Scripture: Ezekiel 11:19-20 – “I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” (NRSV)
Sunday is Trinity Sunday, and one of my favorite metaphors for the Trinity is that of dancing, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spinning and weaving in an eternal dance that can never be complete without all three. The concept comes from a Greek play-on-words, but is still evocative, because it allows us to see God in ways outside of the stern lawgiver or unchanging creator of the universe. The dancing God of Trinity invites us to dance with God with joy and fellowship in our lives on Earth.
I do not know about you, but I do not feel like dancing much these days. We are angry and saddened by the violence we see in the world around us and frightened by skyrocketing prices and the specters of racism and authoritarianism. It is natural that we harden our hearts against the troubles of the world.
The prophet Ezekiel speaks of a time when the Jews did not have much to dance about either, and whose jaded hearts had led them away from God and into ruin and exile. But Ezekiel saw a vision of a people restored to love and obedience to God’s will. In the vision, God says, “I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.” In times of great turmoil, Ezekiel promises that God will bring compassion and joy into our lives, united into one spirit just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united in love.
As I thought about Ezekiel’s words, I thought of two seemingly unrelated cultural phenomena from the late 1970s. The first was “Here I Am, Lord,” a Catholic hymn so beloved that it is sung by Protestants and other Christians around the world. It a promise to follow God’s call as the prophets did of old. The line that sticks with me paraphrases Ezekiel: “I will break their hearts of stone / Give them hearts for love alone”. Our stony hearts do not need to be replaced, but broken, shattering our fears so that we can hope again.
And this leads to the second phenomenon from the late 1970s: breakdancing. I remember seeing breakdancing on television and in movies as a child in the eighties. It seemed like magic: spinning on your head or balancing on one arm. It was something I thought I could never do. And while I still do not think I will be physically breakdancing anytime soon, I think we should engage in spiritual breakdancing. We must break our hearts to dance like God. We must persist in joy when the world around us tries to crush our spirits. Only through joy can we dance together and face our troubles together, knowing that God, the Lord of the Dance, will be with us always.
Prayer: God, help us to dance with you and find simple joys in the world around us. Amen.
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