For thirty years Mary and I lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. It is a first-ring suburban community of Cleveland sharing a border with upper-crust neighbor, Shaker Heights.

 

Cleveland Heights, a community of 52,000 people was proud of its diversity. Very proud of the fact that the Orthodox Jewish Community of Greater Cleveland was at home in the middle class suburb. We could count several conservative and reformed Jewish friends, but only one orthodox family, Larry and Phyllis. Mary became acquainted with their daughter Devorah by way of Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, and I had become acquainted with Larry by way of a gym in the neighborhood. This acquaintance gained for us invitations to their home for Sabot meals on Friday nights, but, more importantly, an invitation to their daughter Devorah’s wedding. I have never been part of such a celebration in my life. Upon arriving at the party center, Mary and I were separated. Women were ushered into one room and men into another. I attended a social event for the groom, while Mary attended a social event for the bride.

 

We were brought back together when it was time for the ceremony. Following the ceremony, we ate a wonderful kosher meal. Then the men and women were separated again. The TRUE celebration began with dancing – women dancing with women and men dancing with men!

 

As my wife can testify, dancing is NOT one of my favorite activities in life. Perhaps you noticed as I made my way down the center aisle of this church at Boar’s Head! Even so, the father of the bride, Larry, my friend, was not going to allow me to be a wallflower. He thereby matched me with their dentist, who happened to be a Methodist and was not any more comfortable with this situation than I. We’re not talking about one dance – we’re talking about multiple dances. Two Christian men dancing with a group of Jewish men.

 

When one gets acquainted with Orthodox Jews, one soon discovers that dancing is important, not only for their social life, but their religious life as well. For example, in the Orthodox Synagogue each year, the Torah is read from beginning to end. A specific passage is read each week during the service, and when the cycle of readings is complete, a special celebration called the Simchat Torah is held.  As a part of the festivities, the secret Torah scrolls are brought down from the ark where they are stored, and each of the men, beginning with the eldest, dances with them in the center aisle. This is a joyous celebration.

 

My question of the morning is simply, DO WE, DO CHRISTIANS EVER DANCE IN CHURCH?”

 

YES! Christians dance with their checkbooks, others with a variety of emotions, businesses, or families. Inasmuch as we dance with people and things dear to us, our choice of partners mirrors our priorities. Who do we dance with? What do we dance with? By way of our Bible, do we reserve a dance with God?

 

There is no official Christian celebration that remotely resembles the dance of men in an Orthodox Synagogue. For some Christians dancing, in and of itself, is taboo, and to them the idea of dancing with the Scriptures would probably fall just short of heresy. ¹ But spiritually and symbolically, we all dance a kind of dance. In the course of living, our hearts alternately leap for job and throb with pain.

 

Those who choose the Bible as their partner create a dance of their own and reserve a time each day to rehearse the steps. They find the Bible to be a most sustaining partner, capable of guiding them smoothly through even the most difficult of life’s choreography. Just as my friend, Larry, came to know and love the Torah, we Christians have come to love the Bible.

 

Some of us dance with the Bible because it is a family book, a cherished record of the heritage of our faith. Paul is one example of this fact in that he says the legacy of faith was handed down to Timothy from his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, Lois (2 Tim. 1:5). Later, he mentions that Timothy has known the Scriptures from childhood (2 Tim. 3:5). One picture in my mind is that of my grandmother, Bailey, an elderly woman wearing a feed sack dress sitting in her rocker. To one side on a little table, I could see her sewing basket, and on the other side, her Bible.

 

Our scripture lesson of the morning may have been written by David, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path.” [At the second service this morning, we are giving all third graders a Bible. In their Bible this verse reads, “Your Word is a lamp that gives light wherever I walk.”]

 

If we keep dancing with the Bible, we will meet our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. While our Jewish brothers and sisters find their faith rooted in the Torah, we find our faith rooted in the Gospels. We meet Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In those four books, Jesus comes to life! Once we have met Jesus, in time our dancing will introduce us to the Holy Spirit. In John, he says, “I will not leave you orphaned” (14:18). Paul backs up our thinking by stating in Romans, “…You have received a spirit of adoption” (8:15b).

 

Thus the Bible introduces us to the Holy Spirit and we claim for ourselves another partner. As Paul put it in 2 Timothy (3:16, NIV), the Scripture is God’s Spirit. God breathed inspiration into the Scripture just as he breathed life into Adam and Eve and power into the disciples at Pentecost.

 

There is one more dancing partner.

 

The last dancing partners introduced by the Bible are you and me. And to be specific, some of us have been acting as wallflowers, or have simply refused to dance with anyone in this congregation. Open your Bible and allow it to become your “dance card”. The Bible is our family album going all the way back to our grandparents in the Garden of Eden. This book is our light and compass for life.

Back in December, our Chancel Choir presented their cantata, American Christmas. One of the pieces was a Shaker tune … recall with me,