Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Earlier in this journey we gave some consideration to worship as we reflected on the story of Cain and Abel.

This session we will be looking at what should have been a time of united national celebration.

There had been disastrous attempts to get the Ark of the Covenant back home, but King David had finally succeeded in securing it and returning it to its rightful place among the children of Israel.

Anything can be criticized, and in our day it often is.

It does not seem to matter how good a thing or a person may be, there is always a detractor to be found within the crowd.

King David’s act of worship was very extravagant and deliberate— every six steps the procession into the city stopped and fresh offerings were made.

And it was a joyful, even boisterous celebration; when we read that David “danced before the Lord”, the Hebrew means to “Separate the limbs”.

Volume was high too.

Most of all, it was accepted by God— again, as we have seen before, worship is not about style or preference.

However, there was one member of the royal family that was not amused.

We are told that David’s wife Michal, “despised” David.

While the nation and king celebrated the joyous occasion, Michal sulked as though former King Saul would have done a better job.

But she had forgotten that it was Saul that had neglected the Ark of the Covenant in the first place (along with neglecting God) as he refused to heed the warnings of the prophet Samuel.

The picture that we have of Michal is one of angst and bitterness, but it had not always been that way.

Twice in 1 Samuel 18 we hear of her love for David.

But whatever the cause of her bitter and critical attitudes, things had changed, and the exchange between husband and wife showed that all was not well with their relationship.

Both Michal and David were somewhat acerbic ( a comment or style of speaking— sharp and forthright) and sarcastic in their comments back and forth.

Relational harmony doesn’t just happen.

Friendship calls for investment.

Marriage takes time and sacrifice.

And unity in the local church needs to be maintained, lest harmony and togetherness are eroded.

Perhaps some of us are on “cruise control” in a relationship, assuming that all will be well because all has been well in the past.

Let’s not assume too much, and let’s move quickly to mend breaches in our relationships, lest we find them deteriorating beyond possible repair in the days to come.

Better to invest today than to attempt to repair tomorrow.

And sometimes we can be wrong— even when we are partly right.

One commentator noted that David might have been somewhat immodest as he got carried away in his enthusiasm.

Perhaps during his frenzied movements in the dance the linen ephod which he was wearing slipped so that his nakedness could be seen.

In a state of ecstacy such happenings were not uncommon.

Israelite law forbids priests to expose their nakedness in holy places.

Exposing one’s nakedness openly was also taboo in all of Israel.

David’s ecstatic behavior was typical of Canaanite practice, and that could have been the reason why Michal could not appreciate it.

David justified his behavior as self abasement before the Lord, as an expression of gratitude to God for all that God had done for him.

We can be right about an issue; but but wrong in the way we communicate our concern about that issue.

And some people make a continual habit of being critical:

The original word for “grumblers” here is associated with the cooing of doves; like birds that never stop repeating the same noise, people who find fault always seem to follow the same script.

It’s also possible that Michal was angry because she had been treated as a commodity, even by David:

But while we cannot choose the circumstances of life, we can choose how we will respond to them.

With her critical attitude, Michal was childless for the rest of her life.

Here we need to tread very carefully, because mishandling this episode in Scripture could hurt those that battle childlessness.

There is absolutely no suggestion that an inability to have children is the result of judgment upon some sin.

But in Michal’s specific case, it appears that it may been an act of judgment, although we cannot be sure.

It might just be that a son of Michal’s would have been a grandson of Saul’s which would have led to a clash in the dynasties.

It might also be that withdrew from an ongoing sexual relationship from that time on.

What we do know is that living a cynical, complaining life bears no good fruit, and to continue the metaphor, a root of bitterness can defile others.

In Shoah, Claude Lanzmann’s documentary on the Holocaust, a leader of a Warsaw ghetto uprising speaks of the bitterness that remains in his soul over how he and his people were treated by the Nazi regime.

“If you could lick my heart it would poison you.”

By contrast, Corrie Ten Boom saw the power of ongoing bitterness tragically demonstrated.

She learned that forgiveness was a daily act and that those who had found grace to forgive their former enemies were able to return to a sense of normality again and rebuild their lives, even when their physical scars were extreme.

But those who, to use her phrase.

“nursed their bitterness” remained dysfunctional.

Corrie affirmed “It was as simple and horrible as that.”

Philip Yancey’s description of the books of two Nobel Prize winning writers illustrates the power of “ungrace and bitterness”.

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, chronicles a marriage that disintegrates over the failure of a wife to put a bar of soap out for her husband!

“Even when they were old…they were careful about bringing it up, for the barely healed wounds could begin to bleed again as if they had only been inflicted yesterday.”

The Knot of Vipers by Francois Mauriac tells of another marriage breakdown, perpetuated by a husband and wife who both wait for the other to initiate the grace of forgiveness— in vain.

Neither one ever breaks the cycle of gracelessness and forgives.

The decision to forgive others who have hurt us is not just for their benefit: there is a sense of self-preservation about forgiveness, as failure to forgive will produce toxic effects in our own lives, including an inability really to accept God’s grace for our own failings.

Let’s live kind, gracious, and generous lives.