<html><body>This has been edited several times already and I'll probably will continue to do so...<div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2 SAMUEL 6:1-5, 12b-19 PROPER 10 b<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">EPHESIANS 1:3-14 15<sup>th</sup> JULY, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">MARK 6:14-29 PSALM 24<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Dancing can be so much fun! But it can also get one into <b><u>SO</u></b> much trouble!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> That’s probably why it was frowned upon by some branches of the Church, especially in traditional-conservative denominations.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I remember a Scottish Presbyterian minister, a friend of my father, describing how etiquette and clothing for dancing developed. It used to be that, in addition to wearing a suit, the men, just like the women, all wore gloves. My father’s friend said that this custom died out, for the men, in the early 1900s, at which point the fathers of the young women who’d been to the dance had the back of their dresses tested for fingerprints to see with whom they’d been dancing and where the fingers had been placed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> That’s possibly a slight exaggeration, but a not totally useless idea! Dancing can inflame the senses and emotions, especially if one is predisposed to think in one way or another.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Take Michal, Saul’s daughter, for instance. David had killed her father in the civil war. One strike against David. But David was really wrapped up in expressing his love of God and his devotion. He’d been dancing up a storm, and everyone seemed to feel that that was OK, even if the king <b><u>WAS</u></b> naked at the time, all perfectly appropriate. Everyone except Michal, that is. She was really ticked off. Just like today, you can’t please everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Think about the relationship of David and Michal, though. She’d fallen in love with him while he was at the court of her father. David had paid the bride-price to Saul by killing two hundred Philistines, double the number he’d been asked to kill.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Aren’t you glad things are a little different today, at least in some circles?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> When Saul and David became antagonists, Michal hid her husband and arranged for his escape. As one writer pointed out, although she risked her life by helping him, after he left the court he made no attempt to contact her – not even a Tweet! <sup>1 </sup>Two strikes!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Not particularly loving, nor grateful! Following that episode, Saul gave Michal to another member of the military and David, still in hiding, took several other wives. Later on, when David came to power as king over the entire country, he demanded and got Michal back, presumably to reinforce his right to be king.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> So it may not be at all surprising that Michal despised David in his enthusiasm of worship. The verses following the ones we heard this morning, however, indicate that she felt humiliated. Her pride was hurt and she stood on that, even over the entry of the Ark of God. Like her father, Michal had no time for the Ark. Family pride, status among the people, especially among the nobility in power, that’s what was important to her. “Michal had missed the essential significance of David’s career, that in spite of his failures, he was a man after God’s own heart.”, and had been chosen over over everyone else in Saul’s family.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background: white;"> “What can we learn from this story of Michal and David? Misunderstanding arose in their relationship because of a clash of temperament, outlook and purpose. <i>Had Michal shared David’s (enthusiasm in worshipping God, or at least his acknowledgement of his devotion to God), how different life (might) have been for both of them. But Michal made no effort to understand her husband’s Godward desires and so passed a wrong judgment upon him. … <b>How certain we should be of a person’s motive for his acts or attitudes before we condemn him</b>. (It’s strange, Michal was committed to David and so much in love with him) when he was poor and unknown and now that he is King ‘he despised him in her heart’” One writer suggested that “... David realized they could never love the same God. Therefore he cut her from his heart.’”</i></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <sup>2</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It’s sad how this relationship floundered over ingratitude and a lack of compassion on David’s part and insensitivity and self-absorbing pride on Michal’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; background: white;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> We have another dance encounter to consider today, though. Interestingly enough, a major factor in the story revolves around marriage also. Herod wanted Herodias and Herodias wanted Herod. There was just the matter that Herodias was married to Herod’s half-brother. You can, perhaps, imagine some of the tension in <b><u>THAT</u></b> household. Throw one of God’s prophets into the mix and you can see how explosive the situation was.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; background: white;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Neither Herod nor Herodias would have made my guest list for a dance, though. Because of their power, their conniving, their total lack of concern for anyone or anything beyond themselves and their immediate friends, I’d have run a mile from them, if I could. Still, some people <b><u>DID</u></b> accept invitations to their palace and, to give him his due, Herod did manage to rule and keep some semblance of peace with the Roman emperor. Whoever was there for dinner that night, they were the sort of folk whom Herod must have wished to impress. Nothing was too good for him and his would-be friends, so he arraigned for what may be characterised as a salacious, over-the-top dance by his step-daughter. Apparently she’d been well brought up by her mother, and Herod’s step-daughter had some hold over him, so she seized on the opportunity as a way to put Herod deeper in debt to her. She danced, and danced, and wrapped the whole company around her fingers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; background: white;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Somehow, though, when it came time for her to name her reward, she had to check with her mother, who saw this as a golden opportunity to get rid of the principle person who was threatening both Herod and Herodias’ security.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; background: white;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> No matter that he was widely regarded as a man of God, a powerful prophet, Herodias knew that she could overcome Herod’s reluctance to do anything to silence John.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal; background: white;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p></div></body></html>