2 Samuel
6:1-5; 12b-19
Mark
6:14-29
There
is a dance sensation sweeping the nation!
Movies such as Step Up and Dance with Me have contributed to this
craze. You can find it on TV. Dancing
with the Stars has been a popular hit show for many years; it’s number one
in its time slot. Right now we’re in the
middle of another season of the hit show So
You Think You Can Dance fueling the dance craze even more.
You
don’t have to look far to find that a dance fever has swept through our town. The Kilgore College Rangerettes, founded by a
former member of our church, are world-famous having danced in parades and
events throughout the world. My former
senior pastor and one of my uncles remember watching them in the Cotton Bowl
parades over the years. The Hi-Steppers
at Kilgore High School, led by our friend Coleen Clower, are the talk of the town
on Friday nights along with football, of course. There are dance studios that are packed full
of students who want to learn all forms of dance. Dance is a sweeping sensation.
Dance
plays a vital role in most cultures and societies across the globe. In the Bible, dance was an important part of
the life of God’s people as a form of celebration. When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, they
celebrated with song and dance. Miriam,
Moses’ sister, led the women with tambourines and with dancing. The psalmist writes that we are to “praise
his name with dancing” (Ps. 149:3) and that God has turned our mourning into
dancing (Ps. 30:11). Ecclesiastes
instructs us that there is “a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Eccl.
3:4).
There
certainly is a time for dance. King
David dances in the streets leading the Ark of the Covenant out of storage and
into the limelight, to Jerusalem, the new political and religious capital of
the United Kingdom, to serve as the centerpiece of their faith. When King David and all the Israelites danced
before the Lord, they did it with all that they had, with all of their being
and with an array of instruments that were commonly used in their time and
place in history.
It’s an
incredibly joyful worship experience, full of music and shouting and energetic
movement. “How they cut loose together,” writes Presbyterian author Frederick
Buechner. David and God were “whirling around before the ark in such a passion
that they caught fire from each other and blazed up in a single flame” of
magnificence. Not even the scolding that David got afterward from his wife,
Michal, could dim the glory of their dance.
David does
quite a dance before the ark. It’s nothing if not “enthusiastic,” a word that
originally meant “in God” (en theos,
in God). And David’s wife, Michal — the daughter of Saul, his rival for the
throne and first king of Israel — absolutely hates it.
We can sympathize with Michal, can’t we? She wasn’t an evil
woman, but she had a hard time with David’s enthusiasm. Today, when Christians
from a nation such as Ghana bring their offerings forward in worship, they move
in a dance of celebration and liberation and joy in the Lord. But many American
Christians struggle with this. After witnessing a Ghanaian offering, one woman
said, “If they want to worship that way, fine with me. But don’t bring it into
my sanctuary. They were running up and down the aisle, hollering, ‘I’m happy,
I’m happy’ … Well, as I say, if they want to do that, that’s their business.
But why do I have to sit and listen to it?”
Most of us don’t want dance in worship. It feels awkward,
embarrassing, and inappropriate. As the woman said, “Don’t bring it
into my sanctuary.” NIMS. Not in my sanctuary.
The dancing we do in church tends to be a whole lot of
nothing — we just stand still (if indeed we’re standing) or sit still, hardly
moving a muscle. Our worship of God involves our minds, our hearts and our
tongues, but rarely our whole bodies. Michal, David’s wife, would
certainly approve.
There’s a serious problem with this though, and it has
nothing to do with whether we actually allow dance in worship or not. The real
issue is our lack of enthusiasm. We have become so concerned with feeling
awkward, embarrassed and inappropriate as Christians that we have choked much
of the enthusiasm out of our service to God. And if we aren’t
enthusiastic, we aren’t en theos,
in God.
So how do we get back
into God? An excellent start is to learn the steps to good dancing and apply
them to Christian discipleship. These include teamwork, breathing, studying and
a willingness to have fun.
Teamwork
Dance is a team effort,
even when dancing a solo. Learning to
dance on your own without any help or coaching or instruction won’t get you
very far. We all need to learn from
others in the same way infants and toddlers learn from their parents or
caretakers: by example, by watching and trying.
Teachers and coaches encourage us to learn and grow, pushing us to climb
to new heights and reach new breakthroughs.
