"It's Hard to Dance with the Devil on Your Back" 2 Samuel 11:1-15, 12:1-9 preached at Trillium United Church Caledon July 29, 2018

In the spring, the time when kings go to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and the people Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah.  David stayed in Jerusalem.  Late one afternoon, David got up from his couch and was walking about on the roof of his palace; he saw from there a very beautiful woman bathing. He sent someone to ask who she was. He was told “She is Bathsheba, a daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”  David sent a messenger to bring her to him, and he lay with her, even though she was purifying herself after her period. She returned to her home, but later discovered she was pregnant, and sent a message to David.  David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” When Uriah came, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. He said to Uriah, “Go to your home, wash the dust off your feet.” Uriah went out, David’s gift to him a home leave. Instead, Uriah slept in front of the king’s house with all the servants, and did not go home. When David learned that Uriah did not go home, he asked, “Why didn’t you go home, after such a long journey?”  Uriah replied, “It is the Festival of Booths. The Ark, and Israel and Judah remain in booths;  Joab and the servants are camping in the open field; shall I then go home, eat and drink, bed my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I would not do that.”  So David said , “Stay here today too. Tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem. The next day, David invited him to dinner and got him drunk; he went out to lie on his couch with the servants, but he did not go home.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and had Uriah deliver it. In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is worst, and then leave him, so that he will be struck and killed.” Then God sent the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan told a story. “There were two men in a city, one rich, the other poor. The rich man had many herds; the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He raised it, and it became a family member like his children; it would eat the small amount of food he could give, drink from his cup, cuddle with him, and was like a daughter to him. The rich man had company and did not want to use one of his own herd to prepare for his guest. He took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that instead.” David became angry at this and said to Nathan, “As God lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall repay that lamb fourfold, because he did such a thing with no conscience.” Nathan said to David, “You are the man! The God of Israel says this: I anointed you king over Israel, I rescued you from Saul;  I gave you his house, his wives and everything he owned; I gave you Israel and Judah and brought them together; and if that was not enough, I would have given more.  Why have you turned your back on God and done this evil? You have killed Uriah, and taken his wife as your own.”

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“I danced on a Friday when the world turned black,  

it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back,…”

People always want to be remembered in pictures looking their best, don’t they?  Don’t we??? I have a friend on Facebook who always presents her best side to the camera…she is a beautiful woman from either side, in fact; but somehow only one side of her face gets the most exposure. We don’t like spontaneous photos as a permanent record of what we look like -  we don’t want to be caught when we just crawl out with bed-hair, or someone pops a camera and we haven’t combed our hair or don’t have any makeup on.

What if a movie were made of our lives, but in order to sell the movie, our most embarrassing and humiliating sins were published in graphic detail! Let’s say you read in the Church Newsletter that a video of your steamy life will be shown during coffee time! Would you be there to watch??? I don’t think so. We want our best side in the viewing eye.

The Bible gives us two totally different portraits of David. One is in 1st Chronicles, Chapter 11 where the story of David the great king is told. In this portrait, the story of David is recorded much like those wonderful paintings of military heroes, in full uniform, a Napoleonic conqueror, a spiritual national icon with no failings at all!

The other portrait of David is in today’s text from Samuel. This is the person who, as a boy, had courage to kill an enemy, who as a man and king was not afraid to dance in front of the Ark of the Covenant, all the way into Jerusalem, who loved God and was a just and honest man. This is also the dancing king whose wife Michal saw him dancing with abandon, and despised him. There’s a picture of David’s life right there – a marriage with no love. He had all of Saul’s wives, concubines, possessions – and became a king. This is the stuff that movies are made of - a man caught in his most sinful, and humiliating person.

In this story it’s spring and time for the armies to go out and beat on each other. So David’s army is out in the thick of battle. Even though David should be, he isn’t. He is the military leader, but he isn’t there – I noticed even when reading Chronicles that the names of the leaders who won the battle for David are given. Instead of being with his troops, David is back in Jerusalem-withdrawing from the action. It’s been suggested that the enormous success has gone to his head, and instead of recognising the role of God in this dance he has perhaps abandoned his faith, begun dancing to a different tune.

