Dancing to a Different Tune

Text: Isaiah 2:1-5; Revelation 22:1-5; Mark 8:27-38

I can never sing, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” the same way. Our travel group of Muslim-Christian-Jewish faith leaders had just passed through one of the 630 checkpoints in the Occupied Territory to enter the little town of Bethlehem. Once on the Palestinian side of the Wall, the bus stopped abruptly and our guide invited us to stand aside the Separation Wall, three times the height of the Berlin Wall. The Wall was covered with graffiti, mostly done at night, and it was well guarded by Israeli soldiers armed with uzzis in a nearby turret. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight” is a chorus that ran through my mind standing next to that imposing Wall and it has haunted me ever since. This stole is a reminder of the faithfulness and creativity of Palestinian Christian women living in the occupied little town of Bethlehem.

  I had just finished my first year at the College of William and Mary. I was standing in line at Stuckey’s, a convenience and eating establishment on the main corridor of the Eastern Shore. I was working for the Virginia Council of Churches in their migrant ministry. My job began at sunset when the migrants returned to the camp across the street, exhausted from a long day harvesting cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans and squash.

The father and son ahead of me in line were looking across the street at wooden shacks in obvious disrepair that were serving as seasonal homes for the migrant laborers. The son asked the father, “What are those?” The father answered without missing a beat, “Tobacco barns.” The migrants were critical to the economy of the Eastern Shore but they were invisible to most people who lived there and worse, they were unknown folks to be feared. As we have heard on the national stage this week, they still are. 

Amid all the recent hardline conversation about the refugee crisis, internationally and nationally, I have been reminded at how romantically Christians observe the birth of Jesus, forgetting that he was born to two migrants, two refugees. As Matthew tells the story, the holy family was not only turned away from the Inn, they were chased from Bethlehem to Egypt to save their lives; they had no place to call home. The late hymn writer Tom Troeger reflects on that holy night in his hymn “The Winter Wind That Storms the Barn” as he writes, “The winter wind that storms the barn where Mary holds her child portends the coming brutal harm of Herod’s rage run wild.”  

Whatever else we are, we are a nation of immigrants, and yet we live in a world running scared of immigrants, and this week especially of Haiti immigrants. When I am scared, I do not think clearly. I react first and think and pray second. When I am with a group of scared people, our language gets extreme and ugly, and our positions calcify and if not physical, emotional walls are built.

It was to such a community of scared people, soon to be refugees, that Isaiah wrote and generations later, the refugee, John of Patmos would write. If any two people had good reason to run scared it was Isaiah writing hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus and John of Patmos writing a couple of generations after the death of Jesus.

The first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah read like a wild man with multi-colored hair running down the street, holding a huge placard, screaming, “The end of the world is at hand.” No one takes him seriously, but he is the only sane person in the crowd. Isaiah announces that a time of destruction and deportation for his people is in the cards and everyone denies it. And yet, this same town crier inserts an amazing picture of what God will bring to pass after the dark times ahead, a time when people will learn the fine art of making peace.

Exiled on the island of Patmos and oppressed by an omnipresent Roman government, John has an amazing vision of the future that God will bring to pass after the dark times at hand. It is hard to read the words of Isaiah and the vision of John and stay scared, hiding behind walls and living in carefully guarded gated communities. It is hard to hear the words of these divine mad men and not want to get up and dance.

A few years back, Pope Francis came to the U.S. Now, the Pope and I differ often on theological and political matters, but during this visit I was deeply moved by the dance steps of the Pope. In his public comments, he pleaded with all who would listen to dance to a different tune than the prevailing music of fear and greed and over consumption. In his public actions, rather than attending an elegant state dinner with the nation’s elite, he hosted a holy dinner party with the nation’s homeless in Washington, D.C., many of whom were undocumented refugees. About these refugees, Pope Francis spoke, “Perhaps you will be challenged by their diversity, but know that they also possess resources meant to be shared. So do not be afraid to welcome them.”

“Do not be afraid” is a chorus that echoes from Scripture to this very moment, because, in truth, then and now, there is much that causes us to fear. “Do not be afraid to welcome them,” says the Pope. Easy for the Pontiff to say. He does not have to navigate all the complexities of immigration policy, nor is he charged with protecting the safety of citizens against those who might do us harm. “Sorry, Pope Francis, we are afraid and for good reason.”

You can be sure, though, that a Pope from the Latin South is anything but naïve about the real causes for fear out there, just as Isaiah and John were not saying, “You have nothing to fear.” Isaiah, John, Pope Francis know the reality of fear, but invite us to dance to a different tune, a dance in which we do not dismiss or denigrate those who are different from us.  

Listen to these words adapted from Isaiah and see your feet don’t start to tap:

All nations will stream to the mountain of God, all races, all peoples as one; From the ends of the earth to the farthest of reaches, up to God’s mountain they’ll come. Their weapons of anger will all become plowshares, pruning hooks come from their spears; Out of Zion shall go forth instruction for justice, joy will replace all their tears. O, the love of God flows down from the mountain, where war is no more, All the people, the nations, singing together, sing of God’s peace evermore! Joy flows down; let us go to the mountain of God. Love flows down, down from the Lord. Peace flows down, peace ever more!

What Isaiah could only dream, the refugee, John of Patmos, surely knew. No matter how dark the clouds hanging over the world, the church, our lives, no matter how high and oppressive the walls we build, the chorus of the carol is finally true, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.”

I am convinced that is the dance step Jesus was trying to teach Peter and the other disciples when he told them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it (Mark 8:35-36). 

If we are to follow Jesus, we will not romanticize his birth in Bethlehem, a walled off city today and a walled off city then. We will remember his humble birth, his flight from Herod’s pogrom, and his invitation to walk with him even to Jerusalem. Why? Because you and I follow the Lord of the Dance who left his temporary residence in the tomb, the Lord of the Dance who has never stopped loving God’s beloved world, a world still consumed with fear, hatred, and evil. But along with Isaiah, John of Patmos, Pope Francis, Peter, and all who would follow, we are invited to dance to a different tune. 

It is a tune about our God who provides not for all our wants but for all our needs, our God who refuses to traffic in fear and hatred but in the liberating power of love, our God who does not favor those who are cunning and clever but those who are compassionate and caring, our God who is always ready for the music to start and to join us as we dance to a different tune.

Hallelujah!

         AMEN