"Repent!"

Over at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Pastor Shulz has decided to step out in faith a bit this week. He's started dancing lessons, and it seems to be the talk of the town. The Baptists and Methodists aren't sure that that is the kind of thing that should be done during lent - or perhaps any other time, for that matter. Some of his own flock aren't so sure, either. It doesn't seem right, at least not now, during Lent. Lent is a penitential season, a time for giving up things, a time for sackcloth and ashes, not for dancing. And of course they're all wondering who he's going to dance with, since he's been a bachelor for three years now. So a few of the single women in the church, in particular, have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand, it's Lent. On the other hand, he's not only available, but seems to be sending signals to that effect.

No one, of course, has discussed any of this with Pastor Shulz. If they did, they would find out that he's decided to try another meaning of the word, "repent," which has classically meant, "a godly sorrow" for the things we did that we shouldn't have done, and the things we haven't done that we should have. That's what's sometimes known as "Luther's Catch-22." It's his way of saying that, whatever you do or don't do, you've sinned anyway, which is a good reason for grace.

Anyway, the word translated "repent," is the greek word, "metanoew," which can mean something like "godly sorrow," I suppose, but really means, "to go another way." Maybe for many people, who have joy as a regular part of their life, and don't think much about the consequences of their actions, "godly sorrow" might be another way. But Pastor Shulz thinks about all those things all the time. And since he has had so much sorrow in his life over the last couple of years, he decided that to "go another way," for him meant that maybe he should put off the sackcloth and ashes this year, and go the way of joy.

And this week's lessons helped him along that line of thought a bit, too. As he was pondering the lessons, he was thinking about how Jesus was tempted to go the easy way, the way that everyone else took, but that wasn't ultimately the way he took. He took the hard way, and wept over Jerusalem that they couldn't rejoice in the gift God sent them, which is what God really wanted - he wanted his people to repent and rejoice. But they wouldn't, so Jesus had to go to the cross for them. And he thought about Abraham and Sarah, and how they had seemed to come to the end of life without realizing the one thing they always wanted - to have a son. And so Abraham stepped out in faith, and he made a covenant with God, even though it seemed an impossible one. And he thought about Paul, who was persecuted, but did the right thing anyway, preaching Christ all around the shores of the Mediterranean, and at the end, even in prison, rejoiced in the course he took, and encouraged others to do the same.

Pastor Shulz always wanted to learn to dance. When he was just a young man, in Junior High School, he got one of those Arthur Murray records with the steps on the back of the record case, and some of the old standards on it like, "When the Deep Purple Falls Over Sleepy Garden Walls," which they inform you is a fox trot, or "Once Upon A Dream," which is a waltz. There was a tango, the cha cha, and even a swing number. He'd get out the record and play it on his family's new stereo, and practice the steps after school, when he was home alone. He loved to dance. Of course, when he went to his first dance, they were doing the jerk, and the mashed potatoes, and the twist, so it didn't really help him at all.

His wife, Ada, never really liked to dance, and told him that she thought he looked a bit silly on the dance floor anyway. So through the many years of their marriage, he only danced at weddings, and seldom with his wife - usually it was with the grandmother of the bride, or some other single older woman. The last few years, he hadn't danced at all. And that was what he was thinking the other night, as he was preparing his sermon. That God didn't want him to simply sit out the rest of his life. That, if he was going to be a pastor, he had live a bit more boldly, so that his flock could live more boldly, too. He actually even thought a bit about the scandal it might cause, but then he thought that anything good is usually a bit scandalous, and if it got people talking, that was probably a good thing. He hadn't thought about the possibility that it might get some hopes up among the single women.

So that's where he is, every Friday night, this Lenten season. He stops over at St. Barnabas Roman Catholic Church for their weekly fish fry, has some fish and chips, then heads over to Obermeier's Dance Studio, where he's signed up for a six week course on ballroom dancing, and trips the light fantastic. And he's thinking that, what with fourteen weddings that he'll have this year, he might get some invitations to dance; and even if it's with some of those grandmas, he's getting about that age, too - so it might not be so bad. At least, he thinks to himself, when he is called to account on that last day, he'll not only be able to say, "I have run the race," but also, "I have danced the dance of faith. I have danced it, unabashedly and unafraid of how I looked on the floor."

And that's what's happening over at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, where George Shulz is the pastor, a little congregation over on the other side of Mount Union, that doesn't seem to be much in the eyes of the world, but which is oh, so precious in the eyes of God.