Good dance, bad dance

David danced before the Lord in the procession of the Ark of the Covenant.  It was free, and joyful and certainly not kingly.  But it was worship because above all else, it honored God.

Herodias danced before Herod and a crowd of (probably) inebriated cronies (read that as: drunk, powerful men).  From Herod's reaction, it was beautiful, seductive and in the end, deadly.  As a reward for her performance, Herodias received John the Baptist's head on a platter.  It was gruesome, it was egotistical and prideful and it honored no one.

Good dance, bad dance.

What kind of dance are you dancing?  One that honors God or one that honors the powerful?  Good dance or bad dance?

Be assured I ask this question from the perspective of an awkward and occasionally rhythmically challenged dancer.  But of course, how we look on the dance floor at a wedding is not the point at all.

The point is:  how do you look on the dance floor of life?  Are you dancing a life that honors God?  Do you work at love, compassion, generosity, forgiveness, humility?  

Or are you dancing the dance of the powerful?  Are your choices grounded in self-preservation, protecting what's yours, keeping the needy at bay, giving no thought to the oppressed?

Who is playing the flute for you?  Who is calling the shots?  Who commands your respect?  For whom will you sacrifice?

To whom do you give glory?

Many thanks to Fr. Peter Williams, Grace and Holy Spirit Church, Cortland, NY for this dancing perspective on the lessons for Sunday, July 15th.  This is his sermon in a capsule although it doesn't include an awesome rendition of the Chicken Dance from the congregation.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5sIspLfmXM  for a good version.

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.

It sort of creeps up on you

No, I'm not talking about zombies or that nasty weed that I simply can't get out of my garden, I'm talking about faith.  And, I am talking about my experience of it which may be 180 degrees from your experience of it. I will try to describe the certainty that has grown over the years from that first encounter with something /someone beyond myself.

I grew up in a church family; we worshipped every Sunday and worked on the wider work of the church. We said grace before meals and prayers at bedtime.  I learned the Bible stories, most of the catechism (no, not by memory).  Over the years I reflected on many of the paradoxes of the faith and the life of faith.  I always had a serious question to ask and rarely accepted shallow answers to those questions.

There are good reasons for that.  My next younger sister was afflicted with polio at 3 months; it made the 16 years she was granted challenging and often painful.  There was an iron lung, orthopedic braces, operations, hospital stays and a funeral before she reached her 17th birthday.  In our house, suffering was never an abstract.  Strangers who rejected my sister because of her disabilities before they knew her, strrangers who refused to serve us meals; strangers who made rude comments aloud; strangers who called the health department because she was a health risk.....we knew all of these.  She was the first handicapped child allowed to attend 'regular' school in our school district.  She was neither an object of charity or pity, but a funny, courageous, bright and normal girl in a deformed body.

Her health determined our family's agenda: if and where we might vacation, how we as a family traveled from place to place, how much money was available for spending.  We all learned how to cook and do laundry and take care of ourselves because my parents were often full out caring for her.  
Her life shaped my life, and it shaped my faith.  But not in one fell swoop, but slowly, over time, after questions answered and truths challenged. Witnessing the thoughtlessness and sometimes, bigotry, of strangers, I became sensitive to injustice towards others.  Watching her struggle and suffer with little or no hope of living a long life, I find glib answers to life's deepest losses intolerable.

Throughout it all, God was at the center of our family life and our family routine.  I found God and I found myself through the rhythm of worship. Over the years, the presence of God and the certainty of Jesus' love for me and those around me simply grew.  I searched for deeper truths; I refused to accept 'pie in the sky' explanations.  The promise of heaven could never take away the reality of life in this world.  

I was immersed in an ethos of faith and God slowly crept up on me, becoming as natural as breathing and ordinary as doing laundry and as miraculous as a sunrise.

How did it happen for you?


 

What would it take for you to say No?

I know that some of this is a function of getting older.  I have seen 64 Christmases, and I remember probably about 55 of them.  I understand that as I age I want things to be simpler and require less fluff and to focus more on the important stuff.

I also think that some of this is a function of my call as pastor, which as you know, came later in life. For 15 years I have been the one in charge of multiple services, often in multiple locations, with multiple 'absolutely necessary' traditions.  I know what it is like to recruit folks to be a part of the great Christmas Eve extravaganza when their response is....I am so busy shopping and baking.  I just want to sit and watch on Christmas Eve. I have never understood families who insist on gatherings that make it impossible to attend worship.

Furthermore, I am by nature a 'less is more' kind of person.  I dislike excess....and believe me, I define excess quite broadly.  I prefer less running around, fewer 'must do' activities, fewer 'must have' presents and the pressure of finding gifts for folks who don't need anything but who are very particular about what you get them.  I like white lights on the tree, and a simple family dinner.

Therefore, I find it easier to say No than most folks.  When I realized that I was receiving Christmas cards with just someone's name in them, PRINTED! and no message.....and I was often sending back exactly the same thing, I stopped sending Christmas cards.  There isn't a Christmas card contest somewhere that I have to win.

When the children came along and cash was far from plentiful, I found it easier to say No to in-laws of every stripe.  We simply couldn't afford presents for every version of relative out there and so we reduced and eliminated.

