OUR STORY
A sermon by Rev. Dr. Jack E. Skiles

July 12, 2009

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Mark 6:14-29

Professional ministry, like all our jobs, involves things that we do all the time, yet most people haven't the slightest idea about what we do and how we spend our time. It comes as no surprise to most of you that Caela Wood, Nick Foster and I officiate at wedding ceremonies here at First United Church . Perhaps you didn't know that Nick does weddings with us? We asked Nick if he would step in and help us with what are really a constant flow of people asking us to do weddings.

I have had and will have ten weddings between June and September. Not only do we do the weddings for those more intimately involved in our church, but we are a professional resource for people outside our faith community. It is a great way to meet people who do not necessarily have a church home and at every wedding ceremony we perform we have exposure to one hundred or more guests who get introduced to who we are and what we value.

Yesterday's wedding service was held out in the amphitheater in the Brown County State Park. The couple was a mixture of faith expression and love. She is a professor of behavioral psychology and he a mathematics professor. She comes from basic United States Protestant non-practicing Christian expression, he is a Russian Jew. We had guests from the IU community, across the USA, Russia and Israel, and the ceremony was translated into at least three languages.

I was present representing You, this congregation and our faith and our faith story that led us to be one of the most inclusive congregations in our area. By design we are open to diversity and inclusiveness. Two weeks ago I did a wedding at the IU Auditorium. It is a very nice setting for folks wedded to their IU experience. They asked for a non-denominational service. I joked that I would take out the word God and simply insert the words “GO IU” in all those spots.

They didn't want a non-God service, they wanted a ceremony that celebrated their personal love along with the awareness that God was present and blessing both them and their family and friends in a setting that was meaningful to both of them. They didn't know they could have a church and they knew they did not want a traditional evangelical selling of religion or God at their wedding. When the wedding was over the IU Auditorium staff each made their way to me and rather gushed that in all the weddings that they preside over, this one was the first one where they enjoyed the religious content and personal-ness where the clergy seem to know and celebrate the couple's love. Our world of people are hungering and thirsting for faith that serves real needs rather than seeking to perpetuate organizational structures that claim spiritual power, but that are today too often void of God's pulsating presence.

At our best moments we at First United Church represent a faith system that will expand and grow as we faithfully allow its expression through our individual lives. We have a history and a present that is very meaningful to people when they hear of us and see us in action.

Walk back with me now into our faith history to a story that many of us think we know so well, but one that has some surprises for us this morning as we reexamine it and let it live anew in our midst. We're going back, far back to the time before Jerusalem was the capital city of the combined Jewish nation, before it was even a city named Jerusalem. Before King David it was the city of the God “ Salem .” David added the “Jer” meaning Yahweh. David's new capital city was the City of Yahweh and Salem, Jerusalem. Dav id created a city of two Gods, a fact often forgotten in history, but so very Jerusalem-like as today Jerusalem is a city from which three major current religions find deep and abiding meaning.

This morning's story of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem to be ensconced in the Temple he planned to build there is a story that most in our culture know better by the allusions found in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. But the Jewish people had trouble keeping the Ark long before it was last removed by the Romans and carried off into our movie infamy.

This morning's tale of the ark is at least one thousand years earlier. This ark was a wooden chest and was only later made elaborate with a golden plate and winged seraphim placed on the lid. In the ark were the stone tablets upon which were written the Ten Commandment according to Numbers 10-14. But it was much more to the Israelites than a box full of special stones. It was to them an extension or embodiment of the very presence of Yahweh. When the ark was present it was a symbol of God's presence and was particularly important when Israel went into battle against her foes. In addition it was a reminder of the covenant, the promises, between God and God's people and as a throne of the invisible presence of God.

It has a great history, the ark or the abode of God. From the time of Moses to the time of Joshua it was carried into battle against the Canaanites. Once the Canaanites were conquered the Ark was shared between the two primary holy cities of Israel, Shiloh and Bethel.

When Israel began their battles against the “Sea People,” or as you and I know them best, the Philistines, the Philistines managed to steal the Ark and it was taken to one of their cities, Ashdod (I Sam. 4). This did not mean to the Israelites that the Philistines had taken some historic artifact, they had stolen Yahweh and in the spirit of the times it meant that Israel was bereft of the protective power of God.

It turns out that possessing the ark, according to the story, was not good for the Philistines. They were visited with bubonic plague; they got hemorrhoids, faced economic disaster, and experienced military defeat. They wanted rid of it so badly that they hooked an ox up to the cart it was on and drove the ox and ark back into Jewish territory, where it was stored by a farmer, who appointed one of his sons to be a priest of the ark and there it stayed for twenty years until we pick up the story in this morning's reading from II Samuel.

David has finally defeated into submission all his enemies. He is bringing together the two kingdoms, Israel and Judah , bringing the twelve tribes into one country where for the first time both countries and all twelve tribes will be ruled by one. And the one is not a tribal elder, not a prophet but a King.

