“Dance with God”
March 1, 2026
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
The second Sunday in Lent. And here we make a shift from reading from the gospel according to Matthew to reading from the gospel according to John. We have left behind the emphasis that certain things occurred “to fulfill what was written.” We have left behind the expansiveness of the signs of God’s coming—from the star calling those wise ones from the East, to the healing and teaching of Jesus’ sojourn in the land of the Gentiles. We have left behind the mountaintop experiences of sermon and transfiguration.
In John, we encounter a more closed, inner circle group—written in a time when worship and work might have to be hidden, secret, because of the rooting out of this “heresy” by those in religious and political power. We enter a world of signs and conversations. Of layers upon layers upon layers, where you need to know how to get to the bottom truth. But even within this silo, God’s message of love breaks through, in wide mercy for the world.
John starts out “In the beginning…” God was Word. And the Word became flesh. And the word was like light, and the darkness could not extinguish it. Jesus came to the Jordan and John the Baptist, John the Witness, said, “Here is the Lamb of God.” Jesus called disciples, Andrew and Peter and another, and then Philip and Nathaniel. Jesus turned water into wine at Cana, and then went to Jerusalem and overturned the tables of the money changers and drove out those selling cattle and sheep and doves. And then we come to our reading for today.
It is nighttime. A time for rest. A time when one could slip into a house maybe unseen. A time when we might talk of deep things unencumbered by the business of the day.
And Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews (a Pharisee) comes to speak to Jesus.
And they get into this intense conversation about being born new/again and how that might happen. But today, I’d like us to focus in on one particular part of that conversation.
Jesus says, “The wind (pneuma) blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes…”
Since we have been pointed back to the beginning of the Torah, the first few lines of Genesis with “in the beginning”—we can’t help but think as Jesus talks about “wind” of the description of the cosmos in the beginning. It says, “Darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” We picture this wind as God’s Spirit—like the wind and flame that dances over the heads of the people gathered at Pentecost. And as our beautiful first hymn suggests—like the wind song through the trees.
Wind is something that we cannot control. Sometimes it is gentle, ruffling our hair and tickling our face. Sometimes it is violent, trying almost to knock us over. We often stand firm in the face of wind, in the face of God—like some silly newsbroadcaster in the midst of a hurricane, buffeted by the gusts. What if we were more like trees, bending, moving, entering into a dance with the wind, a dance with God?
Ann Marie and I began to take ballroom dance lessons last fall. Not so we could join Dancing with the Stars (it still makes us laugh), but because we both love to dance and wanted to know what we were doing out there. Now in ballroom dance there is a leader and a follower, and you each have steps you have to go through if you aren’t going to step on each other’s toes or end up in the wrong place. The steps are similar, but not the same.
A cartoon by Bob Thaves once said of Ginger Rogers that “she did everything Fred Astair did, only backwards and in high heels.”
Could this be a metaphor for our life with God? Dance is something we do together (because God has chosen to make us God’s partner).
We have our own steps to do, but we aren’t supposed to just go off on our own. We stay connected to our partner, to God.
And sometimes God, like the wind, does something unexpected—and we have to pay attention, we have to watch for the signs that that something new is coming. We are to follow where the wind takes us, even if we don’t know the way. We can trust that God will not let us go.
Sometimes this wind is gentle, and allows us to float on the river of life. But sometimes it is a gale that whips up the waves and bends the trees low. Think of the whispers of the Spirit as oppressed peoples of many times and places read or heard about God’s liberation. And then think of the March on Selma which happened on March 7th 61 years ago. Those who were dancing with God at that time were feeling the wind blowing hard—even while others were standing against that force—creating “Bloody Sunday.” As Emerson Powery from Working Preacher said in his commentary on this passage, the idea of the Spirit’s ‘mysterious movement—blowing ‘where it chooses’-balances the idea that believing activity all falls on human decision-making. Rather, there is both divine and human action merging in a confluence of activity so that Christ-followers can witness anew God’s activities through Jesus.” Or, as I hear it, we aren’t called to dance on our own. We dance with God, together, and in that dance we find new pathways, new steps, new ways of being and seeing in our world.
You might remember that Nicodemus appears more than once in the gospel of John. And the snapshots that the writer of John decides to give us portray such a dance. Here in chapter 3, Nicodemus comes, hesitant, questioning, open to dancing in a new way. But he comes in the dark, in secret.
By chapter 7, when the chief priests and Pharisees have sent the temple police to arrest Jesus (which they fail to do), Nicodemus speaks up in Jesus’ defense and says, “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” And this puts him squarely in the cross-hairs of those in power.
They spit back, “Surely, you are not also from Galilee, are you?” (meaning surely, you aren’t part of this rebellious rabble).
By the end of the gospel, it is Joseph of Arimathea (who also came to Jesus by night) who gets Jesus’ body from the cross, and along with Nicodemus, who brings the spices, they anoint and wrap him and put the body in an empty tomb which they have provided. Nicodemus has come out of the darkness to fully stand in the light. He has proclaimed his love for this one who the religious and civil authorities have branded a criminal. His dance with God changed the course of his life, in ways he never could have dreamed.
This dance with God might happen on a mountain top alone. But we Presbyterians hold that more often than not, figuring out the dance with God is a communal activity. Yes, those dreaded committees. Yes, those endless conversations. Yes, having to risk speaking so you can find your own truth and having to take the time and the patience and the curiosity to listen to others as they speak into their version of their truth. You can imagine that the dance with God gets more complicated when there is more than one dance partner!
Maybe dancing with God in this way is more a Conga Line and less a ballroom dance! And we hope God is the one at the front—but still, we follow, this way and that.
The Dance with God isn’t always a salsa or the hustle, constant motion or spinning fast. Sometimes it is a beautiful slow waltz, a leaf slowly gliding down to earth, a bird circling on the thermals. Joy Harjo, the first Native American Poet Laureate, perfectly pictures this for us in her “Eagle Poem.”
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
That is what I wish for all of us.
A dance with God, done in beauty.
May it be so, Amen and Amen.