Michal

First Reading

A READING FROM THE SECOND BOOK OF SAMUEL

David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty-thousand. David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God; and Ahio went in front of the ark. David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obededom to the city of David with rejoicing; and when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. David danced before the Lord with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart. They brought in the ark of the Lord, and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it; and David offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before the Lord. When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the offerings of well-being, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts, and distributed food among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins. Then all the people went back to their homes.

2 SAMUEL 6:1-5, 12B-19

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Sermon: By The Rev. Dr. Maryann Amor

Michal live. Live. Live with it. And live without him. Live with it when it hurts. And it will. You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt. Live with it. Live fully in joy and pain. Don’t let it cripple you. There are things you can’t do. There are things beyond your control. There are things you want that you’ll never have. Live with it. Live through it. And survive. You survived David; you can survive this.

These are biblical scholar, Wilna Gafney’s words, as she writes about Michal, the woman we briefly encountered this morning in our first reading. As David dancing before the ark drew our attention, she stood at a window despising him in her heart. She is often judged for this, seen as being so stuck up that she can’t embrace David’s carefree love of the LORD. But this isn’t the sum of her story. There is so much our lectionary, which gives us cut up passages to read on Sunday, misses in its reference to Michal. Because Michal survived David, and her entire story of struggle and pain is one we need to hear and learn from this morning.

Michal first appears in a list of King Saul’s children, a name alongside her siblings. As David grows in popularity, Saul knows that he is going to take the kingdom. Then we hear that Michal loves David. Michal is the only woman in the Old Testament who is said to love a man, but she is the daughter of the king who hates David. She symbolises how deep David’s power runs, because even Saul’s own child has turned towards David, eventually becoming his wife, his queen.

Saul, threated by David’s rise to power, tries multiple times to have him killed. One evening, while David is sleeping, Michal tells him that Saul is going to kill him. Michal helps David escape through a window, takes a doll, covers it in goat’s hair, and puts it in his bed…creating a fake David to fool her father’s men. When they enter the room, ready to slaughter David, Michal tells them that ‘he is ill’, he can’t get out of bed. She lies to her father to save her husband...her words and actions ensure David lives.

Michal then disappears for a few chapters, reappearing when she is given to another man as his wife…a little while later, David demands to have her returned to him. In the ancient world this kind of thing could happen. David had many wives and children at this point, but what was going on with Michal and David specifically, why she was moved back and forth between men, we aren’t told.

After this episode, we come to the passage we heard this morning…we find Michal standing at the window watching David dance before the ark, and she despises him. Michal has gone from loving David to hating David.

But there is more that has been cut from today’s reading…after our reading ends, we learn that Michal is so annoyed with David, that she leaves the window and confronts him in the street, saying, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!” David replies, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel.” And after this public argument, we hear the final words about Michal, the narrator tells us she has no children to the day of her death.

This is Michal’s story…she loves David, but David never loves her back. She gives up everything for David, saving him, going against her father…and he doesn’t respond to her. She would witness David marry other women, have children with them. She is passed from man to man. Then when she finally stands up to David…tells him to stop dancing naked before the ark, he shuts her down. To top it all off, she leaves the narrative without ever having a child, the one thing that was so badly desired in the ancient world.

Maybe now Gafney’s words that began this sermon make sense…because, despite all of the struggle and heartache she endured, despite everything that happened to her that was beyond her control, Michal lived, Michal survived.

And as we hear Michal’s story today, we are called to see her strength and not to forget this woman, who we will only ever hear named once every three years in the cut up readings we hear on Sunday mornings. Because Michal is our reminder that we must be like her. We, like her, must live and must survive too, we must keep going, even when we are in pain, when things happen that we cannot control, when life is so hard that we might only want to give up. This theme reinforces what Mike preached so powerfully last week, don’t ever give up…because Michal didn’t and she had every reason to give up. As the children of other women found a place in David’s household, as she exerted power to help men, but received nothing in return…she kept going.

And Michal’s inner strength was sourced in God. Gafney writes, “We are surrounded by the love of God that is greater than the failing love of friend, father or lover. In our places of isolation, abandonment, and self-exile, in our unhappy endings, we are held by the God who loves, heals, and restores.”

Although the Bible never mentions that God was with Michal, it assumes that God is with every character in the Bible, whether we are told this explicitly or not. God is active underneath the entire biblical storyline, and characters can either rely or God or on themselves. It is possible that Michal did turn to God, remembered God as her life crumbled around her. So, the question is…in our struggles do we remember God? Do we rely on ourselves or God?

So, when you leave worship, in the days, weeks ahead…remember Michal, remember her as a survivor. A woman who endured so much at the hands of powerful men like David, a woman who never got a happy ending, blessed with a child…a woman who shows us that when we face struggles, like she did, we must live, we must survive. Because as God was with Michal, so God is with us…to repeat Gafney’s words, “In our places of isolation, abandonment, and self-exile, in our unhappy endings, we are held by the God who loves, heals, and restores.” Amen.

For Wilna Gafney's piece on Michal, click HERE