Dancing in church

When was the last time you danced in church?  Well, to be more specific, in a worship service?  I have been known to pick up the beat just a little when we are singing one of our wonderful hymns with Caribbean rhythms, but dance?  Not since a complete stranger told me I danced like a Lutheran.  Can still hear his voice!

In spite of the pietistic history around dancing (my great-grandmother forbade dancing on the Sabbath, as have many Christian denominations), our sisters and brothers in Africa can't imagine a worship service without some form of dancing.  Their 'offering processional' is often a dancing line of folks moving towards the altar to bring their offerings forward.  The choirs rarely keep their feet still, which is a pattern we witness in many of our African descent congregations.

Annnnnd, it is biblical!  This past week we watched as David 'danced before the Lord' in the great procession moving the Ark of the Covenant from its temporary home to it new tent home.  (It would be King Solomon who finally built the Temple, a permanent home for the Ark).  I assume David was simply moved by the occasion, the wonder of the Ark's presence, or maybe even the Holy Spirit when he led the people in this great procession.  He had stripped off his princely garments, and clothed in just a linen ephod, he danced.

Of course, as happy as this occasion was, and as joyfully as David danced, there were critics.  His wife, seeing David from a window, 'despised him.'  Doesn't say exactly why.  Perhaps because he was next to naked.  Perhaps because he was not acting like a king.  Perhaps because David felt the total freedom to express himself freely.

Or perhaps because it just wasn't proper.  There are so many things we don't do - so many ways we restrict our expressions of worship before God - because they are not 'proper'.  Yet, I think that anytime we recognize the wonder of God's exquisite creation, the expression of talent and grace in word or movement or song, even each time a child's laughter rings out clear and pure, we are called to give thanks .........which is the purest form of worship. 

I remember the two year old who thought her part in the children's message time was to step up to the altar and twirl and twirl until she collapsed in joyful laughter. 

Like David, she was dancing before the Lord and it was pure worship.