Dancing In The Street

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By Alexander Zabara

I wanted a lighter song this week, and I think I found it.  This is definitely a feel good song.  It is hard to listen without tapping one's feet, bopping one's head up and down, and swaying to the beat.  It is great to have a feel good song that can also inspire!

This song calls to mind numerous scripture passages, parables.  The Reign of God is like...   a mustard seed, wheat in a field of weeds, finding a pearl of great price, a large net thrown in the sea.  There are more examples, but you get the idea.  Jesus had a way of using something easily understood to talk about something more difficult to understand.

And trying to understand the Reign of God is central to our Christian faith.  We pray for it to come every time we join in the Lord's Prayer.  It is crucial to the Dehonian life as well:  one of our mottos is Your Kingdom Come:  just in case we might be tempted to forget the importance of that petition.  We try earnestly to take this call to heart in our parishes, our schools, wherever we minister. God's Reign not only inspires us, but those we work with as well.  Together, we seek to make cooperating with it our goal.  Here.  In specific places.  With specific people. 


I think the Gospel would have no qualms about using words like these lyrics as a way to get us to consider what the Reign of God is like.  How might the parable go?



The Kingdom of Heaven is like a dance to which everybody is invited.  Nobody has to dress up to accept the invitation:  they can come as they are.  The only thing required is that they get out onto the street and meet folks they do not know.  The beat that brings these strangers together will be one they have not heard before.  The days will be long, the sun will shine, the music will be everywhere, and every city will hear it.



If you get a chance to visit the Motor City, take in the tour of Hitsville:  the original recording studio and headquarters of Motown Records.  It is worth an hour and change of your time.  There, one learns the profound history that this song stands within...  



Want to sing about a chance for folks to meet?  Motown was founded to bring a diverse complexion to international airwaves.  Want to sing about a brand new beat?  Think about trying to integrate dancers at a time when buses, lunch counters, drinking fountains, schools, and colleges were segregated.  Want to sing about finding a girl for every guy?  Motown had a greater percentage of women VPs in the 60s than most labels do today.  Want to sing about what hope and faith look like?  Consider the social standing of Ms. Reeves and the Vandellas, in the 1960s, in the cities they sing about.  Then consider what they proclaim:  Swing.  Sway.  And let the records play!

The Reign of God is like...