Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette ~ First Church Somerville
Sunday, September 21, 2008 ~ Nineteenth Sunday in Pentecost
Luke 7:31-35
“Dance”
Someone once said, if you want to know which of the red-lettered words in the New Testament were actually, literally, uttered by Jesus, go through the sayings with a fine-toothed comb, and pick out all the weirdest ones. I think the passage Joe read from Luke for us qualifies, because it makes me say “What the heck is he talking about?”
What does it say again? “This generation are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to each other, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.” This is the first-century equivalent of, “nanny-nanny boo-boo.” It is a heckle from the peanut gallery. Jesus utters this early on in his election campaign for messiah, and he can already see how fickle the people are. I can almost hear him say, “You people are never satisfied. John the Baptist was too demanding and dour for you, and apparently I’m too squishy and fun-loving!”
Jesus had some early wins: there was the dramatic baptism at the Jordan, the throngs who came to his rally at the Convention Center, and that really incredible resurrection he pulled off, a great bit of PR, the polls showed. But now they’re settled in for the long haul, and the people are seeing his flaws. This is Jesus sighing and saying, “What do you want, people? You want someone more presidential? You want someone to solve all your problems? Don’t forget that the kingdom of God is within you! Get off the sidelines and get into the game!”
Sometimes we can’t see the meaning of scripture because it’s teaching a truth we’re not ready for—we are in the way, casting a shadow over it and putting it in the dark. I confess to a lot of anxiety and fear about our current presidential election. I go to bed thinking about it and wake up thinking about it and then chastise myself saying, “well, it’s not like it’s going to affect my family personally,” but it is, it is. And it’s going to affect families in Iraq, and families in Afghanistan, and Appalachia, and Detroit, and a whole lot more. But all my anxiety means I am hanging the hope of the future, the hope of the nation and the world, on one Messiah or another, and I’m on the sidelines, cheering or criticizing, analyzing and worrying.
We have these two urges within us: the light, and the shadow. The shadow prefers to stay on the sidelines when somebody else has the guts to get into the middle of the dance floor. The shadow stays near the walls, where it’s safe, and coolly evaluates, and judges. People living out of their shadow are not happy: they can’t take a joke, they are afraid of looking foolish, they’re afraid, period.
And that shadow is overshadowing them earlier and earlier. My son Rafael just graduated kindergarten in June. He had a hard time, sometimes, last year. I learned something about kindergarten from watching him. If 40 is the new thirty, kindergarten is the new junior high. Old people are getting younger, and young people are getting older, fast. It seems that in kindergarten, there are already well-defined benchmarks of cool, and not-cool. It’s not cool, anymore, to play. It also doesn’t do to seem too excited about anything. Eagerness flags you as a nerd, and makes you raw meat for the cool customers.
The cool customers talk about Star Wars, and trade Pokemon cards. They hang out near the fence. They make up clubs, and then decide who is not going to be in them. They don’t play.
Then there are the kids who remain completely ignorant of the rules, and play anyhow. You see them jumping rope and playing foursquare. And you know what? They are happy. And their happiness calls irresistibly to others, who can’t decide if they would rather play, or be cool.
Last fall, on a chilly November night, people came by ones and twos and threes to a little storefront in Union Square. They were not going there to vote. They were there to do some swing dancing. They were not who I would have expected to be at a swing dance. They did not look like extras from the stage version of Grease, all hard-muscled bodies, cigarette-packs tucked into their rolled up tee shirt sleeves and polka-dotted skirts grazing perfect gams. Some of them were middle-aged, and a little droopy, to be honest. There were people with bad dental work, people who needed some breath mints, people who were bunchy in some spots and lumpy in others. They were, in other words, human.
I myself was not a swing dancer. I was there to take their money and turn it over to the Casa San Jose mission team. The dancers didn’t necessarily know it, but they were not just here for their own pleasure. Their ten bucks would make it possible for twelve of us from First Church to do work for the poor on their behalf. So I was there as an innocent bystander, ignorant of the ways of the swing dance scene. I stood at the edge of the dance floor, and I watched these people arrive, and I started to form my hypothesis. I leaned on the wall, and I thought, “oh, these poor people. They think they can dance. This is going to be so poignant, all awkwardness and damp hands, all people crashing into each other and stepping on toes. Maybe I’ll even get a sermon out of it.”
The room filled up quickly, and the plate-glass window fogged up from the warmth of the bodies inside. The DJ hooked up his iPod and started spinning tunes. The sounds of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy filled the room, and couples went out on the dance floor. There were very few matched pairs. Zaftig chicks went with lanky boys, graying baby boomers with college coeds, boys with girls and then, when they ran out of boys, girls with girls.
Everybody found somebody, and they all went out on the floor, and started dancing.
And they were stunning.
It was a movie scene, the unlikely moment when 40 people simultaneously and telepathically communicate a set of complicated dance moves to one another. It was Top Hat, West Side Story. I saw Natalie Wood whirl by with Richard Beymer in her arms…then, a minute later, Natalie Wood whirled by again with Rita Moreno in her arms. There were no sheepish smiles or people staring at their shoes. Nobody, but nobody, bumped backs or stepped on toes. It was glory.
There is nothing, nothing in the world so wonderful as watching people do what they are made to do, and doing it, happy. They were not gingerly practicing in the corner and happy. They were not embarrassed in the middle of the floor and happy. They were HAPPY. And I felt happier just for watching them.
Their happiness didn’t just materialize out of nowhere. They had to learn the steps. And from what I could tell by the looks on their faces, it wasn’t work to learn them, it was a joy. They didn’t have to postpone their happiness until they looked as slick and cool as people who had been swing dancing for years. All they had to do was get in the game.
I wonder what people see when they first walk through the door of our church. I wonder if they see a bunch of people who don’t look like Christians, a bunch of people who are a little lumpy or bunchy. I wonder what they see when the music starts, and we come out on the dance floor.
I wonder if the spiritual life is like this. I wonder if God makes us beautiful to observers while we are still learning the steps. I wonder if learning the steps is itself the joy that we seek.
See, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know the Bible inside and out yet. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have mad prayer skills. You might be terrible at forgiveness, or plagued by doubt; you might still be working on that little matter of selling all your possessions and giving the money to the poor. But you don’t have to be perfect before you come out on the dance floor. Maturing as a Christian is not something you can practice alone in your room with a video. In fact, you won’t get very far if you do. If you want to learn the steps, you’ve got to learn them from someone who has been doing them longer than you have. You learn loving from the lovers, and scripture from the people who know scripture, and prayer from the people who hear God’s voice. And you learn coffee hour from Tim and Thom and Abby and Michael.
And you practice, practice, practice. That’s why we call everything we do in here, spiritual practice, and not spiritual performance.
I’m going to practice what I preached, right now. In a minute, Tom Scholfield is going to queue an Abba song, and I am going to dance. You can join me if you like. The step is simple: one step to the right, three steps to the left. One step to the right, three steps to the left. This is no indication of my personal politics. Whigs and Tories alike are invited to this dance. As in life, there are a few hiccups during this song, when you’ll have to pause.
Peter and I went to see Mamma Mia last week at the Somerville Theatre. All of us who were there wanted to dance in the aisles, and I’ve put it off for a whole week. If Meryl Streep, at her age, can do this and hang on to her dignity, so can you.
You don’t have to dance—this is the UCC, and we believe in personal autonomy. But if you leave me hanging out here all alone, I promise you you will be just as embarrassed watching as you would be dancing. It’s better to feel embarrassed with me than to feel embarrassed for me. And here’s something—if you come dance, you might feel happy, too.