So David is walking on his palace veranda and there sees Bathsheba, taking a bath to purify herself. He sends for his personal servant to find out who she is. And the servant says:

“Isn’t this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah the Hittite?"

Now normally the answer would be - "this is so and so, the daughter of so and so and the granddaughter of so and so." But the servant points out that she is the wife of someone. It’s a tiny but telling detail – the servant is saying as plainly as possible without losing his life, "Sir, the lady’s married."

But, she’s beautiful and he’s king and figures he can do as he wishes, so he sends for her, sleeps with her, discards her and sends her home. Essentially, he rapes her, since she would have had no option to refuse him.  The King called, she was required to do what he asked, or die. David does the dance of a king who is taken with himself, and whose judgment and sense of appropriate boundaries is now flawed.

About a month later Bathsheba realises she is pregnant and tells David. David gives Uriah a month’s leave, sure that they will unwittingly solve the baby problem. Uriah, however, is an ethical man who will not enjoy comfort while the men he commands are risking their lives on the field of battle; instead he sleeps in the servant’s quarters. Next, David gets Uriah totally drunk, but still Uriah insists on staying in the servant’s quarters.  David knows that once it becomes evident Bathsheba is pregnant, Uriah is going to know the baby wasn’t his. In a final act of desperation, David sends Uriah to the battle with a letter for Joab, David’s military commander. "Put Uriah right on the front line," orders David. Within the hour, Uriah is dead. Bathsheba barely gets through the mourning period, before David brings her to the palace and puts her with his other wives.

So that’s the portrait of David you *won’t* find in 1 Chronicles. A man who danced for and with God, reduced to doing a tap dance around having a husband killed because he just had to have the man’s wife. Instead of being a man of faith, David has begun to believe he is a god himself. Instead of dancing for God, he is now dancing into the bedroom, having forcibly taken the wife of someone else just because he could, and having her husband killed.

Enter Nathan the preacher and prophet. David has no idea that he’s hearing a morality sermon; he’s not in a synagogue listening to a rabbi. Nathan tells this story about a rich guy with large flocks of sheep, who arrogantly takes the pet lamb of a poor neighbour’s family down the road, kills it and serves it up as the main entrée to his guests.

David is outraged that such a selfish and cruel thing could happen, and says the man should be given the death sentence. Nathan says calmly, "You are that man!"

With each word in Nathan’s story, David becomes more incensed until finally he hears real truth - You are that person. You! David’s dance has become upfront and personal. David is dancing with the devil on his back – and he didn’t know it till Nathan smacked him in the face with it – and story he could not deny. It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.

A gospel is told. The word ‘gospel’ doesn’t mean ‘absolute truth’, it means ‘good news’ – and good news is told in this story too. We’re created by God in God’s own image. But we are not God ourselves. Every time we lose the boundaries and think we are God, we have to dance with the devil on our backs – and it gets harder and harder. Dancing isn’t for joy or praise any more, it’s a dance of death. David started thinking he was God.

More David, less God. The more David behaves as if he is God, the less visible God becomes. David treats Bathsheba as if he is God, owning her and giving her no choice. He gives death commands to Joab, and acts as if he is God with Uriah, determining his fate – and committing murder by order.

David knew he was doing something wrong. Somewhere along the way he had stopped prayer and his faith life, he had stopped dancing the dance of life for God. He tried to cover his actions, and when that didn’t work, he got even deeper in and committed murder by proxy. Somewhere along the line he had withdrawn from commitment to God.

But there is grace, too. Nathan tells a story which makes David aware of God again. Psalm 51 is David’s God-recovery psalm. David sees who he has become and asks for help. He learns that God never gives up on human beings. Our once-broken bones can dance again. Hear David’s words…..

"Create in me a clean heart, God, put a new and right spirit within me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit."

Shall we dance?

