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Dialogue Sermon with Dr.
David D. Young
and Dr. John Stansell
“The Dance of Music and Movement”
May 21, 2006
Psalm 30: 4-5, 11-12
Colossians 3: 15-17
David Young
What a joy it is to celebrate Music Sunday here in God’s church – here as God’s
church – for together with all our varying gifts through the movement of our
worship - we are celebrating and making music!
I have been here a little over a year now and this is my second Music Sunday –
and I am really enjoying it? John – how many years have you been here for Music
Sunday?
John Stansell
Well, let’s see, my first Music Sunday here was as organist in 1988 and my first
as Music Director was in 1995, so this is my 18th Music Sunday. (Time flies when
you’re having fun!) But I sure remember your first a year ago. We were just
getting to know you then. During your sermon that day you actually started
singing. By doing that you not only showed us that one doesn’t have to be a
professional quality soloist to sing out in church, but you demonstrated how
much you care about music yourself. I loved it!
David Young
I do love music and it’s so integral to our life together in community and to
our worship. And I want to take an aside and just say how grateful I personally
am - but I think I reflect the gratitude of the congregation - saying John how
grateful we are for your leadership and direction of our music ministry here at
the church. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Today we have chosen a sermon entitled “The Dance of Music and Movement.” And I
suspect some in our congregation are wondering why we might even bring up the
subject of dance in worship. I know some people are uncomfortable with dance in
church – and we don’t do it very often. But maybe music and dance have always
been connected – John can you tell us more about that?
John Stansell
Professor Steven Mithen, an archaeologist at England's Reading University, in
his just-published book The Singing Neanderthals suggests that prior to
language primitives might have communicated with something very like music, with
rhythms to coordinate communal work and sounds of varying pitch as signals while
hunting. These two elements, rhythm, connected with movement and dance, and
melody, derived from singing, are the principal building blocks of all music,
both vocal and instrumental.
In Biblical tradition, dance and movement always had a place in worship, even
though the idea might make New England Congregationalists a little
uncomfortable. Why the first song recorded in Hebrew scripture was sung by Moses
and the people of Israel after they crossed the Red Sea, and Miriam, Moses’
sister, took a timbrel and lead all the women in a dance. But we’re more
traditionally people of the word. Music and even more so dance speak in an
intense but wordless language, and can evoke feelings we can’t always explain.
Perhaps it’s that that makes us a bit uneasy.
David Young
John, I suspect you are right – at least for a good many of us. But you know,
sometimes, God our faith and even worship are supposed to make us uncomfortable.
Now, as John and I were preparing for this morning – another thing we noticed
was the strong connection between singing praises and giving thanks – a note
that is struck in our Psalm 30 text and which resonates throughout scripture.
Our text begins with these very words,
“Sing praises to the Lord, O you his
faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.”
Our music making includes singing and praises
and giving thanks. And then the text says,
“For his anger is but for a moment; his
favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes
with the morning.”
The promise of scripture is that God can take
our deepest sadness and darkest night and turn them into the light and joy of
morning. And what does a morning such as this represent – but the coming of
light – only more and more light as the day wears on.
I don’t know about you but these past few days – I was really feeling this. When
the weather just changed back and forth – it would be gloomy and gray and the
next minute the sun would come out and it would be bright and light. Listen to
the second part of our Psalm,
“You have turned, my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may
praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you
forever.”
Now, we don’t go around wearing sackcloth and
ashes. But we do know there is often a close connection between singing and
dancing. Most entertainers dance while they sing. There is a thin strangeness
and mystery between sadness and gladness. And music touches both of them deeply.
Back in 1594, Richard Hooker wrote,
“Music is a thing which delighteth all
ages, and beseemeth all states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy.”
“The Dance of Music and Movement.”
The dance of music can move us from sadness to gladness. “You have turned my
mourning into dancing,” sings the Psalmist, “and clothed me with joy.” There are
two kinds of movement – the inner – when darkness is turned to light and sadness
to gladness – and the outer – when our bodies can’t help express our gratitude
and joy!
Snoopy once told crabby Lucy, “To dance is to live and to live is to dance! If
you can’t dance – at least you can do a happy hop!” Or as a contemporary song
says, “If you get the chance to sit it out or dance – I hope you’ll dance!”
The Dance of Music and Movement.
When we are reclothed with joy – it is a spiritual joy which permeates our
entire being inside and out. Hence our spring theme: “Celebrating Life:
Journeying in Joy.”
John Stansell
David, the Children’s Choir learned a wonderful song this year for their
festival up in Bridgeport and it talks about the Psalmist David’s different
moods. Children, come up and let’s sing it.
(children sing)
Any of the discomfort I spoke about earlier
doesn’t seem to apply when the children do it, does it? But you know, I’ve made
an interesting observation here at First Church. The two services where the
congregation is invited to move, on Harvest Sunday to bring forward the food
offering, and on Christmas Eve for the White Gifts, are two times when this
Meetinghouse is jam-packed. Is it possible that worship is experienced on a
deeper level when we actually MOVE? I think so, and I want to share an
experience I had this winter.
We were visiting friends in Florida who were eager for us to attend mass at
their church. The music was all in what could only be called a “nightclub”
style, not my taste to be sure, but one element of the service in particular
transcended that: at the proper point in the liturgy, everyone spread out,
joining hands across the entire triple nave (and this was well over a thousand
people, mind you), raised their joined hands and SANG the Our Father. It was
extremely powerful! I could feel with my entire body that I was part of the
Christian Community in real communion with God.
Everyone here knows that I am passionate for the participation of the entire
congregation, particularly in our singing, but also in listening. Now I can add
“moving” to that list.
Just as one can participate by actively listening, so we can watch others who
dance better than we do. I really pray that we can find ways to add movement to
our worship, ways that feel authentic and that genuinely “move” us.
David Young
We say that music moves us. Listen to how the great conductor Leonard Bernstein
captures it,
“The value of a musical work does not lie
in its physical structure but in the affect it has on us. Humanity’s
progressive development of musical forms is a spiritual unfolding of the
inner self.”
Music moves us within. And at the same time –
the jazz composer and pianist Count Basie expressed it this way,
“Man, all we’re trying to do is make the
music swing.”
And when it does, we do too! The dance of music
and movement is not an either/or but a both/and. There is an inner and out
movement with music – and that’s what the dance of life is all about.
And so too, word and music are partners. Much of our worship is the movement and
interplay of words and music. The Apostle, Paul, tells us in our Colossians
passage – and here’s that resonant note of gratitude with which our Psalm text
began,
“With gratitude in yours hearts sing
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or
deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God.”
Music carries all our words and gratitude to
different levels that words alone cannot always communicate. As Joseph Sittler
aptly put it,
“Music is a means of trans-verbal praise,
both a way of evoking expressive responses from the congregation and a
particularly felicitous way of proclamation to the congregation; music is a
stimulant to devotion, a lubricant to piety, and a powerful evocation of an
appropriate mood and movement.”
Thus, Paul could teach us in verses 15 and 16,
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
The peace and the word of Christ dwell in us
richly through the dance and music of movement!
Friends, let it in…and let it out…
The peace and the word of Christ…
Now, let us participate in the movement of dance and music as we experience
together the Anthem of Affirmation. |
