to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.
The laws and circumstances surrounding David’s first and failed attempt is beyond the scope of a daily devotion, suffice to say, it all went wrong. Instead of having the Levites carry the Ark on their shoulders with poles (as commanded in the Law of Moses), David placed it on a new cart pulled by oxen. This was a method used by the Philistines and not the one God ordained. As a result, there was a tragic mishap where one of the drivers called Uzzah ended up trying to steady the Ark, touched it, and died.
The part of today’s reading I’d like us to focus on is David’s worship that was perceived as undignified by his first wife Michal (Saul’s youngest daughter). David wore a simple linen ephod (priestly garment) and danced before the Lord with “all his might” and because the ephod was a short, apron-like garment, it left David physically exposed as he leaped and danced. Yup, he exposed his bits.
David was ‘abandoned’ in his worship of God. He let it all go, didn’t hold back, and was unconcerned about what anyone else might think of him. Bridging contexts, many times I have I heard Christians express what they thought was appropriate and inappropriate in worship. I remember once, in my early twenties, being berated for wearing a baseball cap in church, and in my forties for not wearing the appropriate robes for an Anglican priest, to which a member of the congregation was heard saying, “I bet he reads the Guardian too!” (The Guardian is a British newspaper with a distinct liberal and centre-left political stance).
When it comes to worship, God isn’t interested in what we wear or our dignity (or even what newspaper we read). Remember how when Samuel was choosing David as king, God said, “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart”? God wants a heart of worship where we are selflessly and consciously abandoned to, trusting in, and focused only on God.
Next time you are in worship, let yourself go. Close your eyes, give everything you have to God, and see what happens.
Photo by Vitor Monthay on Unsplash
Pray
Holy God
May I be unconcerned
about what others
may think of me,
but worship you
with all my heart.
Help me to give my all
and abandon myself
to loving you
with everything I have.
This day and forever.
and then