David is consolidating for the first time in Israel 's history economic, military and spiritual power. To do this he plans a new city for this nation, Jerusalem, with a temple, a new place for Yahweh's ark to reside. God and the nation of Israel and Israel's King were now one and in control, and life for the people was centralized and so was taxation. In addition to being a story of the development of Jewish faith based around the temple system and lineage of David, it is the sacred story of the birth of a nation state and the divine right of Kings to rule by divine appointment forever imprinted in Holy Scripture.

This is the place in the Bible that becomes ground zero for the Jewish formal religious system that a thousand years later Jesus becomes entangled with and often criticizes, though he loves Judaism. This Scripture is the power impetus that gives rise to the priestly structure of Jewish Temple rites and that of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and belief that Jesus is to be understood as Messiah in the form and manner of King David. This is the Scripture story that gives rise to the horrific faith belief systems that under the guise of being like King David, Crusades against other religious faiths are appropriate and that God is on our side and blesses our soldiers and not the other sides, because we have Jesus in our ark, our abode, our hearts, and those others have, well, they don't have Jesus.

In a book that I know many of you have read, The Shack, the author helps us wonder aloud about the theological and faith difference between pondering Jesus as a King of our lives like David was a king, versus God and Jesus as companion and friend. Jesus says in one place in The Shack, “Have you noticed that even though you call me Lord and King, I have never really acted in that capacity with you? I've never taken control of your choices or forced you to do anything, even when what you were about to do was destructive or harmful to yourself and others.” Wouldn't it be handy if God would step in and take over our lives at those critical junctures? Wouldn't it be nice if God would keep us from making mistakes? Going on with Jesus speaking in the Shack, Jesus says, “To force my will on y ou is exactly what love does not do.”

Before the time of King David there was a loose confederation of tribes, ruled by tradition, by elders, by the spirit of God coming upon prophets and judges. It was a system that was without a doubt far from perfect, but certainly more clearly represents the tradition of First United Church and the joint histories of both our denominations.

Both the Baptists and the Congregationalists were local groups of believers who found oppression and persecution from within English Anglican/ Roman Catholic-type political religious structures in the 1600's. Our English faith ancestors had men and women lured by the spirit of God who rose up and led folks away from the structurally powerful Church of England, they led a few this way and that way and then formed congregations that risked imprisonment and loss of life and liberty for refusing to bow to the King or Queen or Pope as God's chosen One on earth. Baptist and Congregational groups in England, eventually joining with similar groups from Germany and Holland, migrated to this country to give rise to what we are part of today, the free church movement, the movement that trusts in the spirit of God to raise up leaders like Caela in our midst, whom we recognize from within our congregation as one called by God.

On the Free Church side of the equation, which we are in, we prefer our called clergy to be professionally trained. We freely associate ourselves with other like-minded congregations and ask that Caela go to seminary and appear before denominational councils to test her faith and knowledge. But—and this is a huge issue that defines us a group of believers—while we will gather in this sanctuary probably in January and February to mark the professional ordination of Caela as a person called by God to be a local church professional, we could have done it two years ago and it would have been sufficient for our denominations to recognize her ordination while she served here. (By going through the seminary/denominational professional training process, her call gets recognized denomination wide, not just locally.) We are a people who believe that God calls and women and men like Caela answer. We believe that God calls us regardless of our training, regardless of denominational affiliation and approval. It can be at times a messy system, but it is a freedom-loving system that seeks to live the reality that it is not people who call others to ministry, it is not structures, political or religious, there is no family lineage, it is God that calls and that people in local congregations recognize the movement of God in one of our own and call others to see it too.

In the traditions of King David and hierarchal systems that hearken back to him, clergy are called and set above the people in the pews. In the basic protestant church ethic, we clergy are called and set aside for special work as pastors, but never above. For our basic belief is that all are called to serve in the way of Jesus who never elevated himself, but rather sought to be a servant leader. In the Gospel According to John at the last supper, Jesus took a towel and knelt before his disciples and washed their feet and dried them and told them, “Go and do likewise.” Kneeling down at the f eet of those we called to serve is not ever an elevated position, now is it?

Elevated pulpits are great for being seen in and heard from. They are horrible symbols when used to elevate status. In the Roman Catholic, Episcopalian system that refers to their leadership as priests, they are following the tradition started by King David and refined through the centuries in many religions. The word priest literally means in Latin, “Bridge.” Tradition has held that the person i n the pew needs a priest to bridge the way to God. Our tradition at First United hopes that a professional clergy will also serve as a bridge to God, but no more so than ought every person, because all are called to reflect the presence of God in all that we do and say, in all of our work and parenting and shopping and driving and vacationing. In our faith tradition no one is priest because all our priests. We are the priesthood of believers and it is our story and we are sticking to it.

Go forth and be a bridge to God, it is a most significant part of our story and it is your calling.

Amen.