Mister Preacher: Embarrassingly Joyful

Sometimes I think about David. Dancing violently before God. The image speaks to me. And so does the one after it. David’s wife, Michal, embarrassed by her husband, a king, dancing like an idiot in the streets, wearing something a simple priest might wear, not a leader.

That story, over and over, is the story of the follower of Jesus. So full of joy, soon extinguished by the embarrassed, proper religious types.

Worthless Spirituality

A friend told me about a sort of spiritual retreat his young daughter went on at the religious school she attends. She came back confused and upset because others seemed to be having these emotional experiences with God and feeling His presence, while she was just sort of bored. It made her question her relationship with God.

Christians can make you feel as though you should be doing and feeling certain things or you must not really love Jesus.

For instance, when we don’t read our bibles every day or get up at the crack of dawn to talk to God (Because, those are His clearly posted office hours, people!) then we start to think that maybe we aren’t good enough, and maybe, just maybe, we never had a relationship with him at all.

The lies goes: you gotta be doing the things I think you gotta do to get the feelings I feel or you must not be connected to God the way I am.

When we believe that lie, and we don’t get the results people holier than us tell us we should, we blame ourselves.

What if I go to a prayer meeting and I don’t feel like praying? What does it mean if I’d rather read Neil Gaiman than the Bible tonight? Yes, I know attendance is low at the Wednesday night service, but I’d rather play Titan Fall with my friends. What does that mean? SWEET MERCIFUL MOSES! WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!

What if it doesn’t mean anything?

If it just suggests that you’re a human being who doesn’t always feel like doing spiritual things. And remember this is just the way certain people define the term spiritual. It looks holy, but is worthless outside the context of our desire to do it. I mean, it could be that folding your laundry is a spiritual time for you. Perhaps you get far more out of bedtime prayers with your 2-year-old than you do with a piano playing softly in the background. Could be that you don’t have to feel guilty for reading Jodi Picoult sometimes instead of Leviticus.

I know some of you are already composing your angry responses. But I’m not saying some of those things we do aren’t important. I’m saying to get off the treadmill. I’m saying that your relationship with God isn’t a bookshelf from IKEA—it’s not a chore with a checklist of things to make sure you get it right. It’s a living, breathing relationship.

The Law is Ruthless

A friend of mine recently likened the Bible to love letters you might get from your wife. They’re so precious to you that you want to read them, you want to memorize them and have them near you at all times.

But what if someone were telling you that you weren’t reading them correctly? That you didn’t really love your wife if you weren’t reading those letters every day?

I’m not sure about you, but those words that had once meant so much to me would quickly sour.

The words in those letters didn’t stop being true, they didn’t stop having the power to inspire me. So, what happened?

The moment you turn joy into something which can only be achieved through a chore, it ceases being joy. It becomes a law, and the law is ruthless. The object of joy itself seems to become a taskmaster. Before, my love was freely welcomed, ferocious and had the entire universe in which to expand. It was wild and untamed.

Now it’s caged and domesticated because people don’t like wild and untamed.

We don’t like anything we can’t control, in fact.

So, we start reigning in that beast.

They say, “I know you think what you’re doing is love, but love is a discipline. Love is work!”

And we do want to love. We desire to please the object of our affection in the way in which the object of our affection most desires. But because that robust, exciting love has become a rote, serious chore that we constantly fear we are doing wrong (and often are), we start doubting our commitment to God, we start questioning every decision we make and every thought that we have.

And you can’t live like that for long. So, some decide they aren’t good enough and leave, and others, listening to these well-meaning voices, build a cage to house the idol that we have made of God. A tame version of the Lion of Judah, now only emerging at set intervals to meander toothless in front of an approving crowd before sighing and slipping once again, away.

Properly, with dignity and certainly not one ounce of impropriety.

And I think about David. Dancing, loud and embarrassingly joyful.

“Well, don’t you just look like the fool?”

          That’s the voice that we hear. Red-faced Michal, daughter of Saul.
          Say to it, as did David:

          That annoying, lying voice.

“And I’m willing,” and say it loud, with a lilt of musical joy in your voice, “to look even more foolish. This is love. That’s how it works.”

Let your love dance. Let it fall to your feet. Let it energize your heart and your hands to reach out to others so they too can know the joy of unfettered love.

Photo by Peverus used under CC