Come And Dance

John 16:12-15

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” 

It was 1986 and Janine Shepherd was training for the 1988 Winter Olympics that were to be held in Calgary Canada.  Janine --- even though she was from Australia --- had become a very good Cross Country Skier.  She really wasn't expected to medal, but many thought she might be the best Cross Country Skier ever to come out of Australia.

Here is how Janine described the day that changed her life:

As a cross-country skier and member of the Australian ski team headed towards the Winter Olympics, I was on a training bike ride with my fellow teammates. As we made our way up towards the spectacular Blue Mountains west of Sydney, it was the perfect autumn day. We'd been on our bikes for around five and a half hours when we got to the part of the ride that I loved, and that was the hills because I loved the hills. And I got up off the seat of my bike, and I started pumping my legs. And as I sucked in the cold mountain air, I could feel it burning my lungs. And I looked up to see the sun shining in my face.

And then everything went black. I'd been hit by a speeding utility truck with only 10 minutes to go on the bike ride. 

She was rushed by helicopter to Sydney barely alive.  She had broken her back in six places, broke her neck, collarbone, arm, ribs and her skull was ripped open and exposed.  She had lost almost all of her blood.

As you can imagine, she wasn't expected to survive --- and as she tells her story she describes knowing she had the choice to return to her broken body or move on.  She chose to return.

While in the hospital she was told she would never walk again, and probably never have much function at all --- she was and would be a paraplegic.

The question that she was forced to wrestle with was --- WHO AM I?

          You see she was always Janine the Machine

                    An athlete

          But who was she now?

But then something happened.

One day in the hospital (she was in a ward with five other people --- all with spinal injuries) the therapist brought in a box of plastic straws and gave them to each of the patients and told them to connect them together --- then he took each person's chain of straws and connected them with the other patients and reminded them that they were all connected.

She began to look at life differently and saw the interconnectedness of it all

That is exactly what Richard Rohr has been trying to share with us as Matt and I have preached from his powerful book THE DIVINE DANCE

God invites you and me --- actually God invites everyone --- to join the trio of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and join in the dance of life.

The problem is, most of us have a vision --- or understanding of God --- that does not expect or even encourage us to participate in the Divine Dance.

This became very clear to me while Nancy and I were visiting some of the great Cathedrals of Spain these past two weeks.

I had forgotten, or maybe Rohr gave me new eyes to see, how the very structure of the Cathedral is designed to make a statement about God.

And what is this image or statement of God?

The buildings architecture clearly states that God is a static and imperial God --- a King who lives in isolation from what He (and I note it is always a strong male image) --- from what He has created.

God is aloof

Behind screens and bars

                    God is transcendent rather than immanent

I agree when Rohr argues that we need a paradigm shift.

We need to stop seeing God with this UP THERE mentality and begin to relate to God in a whole new way.

And for Rohr, that new way is through the Trinity

As Matt has shared with you --- this understanding is all about RELATIONSHIPS

Rohr writes:

Instead of God being the Eternal Threatener, we have God as the Ultimate Participant --- in everything --- both the good and the painful.

So let me try to illustrate these two views

          Instead of God watching life happen from afar and judging it

                   How about God being inherent in life itself?

                   How about God being the Life Force of everything?

          Instead of God being an Object like any other object

How about God being the Life Energy between each and every object (which we would usually call Love or Spirit?)

Instead of the small god which we seem stuck with --- a god preoccupied with exclusion, the Trinitarian revolution reveals God as with us in all of life --- instead of standing on the sidelines, always critiquing which things belong and which things don't.

This understanding of the Trinitarian God reveals that God is always involved --- instead of a god who only seems to show up when God wants to or is called down from on high.

What we have often tried to describe as the Trinity, Rohr wants to call this understanding of God as the "flow"

He does this because through the Trinity --- God is flowing through everything --- without exception.

Rohr writes:

The implications of this paradigm shift, this Trinitarian Revolution, are staggering: every vital impulse, every force toward the future, every creative momentum, every loving surge, every dash toward beauty, every running toward truth, every ecstasy before simple goodness, every leap of élan vital, as the French would say, every bit of ambition for humanity and the earth, for wholeness and holiness, is the eternally flowing life of the Trinitarian God.

