Saturday, July 16, 2011

Dancing on Stony Ground

I’m a little later than usual getting to this task. Partly because I am not preaching this weekend. It is the first sermon from our new Associate Pastor, Chris Millay, so join me in holding him in prayer. I’m sure it will be a great experience for the whole Aldersgate Community.

But the real reason why I am late is that Maddie had a dance exhibition today. I almost said contest, but it isn’t that. I don’t think. Her dance studio is putting on this exhibition as a part of the Three Rivers Festival. It is being held in the Grand Wayne Center downtown. Maddie danced a rumba with her instructor Charles. Charles is rather tall, and Maddie is ... not. I remember when she first started there, Charles told her to look over his shoulder while they were dancing. She can hardly see his shoulder, let alone look over it. But they have managed.

More than managed, they were great. If I do say so myself. She was graceful and confident and accomplished. I was blown away to say the least. She and her mother stayed to watch more of the dancers while I ran home to get to work on this bible study. Still beaming at her performance.

They danced to “I Will Follow Him” which was recorded by Little Peggy March in 1963, and then made popular again by the Whoopi Goldberg movie “Sister Act” back in 1992, where the song was turned into a quasi-religious anthem sung by the nuns at St. Katherine’s Convent in San Francisco. I didn’t realize it was a rumba. But then since I’m not clear what a rumba is, I’ll just go with it. I can follow them too.

It was an appropriate song for the dance. Maddie just followed Charles, and sometimes, I think Charles was following Maddie. And sometimes I wasn’t sure who was following whom. But then I didn’t have to know. I just watched them dance. And was suitably impressed. We had noticed that some of the other women had some trouble with the floor that the Grand Wayne had laid for this event. It must have been slick in places, or uneven. There were stumbles and bobbles aplenty. Except for Maddie. Ahem. Sorry had to toss that in. She was as sure footed as a gazelle, across the uneven and treacherous ground.

The same kind of ground that Jacob was dancing across in our passage for this week. Wait, you are thinking quickly after such a clumsy segue way. Jacob? Dancing? Dreaming perhaps, but not dancing, surely. Well, maybe not literally, but still ... Take a look.

Genesis 28:10-19a Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And the LORD stood beside him and said, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14 and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. 15 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." 16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place-- and I did not know it!" 17 And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." 18 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel;

What you need to know, or to remember, is that Jacob isn’t out for a little stroll one day. He is running for his life. He cheated his brother, conspired with his mother against his father, and now is on his way to hide out with some distant relatives, who he hopes haven’t been reading his brother Esau’s Facebook posts.

So, he runs as far as his legs will take him and then he drops in exhaustion. And given that he wasn’t really prepared for this journey, he grabs a stone for a pillow and falls asleep. And while he sleeps, he dreams. Understandable really, must be that crick in the neck he is getting from sleeping on a rock. Anyway, the dream is quite a production. One of those you don’t want to wake up from. And if you do open your eyes to the reality you are living in, you shut them quickly and hope to drift back to the landscape you were just dreaming instead of the one out your window. That’s the kind of dream it was.

A ladder, or staircase or ramp - the Hebrew here is a bit fuzzy. And we aren’t clear whether God stands with Jacob at the top of the ladder or at the bottom. But the words come through loud and clear. “You are blessed, Jacob.” And more than that, “you are not alone.”

What a message to hear when you are running for your life. What a note to receive when you are sleeping with a stone for your pillow. You would think, and I’ll be he expected to hear the voice say “shame on you, Jacob, for being such a trickster, for being so self-centered mama’s boy. You are in big trouble now.” And maybe that’s what he should have heard. But he didn’t. He heard a different message. He heard an invitation. He heard a reminder of family, of connection.

The rabbis pointed out that before he goes to sleep, Jacob took stones, plural. Our translation says one of the stones, but that’s to help it make sense to us. It really says he took stones for a pillow. So, he was sleeping on a pile of rocks. But after the dream there is one stone under his head. So, they taught, it is the sign of the Spirit that what was many has been bound into one. The scattered pieces of Jacob’s soul have been stitched into a whole again, because of the presence and the protection of the Spirit of God. The broken dreams of a troubled man are given new hope and new life because of that visitation at night while he slept what must have been a troubled sleep.

I would like to say that everything went better for Jacob from that night on. That his act of worship transformed him into a new man. But it wouldn’t be true to the story. He still had a lot to learn, he still tried to dance his way through life and relationships, and frequently found himself on uneven and stony ground.

But he was never alone. The promise was that he would have a dancing partner, no matter what. No matter how uneven the floor, not matter how stony the path. That’s our promise too. A dancing partner across the stony ground of our lives. What better news could there be?

Now, maybe we should try a rumba. “I will follow Him, wherever he may go. There isn’t an ocean too deep, a mountain so high it can keep me away. I must follow Him, ever since he touched my hand I knew. That near him I must always be. And nothing can keep Him from me. He is my destiny. I will follow Him.”

Watch your step there. Everybody dance.

Shalom,
Derek

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