Our Bible is full of references to movement – from walking to running to even dancing. When the newly freed Hebrew slaves safely crossed the Red Sea, leaving the Egyptians who pursued them drowning in the waves, Miriam, a prophetess as well as Aaron’s sister, took to the heights above the shoreline with a bunch of the women following her. There she pulled out a tambourine, and they all danced in joyful celebration of their freedom.
Likewise, a young King David once stripped to his skivvies and danced triumphantly down the main drag in Jerusalem as he brought the Ark of the Covenant home. He was clearly celebrating though his wife looked on from a nearby second story window, much chagrined and embarrassed by his antics.
In the letters attributed to the Apostle Paul, the author writes several times about running the good race and going the distance. And in the Book of Hebrews, the very last book to become part of our Bible, we are encouraged to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
And did you know that the first followers of Jesus did not refer to their newfound lives as being Christian? Rather, they understood themselves to simply be women and men on the Way, Jesus’ Way, on the path down which they would walk together as a community.
The Gospels are replete with movement as well. The Good Samaritan walks on the road to Jericho. The Prodigal Son walks to the security of his ancestral home. Jesus and his twelve closest disciples walk from village to village and town to town to heal the sick, raise the dead, and preach the Good News of God.
And, of course, this excerpt from Psalm 119 that we read this morning begins with the image of walking. “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord!” Topping out at 176 verses, Psalm 119 is the longest of the 150 psalms included in our Bible. Perhaps for us, in our fast moving sound bite culture, this extraordinarily long psalm is more bedtime reading than anything else. However, ancient readers, as Old Testament scholar Joel LeMon explains, “would have found this psalm utterly compelling because it makes bold claims about how to live a happy life and have a healthy heart.”
Psalm 119 is what scholars dub an acrostic psalm. It utilizes a style of writing found in a couple of other psalms and in sections of the Old Testament book of Lamentations. As LeMon goes on to say, “In these poems, each verse typically begins with a successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, the first verse would begin with aleph and the second with beth, and so on, until the poet reached the end of the alphabet. Psalm 119 is a singularly complex alphabetic acrostic in that every line in an entire stanza begins with the same letter. So not just one verse, but eight verses start with the letter aleph -- the next eight with beth, and so on, all the way through the Hebrew alphabet.”
Psalm 119 then would have been a terrific way to learn both the Hebrew alphabet and the importance of the Law of God, the Torah. Here in this psalm then, becoming educated about the significance of the Law and all the good that comes from keeping it and mastering the written language by which to study the law were intertwined. Kind of like catching two birds with one stone.
As Biblical scholar Jason Byassee noted: “The psalm is expansive, exhaustive, and exhausting, and it’s making a point. God’s law is delightful. Really.” It is like a manual for living. You cannot be happy, the Psalmist seems to say, if you do not consult the manual - the rules - every now and then.
But really! Rules, rules, rules! The thought of excessive rule-making is enough to make you cringe. Whether it be too much environmental regulation or a requirement that our children be vaccinated before they enter public school, laws have the potential to constrain us and curtail our freedom. And it is true. Some laws make no sense – and I do not mean that as a politically charged statement about either environmental regulation or Question 1 on the March ballot.
There was once a young girl who watched her mother numerous times prepare a beef roast for Sunday dinner. Just before putting the roast into the oven, the mother would cut off the end of the roast and set it aside.
So one day the little girl asked “Why do you cut the end off of the meat?”
“Because that’s the recipe,” her mother replied. “That’s how my mother did it.”
“OK,” the girl said, “but what does it do? Why do it?”
Well, come to think of it the mother was not sure, so she called her mother, who likewise had no idea why she had always prepared a beef roast that way. “That’s how my mother always did it,” she also said.
How lucky the little group of seekers was, however, to be able to consult yet another generation! They contacted the little girl’s great-grandmother, only to hear her burst out in laughter. “I always cut the end off a roast beef because the only pan I had for the oven was too small to hold the whole thing!”
OK – some rules really are completely senseless and arbitrary. In fact, Reformed pastor Scott Hoezee elaborated in his commentary that ‘Frederick Buechner once noted that in all of life there are two kinds of laws: arbitrary laws like the setting of a Speed Limit or a property owner’s decision to post ‘No Hunting’ signs on his land.
There may be some rationale behind those kinds of laws but they could also change: a state government could raise or lower the maximum Speed Limit. The next person who buys a piece of land that had previously been designated ‘No Hunting’ may allow hunting on that land after all now that it belongs to him.
But then there is something like the Law of Gravity. It’s not arbitrary. It explains how the world works. The Law exists to tell us not how some random person or government decided how things could be but rather these laws exist to reflect how things very simply are. If you don’t like a Speed Limit of 35, you can push it up to 45 and probably get away with it most of the time.
