A Dance Too Many
2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Mark 6:14-29

July 16, 2006


As I was helping plan a funeral service with a family recently, the first hymn unhesitatingly chosen was the well-known Shaker tune, “I Danced in the Morning,” or “The Lord of the Dance.” It was the first time I remember singing it on such an occasion, and did the family and congregation sing it with gusto! It was just right.

“The Lord of the Dance” comes out of the Shaker tradition that can still instruct us just how to dance and when. The Shakers were geniuses in many ways, secular and religious, but nevertheless, quite circumspect, and I would suspect, boring people.

They were one of a number of religious utopian societies initiated in the 1700’s, a Christian commune that nurtured a family environment, yet believed in celibacy. Men and women were strictly separated, especially in worship where each gender had their side of the sanctuary, and in their dancing. Children were an important part of their life, but they were all orphans adopted into the community.

They ran inventive communal farms in various places in New England and Ohio. Designing the simple and elegant Shaker furniture, their most enduring innovation was the invention of the clothes pin. ‘Tis a gift to be simple, as another famous hymn goes.

They were charismatic, faith-wise, seeking the guidance and presence of the Holy Spirit during worship. Dancing would be in big groups, male and female separated, and when dancers were grasped by the Spirit they would fall down, shaking convulsively, and hence their name. That other 18th century movement, the Quakers, did more or less the same thing, despite their placid expressions.

The Shakers continued in the faith for almost 200 years, and then befitting their creativity, they came to a momentous decision in 1946 to die as a community. Numbers were way down and adoptions were becoming too few to sustain viability. So they closed entrance into the membership and would allow the nature of God’s world to slowly die out. Still in the early 1980’s a few elderly sisters were still alive in places like Sabbath Day Lake, Maine, where Molly and I visited several times. I often wondered catching glimpses of the 90-somethings in Maine, “When did they last dance?”

We’ve never known for certain whether we really should be dancing in the church. In principle, we have no problem and most years our Christmas Eve service is enhanced by a group of modern dancers. Dancing, however, is not a mind thing, and especially in old line Protestant traditions something inside our minds resists this physical expression of our inner spirit in worship. Our dour minds are afraid dancing is just plain and simple too physical.

The hymn has Jesus dancing throughout his ministry, into the Passion and death, and most importantly dancing out of death’s grasp in the resurrection. Jesus was the Son of David, and David never hesitated to dance. Clad in not much of anything, David dances before the Lord in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant in what must have been an ecstatic dance the Shakers and Quakers would have been proud of. Well, actually David probably put on a few sensual and maybe sexually suggestive moves at which our clothes pin inventors would have gasped. The Shakers would have never been able to read the Bible in the same way if they had had the opportunity to see David dance. David, however, had something the Shakers didn’t: the Ark of the Covenant. As a result, David wasn’t just a dancer; he and his company were passionately making music with all the instruments they could muster - woods, lyres, horns - was it a set tune or just plain jazz? One way or the other, the Israelites got high on God with the music.

The demise of John the Baptist is a cautionary tale of truth speaking to sin. Herod’s new wife, Herodias, had actually been Herod’s brother’s wife, and when you have absolute power you get to use it absolutely. The Baptist was not fooled by any governmental rhetoric. This was the lowest kind of adulterous behaviour: Herod didn’t stop what he was doing, but his conscience was pricked hard by the preacher; his wife Herodias was furious and sought brutal revenge. Whether by plan or by chance the opportunity arose through dancing.

There was nothing innocent about the dancing of Herodias’ daughter: she danced to sexually arouse Herod and his gang so that they would give her something valuable. Herod was probably not sober as well and made a big deal to his colleagues of the oath he was making to the young girl. That he could make such a grandiose promise underlined the immensity of his power. The more power a person thinks he or she possesses, the more outrageous and typically unrighteous claims one makes upon another person. When the young dancer came back with her mother’s request for the head of John the Baptist, it was obvious that his promise and prestige were more important than his integrity and sense of right and wrong. That’s why your mother told you not to swear an oath - you usually end up giving away things and ideas and commitments - and people - you have no right to give away.

There was nothing redemptive or pretty about that dinner party, and nothing aesthetic or creative about that dancing. If there were ever any doubts, the Gospel is often not received well in a violent and power-driven world. What do you do about dancing now? This was one dance too many, a dance that could make all dancing distasteful, especially in the church.

But especially in the church, we have to remember that the Gospel dances according to many different tunes. There has been this ecclesiastical tendency to ban the whole batch because of one bad apple. The Temperance movement of the late 19th- early 20th century relegated the fruit of the vine in communion to grape juice. Some sects and denominations have banned certain types of dress as demonic and too sexually suggestive. Others, including the early Puritans, thought singing and music in the church were agents of the devil. And dancing, which tradition has not driven its lively movements and twitching out of the sanctuary at one point or another? Can we still dance? Better, can we still see?

That’s our problem, that we do not have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, where the Gospel is being proclaimed and lived out; that we lack discernment about what really is creative and life-giving, and what is destructive and deadly. It is easier to paint every apple with the bruises and worms and decay of the bad bunch than to examine every person, every activity for its own merit. It’s not only easier, it’s lazier, and much less honest. And that’s how prejudice and bias and its first cousins, hatred and violence, get their legs. Dancing, you see, is the key to the whole Gospel. “Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the dance, said he, and I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be, and I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.”

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan