"Shall We Dance?"

Texts: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12-21; Mark 6:14-29

It was very big news at the beginning of this year when Wheaton College made a bold change to one of its most enduring policies. The small Christian college just outside Chicago, the alma mater of Billy Graham and numerous other luminaries, attracted national attention by declaring that its ban on social dancing was being dropped. From this day on, the pledge that all students and faculty must sign, will allow the Wheaton community to dance the night away.

From my several Wheaton alumni friends I know that this particular ban wasn’t always strictly enforced, or at least observed. And the change has been universally welcomed as a sign that the College is keeping up with the times and the changing face of Christianity. Don’t worry—all dances on campus still have to be College-sponsored, and the new pledge instructs all to avoid any dancing that is "immodest, sinfully erotic, or harmfully violent."¹

That hint of worry does make some sense: When Wheaton’s founders banned dancing more than a hundred years ago, it wasn’t completely without reason. There’s something about dancing. It is unmistakably sensual. Some of the usual restraints that we use to keep ourselves in line are cast aside. When we use our body to express how we feel it can be more consuming than speaking words, or even singing. I know when I see a show out at the StarLight theatre the crowd may be impressed with the singing, but it is the dance numbers that get their hearts racing and take their breath away. There’s something about dancing.

And then there’s me. I don’t particularly like to dance. Maybe I don’t like the vulnerability that is involved with dancing. Maybe I’m just not any good at it. In any case, when I dance (or try to) I am exceedingly conscious of how I look and what I am doing. It defeats the whole purpose because I am worried that I look stupid, or that I’m not doing it right. Maybe some of you know what I mean.

Most in David’s day would have been comfortable with dancing. In the Hebrew mind, dancing was a regular part of celebration. In a mostly agricultural, mostly rural society, when the people came together they celebrated and then (as now) dancing was part of celebrations. It was a way for people to meet each other—which may be just what the Wheaton trustees were worried about. But it was also a way to relax, to establish community bonds, to have fun.

And dancing wasn’t just part of secular celebrations. Dancing was part of worship long before David brought the ark to the city. Not just faithful Jewish worship, either. Shrines to various gods might be the site of dancing rituals. Remember Moses’ reaction when he came down the mountain to find a golden calf and all the people caught up in dancing around it.

And then, of course, there was dancing as entertainment, salacious titillating entertainment sometimes. In our gospel reading from Mark we heard of Herod’s daughter coming in to dance for a group of men and so pleasing them that the king was moved to offer her anything at all. Prompted by Herod’s wife, the head of John the Baptist became the cost for this dangerous practice of dancing.

The Hebrew world, perhaps more than ours, was in touch with the reality that our bodies are an integral part of ourselves. What we do with our bodies—good or bad, active or lazy, leaping or reclining, sinning or serving—affects the condition of our mind and spirit, too. When we kneel, we think and pray in a certain way. When we bow, when we stand, when we lie down, when we lift hands. The people know this and that’s why in the start of today’s passage, all the people are there before the ark, singing songs and playing lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets, and all of them dancing.

If anyone has reason to dance, it is David. It has not been long since he became king, and already he is enjoying the people’s favor and support. The nation is entering a new period of unity and prosperity—indeed, it is feeling for the first time like a real nation, a nation like the others, with a real king, and soon to have a capital and a center of power.

Most of all, David can celebrate because it is clear in every way that the Lord is with Israel. In the voices of prophets, in the blessing of families, in the formation of identity and most visibly in the ark of God, David and all the people are reminded that God is there. The ark—a sacred box containing the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them—is the greatest symbol of this presence.

Today is the day of days, the ark—and symbolically, God’s presence—will be paraded into the city of David, Jerusalem. From this time on and forevermore, this city will be known as God’s dwelling place. David has presumably made royal proclamations, and he has gathered his supporters. Maybe he considered a formal royal procession—regal robes, heralding trumpets, singing crowds. But none of it was enough. David strips off the robes, he ignores the formality, and he does what he feels he has just got to: he dances! Dances with all his might, the Scripture says, leaping and dancing, there in his ephod—which by the way is nothing more than a loincloth. The kind of thing it might be okay for a child to run around in, but not an adult. But no matter, David dances, so great is his joy.