However, if you decide you don’t like the Law of Gravity and so defy it by stepping into thin air on the edge of a cliff . . . well, you won’t get away with it.” Two kinds of laws: And the Law about which the Psalmist writes is the second sort, whether we follow it or not.
In his commentary, Byassee goes on to say, “There’s nearly nothing about the content of the law at all in this psalm. It goes on and on about how wonderful the law is, but never tells us what the law is. Not once! If this was the only chapter of the bible we had, we couldn’t reconstruct one of the ten commandments from it, let alone scripture’s 603 other commands. The psalm is an attitude adjustment, not a content dump.”
The Psalm espouses not a complete set of complex and constraining rules, but rather a way of life that will bring one closer to God. Taking a wrong turn is likely to leave us broken. Listening for God as we walk the path of our spiritual journey will bring us joy.
And yet, it is often so difficult to listen for God in this season of darkness, this season of chill. Curled up in front of the woodstove with a good book may seem like the perfect antidote. However, in the long run, doing so is likely to lead to social and spiritual isolation – and Spiritual Affective Disorder.
As worship consultant Marcia McFee informs us, “Research shows that one of the most effective mood-boosters is moving our bodies. Stretching, walking, and dancing can send feel-good endorphins coursing through us and the change can feel like a light coming on. The Hebrew authors of our scriptures used the metaphor of ‘walking’ in God's ways to help us see the benefits to our spiritual lives of moving toward the goodness of God.”
Certainly for me, when I was doing early morning walks while training for the 10 annual 60 mile Komen breast cancer walks that I have completed, I just felt so much more centered – and frankly alive. Those walks gave me an opportunity to clear my head. In fact, I wrote some of my best sermons (in my mind, of course) walking on the road!
Walking also gave me a chance to slow down and take in the world around me. I remember walking close to a hidden red wing blackbird nest one morning. I had no idea I was disturbing anything by my presence until an adult bird was suddenly flapping its wings a foot or two from my face. The experience was a rather shocking blessing I will never forget! I recommend a good intentional walk – even in the wintertime – as a spiritual practice to bring one closer to God and to keep the winter blues at bay.
I do not do much running anymore, so I cannot really comment on it as a spiritual practice. Certainly some people find it exceedingly helpful – especially when they get into the so-called “zone” and feel like they could continue running forever. I guess it is a wonderfully freeing feeling which, I must admit, I cannot ever remember experiencing.
But dancing! That is another story! Joe’s mother loved to dance! In fact, one of my fondest memories of her was the evening after Thanksgiving a year before she died. The Irish music was playing loudly, and she was dancing – first by herself, then with a daughter.
Soon a granddaughter joined her, and finally Joe’s mother beckoned to Tim’s then girlfriend, now wife, (who had never really experienced a Foran Thanksgiving weekend before), invited her to come and dance as well. It was beautiful to watch! Multiple generations dancing together!
Joe inherited his mother’s love of dancing. He frequently dances in the kitchen while preparing dinner – either with me or with one of the dogs. And if you ever watched the TV show, Grey’s Anatomy, you will know that at the end of a particularly trying or devastating day, a few of the women would gather in their living room with a glass of wine, and they would have a spontaneous dance party – each one of them rocking out to her own rhythm, all of them dancing to chase the blues away.
Dancing can be social or solitary. Anyone can do it, and it takes no special equipment – not even a pair of walking or running shoes. You can dance to songs on the radio or to one of your playlists on iTunes. You can dance to whatever Alexa or Google Home is dishing out.
Our Psalm may be eluding to walking in the way of God in a metaphorical sense. It may teach us the Hebrew alphabet and about the goodness of God when we keep to the path God sets out for us. However, walking – or running – or dancing – in a non-metaphorical but rather in a very real physical way – can transport us for a short while away from all that is dragging us down, letting us focus instead on all the blessings that surround us.
Movement – moving our bodies when sometimes our minds are telling us to stay put, hole up, forget the world around us – can be a deeply invigorating spiritual practice as we seek ways to eliminate Spiritual Affective Disorder from our hearts and minds.
And so this week, as I have throughout this worship series, I offer you a challenge. Here it is. It is simple. It is a one-word challenge: Move, especially when you do not feel like doing so.
Go for a run. Take a walk – with your dog, with yourself, with your spouse, with a friend. Breathe deeply of the cold winter air.
Or – walk indoors. Find a labyrinth. There are several in the Portland area. Walk the halls of Windham High School. It is open several evenings a week for just that purpose.
And if walking is not your thing, put on some music and dance. It does not matter if you have two left feet and no sense of rhythm. Dance as if no one is watching you.
After all, as an old saying goes: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s learning to dance – and I would add walk or run – learning to simply move with joy in the rain – or the snow – or the darkness of winter – trusting that when you do, the sun will rise again, and the light of God will once more shine in your life.
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