Pentecost 8                                          Matt. 11:16-19,25-30                                           7/6/08
                                                              “Shall We Dance”

A story/illustration in the Christian Century magazine told about a mother at a wedding who “tried to lure her little boy onto the dance floor. 

According to the author, she invited him to dance to a slow song, and then tried again when a fast song played.  She winked and cajoled; she pretended to be sad dancing alone; she pretended she was dancing while he stood on her feet.  But he wouldn’t dance. 

Finally she gave him one last look filled with love and sadness, then turned her attention to a little girl who was eager to join her.  They twirled around the dance floor giggling with delight, never even glancing in the direction of her stubborn, grumpy little boy.”  Christian Century  7/1/08)

God tried in many way to woo His people into a relationship with Him - to dance with Him in the divine dance of love and service.  He gave them a special covenant.  He sent personal messages of warning, reconciliation and promise through prophets, including John the Baptist, but they would not dance with Him.  They wanted to live as they chose, they wanted to rule themselves, they wanted to be left alone.

Finally, God sent His Son who was different from any of God’s messengers.  And God’s chosen people rejected Him, claiming His lifestyle was not in keeping with their idea of a prophet from God, much less the promised Messiah.  This is the meaning of the parable Jesus tells.

Making the meaning of His parable perfectly clear, Jesus tells them in verses 20-24 that if the people of the gentile territories had had the privilege that Israel had they would have believed.  Furthermore, they would have lived out their faith, humbly doing God’s will.

The people of Israel on the other hand, insisted on doing religion their way.  They were unwilling to listen and they were unwilling to dance God’s dance.  They were too proud of the status they had as His chosen to listen even to God’s invitation or consider doing different steps.

God was not pleased with their rituals.  He was saddened that their leaders turned His Law given in love as a guide into a hammer they held of people’s heads.  He was angered at their complacency and stubbornness. 

God wanted repentance and He wanted to see the fruits of repentance - witness and acts of gratitude.  This call for a change in behavior and action wasn’t because God expected people to earn eternal life by works. 

No, this change in behavior and action was meant to show that the people understood the value of the gift they had been given and were grateful for it.

The result of Israel’s lack of repentance, as we all know, was the gift of an eternal, loving relationship with God was offered to the gentiles - the people Israel most looked down on.

The same is true today and for Christians, though perhaps acted out in a different kind of dance.  This is a particular danger for people who have been Christians all their lives.

We may become complacent like Israel.  We have the right doctrine.  We have the right liturgy.  We have the right practices.  We have the right system for doing ministry.  We have the right lifestyle.  And God will surely see that and bless us.

But, is right doctrine, liturgy, practices, systems and lifestyle what God wants?  I think not!

God wants us to repent - to recognize that our sin is as great as any criminal’s, to turn from our sinful ways, acknowledge our wrongs and our inability to do differently.  He wants us to turn to Him as our source of forgiveness and help.

He wants us to say, “I can’t - I can’t change my ways, I can’t overcome my sinful nature, I can’t make up for all I’ve done wrong, I can’t save myself, I can’t do anything without you. 

He wants us to accept His gift of salvation. 

 He wants us have hearts full of gratitude, not because we’re told we must, but because we appreciate what it cost God for the gift and how this gift expresses God’s love for us so well.

 He wants that gratitude to motivate us to invite others into relationship with him and to give of the resources He has given us.  He wants us to accept the yoke of discipleship.

This yoke is not always pleasant.  In fact, it may more often chafe us or weigh us down.  But, we need to remember a very important characteristic of yokes: they are made for two. 

When the work gets hard, when the sacrifice seems too great, when we feel the burden is on our shoulders alone, we need to look over at our yoke partner.  There we will see Jesus.  And furthermore, we will see that He has carried the greater part of the burden all along the way.

When we see this and allow it to penetrate our hearts, we discover that what we felt across our backs was not a yoke, but instead Jesus’ arms.  Then we will realize that the sounds we thought were harsh commands to pull harder were really the music of our special love song, drawing us out onto the dance floor. 

Yes, and as we look out we see not fields of dry packed ground and hard rocks, but a dance floor full of people all trying new steps in God’s divine dance.  Then, held gently in Jesus’ embrace we twirl round and round the dance floor, giggling in delight.

Shall we dance?  Amen.