We trace the Story—our story—from its beginnings in the Hebrew scriptures, through its climax in the memories of the early church as reflected in the gospels, and then on to what sense the first Christians made of the connections between the two as reflected in St. Paul’s letters.

At each step along the way, as inheritors of that Story, we participate today by reflecting on what it says to us corporately as that continuing community of faith, or as individual members of the continuing community. Scripture cannot fully be grasped either as a historical or literary enterprise. It speaks, as one scripture student said, "from faith to faith."

July 10
Two Kings and Two Dancers
Psalm 24;2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19;Ephesians 1:3-14;Mark 6:14-29

The words "David danced before the Lord" richly evoke the young king’s enthusiastic response to the holy charge to bring the ark of the Lord home to Jerusalem. The psalm can be read as an affirmation of David’s act:

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord
and who shall stand in his holy place?
Those who have clean hands and pure hearts.

Michel, David’s wife, did not see it this way. When she looked out of the window and saw the king leaping and dancing before the Lord, the text says, "she despised him in her heart."

David is the hero of this story—it is Michel who fares badly. But who has clean hands and a pure heart? Even to think we have is a sign we haven’t. The confidence of Psalm 24 gives way to the reality of Psalm 51:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And put a new and right spirit within me.

The gospel brings us to an encounter with another dancer, another king, and a fiery prophet who made life very uncomfortable for those who didn’t follow the law, even if they were kings. John’s public denunciation of Herod for marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias, aroused her wrath. Imprisoning John did not satisfy her. Her daughter danced for the king on his birthday and he promised her whatever she wanted as a reward. Coached by her mother, she asked for John’s head.

Even though John said of Jesus, "He must increase and I must decrease," the effect of this powerful desert figure remained with the people. Many thought the young rabbi Jesus was a reincarnation of John the Baptist. Even Herod, in guilty terror, thought so. He must have felt a dance had cost him too much.

There is no dancer in the epistle, but the majestic rhythms of the prose lift our spirits so we can dance. The passage begins with lofty thanksgiving to God for "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." We have been chosen before the foundation of the world, destined for adoption as God’s children, our sins forgiven, and to ourselves made known the mystery of God’s plan. The words tumble over each other and defy the sober mind to organize them into coherence. If the heart has reasons of which reason has no knowledge, as Pascal said, here the spirit has order of which order has no knowledge.

VERNA J. DOZIER is an educator and lay theologian in Washington, D.C. She is the author of The Dream of God: A Call to Return (Cowley Publications) and The Authority of the Laity (The Alban Institute).