1 Rev. Kate S. Forer Presbyterian-New England Congregational Church October 20, 2019 “Fear and Dancing” 2 Samuel 6:1-19

The worst happened. His teenage son died. His teenage son died on his way home from a night of dancing and probably drunken debauchery and here he was the town minister, the Reverend. How was he going to keep it together enough to minister to his own congregation? His wife? His daughter? How was he going to face life without Bobby, his only son, his first born? The Reverend liked things under control. He ran a tight ship at home and at his church and he had told his son time and time again about drinking and driving. He had told him. He had warned him. If he couldn’t protect his own son from meeting such a fate, how was he ever going to protect the rest of the children in this town, whom he loved as well? They can’t keep teenagers from driving – that would never work. They keep trying to stop them from drinking. And so now… they’ll prohibit dancing. No dancing allowed. If the kids can’t go dancing, they won’t congregate and drink so much. No dancing. That’s it. A quiet town. A safe town. A God-fearing town.

Until… Ren McCormick arrives.

Now, if you’re a child of the 80s like me, you might have begun to recognize the plot to the movie Footloose.1

Footloose, made in 1984, is based on the real town of Elmore City, Oklahoma. Elmore City, Oklahoma banned dancing right from the start -- in 1898, the year it was founded. Almost 100 years later - in 1980, some high school kids finally asked for the ban to be lifted so they could have a high school prom. The main opponent of the idea was Reverend F.R. Johnson of the United Pentecostal Church who proclaimed loudly in a town meeting, “No good has ever come from a dance. If you have a dance somebody will crash it and they’ll be looking for only two things – women and booze.” But the high school students prevailed. Narrowly approved by the school board in a 3-2 vote, the kids of Elmore City, Oklahoma, had their first prom in 1980.2

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footloose_(1984_film)

2 https://findery.com/Chung123/notes/town-that-banned-dancing-for-80-years-inspired-footloose

2 In footloose we learn that dancing has been banned because of tragedy. We don’t learn this until the end of the movie. For most of the movie we think it’s banned simply because the reverend thinks it’s sinful. But in reality – it’s about fear.

And while this is just one awesome 80s movie, it represents something timeless– when we stop living, really living, because of fear. And it represents what a lot of churches also do – exclude people, exclude actions, assert false righteousness that is not really based on faith but based on keeping people comfortable and protected.

And we are people of faith struggling in a world full of things to be afraid of.

I was thinking about footloose this week because in one of the most memorable moments of the movie, Ren McCormick, played by Kevin Bacon, goes to a school board meeting to convince them to let the kids dance. And standing up among those good god-fearing, Christian folk, he reads to them from the bible. And one of the passages he reads to them is about King David, leaping and dancing before God. Our passage from this morning. Like a wild man. Reckless abandon. Like he cannot contain himself.

“David and the whole company of Israel were in the parade, singing at the top of their lungs and playing mandolins, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals….And David danced before the Lord with all his might.”

And why are they leaping and dancing and making music and having a parade? Because they are drunk? Nope. Because they’re looking for booze and women? No. They are dancing not in defiance of God but because of God. Because they are in touch with the very essence of life. Because they are consumed with their love of it. Because the presence of God is with them. Because life is beating in their hearts and air is going into and out of their lungs and they are alive and life is good and the Spirit is with them. They are bringing God into the center of their life. And this, for me, is the picture of being alive. I cannot think of anything more elemental, more life-affirming, more get-to-the-root-of- joy than dancing. It’s why we dance at weddings. It’s why people dance around camp fires and why in ancient rituals drums were beaten rhythmically as people moved their bodies. It’s why when we hear good news we jump up and down and clap our hands – because when something touches our spirit, it makes itself known in our bodies. David and his people are dancing because of the Ark of the covenant. The Ark of the covenant at this time for David and his people is the physical location of God. It contains the Word of God, as given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. It is the place where God promises to meet us. It is the place in which they are sure that God is near. It is the holiest of all things. And they dance for joy because they are returning God to the center of their life together.

3 And the story could end nicely here where we say we’re gonna be alive! We’re gonna put God at the center of our lives and everything will be groovy.

But here’s the thing – the story doesn’t end here.

Life is scary. God is scary. Love is scary. Change is scary. Grace is scary.

God has made us finite beings.