What this means is that ALL of life --- and I mean ALL of life --- is sacred --- and not just for the Bible Believing Christian. 

This is how the world --- how creation --- works and ALL (Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic) are included in it.

So what keeps us from joining the DIVINE DANCE?

I certainly can't speak for you --- but as I have worked through this myself a number of things seem to hold me back.

More than anything else what holds me back from the Divine Dance is change.

In order to Dance I have to let go

          I must move from believing --- which is pretty safe

                   to experiencing all that God has for me

It is easy for one to "Believe" and yet not change their life

          I believe the right things --- thus I have salvation

                   But I don’t have to be changed --- transformed --- in order to believe

But to allow the flow to take me --- I must let go --- I must be transformed

And that is the second big challenge --- I want to be in charge

          But in the divine dance there is a mutuality

                   a vulnerability

          Which means, in some ways, no-one --- and everyone --- is in charge

We work together for the common good

Most of us confuse unity with uniformity

In the divine Dance, we are united in the flow of God, not in uniformity with one another

Rohr has put it this way

A partner in the divine dance is someone who agrees to stand in the mutual relationship that God is --- the relationship that God has already drawn us into gratuitously.

Carl McColman describes it this way:

We do not merely watch the dance, we dance the dance.  We join hands with Christ and the Spirit flows through us and between us and our feet move always in the loving embrace of the father.

The divine dance changes you ---

          it invites you in

          and never lets go

The divine dance is a way of seeing God in everything --- the good and the bad.

Rohr actually suggest that those who have gone through great difficulties in life have some advantages in SEEING or experiencing the dance.

Because the Dance is never about you --- it is always about being a part of the flow

And that takes me back to Janine Shepherd.

About six months after her life altering accident Janine saw a plane in the air

          And at that moment --- she decided to become a pilot

Remember, she is still in a body cast --- she has no use of her legs --- but she decides she wants to learn to fly.

I will let her tell the story:

Finally, this guy comes out and he goes, hi, I'm Andrew, and I'm going to take you flying. I go, great. So they get me out on the tarmac, and there was this red, white and blue airplane. It was beautiful. Andrew, the instructor, got in the front, started the airplane up. And he said, would you like to have a go at taxiing? That's when you use your feet to control the rudder pedals to control the airplane on the ground. I said, no (laughter). I can't use my legs. I said, but I can use my hands. And he said, OK. And as we took off down the runway and the wheels lifted up off the tarmac and we became airborne, I had the most incredible sense of freedom. And Andrew said to me, you see that mountain over there? And I said, yeah. And he said, well, you take the controls and you fly towards that mountain. And as I looked up, I realized that he was pointing towards the Blue Mountains, where the journey had begun. And I took the controls, and I was flying.

Janine later became a:

          Commercial pilot

          Stunt pilot

          First female Head of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority

All because she let go and went into the river of the flow instead of wallowing in pain, anger and pity.

There was one church in Spain that was different for me --- and I knew it was different the moment I walked in

but it took me some time reflecting on it and Rohr's Trinitarian revolution for me to really see or understand it

I am talking of La Sagrada Familia

          Antonio Gaudi's masterpiece

Construction on the church began in 1868

They hope to have it completed in 2026 --- the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death

What is special about this church is that it is an invitation to a new relationship with God.

While the other cathedrals filled you with feelings of God's transcendence, God’s majesty and God's separateness --- La Sagrada does the exact opposite

          It fills you with mystery

                   with creation

                   with connectedness

                   with invitation

Gaudi's masterpiece invites you into God's flow --- because Gaudi made you feel God's immanent presence (even amidst the construction)

Come join the Divine Dance!

Catherine LaCugna describes the Dance well when she says:

The very nature of God, therefore, is to seek out the deepest possible communion and friendship with every last creature on this earth.

Come join the Divine Dance!

The only thing that can keep you out of this divine dance is fear and doubt, or any self-hatred.

Come join the Divine Dance!

And in the dance you can experience God more fully as community and as friendship --- than you have ever imagined