Sources:

1.      Deep Wounds in the Family a sermon on David and Bathsheba, 2 Sam 11:1-15, 12:1-9
by Rev. Thomas Hall

2.      Psalm 51 vs. 10 and 12 paraphrase

3.   Exerpt from  "Lord of the Dance" by Sydney Carter.

“The House in the World” a sermon based on 2 Samuel 7:1-14 and Ephesians 2:11-22 July 22, 2018 Trillium United Church Caledon

Samuel 7:1-14  David cannot build God's house.

 

Before long, the king made himself at home and God gave him peace from all his enemies. Then one day King David said to Nathan the prophet, “Look at this: here I am, comfortable in a luxurious house of cedar, and the Chest of God sits in a plain tent.”

Nathan told the king, “Whatever is on your heart, go and do it. God is with you.” But that night, the word of God came to Nathan saying, “Go and tell my servant David: This is God’s word on the matter: You’re going to build a ‘house’ for me to live in? Why, I haven’t lived in a ‘house’ from the time I brought the children of Israel up from Egypt till now. All that time I’ve moved about with nothing but a tent. And in all my travels with Israel, did I ever say to any of the leaders I commanded to shepherd Israel, ‘Why haven’t you built me a house of cedar?’

 “So here is what you are to tell my servant David: The God-of-the-Angel-Armies has this word for you peace from: I took you from the pasture, tagging along after sheep, and made you prince over my people Israel. I was with you everywhere you went and mowed your enemies down before you. Now I’m making you famous, to be ranked with the great names on earth. And I’m going to set aside a place for my people Israel and plant them there so they’ll have their own home and not be knocked around any more. Nor will evil men afflict you as they always have, even during the days I set judges over my people Israel. Finally, I’m going to give you all your enemies.

 “Furthermore, God has this message for you: God will build you a house! When your life is complete and you’re buried with your ancestors, then I’ll raise up your child, your own flesh and blood, to succeed you, and I’ll firmly establish his rule. He will build a house to honor me, and I will guarantee his kingdom’s rule permanently. I’ll be a father to him, and he’ll be a son to me. When he does wrong, I’ll discipline him in the usual ways, the pitfalls and obstacles of this mortal life. But I’ll never remove my gracious love from him, as I removed it from Saul, who preceded you and whom I most certainly did remove. Your family and your kingdom are permanently secured. I’m keeping my eye on them! And your royal throne will always be there, rock solid.

Ephesians 2:11-22 Paul writes to the new converts in Corinth, in Greece.

But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.

The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.

That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

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In a sermon called ‘When God Says No’, Rev. Thomas Hall tells the story of the church sign, which through the week kept changing as the sermon title changed – and the office administrator was getting a workout running back and forth. On Monday, the message read, "Building a Condo for God." By Wednesday it was "I’m going to live in a Lord-Built House”.  By Thursday it was, "Why God isn’t a Republican." And by Saturday, the title had changed to "When God Says No."  Tom further comments that he was afraid that if the marquee changed any more, the borough council might pass a law against erecting bad titles on Park Avenue signs without a permit.

But it makes a strange kind of sense, all this theme-changing. Let’s go through the story of David and Nathan again……..see if you can settle on any one theme.

David has hit the top of everything – from a humble boy with a slingshot, to becoming king after Saul. He’s beaten the Philistines and for now they’re quiet and recovering.  He’s brought together the north and the south, and made Jerusalem the new centre of everything. Now leaders from the north and south can meet on neutral turf.  He becomes worship leader too – he becomes passionate for God. He worships God with song and dance and great celebration – he dances with “all his might” -  The visual is really intriguing – dancing with all his might! .

So now he’s made it – no more Goliaths, or Philistines. His soul is at rest. The kids are happy, his wives are happy, his concubines seem OK  - memories come flooding in….

