VULGAR FELLOWS: The Dancing of Michael Jackson and King David
At a friend’s wedding earlier this year, dinner had been eaten, wine had been drunk, and the DJ was trying to coax folks out onto the dance floor. He started playing Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”. That memorable opening bass line was pouring from the speakers. I turned to my friend Lisa (who is a brilliant theologian) and asked her, “Do you think Christians could ever write a song like this?”
It’s worth considering whether we could or not. The song is off his album THRILLER, which is the number one selling album of all time.[1] THRILLER was debatably the artistic pinnacle of Jackson’s career and launched him into a level of stardom few musicians have reached since. The bass line and those guitar riffs on Billie Jean do something to your mind and body when you hear them. An experienced wedding DJ knows that after a few glasses of wine, wedding guests will begin to uncontrollably shake their asses when this song plays. Hence, the magnetism that was drawing us all to the dance floor.
Yet there is something low brow and undignified about this song as well. The content of the lyrics is about a woman claiming Jackson is the father of her baby and him saying ‘the kid is not my son’. There’s a back and forth of accusations and denial. The inspiration for Billie Jean may have come from a series of letters that Jackson received in 1981 from a woman claiming that she was carrying his child. Apparently, Michael and his other brothers in the Jackson 5 regularly received letters like this and he chose to ignore it. The disturbing letters continued to come, eventually causing Jackson to suffer from nightmares. It is a sordid tale, but an incredible jam.
To wildly overgeneralize, Christian music is far more reserved and respectable. Having worked in Christian retail for several years I can attest that the music follows the artistic trends of the day, morally disinfects the message, and puts it on the market for consumption in our little cultural ghetto. The songs do not wade into the messiness of a life that looks more like an episode of Jerry Springer than a squeaky clean Sunday service.
But for Christians, do we have our Billie Jean? A song that can stand true to our redemptive narrative of the gospel, while also not being put into an artistic straightjacket of respectability and put-togetherness? A new song for the church, that can capture the anger, sadness, and confusion of this age, while at the same time finding our dangerous and loving God in the midst of it all?
We had our towering artist at one time, our version of Mike Jackson. King David led a life that would make church ladies blush. He displayed the highs of devotion and the lows of infidelity and murder. A deep sadness and triumphant power comes through in his music and poetry.
In the book of second Samuel chapter 6 David is dancing before the Ark of the Covenant as it rolls into Jerusalem. This may have been his THRILLER moment. Certainly one of the pinnacles of his life and the story of ancient Israel. He’s going crazy, dancing in the street. Who knows, maybe the tiles of the road were even lighting up when he moonwalked across them?
14 Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, 15 while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
I’ll tell you who wasn’t dancing that day, David’s uptight bummer of a wife Michal. It says that she looked down upon this raucous party scene and was super miffed.
16 As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.
Granted, Michal was the daughter of the previous (now dead) King Saul. Saul was the guy who looked like a king and acted like a king. When he was picked to be king everyone nodded and said to themselves that makes sense. He was respectable and dignified. But God fired him from the job for not being faithful. Instead the job was passed on to David and David was a real head scratcher of a choice. He didn’t fit into their preconceived ideas of what royalty should look and act like. Queen Michal had a good sense of what royal behavior should look like and when her husband got home she gave him a sarcastic earful.
20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “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 was not only an artist, but prophetic at times as well. His response to Michal foreshadows Jesus himself:
21 David said to Michal, “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—I will celebrate before the Lord. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
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David also had a checkered life. Bathsheba was his own version of Billie Jean, but worse. She wasn’t a random groupie making a claim that may or may have been true. Bathsheba was a married woman and he used his power to seduce her:
2 SAMUEL 11: In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
To quote Michael Jackson: ‘They danced on the floor in the round. She said he was the one, and the kid was his son’
It’s a messy life, but a true story. David was a vulgar fellow and yet God called him a man after his own heart (Acts 13:22).
REFLECTION:
What is an “undignified” idea for your art or the kingdom that you’ve pushed away because it seemed too outlandish or vulgar?
Jesus was accused of being a “vulgar fellow”. He hung out with prostitutes and ‘ sinners’. What might that accusation tell us about God’s nature?