Dance a Different Dance Now Christmas Is Here

Luke 2:1-20

A Sermon Preached by Catherine Foote

December 24, 2005

University Congregational United Church of Christ

Seattle, Washington

To all who gather here tonight we say “A Merry Christmas!” To all who gather in the name of hope, we say a Merry Christmas. In this world where hope is sometimes hard to come by, we welcome you in the name of hope.

It has been a hard year. Just a few days after we gathered on Christmas Eve last year, an earthquake in the middle of the ocean brought the destruction of a tsunami to the other side of the world. And we have had a full year of that sense of things too large for us overwhelming us. We continue to be a nation at war, sorting out all that means for us as people of faith. More earthquakes in other parts of the world have left people homeless and freezing. And hurricanes in this country have blown the roof off of our own sense that at least here at home, all is well. It has been a long, hard year.

And yet we gather again tonight, at this darkest time of year, looking fully into the face of reality, and we hold our candles, holding light together. We gather insisting that there is more to the story of human life than the devastation we have witnessed or even caused. We gather with a simple affirmation: light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not, will never, extinguish that light.

With that in mind, tonight I want to talk just a little bit about dancing. One writer called dancing an ideal image of Christmas; dancing both grounds us, with our feet connected to the earth, and sets us free to move through the air in new and creative ways. So too earth and heaven meet tonight in this moment of connection, and God invites us to the dance.

Many of you know that my earliest experiences with Christianity were of the most conservative variety. One of my close friends during those days was Martha. Martha was raised in a household that, in the name of religion, prohibited dancing. I had never heard of such a thing, but Martha explained to me that from her parents’ perspective, dancing could lead to nothing good, and therefore they were against it. Martha’s parents had very strict guidelines for her behavior, and generally Martha tried to comply with them. But one day Martha and her younger brother went to a friend’s house, and they started listening to records. Probably Elvis Presley. And before she knew it, Martha told me, the music took over. She found that she was swaying, and then moving, and then, oh my goodness, Martha was dancing! It was so much fun, she said, that she kept dancing. She and her friend spent the whole afternoon dancing.

Now breaking the family rule in itself was problem enough for Martha. After the music stopped, she did feel bad about the dancing. But the real problem that Martha had was that her little brother, who was five years old, had been dancing too. Walking back home, Martha knew she had to convince her brother not to say anything. It wasn’t too hard- they both knew they would be in trouble if their parents found out. So Martha made her brother promise back that he would not tell what they had been doing. They walked in the door and there was their mother, and the first words out of her little brother’s mouth were, “We weren’t dancing!”

Before we laugh so hard at Martha’s family, let us acknowledge that our denominational ancestors were also unsure about dancing. In fact, we were even unsure about Christmas. In 1644 Oliver Cromwell backed the Puritan reforms sweeping England by enforcing an act of Parliament which banned any celebration of Christmas. A well-disciplined Puritan himself, Cromwell felt that Christmas was mostly a Catholic thing, and the reveling of Christmas celebrations had gotten out of hand. “No feasting,” he declared. “No making merry. No partying.” And although I couldn’t find any specific reference to it, he might have just as well said, “No dancing.”

We descendents have changed a great deal since Cromwell’s time, but the Puritans are still our ancestors, and although we have gotten back to celebrating Christmas in all kinds of ways, we still aren’t sure how much of a party to have about our faith. We still aren’t sure about the dancing.

Of course I don’t mean that we place the same restrictions on dancing that our religious ancestors did, or that Martha’s devout parents did. What I mean is that we are still not sure if we can trust ourselves with the “shout out loud” joy of this moment. We are not sure if we can let ourselves go into the glory and delight that we hear about in these stories of angels singing to shepherds and Mary and Joseph singing to each other, and God singing to the world. The message is great news: “For unto us a child is born. God has regarded our low estate. Peace and justice shall be our song. The poor shall be filled with good things, and the rich sent empty away. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.” So dance a different dance.

