Join the Dance
A few weeks ago, I attended my college reunion. It was fun to see old friends again and to catch up, and reminisce. Several of us remembered taking “Ballroom Dancing” as our Phy Ed class and falling in love with it. But it has some limitations. It requires knowledge of the steps – and it requires two people. It’s a partner dance.
And that can be a problem. As my classmates and I gathered together, along with alumni from other classes, some returned without their partners, some never married, and many, probably most, of the others never learned Ballroom dance.
So how do you have a dance in which all can participate? Obviously, you can’t have ballroom dance. But at this event, there was another challenge: there were people there celebrating their reunions in increments of 5 from the 5th to the 65th . How do you accommodate people wanting to hear music spanning from the 1950s to today?
They came up with an ingenious solution. Everyone received a set of headphones – which had three settings, a trinity of settings – of red, green and blue and each of the headphones was connected to a different DJ’s music. And so, you could listen to music from different eras on each headset and change them whenever you wanted. So, there were people listening to different music but still dancing together.
Admittedly, it looked funny from the outside to see people dancing and not hearing any music. But to those who were dancing, it was super fun and everyone was included – including those who just wanted to chat. They could talk without having to compete with blaring music.
Today we celebrate the festival of the Trinity. The word “trinity” is not found in the Bible but came about as followers of Jesus tried to explain their experience of God. In the beginning, most of the Jesus followers were Jewish, who were committed to monotheism, a belief in ONE God.
But they also had experienced Jesus as God incarnate, God taking on human flesh and the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, coming as Jesus promised, to guide, teach, and comfort. Clearly God was doing something new and they were trying to wrap their heads around One God revealed in three ways.
Theologian and contemplative priest Richard Rohr describes it in this way. He says that “for God to be good, God can be one. For God to be loving, God has to be two because love is a relationship. But for God to be supreme joy and happiness, God has to be three. That’s because lovers do not know full happiness until they both delight in the same thing. 1 ”
Rohr explains, “The law of three is made in order to undo the law of two.” 2 We tend to divide things into two – black OR white; rich or poor; right OR left…it becomes oppositional and you choose sides. You need a dance partner in order to participate. But when you have three, it changes the dynamic. It becomes relational, not dualistic. Speaking to a group of scientists, Rohr goes on to explain that “What physicists and contemplatives alike are confirming is that the foundational nature of reality is relational; everything is in relationship with everything else” 3 .
In the Fourth Century, three theologians, two named Gregory and one named Basil, tried to explain this without the benefit of physics. They described the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as a circle dance. In a circle dance, everyone is included – regardless of who you are. All the things that we typically divide into two – male or female – young or old – rich or poor are irrelevant. For in a circle dance, people come together, and those who know the dance well, carry along those who are new, those who are young and those whose footsteps are faltering. With arms clasped together, shoulder to shoulder, each one is included, each one is a part of the dance. There is unity – but not uniformity.
Unity but not uniformity. Relationship and community across difference. These are some of the things that we were talking about when Dave Fernelius and Grant Galarneau-Becker, our president and Vice President and I gathered with other local ELCA pastors and representatives of their churches this past week. All of the churches are a part of the Wildfire collective – a group of churches that have been collaborating in many different ways over the past 17 years.
We have done a lot of ministry together - and plan to continue. But it seemed time to revisit our “why” – why do we gather together so that we can be open to ways that God is leading us in the dance of revealing God’s love to our neighbors within District 281, the geographical space that we all share.
The world around us is changing. That is not new. But the rate of change is unsettling. For example, some of our neighbors next door at Robbins Way depend upon Medicaid for their healthcare. Many of us depend upon North Memorial hospital for health care. With the US Senate budget changes that are looming, some of those resources may no longer be available. It is tempting to just ignore the changes around us and to hope that the problems just go away.
And yet… in times of challenge and change, God speaks – and we need to listen and then act. As citizens and as people of faith, we cannot be silent. We can’t say, “it’s someone else’s problem. It doesn’t affect me.” We have been called by Christ to care for our neighbor. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to guide us. And so, together, we are called to discern how God is calling us to act in our community and in our world and then to respond.
It may not be easy. But who would have guessed that you could have three kinds of music going at the same time and people in their 20s to 80s dancing together? The challenges of our world are much more significant than figuring out a reunion dance. But God has empowered us to be witnesses of God’s love and grace to ALL people. To act, we need the courage of Jesus and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to guide us. And these are exactly the gifts that God has given to us for this time. “Through Jesus’ example, teaching, and love, we are made to understand and to rejoice in God’s love for us and to learn to love one another as neighbors dwelling close to the heart of God with the Son in the unity of love. And when we do this, we show the world, in loving words and works, that it also is beloved, by embodying God’s love for it.
Meanwhile the Spirit is with us always, guiding us on the way of love, creating a space for us and in us to be part of the Trinitarian dance of God.” 4 The creator God has prepared the dance floor, Jesus has begun the music and the Holy Spirit is calling, “Will you dance?”
1 The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformationby Richard Rohr on YouTube
ii Ibid
iii, Deacon Peter quoting Richard Rohr and The Divine Dance; The Trinity and Your
Transformation ibid
iv Meda Stamper Workingpreacher. org
Faith-Lilac Way Lutheran + June 15, 2025, Holy Trinity Sunday + Pastor Pam Stalheim Lane