Sunday's Sermon

The Dilemma of the Dancing Diety
Text: Zephaniah 3:14-20
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
December 13, 2009

Most of the time, when people sit around and talk about their favorite books of the Bible, the book of the prophet Zephaniah is usually not high on the list, low on the list, of anywhere on the list. Often people, when asked about this book of the Bible, barely even know it exists. It is only three chapters long and most of the book is actually rather unremarkable in as much as it essentially restates what many other prophets have said.

The first two chapters of the book have Zephaniah preaching that the people must change; they were no longer faithful to God and bad days were ahead of them. This was a time not long before the Babylonian captivity, a particularly bleak time in the history of Judaism. The words of Zephaniah are much like the words of the other prophets of this era.

But in Chapter Three the tone changes. Zephaniah speaks of joy and rejoicing and gives us an image of God that, to be quite honest, is almost startling.

There are images of God that are familiar to us.

God as a judge.

God as a king.

God as a good shepherd.

But in verse 17 there is an image of God that is unusual. Using the New Jerusalem Bible translation, which I think is the best Old Testament translation because it is the one that uses the Hebrew names for God like YHWH, Zephaniah says that:

“He will dance with shouts of you for you as on a day of festival.”

The name YHWH was the most formal Hebrew name for God, a name so holy it was not spoken except by the High Priest on the highest of holy days. And here, we have the most formal name for God used saying that God is dancing. Dancing.

This leads to the dilemma of a dancing diety; not an image of God we are used to.

We all have images of God. We’re used to God as a judge, a shepherd, a king. Those are not unusual or far-fetched.

We like the image of God Michelangelo created. God, a distinguished old man with flowing white hair, a white beard, and a modest white robe reaching out from a cloud surrounded by cherubic looking angels to Adam. God is old, stately, and distinguished looking. We like that.

Most artists didn’t try to capture God in portrait or sculpture. Those who did always had a comparable image. God, a distinguished old man with gray or white hair, and a long beard wearing flowing robes.

In the late 1970's we had a new image of God in the O God movies. George Burns played God. He was old and distinguished looking, no beard and he wore clothing like us. But George Burns pulled it off. We liked George Burns as God.

But Zephaniah is messing with our heads. God is dancing.

The philosopher Aristotle often referred to God as the “Unmoved Mover.” His image of God was one who created people and a universe to move in harmony with one another while Himself, not moving. God was a distant, detached architect of all that was. Centuries later people took this image and referred to God as a Cosmic Watchmaker, creating the universe like the gears of a complex watch. The image, of course, was that God was distant.

We’ve probably all heard the song by Bette Midler, From a Distance. She used the words, “God is watching us, God is watching us, from a distance...”

But then comes along Zephaniah who tells us that YHWH is dancing. Dancing because of His profound love and excitement for the faithfulness of His people.

God is not distant. This image of the dancing deity is unusual and totally different from what we are used to. It is one that, frankly, we would often soon not contemplate.

But...

Often the problem we have of dealing with God is not a problem with God but a problem with our images of God. Several years ago I read a wonderful book by Brian McLaren entitled, A Generous Orthdoxy. I was fascinated with the book because a local seminary President blasted the book and said that there was nothing generous about orthodoxy. I bought the book and read it in awe.

McLaren wrote each chapter from the perspective of many denominations and perceptions of God. Christians have images of God that seem to range from a tyrannical and cruel king to a cosmic Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man and everything in between. McLaren looked at each perspective and found the good, and there was good, in all of them. His conclusion was very simple and very profound. He concluded that no one had the correct image of God, and everything had the correct image of God. God, he said, was all of the images combined, and much, much more.

The conclusion was this. I don’t know if orthodoxy is generous or not, but God is. God is a judge. God is a king. God is a shepherd. And God dances for joy when God’s people embrace God and are faithful to God.

The third Sunday of Advent is a day when we contemplate the word joy. Joy is not necessarily something we think but something we feel. We feel joy. We don’t think joy; we don’t analyze joy; we don’t evaluate joy, we feel joy. We have Zephaniah telling us that God also experiences joy because of us. God feels right along with us. God feels so much that God dances for joy.

Every image of God that we have is a blessing. There is, however, something uniquely special and delightful, and joyful when we ponder a God who dances for joy.