Tuesday, 3rd Week of Ordinary Time (II)

January 27,2004

by Rev. Herbert Nichols

To understand the impact of today’s readings we need to step back and take a brief look at the reading for Monday, which was not read yesterday because of the feast of SS. Titus and Timothy.

Because of Saul’s wickedness, David was chosen as his successor and anointed king. He had been a shepherd boy from Judah in the south. The northern kingdom of Israel was always polarized against its neighbors; so David attempted to fuse the two governments making Jerusalem the capital of the unified kingdom. (His attempt would succeed for only two generations.)

In today’s reading David brings the Ark of the Covenant which had been hidden in various places after theft and recovery from the Philistines. He gives it a public and permanent home. The people carried the ark in triumphant and glorious procession in a kind of, perhaps, drug induced ecstasy.

David strips off his clothes and dances naked before the presence of God (and all his people), perhaps in a symbolic gesture of innocence like that of Adam in the garden before the fall. At this point the innocent and holy David would later have great falls of his own including adultery and murder.

By bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, he made Jerusalem not only the political but the spiritual capital of Israel. By this gesture he unifies the people. (Remember the words of St. Paul to us on Sunday using the metaphor of being united in the Body of Christ.) The tabernacle is the Ark of the New Covenant--and when we consume its presence, we are what we eat; we are the Body of Christ.

But it can be very easy for us to lead a spiritually schizophrenic life in which our religious life remains in one place while our political or working life is in another. In fact, today, our national culture and society strongly encourages that we be upfront as citizens, but outback with our religious convictions

We hear the popular refrain of separation of church and state; but all too often that has been interpreted as separation of church from state, as if the two were enemies.

Jesus is teaching us in today’s gospel that doing the will of God in every part of our life, our politics, our leisure, our financial decisions, our conversations with one another, are all signs of a genuine follower of Christ -- or not. In a sense we should be like David, and open up to God the true center, the unifying center of our being.

Sometimes we read about people with multiple personality disorder. That has a spiritual equivalent in the person who shows one face to God in church, another to family, yet another to fellow workers, still another to "friends," and the real one, which may or many not be seen inside the self.

By placing the Ark in the center of their lives; and for us, placing Jesus in the center of who we are is more than just a part of our religiosity. It involves establishing the very sanctuary of our spirituality.