After several years of trying to produce a wonderous Christmas Eve dinner, I discovered that my children much preferred familiar food, eaten by candlelight.  They called it 'a feast' and my life was simplified.  We could get to evening worship without great stress to me, and therefore to everyone else.

We could focus on what was, and is, and will always be, the important center of Christmas: the birth of Jesus.  We can embrace the peace that Jesus promises to bring to our world.  We can rejoice in the very quiet fellowship of family and friends.

NO was the password to a different celebration of this holy time.  We could give to those without.  We could buy a goat or a sheep or books for children.  We could invite someone to share our meal.

What can you do to recapture the holiness of the season....all season long....into the new year?

How could you live out the great promise of life that is Jesus and put behind you the world's definition of holiday celebration?  What kind of joy awaits you?

What would it take for you to say No?

Strong in the Faith

How did we get here?
How do we stay here?

Yesterday 4 of our young people took on the grace and responsibility of living as a person of faith.  They did not arrive at this destination on their own.  They were called by the Holy Spirit into baptism and nurtured by people of faith around them: parents, grandparents, sponsors, adult friends, members of the community at Luther Memorial and other influences we will probably never know about.  In fact, many of us are not completely sure how we ourselves have held onto our faith through the years.

How does faith come about?  How does it grow? Here are six tools.  These are the tools that parents use to help form their children's faith life;  they are the ones we all use to maintain a solid, healthy relationship with the God whom we believe has blessed us.

Worship.  Sunday mornings much of the time; occasionally Wednesdays; plus once a year we gather throughout Holy Week.  We worship.  We come to worship.  How is it a tool to our faith formation?

When you walk through the doors on Sunday morning for worship, you know you are entering a sanctuary - a holy place where your burdens can be laid down.  You know that this space has been set apart for connecting with the God whose love for you is neither blind nor naive.  Here you find the Divine Voice which tells you, "I know all about you.  Every nook and cranny.  Everything you want to remain hidden from sight forever.  I know you."

Once we have admitted the truth of all that is known, then we can breathe in the power of this God's second statement, "I love you.  The you who I know, I love. I created you, gave you breath and now I want you to experience life separate from the brokenness of this world."

Each person who walks through the door gives up a hour and a half of time to be with the Lord who knows and loves them, surrounded by others who are there for the very same reason.  We use ancient words, and occasionally ancient songs to repeat the good news of this delivering, loving God.  We share some bread and some wine and we are made whole by the outpouring of God's love for us.  A gift of life.  For each one of us, no matter what we dragged through the front door before we got started.

It is the source of all else that flows.  It is the lens through which we see the world.  It is our foundation and shows us the fullness of what can be.

We worship.  Tool one.

Prayer: the sound of silence

Silence.

Sometimes expectant.

Sometimes hostile.

Very rare in 21st century America.

Often the most powerful moments of corporate worship are the all too short and infrequent silences.  Devoid of speaking or singing or moving, these times allow the Word of God to sink in, to find its way beyond our exterior into the places where we make decisions and form hopes.

Here is the classic story of the great silence:

The prophet Elijah had been a great champion for YHWH against the priests of Baal, a cult which competed with YHWH for the loyalty of the people.  Elijah had danced around the 450 prophets of Baal, taunting and criticizing.  In the end, YHWH demonstrated the power that resides with the Creator of the Universe and Elijah was vindicated.  All 450 prophets of Baal were put to death.  Then he had to run for his life. (1 Kings 18.20 - 19.18 This is such a grand story you might want to read it for yourself).

On Mount Horeb, when Elijah and God are about to meet, a great wind passed Elijah by, but God was not in the wind.  Then there was a great earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but God was not in either of those.

Then there was the sound of sheer silence.  That was where Elijah met God. 

 It is often where we meet God as well.  

Add silence to your spiritual life.  Seek that place of silence so profound that only God can fill it.  You will be blessed.

Growing spiritually: worship and devotion

She's the woman who anoints Jesus, to prepare him for his burial.

She purchases an alabaster jar of expensive perfumed ointment, and pours it onto Jesus, filling the room with the fragrance of her gift.

The men in the room become angry; perhaps because she embarrasses them with this intimate act played out in public. Perhaps because they were all wishing that they had thought of it first.

They all have a solution to this 'waste of good money'....and their reaction tells us they cannot see what this woman is doing as an act of worship and devotion.  Jesus commends her and promises that wherever this story is told it will be done in remembrance of her.  

 She never says anything.       We never learn her name.

We will need to put aside our notion of worship as a 'service' that we attend and embrace, instead, a notion of worship as action in order to see the potential for spiritual growth in this story.  Without words, and in a hostile environment (this was an all men's dinner) she simply acted: extravagantly, generously, with nothing held back.  Focused on the service she could do for her Lord, she acted and then she slips away from the story forever.

I've always wondered if Jesus could still smell the wonder of that ointment in the days ahead....when they arrested him and crucified him.  Could the fragrance that filled that room have given him the assurance (as slight as it may have been) of this one woman's devotion?  Did it help him remember the one who loved him when the whole world was busy crushing him?

How do we grow to be the one who knows how to honor her God and does so without regard for the hostile glares around her and the emptying of her purse?  How does emptying out that alabaster jar fill her with God?