I think for humanity, at least Christian-God fearing humanity, there is nothing more frightening than the feeling that you are disappointing God. For passionate, God-fearing, people who want to do what is right, when they experience a threat of what they value, there is a visceral reaction that comes from deep within, that overrides their understanding of right vs. wrong.
I think that's what happened in Uzzah's case. He knew the right answer. Don't touch the ark. And yet, when put in a situation that felt threatening to the holiness and sanctity of the moment, his passion over ruled his understanding and he reached out his hand. The penalty was death. Out of all of the stories in the Old Testament, where people want to misconstrue the character of God as a nefarious dictator, this one should rank at the top. It would be so easy to allow this story to completely jack with our notion of a good and loving God. But, reader be warned, if you don't dig deeper, you will miss something very important in this story.
In Matthew 8:23-27, there is another story that has similar significance. The disciples and Jesus are crossing the lake. Jesus is napping. A storm begins to threaten their existence and the disciples wake Jesus in a panic. Who could blame them? And yet Jesus responds by calling them a people of "little faith." That was the first century equivalent of ---
Another passage of scripture, in Ephesians 4:1-6, has a less obvious connection, but yet, it connects on a much deeper level. In this passage, Paul is admonishing (to use a fancy bible word) the early church to choose unity at all costs.
There were significant threats to the early church. While Christians in the 21st century freak out over the differences between the prosperity gospel and the liberation theology (aka the poverty gospel), the LGBTQ (and any other initials) place in or out of the church, and so many other worthwhile theological issues that need exploring--in reality, we have nothing on the early church when it comes to divisive issues.
I'm writing an exegesis of this passage in Ephesians, and in my paper I write, "Unfortunately, as the
church grew into maturity, it faced countless perversions of the gospel. Leaders
chose to draw lines in the proverbial sand, in order that they might prevent
heresies from ruining the church."
For me, there is a distinct correlation between all three of these stories. Quite simply it boils down to a lack of trust in God's ability to deal with what we perceive as a "hot mess."
In the case of the falling Ark, Uzzah decided that it would be better if he steadied the Ark, than if it fell to the ground, causing much shame and disgrace. But in God's eyes, David shouldn't have been transporting the Ark that way to begin with. God uses tragic, horrible circumstances to teach us that his ways are right. It would have been better for the Ark to fall to the ground and for the whole entourage to be forced to go through the ritualistic process of repentance and purification, so that the Ark could be transported correctly. Holiness is absolutely worth doing it right. It was worth, Uzzah losing his life. God would have preferred that David transport the Ark correctly, so that Uzzah wouldn't have put in that situation. God's not vindictive. But when David didn't do things correctly, Uzzah still had his own choice to follow God's commands and he didn't choose right.
I think sometimes we don't believe God can pick up the pieces and make things right again.
In the case with the lake, the disciples didn't really believe Jesus was who he said he was, despite having witnessed countless miracles. Worst case scenario, the boat sinks and they all drown. That would be a worst case scenario, except Jesus can raise people from the dead and walk on water. Soooo, don't panic. Trust Jesus. He can turn this stuff around.
Finally, in Ephesians, the early church made decisions about who was in and who was out. They argued over the inclusion of the Gentiles, much like we argue over the inclusion of the _________. Insert the name of any group there, because we argue over a lot of people. In the face of tragedy, the hardest thing to do is to keep loving Jesus ferociously. We want to defend God's honor. It is so dang hard to let the chips fall where they may and keep loving God and each other. Jesus prays that love and unity will be our defining marker. When people threaten our understanding of the way to do things, we want to draw lines in the sand. I think Jesus just says, love me and love each other. The great commandments are summed up in these two, "love the lord your god with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself."
God didn't ask us to keep the ark from hitting the ground or to freak out over the proverbial sinking boat or to draw lines about who is in or who is out.
He just said, Love me and Love Them. Even in the worst case scenario, God can redeem the earth. Do you really believe that he is that good? It takes a lot of faith to let everything you love go down the crapper. It takes A LOT OF FAITH to keep your eyes on Jesus and release love, when it looks like everything is burning down.
Do you have what it takes to keep your eyes on Jesus and not reach out and steady the ark, freak out in the storm and to allow people to teach things about Jesus that make your skin crawl?
I think that's what it is about. It is a deep tethering in your spirit to the nature of God, that he is an overcomer, and he alone is responsible to clean up this stuff. My job is to love him with everything I am and to love those around me, with every ounce of energy I have as well.
But these are just my thoughts and maybe I'm one of the people who are screwing things up. Are you gonna love me anyway?
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