Message 06-21-06
Series: Lectionary
Scripture: John 15:9-17
Title: That Every Child Might Learn to Dance
Intro:
It’s been my habit for a lot of years to use the Lectionary during the holiday seasons of the year. The Lectionary is a list of daily Scriptures selected by the Christian community as a useful tool to help individuals, churches and pastors make their way through most of the Bible in an entire year. I usually go to this list during Advent – just before Christmas, and during Lent – just before our Resurrection celebration because I like move with the greater church at those times. I find that it’s okay to “color inside the lines” sometimes. It’s okay to write poems that are sonnets – to use iambic pentameter and an “ABBA” rhyming scheme and to explore that patterns that are handed down to us.
Usually, between the holy seasons of the year I spend time looking at various issues and exploring how the Bible presents the truth of life. But over the past few weeks since Easter, I just continued with the Lectionary. I’ve been studying some different topics that will become series pretty soon, but I found an intriguing movement in the passage chosen since our Resurrection celebration. The greater church has suggested that Christians look back, and look pretty thoroughly, at the words of Jesus to his disciples at the Last Supper. This is the passage where Jesus spells out both the example he is leaving for us as his disciples and what he expects of us.
Jesus expects us to live different lives. If you stop and think about whom he is talking to directly - fishermen, tax collectors, scholars, common folks - you realize that he is talking to all his disciples, to anyone who follows him. Just the regular people, that’s who Jesus expects to live differently, to change. You and me. He expects us to change and to live our lives like him following the example he gave us. Who does this guy think he is?
He thinks he’s our Lord and Teacher. He thinks he’s our Savior. More than that he thinks we’re his friends. And he thinks we want to live with him, that we love him and want to spend our lives living for him.
In the church calendar the Easter season lasts until Pentecost which is June 4 this year, and within this season of Easter, the greater church is suggesting that we need to re-examine our life in Christ, to look closely at his claim on us and his call to us to live lives of sacrifice and love. The Christian community is saying this is who we are, right? This is what we’re about, right? We’re not just happy that Jesus died for our sins and proved that by coming to life and leading the way into heaven. We’re not just happy about that, we’re moved by that. So we need to re-examine his words and allow them to re-examine us. We are moved to act in response to this love.
Scripture and Study:
This is serious stuff. How do you picture Jesus saying these words? Do you see him as somber? When we think of that night, the night of the Last Supper, when Jesus was betrayed and abandoned by his closest friends, we can get somber. Looking back on the event we can get grave.
But don’t miss that moment when he says, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” How do we get to complete joy? Imagine Jesus as excited as he says this. Imagine him smiling.
In fact keep using your imaginations and think about what Jesus is saying and what he is putting into our hands. Jesus, this Jewish construction worker who lived 2000 years ago is making the stuff of God as concrete and clear as he can.
So, let’s change the metaphor and see if we can get a little closer.
Instead of “love” suppose Jesus was talking about dancing. Suppose the expression of God’s love in the world was dance. Suppose what he said to us was just as the Father taught me to dance, so now I’ve taught you to dance. Keep dancing. Here is how you know if you’ve “got it”, dance with each other. If that’s what he said to us, what would our job be as people who follow him? We would be dance instructors.
I read a story not too long ago about a woman named Polly Cooey. Back in the middle of the last century from the late 40’s on, she taught children to dance. She lived in northern Georgia and she was a single mom who had to take care of her kids, so she taught dance for one dollar an hour. Any child who wanted could take lessons. Most of the children who were given lessons came from lower middle class, working class and rural families and even at a dollar an hour a lot of children couldn’t afford the class. So, she bartered with the parents and took payment in kind.
Here’s what really caught my attention in her story. First, every child got in. There was no issue with what your origin was. Second, every child got to be part of the show. Every spring Ms. Cooey held a dance recital and every child got to be in it. It didn’t matter what the outcome of your lessons were… in other words, your talent wasn’t the key to getting in the show.
Every child that wanted was taught to dance and every child got to be part of the show.
Suppose that’s what Jesus was calling us to?
Can you hear Jesus’ words in that?
A movie was made not too long ago called “Mad Hot Ballroom.” I have to admit that I thought it was another one of those “ballroom dancing” movies, but this was different. It was a documentary about urban schools in NYC that have a dance program. All fifth graders in the school system are taught how to do ballroom dancing. Can you imagine the gifts that are brought along with this? There is an interaction with different cultures. The natural separation between girls and boys is broken down and social skills are enhanced. Poise, self-esteem, confidence are all strengthened. The movie goes on to show how children progress through a competition that moves to include multiple school systems, but the basic message that comes through is that every child gets in and the children are changed by the experience.
Suppose this was what Jesus was calling us to… suppose we called to be dance instructors. Suppose we were sent into the world to make sure that everyone might learn to dance. Suppose we were sent to make sure that child who came into the world might learn to dance.
Children need that. We all need that kind of joy in our lives.
Not too long ago you may remember that I acted in support of a program called “Invisible Children”. I acted in response to another documentary I saw that showed the story of children in Northern Uganda who walked each night, sometimes up to 10 miles, so that they could sleep in the cities near them. They left their homes each evening because there was a chance that, if they stayed in their village, they could be kidnapped by a rebel army that has been fighting against the present government for over 20 years.
Our senators were shown this movie and were moved themselves but they told the filmmakers that they couldn’t do anything unless their constituency told them that this was a priority. So, in support of these children people who were moved walked into their own cities on the evening of April 19 and slept out in parks, in parking lots, wherever… lying down in solidarity with the children of Uganda to say you’re not alone.
Well, it had an impact. Hearing were held in Washington in response and just a week after that night a young woman from Uganda named Grace was testifying before the House International Relations committee. She told her story.
Grace was 15 and attending a boarding school in Northern Uganda when the rebel army broke in and kidnapped about 140 girls. Over the years the rebels have stolen away some 30,000 children. A nun from the school ran after the rebels begging them to release the girls and most of them were set free. Grace was not one of those.
Grace was taught how to assemble, disassemble, clean and use guns. She was shown that if she tried to escape she would be killed by having to watch two other children killed in front of her. She was given to one of the older men as a “wife” and was essentially a slave – used in every way. On a raid she was told to collect food and water from a village one night, but because of her maltreatment she fainted. The rebels thought she died, so they buried her alive. She dug herself out of her grave, followed after the rebels, found other children and convinced them to escape with her. They found a village where they got help to get back to Uganda where they were found by the Ugandan army who brought them back home.
This young woman, Grace, went back to school, finished and is now a student at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. You may have heard of Gordon. Our youth director, Melissa Marley, graduated from Gordon College. Each of my children has gone to Gordon College. It’s a school where the reality of the hope of Jesus is taught in real life terms along with a liberal arts education. Our daughter Carrie is a school mate with Grace and has heard her story first hand.
There are children in the world who don’t know love. There are children in the world who don’t know joy. There are children in the world who don’t know the dance Jesus teaches his disciples.
We are called to be dance instructors.
How hard is that to do?
All of her life, Carrie has taught me something of this. Whenever Carrie gets pleased, gets a little joyful, whenever she just fills up with excitement she does this little dance. It’s not a lot. She just percolates. That’s what I called it. She’s percolating.
This is such a part of her life that, in honor of her graduation from high school, I had a pendant made of a little percolator blowing off steam. It’s just who she is. It’s just what she does.
I think of that when I think about how hard is our job in following Jesus.
Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.”
Just dance. Learn the truth of love, God’s love in Jesus, and then just let it show.
