by the Very Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson
Did you know that Irish Dance, what many of us know as Riverdance, has its roots in Irish cultural resistance against the colonizing power of England. It is said that itinerant instructors within Irish communities, not only taught traditional dance steps and forms to the communities they visited, preserving the cultural ways and practices over generations, but that these dances were often essential in saving lives. So many Irish practices like these dances were forbidden by the British, and to engage them was to risk life and limb. History says that often a dancer was left as a lookout on the homes where dancing and storytelling and other subversive activities were taking place, and that the dancer would tap out a rhythm on the roof to signal those below of the approach of Red Coats. Often the rhythm was itself a variation and improvisation on the very footfalls of marching soldiers, turning the beat of death into a beat of life and freedom. Dance, it would seem, has often played a role of liberation and resistance, expressing freedom and joy, in the face of oppression and death.
If you attended last night’s Great Vigil of Easter, then you know what it is like to get swept up in the freeing power of the dance. Our fabulous associate rector, the Rev’d Craig Lemming preached a beautiful homily that ended with the great Diana Ross’ hit, “I’m Coming Out” and had us dancing in the aisles. We were all swept up in the rhythm and the beat, and the joy of being together. This dance, said Craig, was an act of seeking life in a world hellbent on dealing death.
In his profound most recent volume, Inciting Joy, poet and essayist Ross Gay reflects on the delight one can experience in dance, reminiscing about a conversation with a friend on the same topic, and remembering how his friend described a time of dancing by saying “we went free”. “Went free”, says Gay, is that moment, when rhythm and word and song electrify a group, when bodies are brought to life, instinctually or perhaps mystically pulled out of their seats, when we set down our drinks, push back from the table, and exclaim, ‘that’s my jam’ and the dancing commences with abandon. This happens, he says,
“Perhaps because music’s primary characteristic, like our voices, possibly like our bodies, is that it disappears…born “astride a grave,” here one second, gone the next. That’s rhythm, by the way, the breaks in the silence; the breaks in the rest; the break from the grave, and no wonder it draws us up together to shake our…whatever on us shakes, remade kin by the break, remade kin by what blooms (us) from the grave.”
There is a freedom that comes in moments like this, almost religious, an ecstatic, undulating, pulsing embodiment of life, when we get free– free to be ourselves, free from the fear of death, free from the powers of this world which seeks to restrict and punish and disappear bodies, to commodify and constrain and crush lives.
Today we are given John’s account of the resurrection. It is helpful to remember that as we heard at Christmas, John tells the story of Jesus by placing him at the beginning of all things. In the beginning was the Word, says John. And, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word found structure and form, and the beating rhythm of a heart, and lungs that breathe, and eyes that blink, and toes that tap. The word became flesh and danced among us. John tells us too that the Word, the eternal Son, who existed at the beginning, was one with the Father, that these two, and the Holy Spirit, intermingled, as one, a dance without end, like breath and heartbeat and the pulse of music. And, everywhere that dance was seen, everywhere the Word made flesh went, there was to be found new life, and freedom, and healing, and joy. There was a wedding at Cana, says John, and when all that good wine was gone, I imagine, there was dancing, that Jesus cut a rug, got down with the disciples, and there was laughter and tears and delight!
And, then the powers of this world sought to snuff out that life, to stop the dancing feet and beating heart of the one who showed us what love incarnate is, what freedom to be who we were made to be might look like and how it might feel in our bodies, all genders, abilities, races, and types, being ourselves as we were created to be. The powers of this world saw that love and that freedom and were afraid. What if liberation spreads, what if they all get free?
Some of you might know that hit song by Jon Batiste, “Freedom” where he sings, “When I move my body just like this I don’t know why but I feel like freedom”! I love the music video for that song, shot in the 7th Ward of Batiste’s hometown of New Orleans. It shows a predominantly African American community, often depicted for its shortcomings and losses, instead manifesting the beauty and joy of a people fully free to be themselves, in their bodies, in their skin, in their movement to the dance. “I hear a song that takes me back,” sings Batiste “And I let go with so much freedom”!
That’s the story of the resurrection. That even after he was murdered, lynched on a cross, by the powers of this world, by the violence of empire that seeks always to colonize and constrain bodies and movement and freedom, after he was laid in a grave and an immovable rock placed over the entrance, there for three days was a rest, a silence, a break, and a pause. It seemed as if death had had the last word. That violence had done its worst, and love incarnate crushed. But, then, deep in the ground, the rhythm was felt, the pulsing beat of God’s love, the dance of the Divine, thrumming, humming, swirling caught that body. The heart started to thud to the rhythm of God’s love. Then fingers snapping, eyes flashing, feet tapping, Jesus went free. And, you see, the way that God’s dance goes, we went free with him. In the garden that morning, Mary Magdalen, alone, eyes full of tears, thought she met the gardener, only to be surprised into joy when she recognized it was Jesus. I imagine she caught him in an embrace, that they twirled in amongst the flowers, to the songs of the early birds and the rhythms of the insects buzzing. And Jesus told her, do not hold onto me. This was a dance of abandon, a body resurrected and a whole world went free, unrestrained, unafraid, unabashedly itself as it was meant to be. I imagine, as Mary Magdalene went to proclaim the good news, the freeing news, that God’s dance had not ended, but was spreading, that she skipped and twirled and found herself moving to the graceful rhythm of God’s love made new in her and in the world.
This week at our annual clergy renewal of vows, our bishop reminded the priests and deacons of this diocese of a story about Archbishop Desmond Tutu facing down the South African Security Police at the height of the movement against apartheid. The police had broken into St. George’s Cathedral in an act of intimidation. Religious leaders who opposed the Pretoria regime and who spoke out against the racist policies of the government, would be prosecuted like anyone else. Tutu had already been arrested previously for his activism. The police surrounded the worshipping community, and a spirit of fear could be felt across the whole congregation. But, Tutu, with a twinkle in his eye, looked out on those who sought to intimidate and oppress, and said with a smile on his face and warmth in his voice, “Since you have already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side!” Tutu believed wholeheartedly in the resurrection of Jesus, that the Easter moment was a decisive victory against all death-dealing power in the world, against empires, and colonizers, and those who would seek to divide, conquer, and destroy the creatures of God. There was no doubt in him that God’s love, the dance of God, would spread and free and liberate every body in that room, in his beloved South Africa, and on earth. The battle was already over. The victory won! Those who attended the service that day, said, as Tutu spoke those words, that a palpable mood shift swept over the congregation, that the people there were transformed by his challenge to power, that they leapt to their feet and began dancing. The congregation danced from the cathedral out into the street to confront the police, who were so baffled, they had to fall back and make space for the dancing. And, we all know how the apartheid regime ended. Tutu was right. The liberating dance of God’s resurrected love, had already won.
So it is today. The world we face is full of those who deal in death and oppression, who wish to constrain and commodify and disappear bodies and lives. But, God’s love in Jesus, is raised from the dead, the dance could not be stopped, and we are invited to join in, to move our bodies and our lives in a way that it feels like freedom, to be so liberated in love that our actions and our words, by our continuing to dance with abandon, others are swept up with us, that together we all get free.
As Lucille Clifton writes,
the green of Jesus
is breaking the ground
and the sweet
smell of delicious Jesus
is opening the house and
the dance of Jesus music
has hold of the air and
the world is turning
in the body of Jesus and
the future is possible
This morning, the dance continues, and we all get free, for Alleluia, Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
