It is interesting to note that we rarely see readings that discuss dancing in scripture, and yet, this week, we get two readings that mentioned dance as a central figure in a story. And there's a great deal of contrast between the two dances depicted in our readings this week.
David’s dance is before God. It is not meant to please anyone but God, and is a sign of pure joy and triumph --and, dare we say it, worship? Most of us staid Episcopalians do not consider dance to be a normal part of our worship lives --and for many of us, dance is something that we do not consider to be a normal part of any of our lives. And there's a very simple reason for that. Dancing makes us self-conscious, mostly because dancing puts our bodies, and our sense of rhythm, on display.
It wasn’t always like that for most of us. As children, we delighted in the things we could do through movement: crawling, walking, and running led to twirling, bouncing, and leaping. This was allowed when you were at home, but not allowed when you were in public—and it is that prohibition, I think that led many of us to lose our joy in rhythmical movement.
For some of us this talk about dancing can bring to mind either humiliating, awkward mixers in our school days or parqueted floors at weddings —or worse, elementary school gym class, where we were forced to learn square dancing or the Virginia reel while our gym teacher snuck off for a smoke outside, we suspected. Then there are those songs that have formulaic dances or songs attached to them. But too many of us don’t join in. We worry that we are out of rhythm or out of step. We worry that we look silly. We worry that we don't know the latest moves.
And this extends into worship. Most Episcopal parishes do not incorporate dance into liturgy. We Episcopalians are generally very stodgy about body movement during worship. Sure, there’s standing, sitting, kneeling, genuflecting—what the late great Episcopalian Robin Williams famously called “pew aerobics.” But we don’t tend to make a lot of gestures—heck some of us can’t bring ourselves to genuflect, and that’s okay.
But it can be a hard habit to shake, this regulating every movement in worship. One of the things we had to be taught as we prepared for our ordination was the manual motions priests are called to make during the Eucharist. The first several times we practiced, I felt incredibly self-conscious. Was I flinging my hands out too wide? Was I moving too fast or too slowly?
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| Bless you, my people. |
How exactly do you hold your fingers when blessing the people? How do you avoid looking like Carol Burnett channeling the Queen of England waving from her carriage?
But when I first became an Episcopalian, I loved the predictability of it all, having grown up in some churches where people would be “seized by the spirit” and randomly speak in tongues. In the first parish in which I was a member, there was a young boy we’ll call Joey. Joey was not neuro-typical and largely non-verbal, but he watched everything. And when it came time for communion, he was often the first to run to the altar rail, hands outstretched. After receiving the host, Joey would pop it into his mouth with a shout, and then spin and twirl his way back to his family’s pew. Of course, there were people who disapproved. But luckily, we had a priest who knew that Joey was demonstrating for all of us the joy that communion is possible to elicit. He was being authentically himself—but himself joyfully grateful to a God he knew but couldn’t describe.
David, it is told, wrote many of the psalms, which meant he spent a lifetime trying to describe God and trying to define his relationship with God. Yet in our first reading today, David puts aside his pen, and instead puts on the garments of a priest, and dances before the ark of the covenant with all of the joy and wonder he felt, unashamedly, joyfully. He is dancing to express the joy of God’s throne being back among God’s people at long last, a moment of dramatic importance.
Contrast David’s dance with that of Herod’s stepdaughter, who is actually named Salome. David’s dance is understood as more acceptable because it is not for bedazzling a creepy despot, but for expressing his joyful worship—and no one loses their lives because of it, either. We can admire his bravery at putting aside his air of dignity to give full expression to what God means in his life, as imperfect as we all know he is. But how many of us are glad we are not being asked to dance with all our might in front of a gathered multitude?
What does this story mean for us? How often do we feel self-conscious about parts of our calling as Christian witnesses and disciples?
First, perhaps we should consider the false division between body and spirit that has taken root in much of our thinking about human life today. Bodies and souls are both dependent upon each other in this life. Bodies are not some shameful disposable container for our immortal souls but are instead a reminder that we share our embodied life with Christ himself. Just as bodies and souls depend upon each other, so too our faith and our life are intertwined, and depend upon each other. Listen carefully to what we pray in worship. It tells us important things about how to live—how to get out there and dance the dance of God for the world to see.
Then there’s the spiritual dance of discipleship, and how we can embody that in our lives. How many of us hesitate when the Spirit calls us into the dance of love and true worship that might make us forget ourselves and possibly open ourselves up to scorn and mockery in the eyes of this cynical divided world? Oh, it probably wouldn’t take actual dancing to do a number on us.
It wouldn’t take actual dancing in the streets-- or, in a way, does it? What if it required us to be better evangelists? Oooh, just as scary. But as we learned with the revival of line dancing after the disco and Urban Cowboy eras, anything is less embarrassing if done in groups rather than individually. And that’s key: we do this together, supporting each other. Inviting each other into the dance of faith, the dance of the Trinity of God that makes us all one.
Let us dance in the freedom of religion as a guide for our own behavior rather than a bludgeon we could use on OTHER people’s behavior, especially if our religious beliefs cost us nothing and cost them their identity or dignity.
Let us dance in a new understanding of how our public opinions and actions —both as individuals and as a group-- toward the poor, the marginalized, and the outcast fare next to Christ’s gospel actions toward the poor, the marginalized and the outcast.
Let us dance together in using our power to alleviate the potential suffering of those around us instead of idolizing our own rights at the expense of others.
Let us dance in a new understanding of how powerful our words are to build up those around us in unity and grace, rather than tear others down.
Let us dance into speaking honestly about what God’s love has meant for us in our lives when someone asks us if we go to church.
Could it be that, for all the fear of looking foolish, there would also be indescribable joy that we might open ourselves up to receive?
Each of these things would put us as much on display as actually joining David in dancing in the streets before the Ark. Yet God is inviting Christians, especially now in this time of hatred, division, and contempt, to literally embody Christ’s loving values against the forces of inhumanity, dishonesty, and exploitation.
That may sound scary. But God is also calling us to embrace joy, and generosity, and gratitude, and be blessed as these gifts take root in our lives, softening the hard soil that can seize up our hearts so that we could be truly happy and fruitful.
Come, join in the dance, and see where it leads.
Readings:
Preached at the 10:30 online Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO on July 11, 2021.
