Text: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 & Mark 6:14-29
Theme: “Footloose”
7th Sunday
After Pentecost
July 12, 2015
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In
the Name of Jesus+
Next year, on
April 18, a twenty-year anniversary will be observed by at least a few folks
over in Waco, Texas. April 18, 1996 was
the day, on the campus of Baylor University, when school officials lifted the
ban on dancing. Some hailed the move and
went out to cut a rug. Others, instead of moving their feet to the beat, stayed
still and only shook their heads; they lamented the “creeping
secularization” that was taking place at Baylor and other schools with
religious origins.
I’m reliably
told that the “Cotton-eye’d Joe” style of dance was taught to young people here
in Texas. Diana and I gave it a spin at
a dance class we were taking, but we’re not yet ready to go prime time! My wife’s dance partner, yours truly, has two
left feet. In the Nebraska of my
childhood (where things were much more “Yankee” in orientation), we had little
more than a once-a-year lesson in square dancing. That was in PE class.
Then I got to
Valparaiso University, my alma mater, and, there on the living
room-turned-dance hall at Sigma Phi Epsilon, I watched a fraternity brother
from the East coast kick out some moves that would even impress John Travolta
from Saturday Night Fever. And who of us can forget the motion
picture Footloose? That movie set forth the issue nicely. Kevin Bacon plays the johnny-come-lately, new
kid on the block, high school rebel. He
falls in love with the minister’s daughter.
He introduces the emotional joys of dancing to his classmates and
finally convinces the minister to allow a dance at school.
All of the
foregoing, all this chat about dancing, serve to illustrate this: both today’s Old Testament Reading and Holy
Gospel reading have dancing in common.
Let me add that they both feature two kings, two heads of state, if you
will.
This past
Monday, a middle-aged man received the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood in
his quiet apartment. It’s safe to say
that over 99.9% of the world’s population neither knew nor cared. But Michael Stroud did. He is confined to a wheel chair and can’t
make it to church. So, together with Jim
and Linn Welborn, we brought a little of the church to him. We were greeted with much hospitality. There was talk of life, of family, of the
movies he had seen. Although he cannot
physically dance, his faith is very Fred Astaire-like. He dances in his eyes; he dances in his
heart; he dances in his mind. He is
footloose all the way.
King Herod, in
today’s Gospel, apparently was not footloose; He only liked to watch. He was most impressed with the moves of
Herodias’ daughter – so impressed that he granted her any wish up to half of
his kingdom. The girl talked to her
mother who was illegally married to Herod.
(Herodias was actually Herod’s brother’s wife.) John the Baptist, imprisoned by Herod, had
pointed out that this marriage was illegal.
But Herod, nevertheless, came to like John. Herodias, however, did not; she would not
have her relationship with the King called into question. So she told her
daughter to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. The king had made a public oath; he could not
renege. John’s fate was sealed. Thus, the daughter’s dance was used as a
means to an end, used to satisfy a woman’s jealousy and hate.
Contrast that
to the dancing that was going on around the Ark of the Covenant. The youthful King David, unlike Herod, was
not watching the dance. He was doing the
dance! They were bringing the Ark of the
Covenant, the visible presence of God on earth, from Obed-Edom to the city of
David, to Bethlehem. The move was
choreographed with what we sedate Presbyterians might call “liturgical excess”
or maybe even “creeping secularization.”
There was dancing going on, and King David did his John Travolta, Kevin
Bacon, Fred Astaire thing for the sheer joy of it! It wasn’t liquor, grade A
narcotic, or weed that enabled him to drop his inhibitions and get out there to
shake, rattle, and roll! The fact is, he
was so thrilled to be in the presence of God that nothing else mattered; he
couldn’t help but cut loose. And here’s
another thing: he didn’t dance to draw
attention to himself. The thought never crossed his mind. He was too busy glorifying and enjoying God
to even pay attention to what others were thinking.
When the dance
was over, David did not receive some award from a panel of judges – like Dancing with the Stars, etc. Instead, he gave out gifts. Every Israelite man and woman received a loaf
of bread, a date cake, and a raisin cake.
That joy of being in the Lord’s presence, which prompted such dancing,
also translated itself into deep and heartfelt generosity.
Ladies and
gentlemen: this is the Gospel way! It is the joy of living (in the presence of
God) and giving (in the presence of God).
Contrast this
Gospel way to the way of Herod, Herodias, and Herodias’ daughter. This is the way where you coerce and
manipulate, where you yourself are coerced and manipulated. This is the way of life that is only a means
to an end with the end being your own gratification. This is a way of life, sadly, in some churches
where what is offered is not the joy of the Lord. What is offered is membership in a religious
club – and membership, of course, for only “our kind” of people. This is a way
of life, in its basest form, where a person thinks nothing of sacrificing an
innocent person’s life for little more than protecting a fragile ego. What a misery that must be!
Jesus Christ –
the son of David and the son of God – did not come to make you miserable. He didn’t come to usher in a way of life
where you coerce and are coerced, where you manipulate and are manipulated,
where you use people and even dispose of them for your own gratification.
Jesus came, as
He said, that you “may have life and have that life in abundance.” Jesus said what He said so that “His joy may
be in you and your own joy may be full.”
His ancestor King David said, in the 16th Psalm, “In your
presence there is fullness of joy.” Fullness of joy is not just a smidge. In fact, it's bursting, overflowing, well over 100%. This
is it. This is the way of life where you
“gotta cut loose, footloose”!
In their song Wild Horses, Mick Jagger and Keith
Richards pen this line: “I have my
freedom, but I don’t have much time.”
Dare I say, that is the mindset many folks have on many a day. I know I do.
I wake up; I have barely one foot out of the bed, and already I think
that time is slipping through my fingers.
I’m a free man, but my days are numbered. The thought itself manipulates me, coerces
me, inhibits me, and makes me miserable.
No wonder I live my day in the King Herod way and not the King David
way, my way and not the Jesus way.
Again, Jesus
didn’t come to make us miserable or to inhibit our souls. Jesus said:
“If the Son of Man sets you free, you shall be free indeed!”
God help me –
God help us all! – to remember the gifts of today's lectionary, to remember King David, to remember King David’s greater
son. Grant us mercy, Lord, to live not
so much with and for ourselves but with and for you, to live in your way where
there is fullness of joy and where we cut loose, footloose! After that, who knows? We may bake a a loaf of bread or a cake (raisin or date would work nicely) and take it to a shut-in. Amen.