But instead of connecting with this joy, we hear Christians arguing over whether or not we should say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” The incredible irony of the argument is that anyone believes that forcing a retail store to include the word “Christmas” in its sales appeals will help this country understand the heart of the Christmas story, while we continue to base our national budget on benefit cuts for the poorest among us, to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. It would be laughable if it were not so tragic, so far from the heart of God, so far from the dance of Christmas.

But here is our hope. We do still gather. We do still listen to the stories. We do still come to the dance, even if we’re not sure what to do when we get here. We come together with this almost instinctive awareness of the reality beneath these stories, this sense that all of humanity stands in the balance as these poorest of parents are turned away from the warm and well-lighted inn, and instead find shelter in a stable; as the angels come to those who live life on the very edge to tell good news that changes everything; as the wisest of the world go to the places of power, only to be pointed instead to the streets of the next town over, where no one expects much of anything to happen, and the king who watches them go senses a fleeting awareness of an even greater power, and trembles.

We still come to the dance. And I have seen our tentative experimentation with letting go. A few years back Dave Shull got us all in a circle at the end of a worship service and we did try to move. We weren’t much as a group of dancers, but at least we were brave. And last month Terry and Tallis Moore brought communion bread and juice down the aisle with a glimmer in their eyes and a very light step.

We still come to the dance. We have a sense that there is something about this dancing thing that connects us to the heart of our faith. In Sandro Boticelli’s painting, “Mystic Nativity,” angels dance in a circle, celebrating the birth of the Messiah, while in Dante’s Divine Comedy the devil is pictured as encased in ice, unable to dance at all.

Dancing is what we do, and how we move, and how the Spirit moves us. And as we move into the metaphor, we can see that it is dancing that all of life is inviting us to do. And I am not much of a dancer. I know what it feels like to be tentative in my trust, to wonder if I will step on toes or make a fool of myself. But when the joy of Christmas, the joy that comes from naming not only the possibilities but the promises of this season, becomes clear to me, what can I do but jump and shout it myself? What can I do but step out and try, even if I do step on toes or look a bit foolish at times. Sam Keen in his book To a Dancing God, asks the question, “Is it really possible to be in touch without touching, or to be moved without moving?”

Because the dance forces us to move, and to remember and to trust that we worship a God who claims the name Emmanuel, a God who promises to be with us, a Lord of the Dance who calls us to dance wherever we are, and insists that this dance of love will go on. And that is the heart of what I want to point to tonight. God is with us, even after this very difficult year. God is with us, even in what can seem like very dark times. The announcement of “Fear not;” of “peace on earth and good will to all” that the angels sing is the message that will outlast all the other tuneless pronouncements of fear that so often fill our ears.

Let me tell you one more dancing story. A few years ago, back when we had two regular Sunday morning worship services, I was with a couple of the children of our choir during the second worship service. And that day we were doing some sort of a craft, and we needed more supplies. As I walked with one of the boys to the supply room, I remembered that Peter Ilgenfritz had baptized a baby that morning during the first service and that after the baptism, Peter had danced the baby down the aisle to introduce her to the congregation. The baby and her family had agreed to stay for the second service to be introduced there as well. So as we passed the balcony on the way back from the supply room I stuck my head in, and there was Peter, just beginning the dance again. I called the young boy who was with me to look in so he could see it too. I was completely unprepared for his reaction. As soon as he saw, he ran back to the room where the other kids were and, as if he were proclaiming good tidings of great joy, said, “Hurry, come see. Peter is dancing with the baby!” And all the kids came running down the hall and into the balcony and leaned over the rail and watched with wonder and joy as Peter danced that baby down the aisle and back.

Tonight we tell you great news. The angels are singing and inviting us to dance. The tune is peace and justice, the tune is hope and joy and faith and love. As soon as we move into the dance, the world will move with us. And the Lord of the Dance extends his hand, and bows, and calls us onto the dance floor, as if to say, “Dance a different dance, now Christmas is here.”