Scripture:
2 Samuel 6: 1-5 & 12-15
1 Peter 4: 7-11
The bulletin today has my title for this message, "Will I Dance for you, Jesus?" Don't worry; this has to be a metaphor. I am certainly not going to start dancing here in front of you. So, what am I going to say about Dancing?
I don't know anything about dance, I don't know how to dance, and I am not good at It. I Don't Dance.
I do feel bad for Kila, who took years of dancing lessons throughout school. I mean, we met at a church dance, and I have taken her to many school dances; I even accompanied her when she led and chaperoned this year's Prosser High School prom. But other than a slow spinning, I don't really dance. I have never really done any type of "fast dance," not even a line dance. I don't know; maybe it goes back to my elementary experiences failing at Dosey-Do. I will slow dance, but that's about all I can manage.
Yet today's lectionary reading has us reading about King David Dancing. So, I guess; let's talk about Dancing.
2nd Samuel tells us that David gathered 30,000 chosen men of Israel, and they went to retrieve the Ark of the Lord from where it was being held in the house of a man named Abinadab. The Ark was brought on a new cart, and David and all of the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs, lyres, harps, tambourines, and cymbals. Did you notice twice in the scripture Kila read, in both verses 5 and 14; we are told that David and those chosen men were dancing before the Lord with all their might?" Wow, that is not just a little slow turning to the music. They took the Ark to the City of David, rejoicing all the way.
Blogger Lillian, in "Growing Up, God, and Being Busy," writes that King David was "thankful for the blessings God had given him so much, that he didn't hold anything back when praising Him. He wanted to worship the Lord with his movements and let the Spirit lead him. He didn't care what his people would think; he knew that God's opinion was the only one that mattered."
The former missionary and dancer Linda Wells writes that dance allows us to show how we feel. She writes, "It connects our heads and our hearts by expressing God's wonderful gifts through the movement of the human body." She goes on to share one experience she had working as an interpreter for people who are deaf or hard of hearing in England.
She had been asked to sign and dance in a worship service. Afterward, a middle-aged deaf man approached her with tears in his eyes and said that for the first time in his life, he had been able to hear music. The man explained that when "he saw her sign language AND the dance rhythm together, he was able to hear with his eyes."
Pretty Cool.
In the song "I Can Only Imagine," songwriter Bart Millard of the band MercyMe said that he can only imagine what it will be like to meet the Lord God in Heaven.
He wrote:
Surrounded by Your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for You, Jesus
Or in awe of You, be still?
Dance can truly be a gift. I have been blessed to see dancers, both local and professional. As a dad of a ballet dancer, I have seen the happy, hopping, and giggling three-year-olds following their teacher across the stage, and I have seen devoted high school students interpret complex music and choreography. I have also seen professional dancers on stage too. Kila and I once saw Riverdance in Dublin, and let me tell you, Wow. Dance is an art. And Scripture makes it very clear that singing, playing musical instruments, and Dancing can all be a form of worship.
Enough said. However, Dean doesn't dance.
In our second Scripture from the Epistle of Peter, we are told to offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Peter writes that we should use whatever gifts we "have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its varous forms." I believe these specific words are very powerful. We have received our different gifts to serve others as stewards of God's grace.
Maybe this means we worship and praise God when we serve His church and others through our gifts. Whatever those gifts be, if the Lord gave them to us, I believe that we worship Him when we use these talents to serve others.
My mother in law is a painter, she has spent long hours painting banners for Spokane Valley United Methodist Church so the banners will enhance worship in their chapel. My father in law has done another kind of painting, working with their men’s group covering up local graffiti on the church. You know what, I think they are maybe both dancing for our God.
You know what else? I believe that when Reba plays the piano here for our worship. I think she is also dancing for the Lord. I think when Shara and others gift us with song, they dance for Jesus. When the Methodist Women raised money for UMCOR, World Hunger, and other mission outreach, such as providing soup for the hungry during COVID-19; I think they are also dancing. I don't know what Don or Fred or the rest of the Men's group are going to say about this, but I think when they come in on the First Saturday of each month to work around the church, I think they are dancing for our Lord. So yeah, maybe I should call you all out as a bunch of Dancers. I see you standing by the stairs greeting people who come to church, providing treats after the worship service, reading the Scripture, serving on various committees, helping at Hobbs or Jubilee, or donating as you can to the church's finances. When you sing or drive someone to the doctor; I think you are also dancing for the Lord. I believe that Bo danced in front of us, with us, and taught some of us to dance for sixteen years.
Returning to our Scripture, 1st Peter verse 11 concludes with "If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen." I don't know what the future holds for this church, for this community, for this nation, or for the world, but I do believe the more we serve each other through the worship of our Lord, the more we dance through the Love of the God, the more blessed our lives and this world will be.
Just to conclude, many of you in this congregation know what a super nerd I am and how much I love technology. I am sure I could have easily found a well-written, better-explained sermon about this Scripture online. It probably would have included a few good jokes too. Alas, forced by a deadline from our amazing Dancing Lay Leader, Donna, I was compelled to read today's Scripture not once but a few times and to really think about it. I don't know; Perhaps I chose to write this because I really wanted to dance.
