Monday, May 25, 2009

Dancing With the Spirit by Heather Donald


John 14:15-27: "If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. Anyone who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them."

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"

Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

"All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. _________________________________________

A couple Sundays ago I heard a sermon on John 14:15-27. The speaker, Matt, wanted to expound on what it’s like to be responsive to the Holy Spirit. He used the analogy of a dance. One person must lead and one person must follow for two to dance together. Matt used to teach ballroom dancing and remarked that when it came down to it, both partners tended to want lead. It was difficult for many to dance “blindly”, without knowing what her (usually the woman would follow) partner would do next.

A couple months ago, after having unclenched my teeth at the thought, I submitted myself (mostly gladly) to a night of dancing. I’d been dancing before, and knew I would need to make a conscious effort to go with the flow, to entrust myself to the person taking the lead and follow his cues. It was fun. But it also led me to reflect on why being led didn’t feel more natural.

Matt said he finds our relationship to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to be like that of two ballroom dancers—the Spirit bids our response to His leading. When it comes down to it, it so often seems difficult to know if we’ve understood the Spirit correctly—did that nudge signal a move to the right, or a step back? Sometimes we’d rather know the plan, we’re glad to respond, but might hesitate less if we know what He’s expecting of us. Sometimes we don’t want to move because we fear to be out of step, we see the likelihood of making a wrong move and would rather do nothing…

When I think of engaging with social concern I often think about issues like this—is it good to move without a plan, wouldn’t it be better to map out our steps ahead of time? We’re dealing with something big and want to tread carefully. And, I find myself praying for us for deep love bourn out of deep conviction, but also for boldness, for strength, for wisdom to know where and how to employ the hands and feet of the body of Christ…In the context of this analogy, though, these are not necessarily the chiefly valued characteristics of a follower.

In this night of dancing a couple months ago we were taught steps, practiced them, and in time, I kinda knew what to expect. If we start out with these few steps, I know which next few steps should follow. But that follower position never changes—my first concern is to look for cues, second is to respond (and third is to seek to maintain the integrity of toes involved). It’s lovely to me to think about God’s interest (and I know I’m exegetically wandering here) in our learning to love to move with Him just in the enjoyment of responding to His nudge, not giving so much thought to whether the next steps are part of the choreography, but rather moving in full mindfulness of the goodness and righteousness of His intentions in leading us—especially in these areas where we bubble over with passion, we feel in our gut the struggle in this broken world and yearn for righteous compassion and justice and want these to be mobilized powerfully.

Even in this, it’s right for us to find ourselves lost in the joy of the dance. God has given us the basic steps, the most important ones, in Scripture, and He guides us as we practice spiritual disciplines, but, oh my, I think He has made us to love to move in response to Him…He is glad for us to be strong in conviction, to be disciplined in wisdom, to plan well, but these are not predictors of effectiveness if we have not learned to entrust our hearts to His leading. I think we know best how to step when we’ve surrendered our desire to know, and set our sights on His love—He will draw out of us the expression of His love He desires for His creation. Our steps will not be perfect, the integrity of toes will not be maintained, but we can trust God to continue to draw us back into step with Him. Our steps may not always be strong, bold, or wise, but the fantastic truth and glory of the gospel are set on center stage as He is shown to be right, true, deeply satisfying and faithfully delightful.