The Center of Worship (Free Version)
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost- 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19, Ephesians 1:3-14, Mark 6:14-29
This week, we are given texts with some powerful themes: rightly centered worship and identity, dancing, and true kingship.
In our Old Testament text (2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19) David brings the ark of the Lord, the witness of God’s faithful presence, out from the shadows and give it central place in the life of God’s once again. In doing this, David is saying that God is ultimately king. David is de-centering himself and re-centering worship of the true and living God.
As David brings the ark up from Obed-Edom, he rejoices. He makes a sacrifice before the Lord and he dances before the Lord with all of his might. This is apparently a bit “extra” as David’s dancing invites contempt from his wife, Michal.
In what ways are we as pastors constantly re-centering worship on God, resisting the temptation of syncretism and idolatry?
In our Epistle text (Ephesians 1:3-14), Paul uses a number of powerful verbs to describe God’s actions towards his people in Christ. He says that God chose us from the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. And he has predestined us for adoption to sonship.
God is the subject of just about every verb in this passage. He does the action. Because of what has been done in Jesus, we are sons and daughters of God. We have been adopted.
One of our roles as preachers is to remind people of their defining reality. Their defining reality is not the rejection that they have experienced no matter how painful those experiences are. Their identity is in the God who has adopted us. This identity that we have as part of a story is headed somewhere. This inheritance is a world made right. The Holy Spirit in us is the deposit of that inheritance. And as God forms us, and shapes us out of our true identity, we live as signposts of God’s future world.
In our gospel text (Mark 6:14-29), we are given a sordid tale: sex, royalty, death. John was thrown in prison and was ultimately beheaded because he called out Herod’s corruption. But John’s rebuke did not end at his beheading. Even today John continues to speak. John Chrysostom said, “He cut off the head but he did not cut off the voice. He curbed the tongue, but he did not curb the accusation.”1
Herod was wrong in thinking that Jesus was simply John the Baptist risen from the dead. But he was also right about something. God’s power was working in Jesus and he has the authority over sin and death.
There are a lot of themes that can be drawn from these passages, but one may be the importance of rightly centered worship. What we worship, what we love forms us and defines us.
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John Chrysostom, “Baptismal Instructions 10.26-27,” as quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Mark, 85.