Two Dancers

As I have returned to the lectionary readings for Sunday, July 15, 2018 during my breakfast lectio divina each morning this week, my attention has hung on the two dancers. David in 2 Samuel 6:5, 14 and Salome in Mark 6:22. As we have been making our way through the history of Saul and David in 1 and 2 Samuel, and through Mark’s Gospel, I wondered how much intentionality went into getting the two dancers for the same Sunday, and whether this detail had any particular significance.

Neither Mark nor Matthew 24 mention Salome’s name. That detail comes from extra-biblical historical sources. Besides being more convenient than “that girl,” many many artists have taken some delight in portraying Salome’s dance. Her age is not specified, and some think she may have been a very young teen. Again the text does not say so, but more than just artists have presumed her dance was sensuous and seductive, playing up to Herod’s vulnerabilities. She was the daughter of Herod’s brother Philip, so his niece. She was also the daughter of Herodias whom Herod had taken as wife from his brother, so she was also Herod’s step-daughter. As I reflected on this tangle of relationships, it became a counterpoint to David’s dancing.

Yes, David’s relationship with his wife Michal, who was also the daughter of his predecessor and rival Saul, scrambles the story of David’s joyful bringing of the Ark of God to Jerusalem. She was apparently embarrassed at David’s uninhibited, exuberant dancing. Perhaps she felt shame that her husband exposed what she felt that only she was entitled to see, just too sensuous for public.  At the very least, David’s dancing was not dignified enough for the king.

David danced, leaping with all his might (vv. 5, 14), which apparently prompted others to join in. Bringing the Ark of God to Jerusalem was an occasion for exuberant joy. When Michal objected, he answered that he was dancing before the Lord, not for a human audience. My meditations have contrasted Salome’s dance and David’s.  Who was the audience of each? What did each put into their dance? I purposely avoided some sort of moral tongue clucking and finger wagging. Rather, I went in the direction of pondering what do I do with all my might before the Lord? What do I celebrate with uninhibited exuberance?

As the week went on, I was drawn more and more into the Epistle reading from Ephesians 1:3-14. I am certain I am finding connections the lectionary committee never imagined. The style of this introduction to Ephesians is not a theological discourse but an enthusiastic layering of one delight in what God lavishes on us in Christ after another. They don’t just run on, one into the next; they build in crescendo. I have read this exegeted in detail in commentaries and heard it expounded in sermons. Juxtaposing it with David dancing with all his might, I began to envision this as a verbal dancing with all of not just the writer’s might, but also an invitation for all of us to join in the frolic with all of our might. I read aloud the first section as something akin to an e e cummings or Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 

just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world

to be holy and blameless before him in love. 

He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ,

according to the good pleasure of his will, 

to the praise of his glorious grace

that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood,

the forgiveness of our trespasses,

according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.

With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will,

according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 

as a plan for the fullness of time,

to gather up all things in him,

things in heaven and things on earth.