“Shall We Dance?” Scripture: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 Sermon Transcript for July 19, 2009 “David and all the people of the house of Israel 2 Samuel 6:5
Prayer of Preparation O God, may we dance with joy in your presence as we listen for your Word of truth and righteousness in power of your Spirit. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen. The Message A dance craze is sweeping the nation! Have you noticed? Currently, there are several hit shows and movies that lift up dancing. The most popular of these shows is Dancing With the Stars. In fact, it is now the number one show in its time slot. And then there is another hit show entitled So You Think You Can Dance? This show highlights young dancers competing in a rapid-fire series of traditional and contemporary dance styles. Have you seen them? What do you think? And then there are several movies that spotlight dancing – e.g., Dance With Me, Take the Lead, and Step Up. A genuine dancing sensation seems to be sweeping the nation. What’s surprising, though, even shocking, given our growing couch-potato tendencies, is that we Americans are not simply watching these shows. What’s surprising is that WE are the ones who are actually hitting the dance floors – with the Tango, the Swing, the Waltz. All of these dances have been on the rise for more than a decade, pre-dating this current TV dance craze. In fact, dance studios across the country have seen a 30 to 40 percent increase in students over the last ten years, despite the fact that lessons can cost up to $100.00 an hour! I know our own family has been bitten by the dance bug. Both our daughters have been involved with dancing. Our youngest daughter, Grace, for example, performed a few weeks ago. I know other young people are involved in dancing from Grace Church. I can remember in college how Peggy and I took a dance class. Do you remember how in college you could take so many classes in PE? Well, one of those classes was dance. I think I took a class on tennis and weightlifting and then Peggy and I signed up for dance. Peggy, do you remember? Do you remember the steps to all those dances? Do you remember the Tango? Roger, hit it! And then, the Waltz! And Square Dancing! And the Swing! And, yes, the Twist! And we haven’t touched on the Jitter Bug or Polka! We human beings have been dancing since the beginning of time! King David’s Dance And so, let me ask you, shall we dance? As you can see from the title of our sermon, and as you will remember from the movie The King and I from that great scene with Yul Brenner and Deborah Kerr: Shall we dance? Shall we dance? Because in our reading from 2 Samuel this morning King David DANCES! David dances with all the people of the house of Israel before the Ark of Covenant as they bring it into the city of Jerusalem. As they make their way into the Holy City, David and all the people are “dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals” (v. 5). It’s an incredibly joyful sight – full of music, full of singing, full of enthusiastic movement. As Presbyterian minister and author Frederick Buechner has written, David and God and the people are “whirling around before the Ark with It’s quite a sight! After all, here is this large procession (some thirty thousand people) coming into the city of Jerusalem. The people of God are dancing before the most sacred symbol in Israel: the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God’s abiding presence, a reminder of God’s faithfulness. The Ark had been placed on a cart that had been residing in the house of Abinadab in a small town northwest of Jerusalem; now, it is ready to be transported and relocated. In addition, as Israel’s most famous King and leader, David is now in a position to consolidate his power, both religiously and politically. He is ready to make Jerusalem the capital of a unified kingdom and place the Ark at the center of Israel’s worship. Everything is set – everything except for the dancing! As the procession makes its way through the city gates, all eyes are the one in front: on David, the one dancing with all his might, dancing with all abandon, dancing with such enthusiasm that he embarrasses his wife Michal, King Saul’s daughter (v. 16). In fact, our passage says that Michal despises David in her heart as he leaps and dances before the Lord (v. 16). Remember that Michal is also King Saul’s daughter, but because she can’t bear a son to David, there is considerable tension between the two of them. She also doesn’t like the fact that David is dancing with only a linen breastplate in front of the servant girls! Who wouldn’t?! Not everyone is “in” to dancing, right!? Dancing can be embarrassing, sometimes awkward, if not inappropriate. In fact, I can’t say for sure, but I would venture to say that many of us would rather not dance. Paul Taylor is the innovative, if not controversial, American dancer and choreographer. He once contributed a dance solo in which he simply stood motionless on stage for four minutes; he just stood still, not moving a muscle. Now, it’s hard to know what to say about such a dance, if it’s a dance at all! But one reviewer for a dance magazine responded appropriately: His review consisted of four inches of white space! He wrote nothing about