He remembers the boy, just a shepherd, and now it’s twenty-four years later and he’s a king. He has everything he could possibly want in life – he’s been blessed beyond measure. And he decides he wants to give back to God – so he’s going to build a proper house for the Ark, not just a tent.
Enter Nathan - a prophet. Prophets – far from what we think – were people who interpreted God to their own time – God spoke through them to the immediate – not the “far into the future”, So Nathan  was kind of the resident prophet/advisor to David, and I’m guessing beloved and revered. Pastors are ecstatic when people come up to offer to do something for God. And both pastors and prophets are thrilled when someone offers to do something – cleaning out closets, doing the church garden, taking care of bulletins during high liturgical seasons,  - whatever. And Nathan is no different. Here is David  offering to build a temple for the Ark of the Covenant – the most holy artifact the Israelites have. And he says to David to do what is in his heart – and walks away elated that David is doing something without being asked.

God has a different idea – God doesn’t need a house, God is talking about building a realm – a people – David is one of the tools God has used for building this realm – and it doesn’t have to be a fancy temple. In fact, God emphatically doesn’t want that at all. God is clear who the king is, and who the king isn’t. – and God is clear that this is not about David’s greatness, but a way of moving forward the building of God’s realm on earth. 

The message that Nathan delivers is full of God – look at the verbs in this text. Who is ‘doing’ the action?  Let’s look at this text again…

 “So here is what you are to tell my servant David: The God-of-the-Angel-Armies has this word for you: I took you from the pasture, tagging along after sheep, and made you prince over my people Israel. I was with you everywhere you went and mowed your enemies down before you. Now I’m making you famous, to be ranked with the great names on earth. And I’m going to set aside a place for my people Israel and plant them there so they’ll have their own home and not be knocked around any more. Nor will evil men afflict you as they always have, even during the days I set judges over my people Israel. Finally, I’m going to give you all your enemies.

 “Furthermore, God has this message for you: God will build you a house! ‘When your life is complete and you’re buried with your ancestors, then I’ll raise up your child, your own flesh and blood, to succeed you, and I’ll firmly establish his rule. He will build a house to honor me, and I will guarantee his kingdom’s rule permanently. I’ll be a father to him, and he’ll be a son to me. When he does wrong, I’ll discipline him in the usual ways, the pitfalls and obstacles of this mortal life. But I’ll never remove my gracious love from him, as I removed it from Saul, who preceded you and whom I most certainly did remove. Your family and your kingdom are permanently secured. I’m keeping my eye on them! And your royal throne will always be there, rock solid.”

There are eighteen verb forms of some kind in these two paragraphs – they are God’s action past, present and future….

Now, David didn’t just come up with this idea alone – he got it from all the other cultures around him. This was a part of the world where a myriad cultures interacted every day – and there were temples everywhere. Everyone knew that the way to protect one’s assets was to tie one’s God to a temple. Everybody did that to ensure protection and favor of whatever gods they had. David is making God a house to ensure that his – David’s – earthly kingdom will continue. He wants to *use* God to legitimize his reign. He wants to tether God to Jerusalem, and make himself equivalent to God. There’s definitely a line David is about to cross. And David falls into the trap many do – that he needs to leave a legacy.

But  - how long is it going to be before David’s policy’s and God’s get confused, when personal biases and agendas become “God’s”.  It’s so easy to mix our own agendas with God’s agenda, and then say God did it. Pretty soon God isn’t God any more – or we can’t hear what God is truly saying.

Then we read "King David went in and sat before God." Verbs – David went, and sat. The single most important thing he could have done. He went, and he sat. Perhaps he meditated, and he listened.  He abdicated his authority as a human leader, took off his robes, went back to his loincloth, humbled himself – he went and sat before God.

Paul writes to the Greeks at the new church in Corinth – explaining that God’s ‘building’ is a people – a structure which will outlast any human structure. That’s what I hear God saying in the Samuel passage. God broke down the walls between groups of people – that was the intent – breaking down old walls and building something which didn’t need walls – something open, inclusive, expansive. So Paul says, based on his understanding of Jesus, that the barriers are removed.

I think that’s my agenda here – I hope.  That we are a people and a pastor who know how to sit before God, and listen - to find what God can do through us. To hold up what has been done through us until now, but to be open to the new and different, going forward. Far more important than what we might consider our work for God, is believing that God is working within this congregation – in the way God sees fit. Change is inevitable – the moment the amalgamation took place, the life of all three congregations changed – but that doesn’t mean there isn’t life, it means that life must be different, for all of us.

