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.

Prayer: when only dancing will do.

King David couldn't help himself.  Micah, his wife, couldn't forgive him for it.  David danced in the sight of the whole nation wearing just a linen ephod and from Micah's point of view, looking like a fool.

It all starts with the Ark of the Covenant, a gilded 'box' in which rested the original tablets of the Ten Commandments.*  More than just Israel's most precious artifact, the Ark had a particular relationship with the LORD.  On its top was the Mercy Seat, where it was believed the LORD dwelt.  It was so holy that touching it could prove fatal.

The Ark had a long history, but at this moment, David was bringing it into the city of Jerusalem to give it a proper home.  It was a joyous time.  Thirty thousand people lined the streets to watch as the ark was carefully carried to its new home.

And David just couldn't help himself.  He stripped down to his linen ephod and with 'all the house of Israel' danced before the LORD with all his might, with songs, lyres, harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.   He offered up burnt offerings along the way until he finally enters the city with shouting and the sound of the trumpet.  2 Samuel 6.5,14-16.

It's not completely clear if Micah was more disturbed by David's virtual nakedness or his wild behavior.  However, David gives the rest of us leave to dance and sing and perhaps in what looks like great foolishness express our thanks to God, our awe at being counted among God's children, or our sheer delight at being asked to be God's servant.

Take your pick.  They are all good reasons to break out in song, to pray with voice and body and movement.  Although if you choose the naked part of the story, please do this in the confines of your own home.

*Raiders of the Lost Ark is a fictionalized movie about this very box.

Hunger

This is a heads up.  Eat a good breakfast Sunday because the sermon is going to be about hunger, and if you are like me, all it takes is someone talking about hunger to get my stomach rumbling...or is that grumbling?

Our lessons are the story of David and Bathsheba (see two previous posts) and Jesus feeding the 5000.  Now I know why I chose the 2 Samuel story of David for the Old Testament text.....it is just too good a story to miss.  But it wasn't clear how that story connected in any way to Jesus' feeding the 5000.  (And to tell the truth, the lectionary folks didn't intend it to.  2 Samuel is the alternate OT text).

But then the word struck:  HUNGER.  What we want, what we need, and where it all leads us.  For some it leads to Jesus and God.  For others, it becomes a great abyss into which we fall. 

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled."  Mt5.6

The writer of 2 Samuel tells us "But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD and the LORD sent Nathan to David."  2 Sam12.1    When the prophet comes a-callin' at your door, be prepared to repent.

That's what we are talking about Sunday, but it certainly is a good topic for conversation all week.

Sex and the Sinner, part 2

Penn State removed the statue of Joe Paterno from the entrance to their football stadium.  They pried the brass plaques off the wall which listed his winning seasons. 

The one often referred to as "Joe Pa" proved to be a flawed individual who was anything but a responsible Pa to the young men being abused in the Penn State locker room.

His was a sin of omission; a failure to do what needed to be done.  It was a failure to protect the powerless, and for a person of faith, a failure to live an ethical life.

Both the university and the NCAA took away from Joe Paterno, now deceased, that which he apparently valued more than the lives of those young men: his record as a football coach, and with it his place in history and his reputation.  Of course his family is devastated; they will be carrying the shame he has avoided. 

In the story of David and Bathsheba, the child born of David's power grab of Uriah's wife, was struck ill and died.  At least that young man was spared the humiliation of forever being known as 'the one' - the living example of David's sinfulness.  His life was cut short but he was spared the shame that would have been his. 

David repents wholeheartedly, apparently.  But the damage was done.  A life was taken.

The irony of having the David and Bathsheba story on the week when Penn State begins to bear the consequences of its shameful behavior is not lost on me.

Neither is the fact that lives were taken - and all for the sake of football.  Sex and the Sinner, a modern saga.