Today’s Scripture Reading (June 28,
2016): Psalm 149 & 150
A number of
years ago I attended an interdenominational worship event designed for young
adults (even at that time I was really too old to qualify, but I went anyway.)
Worshippers of every stripe gathered in the sanctuary of a large inner city church
to worship God. The worship at these events tended to be a little varied. The
people who came were from many different worship traditions. Admittedly, my
worship tradition was a little staid. In my tradition, we didn’t dance in
worship, and if we did our feet definitely did not come off of the ground. It
might be better to say that we swayed with the music. But at this event,
everyone came; those that swayed and those that jumped and those that danced. We
had all gathered in this place with the sole purpose of worshipping God.
But on this
night, what drew my attention were some dancers in the front row. They came
equipped with their own tambourines (effectively what the psalmist calls a
timbrel) and they were ready to dance. My brother-in-law would have probably called them the “Vestal Virgins” of the event,
charged to keep the fire of the worship burning through their dance. And dance
they did. On this night, I watched more of the dance than I normally would have
as the crowd worshiped God. Okay, I was
kind of laughing at the dance as the rest of the people gathered worshiped. It wasn’t that they were bad dancers –
they were great. But they had long ribbons tied to the end of their tambourines
that would whip around as they danced. What I found so funny were the
worshippers standing behind the dancers. I have a feeling that the worship
environment of which they were accustomed was very similar to mine, but on this
night even they danced. They had no choice but to dance. With each beat of the
tambourines, the ribbons from the dancers in front of them whipped back
threatening to hit them in the head. And so the dancers danced, and the
worshippers in the second row dodged in their own awkward kind of dance.
I am not
sure that the psalmist really imagined either the conservative worship that I
was accustomed to growing up or the “Vestal
Virgins” of the interdenominational worship service. The Bible says that David
danced. I am not sure that he cared overly much what the other worshippers were
doing, nor did he impose his dance on others. He simply responded to the dance
of God happening in his life. I think true worship might be like that. Just us
and God involved in our dance. Sometimes the timbrels are beaten, sometimes the feet are lifted, but other times it is nothing
more than a gentle sway to the music with the feet firmly planted on the
ground. What matters is that we respond to God moving in our lives, we let him
take the lead in the dance.
And that is
what I really want my life to look like. God and I dancing together, oblivious
to what others might think. Just moving to the God-music that he has placed on the inside
of my being.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1
Chronicles 21
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