Life is fragile. Tragedy will strike. Bad things will and do happen. God might call us to scary places.

To live life is to embrace death, not deny it. To live life is to accept fear, not run from it. And to live life means to put God in the center of it and to put God in the center of life means to really live it.

Let me say that another way – when we are really living – really alive, really present – God is at the center, because that is God.

But to be fully present and alive in the moment can be scary. It can be vulnerable. To really love is the same way.

It reminds me of a line from The Chronicles of Narnia in which someone is asking about Aslan, the lion, who C.S. Lewis used to represent God. Is he safe? they ask. Oh no, he is not safe, but he is good.

Is life safe? No – but it is good. Is God safe? No – but God is good.

The ancient Israelites who wrote down this story about David and the ark tried their best to capture this idea that God is so awesome and powerful and beyond us that there is an element of fear in God himself. While producing such joy in David and his followers that they must dance in a parade down the street with the ark – is also dangerous. And big. Way bigger than them. Powerful. Uzzah, one of David’s men, reaches out his hand to steady the ark that rides atop a wagon – and Uzzah is struck dead.

Dead. Because he touched it.

And then, the parade comes to an abrupt stop.

David is angry and scared. David isn’t so sure he wants the ark anymore if Uzzah just by touching it loses his life. It’s too powerful. It’s too great. It’s too terrifying. How can such a thing – the physical location of God – how can such a thing be in his care? I thought God’s presence was supposed to keep us safe? 4

So the Ark stays at someone else’s house for three months before David finishes the job.

We’re just gonna put God over there at John Smith’s house. We’re just gonna stay safe and go about our business and forget this whole “essence of life” ecstatic communion with God stuff. We’re gonna leave that to the mystics and the evangelicals.

Emily Dickinson once wrote, “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” And so, in order to get things done, we forget.

This might sound funny – but at times it’s easy to forget that we’re alive, isn’t it? Or that God is with us?

At times we need to move past the startling realization that God is with us so that we can run errands to buy milk and go to the bank. If we were in a constant state of rapture and love and ectasy in the presence of God the laundry would never get done.

It’s too big to remember it all the time and so we put it aside for three months until we can face it again.

Recently I read about the WeCroak App for your phone. 5 times a day it sends you a reminder that you’re going to die. It was really created to remind people to live. Remembering the presence of God is kind of like that.3

The agreement we didn’t make with God is that we will be handed life in all its beauty but that we will also have to face death. And we have a choice to play it safe and avoid being hurt or to really live and accept all that comes with it.

My children come in from playing outside and show me the scratches they received from climbing trees and running through the woods – that’s a sign of a good day, I tell them.

Is it better to play outside and climb a tree and get scrapped up or to stay inside and be safe? It is always better to climb the tree. To feel the rough edges of the trunk against your hands as grab hold on that first limb. To get that vantage point of height, to feel your muscles strain as you attempt to go higher. To discover the nest high in the branches that was hiding. To let your strong legs bring you back down to the safety of the earth. Yes, it is always better to climb the tree than to stay safe.

And it is better to keep God, dangerous and creative, tumultuous and challenging, at the center of our lives than to keep God on the periphery where we will be safe.

3 https://www.christiancentury.org/article/first-person/5-times-day-wecroak-app-reminds-me-i-m-going-die

5 It is better to live – and to know it. It’s the blessing of being human. Like David, we are asked to bring this living God among us here, we are asked to live in God’s presence – ALIVE – so startlingly alive it leaves time for little else.

This awareness of God changes everything. it does not keep us safe but it keeps us living. it keeps us recognizing our own alive-ness, our own freedom, our own liberation into goodness. This awareness of God not only makes us want to dance—but it is the dance – the dance we are called into every time we breathe in life.

I want God at the center of my life. And when I say that I don’t mean the God of rules or the God of do this and not that and feel guilty. When I say I want God at the center of my life – it means I want joy, freedom, love at the center of my life. It means that I want to live fully into this faith in a force bigger than me, a force that is love and goodness. I want to always remember, in the heart of me, that the junk the world throws at me, the abuse I throw at myself, is not what matters. But that this dance with God is. This dance with God is life itself.

As Hafiz writes: “Every child has known God, not the God of names, not the God of don’ts, not the God who ever does anything weird, But the God who knows only 4 words and keeps repeating them saying: “Come dance with me.” Come dance.”

Amen.