To sit, to listen – here in this building, or outside, or in a coffee shop, or lunch with each other – what is God saying to us….. about life, about this place, about who we are? What are our verbs? What do we want our verbs to be?

Sources: ‘When God says: "No"’ a sermon based on 2 Samuel 7:1-14a  by Rev. Thomas Hall

Both Scriptures from The Message Eugene Peterson, copyright  2002.

Lord of the Dance 2 Samuel 6:12-19 Trillium United Church Caledon July 15, 2018

 King David was told, “God has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the Ark of God.” So David went and brought the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to Jerusalem; and when those who carried the ark had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fat calf. He danced before God with all his might wearing a linen ephod. David and all the house of Israel carried the Ark with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. As the Ark of came into Jerusalem, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked out of the window, and saw David leaping and dancing, and she despised him. They brought in the Ark of God, and set it inside the tent David had pitched for it; and David offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being. Then David blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts, and distributed food among all the people, both men and women; to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins.

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Back in the 70’s and early 80’s, as a liturgical revolution took place, liturgical dance began to make a reappearance. There was a lot of controversy about dancing in church. Many thought it ‘unseemly’. Yet dancing is a biblical form of worship. In the Hebrew Scriptures, folks pushed the tables back and got the instruments out for weddings, funerals, bar and bat mitzvahs, birthdays  – just about any occasion.

In terms of Biblical reference to dance, well – we have today’s story of David dancing as the Ark of the Covenant is brought into Jerusalem. David danced ‘with all his might’. Psalm 149: 3 “Let them praise God’s name in the dance; let them sing praises with tambourine and harp.” Psalm 150 is the one text in the Bible which gives directions for public worship:

“Praise God! Praise the Holy in the sanctuary; praise God in the mighty heavens!
Praise God for mighty deeds; for surpassing greatness!

 Praise God with trumpet sound; with lute and harp!
Praise God with tambourine and dance, with strings and pipe!
Praise God with clanging cymbals, with loud clashing cymbals!”

Well, we in the church have had a problem with our sense of propriety and restraint, haven’t we? When was the last time you danced for God? It’s just not dignified, is it, to do the Charleston, or the Twist, or even a waltz, every time we pray? Yet David danced ‘with all his might’. Take a moment – try to imagine a parade  - King David and all his retinue – wending their way along a road toward Jerusalem, King David dressed in a linen loincloth, hardly royal clothing – dancing with ‘all his might’. All his might……

When I was young, some members of my extended family did not wear makeup, go to movies, and for sure they didn’t dance in church – I suspect (though I don’t know) they didn’t dance at all. In some churches people were taught that dancing was actually "worldly" and Christians could not do worldly things - no matter how much fun they were. In fact, the more fun they were, the more ‘wordly’ (read ‘evil’) they were. Well, being a rebel – and my parents were too, thank goodness -  I love to dance, anywhere, any time. Dancing is good and right.

So this morning, David is dancing before the Lord, because God’s presence is being paraded into Jerusalem. He’s got plenty of reason to dance. His kingdom is united - the north and the south are finally glued back together. He’s got a neutral city – Jerusalem - that allows both groups to gather. But we need to step back just a tad, in the story, so the reading makes a bit more sense.

As this little parade gets closer to Jerusalem, someone tries to steady the ark with his hand, and he falls down and dies. The dancing and the parade stops. The Ark of the Covenant isn’t going any further. God’s presence and holiness is dangerous.

So the Ark gets stashed away in the garage of Obed-edom. But Obed, rather than dying, prospers, and his 60-something wife suddenly gets pregnant. Obed’s weed-infested fields are covered with flax. Good things are happening in Obed’s life, and it seems they must be somehow connected to the box containing God’s presence that sits in Obed’s garage.

