“Delight yourself in fatness!” (Isaiah 55:2) – not a message most Americans would approve. However, when I would return to Uganda after a vacation in the States, colleagues not infrequently came up and complimented me by saying: “Professor, you’re so fat!” So it has been in most cultures throughout history: putting on weight is a sign of abundance.
When we meet David in this chapter, he has just passed through the lean years of dodging Saul’s killing squads, has defeated the Philistines, and has been publicly anointed king in Hebron. It’s time to party!
But wait! Before the partying begins, David remembers who brought him to the present day: “He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me… He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:17,19). The Ark, the locus of God’s presence, must go first, with juicy oxen slaughtered every six steps.
On this occasion, David does not present himself robed as a potentate but rather as a mere Temple servant, clothed in a loin cloth, leaping and dancing ecstatically like some of his Hasidic descendents http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBNmqwJ5aN0&feature=relmfu. This performance did not play well with his queen, Saul’s daughter Michal, and “she despised him in her heart” (verse 17). David paid no heed, and went on to share the various offerings – quite a bull roast this – with all the people.
“I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound,” St. Paul says. (Phil 4:12). We don’t have any examples of Paul jumping and leaping and praising God, but we do know he urged believers to “rejoice in the Lord always.” One can leap up with joy in the heart, even when one’s joints no longer obey the inner command.
Some years ago the Cameron family had a catchy number called “The Dancing Heart” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG6eVnuCs8Y with the refrain “the Holy Ghost will set your feet a-dancing.” It is indeed the Holy Spirit that gives us freedom and power to experience life to the full, whatever comes, whether leanness or fatness.