Sermon May 13, 2012

Acts 10:44-48

Psalm 98

1 John 5:1-6

John 15:9-17

“The Great Dance”

Some of you, I know because I see you there, have connected to friends and family on Facebook. According to one source, in 2010, 200 million people signed up for Facebook, presumably each one of those people has at least one Facebook friend. Friendship on Facebook means lots of things, but I would guess we wouldn't characterize it as love. But if we do not love those who are just Facebook friends, then what is our relationship? But friendship is truly about love—love that can be shared among many people connected to one another as individuals and to everyone in a community through purpose and within the church, we are friends as we connect, interact and move outward from the church in our collective relationship with Jesus Christ. So we enter into a dance of love, a dance designed by the creator, sung by our savior and played by the spirit.

Our praise hymn this morning was based on the writings of Mechthild of Magdeburg a Christian woman who lived and wrote between 1210 and 1284. She lived with other religious of her time, eventually becoming a member of an order of sisters. She wrote of her vision--the ways in which she experienced the Godhead in her prayers and in her meditations. She wrote this:

I cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me.
If you want me to leap with abandon,
You must intone the song.
Then I shall leap into love,
From love into knowledge,
From knowledge into enjoyment,
And from enjoyment beyond all human sensations.
There I want to remain, yet want also to circle higher still.¹

I admit, Jesus doesn't talk about dance in this passage from John's gospel and 1 John doesn't talk about dancing either. But it seems to me, as you listen to Jesus' description of love—it sounds like a dance of words.

God loves me, so I love you, live in that love.

Love one another, as I have loved you.

Lay down your lives for those that you love.

You didn't choose me, but I chose you.

I am sending you out, to go and bear fruit.

I give you commands so that you love one another.

I can see a circle dance, one where many people stand together, listening to the caller or singing the actions. (Like the hokey-pokey) Love is in the middle—So we step toward God because God has stepped toward us. Then we step toward one another and grow even closer to God. Then as we step away from the circle, never losing its shape, we invite others to join us as we continue the dance and spread the circle wider, never getting farther from love, just making it bigger.

Jesus says that friendship is obedience; and he says that his disciples are no longer servants, but friends. So obedience within friendship is different that obedience within the slave and master relationship. The language and the logic are a little circular—thus we are calling it a dance, today. This is the dance of love. Jesus calls them to dance: to love each other as Jesus has loved them and Jesus has loved them as God has loved him and God so loved the world that God sent them Jesus to love them. It's a circle round, a circular dance of love. Keeping to the way of Jesus—keeping Jesus' commandments—keeps us dancing together; but it is an obedience based on loving each other and living within the love of Jesus who lives within the love of God.

The dance we dance with Christ—it seems to me—is done as we dance the dance of love with one another—and the love we receive from God is the love we have to share with one another. We have to love one another—to dance this dance with one another—because through the dance, through the way of love, we acknowledge that we are all children of God, as we read in 1 John.

Dancing, as a metaphor of the love we live, give and receive, can help us understand that love is an active word, a verb that means motion, activity and one that can't be done alone.

Throughout John's gospel, we can pickup the aspects of how God loves Jesus—and according to this passage, according to the dance, how it is that Jesus' disciples (who we are) are loved by him. And, continuing the dance, how we dance with others, how we invite others in.

Throughout the gospel of John there are some clues about God’s love for Jesus. God gives Jesus all the world (The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. 3:35); therefore love is about generosity. God shares everything with Jesus, bringing Jesus into God’s confidence (The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. 5:20); therefore love is about trust. God gives Jesus a role to play (But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 1:12); therefore love is about responsibility and meaning. All of these things Jesus modelled for his disciples. He calls them not servants or employees who take instruction and do as they are told, but friends – confidants and intimates. Their relationship is built not with contracts but with the strong bonds of friendship. And, like Jesus himself, they are chosen and called. The disciples have seen Jesus and John the Baptizer chosen by God (John 1:6). Now the disciples themselves are the chosen. Not just as individuals but as a community of sisters and brothers.²

So the great dance, the universal action of love, and our part in that dance reflects God's generosity to Jesus Christ, God's trust of Jesus and the responsibility of nurturing God's and the purpose and meaning of that responsibility.

Jesus generously gives us the power of his continuing ministry—as he gave it to the disciples, his friends. So we are to continue that ministry, revealing his love within us as individuals and as a part of the body of Christ. We do that by treating all as God's children—because they are God's children, even if they are unaware of it yet. Sometimes that means loving ourselves more generously, sometimes that means treating others with less judgment and most of the time it means both.

Jesus also has trusted us, as he trusted his disciples, his friends with power, the power to speak for him and to share the teachings he has given. We are entrusted with the word he spoke, not to corrupt it with rules and hatred, but to carry it with love and hospitality into our lives.

Jesus has given us responsibilities, too, which is a gift because it gives us purpose and meaning in our lives. Because we are God's children, we do as God teaches—we love God and we love our neighbors who are God's children, too. Who is not our neighbor? Who is not a child of God?

So we dance this dance of love—this love that permeates God's creation because love in action is the origin and purpose of creation—moving us closer to Jesus' way of life for us, moving us closer to God and one another.

In love, in action, in hope and in exceeding joy, we bring glory to God. Amen.

1From: The Flowing Light of the Godhead (Vliessende lieht miner gotheit) (Translation by Frank Tobin, amended) http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/mechthil.html (accessed 12/11/2010)

2Seasons of the Spirit SeasonsFUSION Lent• EasterBiblical Background, 166.