Grammar Central Commentary Corner Reverend Christopher Welsh Boys Love to Sing
| Boys Love to Sing |
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The boys love to sing the hymns and songs they know. The Lord of the Dance, which we sang this week in Chapel, is one of the most popular in the modern repertoire for worship. People love to sing it, regardless of their faith position. It is joyful, singable and the man who wrote and composed it, Sydney Carter, described it as 'a dancing kind of song, the life of which is in the dance as much as in the verbal statement'. I like that idea, the sense that dancing doesn't need any explanation; it's a response to the mood, the atmosphere, the music of the moment. Life, Carter is saying, is a bit like a dance. We move through it according to our mood, to what is going on around us, to the rhythms and the music of the moment. Some of it is bright and breezy, joyful and spontaneous. Sometimes, life's music is sombre and doleful and it's hard to dance; perhaps that's when we just shuffle if it's the best we can do, and that's alright. It's what there is. We sing this song with great enthusiasm. Carter suggests that the dance, the music and the life they contain can make more sense than the words, and perhaps he's right. Which of us sings this song understanding all the odd phrases in it? We get carried along and the meaning of the words can get lost in the dancing song and that's how he intended it to be. Now I don't want to spoil it for you, but let's think about the words for a moment. It helps to know a bit about Sydney Carter himself. He was a rebel. He didn't like the notion of a stuffy old God and a stuffy old church. Some people think that religion can get a bit like that, it's all about saying 'No! Stop having fun, because if you are, it's bound to be sinful.' The God I know, the God I believe in isn't like that at all. I grew up in a church where dancing was the work of the devil, perhaps it was thought too suggestive or just too enjoyable to have a place anywhere among the Godstuff. Church can be a place where there are too many rules, so much so that life becomes narrow and joyless. I suspect that's why lots of people get turned away from it. The God I believe in is at home among the fun and the joyful celebration of life as much as among the sad and sombre things of our experience. God is the God of all life, the full spectrum, the entire dance, and the song has a go at those people who won't join in, the Scribe and the Pharisee, the sour-faced guardians of what's right and wrong in the church. Jesus was a bit of a rebel, too. He upset the 'holy people' who said it was a shame to cure the sick just because it was the Sabbath, and they spat at him and whipped him and strung him up on a cross because he challenged the authority of their strict rules. It was the triumph of law over grace, in the short term, at least! And Jesus knew the hard times, too. It's hard to dance with the devil on your back. That's when the dance becomes a shuffle, a wriggle or simply squirming in agony, but it's still part of the dance! Jesus knew the full range of life's experience. He had lots of friends and he liked eating with them, talking and listening. He liked getting close to people, not only the in-crowd, the popular people who held the power and did all the right things. He got down and dirty with the outcasts and the losers so he could help them back up on their feet. He was kicked in the guts by other people's suffering and loss. And he didn't give up. So how do we get to dance? Take up the invitation. The Lord of the Dance says 'Come on, dance, wherever you may be. I'll lead you; I'll lead you all, wherever you may be. If you are up or down, in or out, happy or broken, you can share the dance.' The Lord of the Dance will live in you if you live in him, and that's a life that will never, never die. It's some invitation - an invitation to life at its fullest. Jesus said, 'I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly'. So, shall we dance? |
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