Are we surprised by Michal’s reaction? Michal, the daughter of Saul, the passage reminds—and don’t forget she is also David’s wife. She sounds like she could have been one of the old trustees of Wheaton College, although we don’t really know why she felt so strongly—why she "despised David in her heart."

Maybe she didn’t think it was conduct becoming a king. Maybe she remembered her father with his regal robes and great banquets and thought this was no way for a king to act. Or maybe she begrudged David the joy he felt when she didn’t feel it. Or maybe she just didn’t want all the women of Israel to see her husband running around in his underwear.

In fact, maybe Michal was right. She got upset because David did look foolish. He had forgotten who he was. He did what he felt, rather than what he thought. He allowed passion to drive him rather than reason.

That’s why Michal was right … and it is precisely why she was wrong. David had laid aside his inhibitions, and worshipped God. He had forgotten himself (and that’s what it would take for me to dance). David left behind David—who he was, what people thought of him, all his responsibilities—and allowed himself to be consumed with joyful praise of God. He put down the hymnal and raised his hands and closed his eyes. He just worshipped.

And there is nothing wrong with that. It is that feeling of freedom, that committed decision not to care, that it would require for someone like me to dance. And it is precisely that selfless openness and humility that God asks of us. God doesn’t care whether we go out to the dance floor, but that is how God wants us to live our lives. The kind of commitment and release and even courage that it would take for someone like me to go dance is the kind of fervor and letting-go and zeal that it takes for all of us to go out and truly live.

It is hard to do the tango of trusting, to move back and forth with God our faithful partner, knowing that every move is carefully choreographed, to believe that when we dip God’s arm will be there to catch us. When we face challenges and barriers of every kind, it would be easier to back off, to sit on the side. But God calls us to leave behind our fears and worries, to go out and trust.

It is hard to count out the steps of standing up for one’s convictions, to disregard the flailing bodies all around us and mark out the measured paces of the dance we know we want to do, to live as Christ calls us when classmates or temptations or advertisements or movies suggest we might live another way. But God calls us to rise above the earthly struggle, even to stand alone if we have to.

It is hard to mix it up with all those other crazies on the dance floor, or (if it fits your generation better) to jump in the mosh pit, to completely lose ourselves in the moment. But God invites us to leave everything else behind and to follow him there. To sacrifice old prejudices and tired excuses and groundless assumptions and allow a new thing. To trust that in giving ourselves up to the community around us we will be blessed. To know that we are safe and whole in God’s care and need not be self-conscious or worried or scared.

We should go out and live this way knowing that we might get into trouble. There will always be the Michal’s—including those who live inside our own head. The ones who say who do you think you are, how dare you sacrifice good sense and a stable life and comfort and respect, put on a robe and go back to your throne. Rejection—even by people we love—can sometimes be a consequence of this way of living.

Every once in a while we might even run into King Herod’s wife. Yes, it was her daughter doing the dancing in that story, but really it was John the Baptist who served with reckless abandon. John, who declared in baptismal promises that Christ would come and make people truly new. It was John who danced, with all his might making himself decrease so that Christ might increase. For his "dancing" he paid with his life, but John received the life that comes to all who join God on the dance floor.

The Jewish rabbi Hillel, who was alive when Jesus and John the Baptist were born, once said: "I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing."²  Sisters and brothers, may we join the dance of faith—walking, falling down, and all the while giving over our whole selves to one who is fully and always present with us, who gives us great blessing, and who invites to the dance. May we accept the condemnation of the Michals in our own lives. And may we keep dancing.

Amen.

¹ http://www.wheaton.edu/welcome/cov/comcov.html

² This ancient quote is referenced in many places. It came to my attention in Anne Lamott’s    Bird by Bird.