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So the ark is taken out of cold storage. It's been moldering, a dangerous neglected relic, for three or four decades. In all the tumult of the early kingship, it was easily forgotten. Maybe for some it's become an embarrassment, a relic of old folkways, a hoary religious symbol, a primitive war talisman from before the days of kings and standing armies and modern weaponry.

But David hasn't forgotten. For him the ark is a living symbol of a deep reality: Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders build in vain; unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen watch in vain. So David brings the ark to Jerusalem. And as it comes, David dances. His dance is a kinetic outburst of sheer joy. It is a pantomime of trust and surrender. Offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, for this is your spiritual act of worship. David does. David dances. But things go tragically awry. A man dies, struck down by a fiercely angered God.

Why? Uzzah simply tried to keep the ark from tumbling to the ground. He tried to keep the flag from touching the dirt. This is what any of us would do under similar constraints: the right thing to do, the noble thing. But God killed him for it. Why?

Here's my guess. Uzzah is a strange hybrid, an iconoclastic bureaucrat. He's a rule-flouting stickler, a nitpicking maverick. He makes radical breaks with convention, then rigidly adheres to his own conventions. Uzzah's willingness to carry the ark on an ox cart was in clear breach of divine command. God had given detailed instruction about how the ark was to be transported: slung on poles and hefted by priests. Freighting the ark on an ox cart was a Philistine notion. It must have seemed to Uzzah—maybe it was even his idea to bring it over from the Philistines—more convenient, efficient, elegant. The latest fashion in worship accoutrements. Why didn't God think of it? Well, we'll amend that. It was always the hankering of the Israelites to be like the other nations. It's always been the hankering of the church, too. If everybody's doing it out there, it must be an improvement on what we do in here.

Rodney Clapp has written a book on the distinctiveness of the church, A Peculiar People. Clapp argues that the strength of the church exists primarily in our peculiarity: that we're neither for culture nor against it. We're simply different, a new thing altogether, inexplicable under any of the standard categories. We're the odd man out. We're—yes—peculiar.

But our peculiarity has also been our burden and embarrassment, the backwoods twang in our speech we want to lose in the city, the britches we barter for a zoot suit. So we're prone to Philistine innovations and refinements. Whatever keeps us current, that's the thing.

The Bible doesn't say this, but I think Uzzah was a novelty hound. That in and of itself doesn't appear to be the main problem. This is: He was also a tradition monger. He had, a Pharisaical disposition: to contrive or embrace the innovation, and then insist on it, kill or die for it. So Uzzah gets an ox cart, and fusses so painstakingly over every little detail. He makes such a binding tradition out of his newfangled innovation that he forgets the one thing needed: worship. This was supposed to be about worship.

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October 7 2002, Vol. 46, No. 11