Sermon, April 20, 2003
Easter Sunday, Year B
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Sermon, April 20, 2003
Easter Sunday, Year B
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
"As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised! ...So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." Mark 16:5,6,8
About a month ago, author and retreat leader Paula D'arcy was with us as our most recent guest in our Tippy McMichael Speaker Series. In the morning session during the Sunday School hour Paula told a story about another woman. Her name was Marcia, and she's now about forty-five years old. But when she was 16 years old, she loved to dance. She loved to dance, and her parents gave her dance lessons at the Martha Graham Dance Studio, Martha Graham being the queen of dance, like Michael Jordan to basketball. Tap, jazz and ballet three nights a week.
Sixteen years old. One night going to rehearsal she opens the door, but she's gotten the wrong door, and she looks in and sees very professional dancers dancing at a high level of mastery. She realizes, this is Martha Graham's company. It's wonderful. And she stays.
Two nights later when she goes to her class, she says, "I wonder?" She opens up the same wrong door and finds the company in there dancing again. This time she stays at the back of the room, but she begins to observe. As they are going through their routines, she moves with them as they are practicing. Week after week, telling no one -- that's what she did. She cut her leotard off at the ankle just as they did; she convinced her mother to buy her another little tie-thing that she wore over her leotard so it would be the right color. For weeks on end, she dances at the back of that room unobserved.
One night while they are in the middle of rehearsal the door to the middle of that room opens and in walks Martha Graham herself. Martha Graham hardly used the floor -- she just floated into the room; someone brings her a stool, she alights. She's totally in purple -- purple caftan to the floor, purple turban on her head, long white gloves up and over her elbow. She looks at the dancers and says, "Group in threes and move across the floor. Show me your exercises."
This girl Marcia is just staring at Martha Graham. It's like seeing the Wizard of Oz. She's here! And the next moment that she's aware of herself again, she realizes that every dancer is on the other side of the room, and she's all alone and visible.
Martha Graham looks at her, and you have to assume that Martha Graham knows, "I do not have a sixteen year old in my company." But she says to her, "Move across the floor. Do the exercises."
Marcia says now, "In that moment, I had two choices. And these are your life choices. I could say I can't, I'm a fraud. I just a kid, can't you tell I'm just a kid? I can't do this; I'm sorry; I've lied by being in here; I'll apologize; I'll get my parents to reimburse anything; but I can't, I'm a fake. I'm out of here."
And the other thing that occurred to her was -- "You know, I could reach deep down inside of me, and with everything I am, I could live this moment. I could just dance. I could just become dance."
She decided to go for it. She said to this day she still does not remember crossing that room. But the experience was like being a beam of light. Everything in her was living her life at that moment -- the melody was carrying her, the love was carrying her. She gets to the other side of the room, and she remembers again her fear mantle. The dancers were positioned like dancers stand, one hand on hip, so she gets behind someone so she's looking through their elbow in order to she can see what happens next. And what she sees through that little hole is the finger of Martha Graham. (The finger is beckoning Marcia to come to her.)
This young girl stood before Martha Graham. Years later she recalls vividly what Martha Graham said. "She looked me right in the eye and she said, 'Young woman. There is no reason to live any moment of your life other than the way you just crossed that floor."
Church is like dance rehearsal. Take a peek in here. This is the place we practice our steps, being in touch with the rhythms of some of God's most exquisite music. Except, if there are any real professionals in here, you probably can't spot them. Real saints have so internalized the quality of humility that they don't draw attention to themselves. Most of us in here are beginners. Most of us are looking through the pews and the choir toward something we're only vaguely sure of.
But from that altar Jesus beckons. He looks across the floor with an intense desire; he looks right into your eyes with nothing but intense love for you. He invites you to walk up to this mysterious altar, a place of meeting between heaven and earth; a break in the space-time continuum between the finite and the infinite. A place where God and people have met and touched. Where prayer has been valid. He looks from that intimate infinite place and beckons.
And it's as simple as walking. Anyone can do it. Babies, the mentally handicapped, Nobel laureates, the broken and alone, the joyous and happy. All you do is open your hand. God comes to you that simply. You take the cup and drink. God comes to you that easily. There's nothing to it. It's all gift. Grace is the theological word we use for that. This is a dance that tells the story that God is always right here, right now, anywhere in all creation. We practice knowing God in this special place and in this special time. These are our practice dance steps. We practice knowing God here and now, so that there is no reason to live any moment of your life other than the way you receive the very life of God right here, right now. And there's no prerequisite except an open hand.
It's always that way in God's creation, on this wondrous planet, God's dance hall. Just look around you at the grace of the trees, the elegance of the birds, the fecundity of the earth, the resilience of humanity. God is with us. Look also at the dark side of life, the side of the cross. The betrayal of friends, the abuse of power, prisons and torture, physical agony and fear, loneliness and hopelessness, and finally the solitary last trail to death. We look at the cross. God is with us.
That's the message of Easter. It's all part of God's dance, and that dance ends in explosive triumph. Resurrection happens. You need not be afraid, or bashful. You don't need to apologize or be proud. Just follow the beckoning gesture of Jesus, walk with the dignity and grandeur of one who is a beam of God's light, and open your hand. Your gift will be there. The gift, the free gift, is life; divine life; eternal life. Right here. Right now. Do the exercises. You can just dance. You can just become dance.
There is no reason to live any moment of your life other than within that light of love that surrounds you right here, right now. Everywhere. All the time.