Shall We Dance? -- FPC sermon excerpt
“Dancing with the Stars.”
It’s been a wildly popular TV show, number one in its time slot.
“So You Think You Can Dance?”
Another hit show, with a collection of young dancers competing in a rapid-fire series of traditional and contemporary dance styles. Combine these shows with the movies “Dance With Me,” “Take the Lead,” and “Step Up,” and you’ve got a genuine dance sensation, sweeping the nation.
What’s surprising — even shocking, given our couch-potato tendencies — is that Americans are not simply watching these shows. No, we are actually hitting the dance floor ourselves. Tango, swing, and ballroom dancing have been on the rise for over a decade, predating the TV dance craze. Studios are seeing a 30 or 40 percent increase in students over the past ten years.
So we are not only watching dance, we are doing it. Or trying to, anyway. And with the rising popularity of reality TV dance shows, this white-hot trend shows no sign of cooling off.
King David would have been an excellent contestant on “Dancing with the Stars,” since he was a big celebrity in his day. In 2 Samuel 6, David and his people bring the ark of God to Jerusalem, and as they make their way to the city David and all the house of Israel are “dancing before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals” (v. 5).
It is an incredibly joyful worship experience, full of music and shouting and enthusiastic movement. “How they cut loose together,” writes Presbyterian author Frederick Buechner: David and God, “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 from his wife Michal afterwards could dim the glory of it.
David does quite a dance before the ark. It is nothing if not “enthusiastic,” a word that comes from the Greek en theos, meaning “in God.” And David’s wife Michal absolutely hates it.
It feels awkward to her, as dancing often does. Embarrassing. Inappropriate.
According to Second Samuel, she despises him in her heart (v. 16).
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 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 — one woman at my previous church made the comment, after witnessing a Ghanaian offering, “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?”
Many people don’t want dance in worship. It feels awkward, embarrassing, inappropriate.
As the woman said, “Don’t bring it into my sanctuary.”
So, shall we dance? Many of us would rather not. And I can tell you that you wouldn’t want to watch me dance, in worship or anyplace else. About all I can do is follow the example of Paul Taylor, the innovative American dancer and choreographer. He once contributed a modern dance solo in which he simply stood motionless on stage for four minutes — he just stood still, not moving a muscle. Yeah, I can do that.
Now it’s hard to know what to say about such a dance, but one reviewer for a dance magazine responded in an appropriate way: His review consisted of just four inches of white space. He wrote nothing about nothing.
The dancing we do in church tends to be quite similar to Paul Taylor’s solo. What we do is nothing — we just stand still, hardly moving a muscle. Our worship of God involves our minds, our hearts, and our tongues, but rarely our whole bodies.
David’s wife Michal would certainly approve.
There’s a serious problem with this, and it has nothing to do with whether we actually allow dance in worship or not. The dancing question is a distraction — the real issue is much deeper. Our main problem today is a 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 here’s the real tragedy: If we are not enthusiastic, we are not en theos, in God.
It’s been a wildly popular TV show, number one in its time slot.
“So You Think You Can Dance?”
Another hit show, with a collection of young dancers competing in a rapid-fire series of traditional and contemporary dance styles. Combine these shows with the movies “Dance With Me,” “Take the Lead,” and “Step Up,” and you’ve got a genuine dance sensation, sweeping the nation.
What’s surprising — even shocking, given our couch-potato tendencies — is that Americans are not simply watching these shows. No, we are actually hitting the dance floor ourselves. Tango, swing, and ballroom dancing have been on the rise for over a decade, predating the TV dance craze. Studios are seeing a 30 or 40 percent increase in students over the past ten years.
So we are not only watching dance, we are doing it. Or trying to, anyway. And with the rising popularity of reality TV dance shows, this white-hot trend shows no sign of cooling off.
King David would have been an excellent contestant on “Dancing with the Stars,” since he was a big celebrity in his day. In 2 Samuel 6, David and his people bring the ark of God to Jerusalem, and as they make their way to the city David and all the house of Israel are “dancing before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals” (v. 5).
It is an incredibly joyful worship experience, full of music and shouting and enthusiastic movement. “How they cut loose together,” writes Presbyterian author Frederick Buechner: David and God, “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 from his wife Michal afterwards could dim the glory of it.
David does quite a dance before the ark. It is nothing if not “enthusiastic,” a word that comes from the Greek en theos, meaning “in God.” And David’s wife Michal absolutely hates it.
It feels awkward to her, as dancing often does. Embarrassing. Inappropriate.
According to Second Samuel, she despises him in her heart (v. 16).
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 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 — one woman at my previous church made the comment, after witnessing a Ghanaian offering, “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?”
Many people don’t want dance in worship. It feels awkward, embarrassing, inappropriate.
As the woman said, “Don’t bring it into my sanctuary.”
So, shall we dance? Many of us would rather not. And I can tell you that you wouldn’t want to watch me dance, in worship or anyplace else. About all I can do is follow the example of Paul Taylor, the innovative American dancer and choreographer. He once contributed a modern dance solo in which he simply stood motionless on stage for four minutes — he just stood still, not moving a muscle. Yeah, I can do that.
Now it’s hard to know what to say about such a dance, but one reviewer for a dance magazine responded in an appropriate way: His review consisted of just four inches of white space. He wrote nothing about nothing.
The dancing we do in church tends to be quite similar to Paul Taylor’s solo. What we do is nothing — we just stand still, hardly moving a muscle. Our worship of God involves our minds, our hearts, and our tongues, but rarely our whole bodies.
David’s wife Michal would certainly approve.
There’s a serious problem with this, and it has nothing to do with whether we actually allow dance in worship or not. The dancing question is a distraction — the real issue is much deeper. Our main problem today is a 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 here’s the real tragedy: If we are not enthusiastic, we are not en theos, in God.
posted by Henry Brinton | 10:07 AM
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