The late Tom Landry once said, “The job of a football coach is to make
men do what they don’t want to do, in order to achieve what they’ve always
wanted to be.”
Growing as a disciple of
Jesus Christ is done in a community of faith, a team of fellow believers. The job of faith communities such as ours is
to love, honor and encourage one another to mature into who God called them to
be. Christian faith doesn’t happen in a
vacuum or completely on your own. Faith
in Christ is built on relationships with one another through the love and grace
of God. It’s about teamwork.
Breathe
Good breathing is vital
to good dancing. If you don’t breathe
efficiently, then you don’t get the maximum amount of oxygen you need. You won’t have the energy and stamina to
dance very long. Breathing is important. Years ago, when aerobics videos were big,
Jane Fonda had a famous mantra, “Don’t forget to breathe!”
As disciples we must
breathe in the breath of God, the spirit of God, so that we can do the mission
God has called us to do. For the breath
of God gives life; the same breath Adam received when he was created; the same
breath that raised the dry bones into a vast multitude. To serve God, we must open ourselves to this
same life-giving spirit that leads us in our ministry to make disciples of
Jesus Christ. We breathe in the spirit
of God through prayer, reflection and meditation. And when God fills us up, we are
inspired. We have inspiration, which
means, “to breathe into” or “fill with the spirit”.
David breathed in the
spirit as he danced and he had the energy and stamina from God to do it.
Study
and Practice
There is good
dancing and there is bad dancing. What’s
the difference? Study and practice. Dance is bad even dangerous when it is not of
God; when it is human-centered form of entertainment. Our New Testament text tells us about how a
certain dance was used not to praise God but to put John the Baptist to
death.
King Herod is
throwing himself a birthday party, and he is so pleased by the dance of his
daughter that he says to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will
give it” (Mark 6:22). After consulting with her mother, the little girl rushes
back to Herod and requests, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the
Baptist on a platter” (v. 25).
Herod is deeply
grieved by this request, yet he doesn’t want to refuse the girl. Herod loses
his head while watching the beautiful dance, and now — to keep a promise — John
the Baptist is going to have to lose his.
This kind of dance is not of God, but disconnected from God; a true hell
on earth. So Herod sends a soldier of
the guard, and in short order John is killed and his head is placed on a
platter for the girl and her mother (vv. 26-28). Herod lost connection to
God and murdered an innocent man.
The Bible says that
dance is good if it is truly in God.
David’s dance is one that praises God and is God-centered. God is the centerpiece of David’s life and it
must the centerpiece of ours. God wants
us to feel passion and excitement like David.
God wants us to cut loose and risk it all for him? Are we willing to do that in our church family?
Have
Fun!
When
do most of us dance? Aside from those
who take dance classes, maybe it’s at a wedding reception, a night club, the
prom or a school formal or a honky tonk bar or even gym class. I used to have to square dance in high school
for gym class. At first I thought it was
silly. I was very self-conscious and
uncomfortable. But once I did it a
little bit and started to get the hang of it, it was a lot of fun. I looked forward to everyday. When I finally relaxed, dropped my defenses
and got into it, I had a lot more fun than if I had not tried it.
All
these examples are fun occasions; times of celebration and joy, even square
dancing in gym class. You can’t dance
well if you’re not willing to relax and have fun. This holds true with our spiritual walk with
Jesus Christ. If we do the same
ministries and activities in our church every year without any joy or
enthusiasm, then we are not walking with Christ. Jesus tells his disciples, “As the father has
loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love”. (Jn. 15:9) And two verses later Jesus says, “I have said
these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be
complete.” (Jn. 15:11) Jesus declares to
us that as his disciples we are secure in the love of God in Christ. With this certainty, we are free to dream new
dreams and form a new vision for what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ
in the 21st century. When we
step out of our comfort zones in faith and have fun, our joy from God may be
complete. With the gifts we’ve been
given from God and the trust we have in Christ, we have an inner confidence
that we can strive to become the person we were made to be. We don’t have to worry about being superhuman
and saving the world because we serve a Savior who has already saved the
world. Christians aren’t better than anybody else, they’re just better off.
No comments:
Post a Comment