So David decides he is going to bring this unusual box back to Jerusalem after all, knowing that one person has already died. His risk pays off  -  and he has the promise that God is again present with the Israelites. Excited by the success, David dresses in something called an ephod – a linen winding garment reserved for priests (perhaps like a loincloth), which leaves little to the imagination when one is dancing. David puts on an ephod and begins to dance around the Ark, capering and skipping – and of course is critised by his wife Michal for being undignified – a king should not do such things.

Is this just a story about dancing in church? About maybe loosening up a little and throwing out a few hallelujahs here and there, about movement and celebration? Is it about breaking loose from our Methodist-Presbyterian-Congregational ethos as a denomination – forged in serious social justice, and determined long face? Or is there more to it? Is it possible to dance with the devil on our back? When the diagnosis of cancer is terminal, with only a few months to live? When head injury at 13 causes interminable seizures which get worse and worse, until by 18 you have lost all your high school and can’t function. Or when the one you’ve loved for so long has been unfaithful, and there is a rift in the marriage which cannot be repaired? Or an only child has died in a tragic automobile accident? Or a family endures a third suicide? Is it possible to dance with the devil on your back?

Maybe David discovered that God calls us to the dance floor not because things are going well for us, but because of who God is. Maybe David could dance when no other officials would be caught dead doing it, because he became truly aware of God’s presence – in both the good times, and ill times – and that was really what mattered. In the face of suffering dance becomes an act of deep conviction that, in the words of our New Creed “we are not alone, we live in God’s world. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone."

In writing the lyrics to the hymn "Lord of the Dance" in 1963, Sydney Carter was inspired partly by Jesus, partly by a statue of the Hindu God Shiva in the dancing pose Nataraja, which sat on his desk, and also partly to give tribute to Shaker music – the tune is called “Simple Gifts”. He later stated, "I did not think the churches would like it at all. I thought many people would find it pretty far flown, probably heretical and anyway dubiously Christian. But in fact people did sing it and, unknown to me, it touched a chord ... Anyway, it's the sort of Christianity I believe in."

He wrote:

“I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.

Whether Jesus ever leaped in Galilee to the rhythm of a pipe or drum I do not know. We are told that David danced, and as an act of worship too, so it is not impossible. The fact that many Christians have regarded dancing as a bit ungodly does not mean that Jesus did.

The Shakers didn't. The first Shakers came from Manchester in England where they were sometimes called the "Shaking Quakers". They went to America in 1774 and established celibate communities - men at one end, women at the other; they met for work and worship. Dancing, for them, was a spiritual activity.”

And he wrote “Sometimes, for a change, I sing the whole song in the present tense. 'I dance in the morning when the world is begun...'.

Lord of the Dance (present tense version)

I dance in the morning when the world is begun,
I dance in the moon and the stars and the sun,
I come down from heaven and I dance on the earth,
at Bethlehem I have my birth .

Dance, dance, wherever you may be,
I am the lord of the dance, says he,
and I lead you all, wherever you may be,
and I lead you all in the dance, says he.

I dance for the scribes and the Pharisees,
They will not dance, they will not follow me
I dance for fishermen named James and John
They come with me and the dance goes on.

I dance on the Sabbath, and I cure the lame,
some holy people say it is a shame;
they rip, and they strip, and they hang me high
and leave me there on the cross to die.

I dance on a Friday when the world turns black ,
it's hard to dance with the devil on your back;
They bury my body, they think I’m gone,
but I am the dance, and the dance goes on

They cut me down and I leap up high,
I am the life that will never, never die.
I'll live in you if you'll live in me
I am the Lord of the dance, said he.

Have you danced lately? Danced a dance in God’s honour, danced for joy? Danced out of your grief? We are called into a dance with the one we follow, Jesus, who says "May I have this dance with you?" May we be able to dance, in all ways, in all times, and all places – for the love of the One who calls us out, onto the dance floor of life. Amen.

Sources:

1.      ‘And David Danced With All His Might’ based on 2 Samuel 6:12-19 by Rev. Thomas Hall   

2.      Lord of the Dance – Sydney Carter 1963, and writings by Sydney Carter.

3.      A New Creed, United Church of Canada. 1968  23^rd General Council. Amended 1980 and 1994.