nothing! Learning to Dance I wonder if there is a message somewhere here for us. I wonder sometimes if the dancing we do (or don’t do) in the church tends to be similar to Paul Taylor’s solo: sometimes we just stand still. We don’t always involve our whole bodies in the service and worship of God – our minds and hearts and tongues, yes, but not always our bodies. Now, there is a problem with this, and it really has nothing to do with whether or not we like dancing, or with whether or not we allow dancing. Sometimes we can become so concerned with our feeling awkward and embarrassed that we can stifle the enthusiasm in our service to God. Maybe this is why Michal got so upset. She wasn’t so much irritated with David’s dancing as she was with David’s enthusiasm. Have you ever been around someone who is always enthusiastic, always gun-ho? That person can drive you crazy! And you think to yourself: Quiet! I can’t stand this! You understand. A friend of mine last year went before the Board of Ordained Ministry in North Carolina. He is an outstanding candidate for ministry. But there was a concern. The Board was concerned that he showed too much enthusiasm! He was too happy. True story! What is enthusiasm? Enthusiasm literally means en theos or in God. Unfortunately, we have lost a sense of the meaning of this word, of understanding the Christian life as a matter of being in God, of keeping in I say “unfortunately” because the early Christians had a wonderful image of God as a “circle of three persons, defined by love, holding and embracing each other, moving in and out together, in dance.” The word the church used for this is perichoresis. It literally means “circle dance.” To see one person of the Trinity is to see all the persons of the Trinity: to dance with one is to dance with all, as we take the Father’s hand, as we see the Son’s face, as we dance in the Spirit. The early Christians viewed our relationship with God not as a head trip, but as a movement of the heart, as a movement lead by God the Father in Son through Holy Spirit, with each member of the Trinity inviting us into the movement of salvation, into the mission of the gospel. Therefore, to be in one is to be in all, and to be in all is to be in the dance. Now, I don’t know about you, but I believe that’s a beautiful way to understand our lives together as Christians – as a kind of movement, where the church serves as a kind of dance studio where we learn together the steps of serving and worshiping God. Taking the Right Steps Think about it: Dancing requires teamwork – one who leads and one who follows, patience, practice, trust. It is very difficult to Square Dance or Waltz, for example, unless everyone is stepping in the right direction. That was one of our major themes during Vacation Bible School, And so, whether we are singing in a choir, or building a Habitat House, or going on a mission trip, or participating in a small group, we need to have a great deal of teamwork; for without teamwork, we are going to stumble and fall.
Tomorrow, this nation and the whole world will remember what But before Neil Armstrong took that first step on the moon, he had a great deal of help; that is, it’s impossible to think about that first step unless we also think about all the other steps that made that first step possible – all the teamwork, all the trust, all the planning and patience, all the dreaming! It’s an important reminder that none of us really dances alone, do we? None of us can really take this journey of faith without partners, can we? At least at our best, we as Christians are called to dance together! At our best, as God’s people, we are called to serve and worship together, cry and struggle together, walk and love together. At our worst, we sit and watch and do nothing. We fail to invite others into the dance, into the circle, into the fellowship, into this relationship with God. At our worst, we take our eyes off God and like Herod’s daughter who requested the death of John the Baptist we dance for all the wrong reasons (see Mark 6:22). We need to confess that there are times when we are simply not on top of our game. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I find this passage is so intriguing: it challenges us to see WHY we dance, if we dance at all! It challenges us to see that if we despise others for their enthusiasm (the way Michal did with David) we are probably the ones standing on the outside, standing alone.
Shall We Dance? And so, church, can we talk? I don’t know what your thoughts about dancing are. It’s really not important. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is whether we are “in” God, whether we are enthusiastic about our life in God, and whether we are in step with God and serving and worshiping God together – this dancing God who invites us into this circle of love and joy and who extends his hands to us and asks us: Shall we dance? Shall we dance? Shall we dance with all our might before the Lord like David did when he came into the Holy City, dancing and singing and celebrating and serving and worshiping the one true God?!/2/ What do you say church? Shall we dance? Shall we dance? Amen.
Notes
2. See “Shall We Dance?” in Homiletics: Journal for Preaching (July-
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