Adam's Dance

Being rebels and dancing with the devil

02/17/2020

James 1:1-11 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings. Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it. But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways.

In my spare time I love nothing more than picking up and perusing a volume of C. S. Lewis, and yesterday that volume happened to be The Problem of Pain. Lewis conjures up all his skills of common sense Christianity to wrestle with a question that has haunted humanity since the beginning, namely, why do we suffer? In chapter 6, called “Human Pain,” Lewis offer his readers two images that I found very helpful. First, he writes: “In the world as we know it, the problem is how to recover this self-surrender [to God]. We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved; we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms” (p. 88).

This first image suggests that suffering comes our way to help us surrender our selfishness, and that is always painful and hurts. We are not neutral or innocent by-standers towards God. We harbor hostility toward our heavenly Father. We would wage war against him and heaven rather than lay down our pride, lust, gluttony, sloth, greed, envy and anger. The image of a “rebel” helps me understand one reason why I have to suffer.

The second image Lewis offers us that of dancing with the devil. We read: “In obeying [God], a rational creature enacts its creaturely role, reverses the act by which we fell, treads Adam’s dance backward, and returns” (p. 100). In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve not only danced in perfect happiness with each other, but also with God, but the devil cut in on that dance. Ever since, all Adam’s sons and daughters, you and me, have been dancing with the devil. The Tempter has taught us his two-step of mortal and venial sins, and we have learned those dance steps very well! We could be on “Dancing with the Stars” except it would be called “Dancing with the Devils.”

Now God wants to cut in on our dance with the devil and teach us his two-step of holiness and humility. And it hurts because we don’t know this new dance and we stumble and look silly, as we “tread Adam’s dance backward.” The second reason humans suffer is because we stop dancing with Satan and start dancing with our Savior, indeed our Spouse, Jesus Christ. Notice Lewis’ underlying point in the image of the dance: we are not merely standing idly by when Jesus comes to dance with us. We already have a dance partner, and the devil does not want Jesus to have the next dance. And so we suffer when we switch partners.

When we keep in mind these two images of the “rebel” and the “dance,” we might understand why St. James writes in the first reading these strange and even startling lines. He says: “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” St. James surprisingly suggests we should be happy – indeed even rejoice! – when we are diagnosed with cancer, when we lose a job, when our friends abandon us, when we feel dryness in prayer, when our vacation plans our ruined, when we are overlooked for a promotion, when someone cuts us off in traffic, when our chai latte is cold, when the homily is boring, and when a million other pains and problems occur in life. Why?

Because that is the moment we rebels lay down our arms and surrender our self-will to God, and let him conquer our pride. That is the moment when we switch dance partners from Satan to the Savior, and “tread Adam’s dance backward” learning the two-step of humility and holiness. That is why we should “consider it all joy when we encounter various trials.”

In 1981 Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a best-selling book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Rabbi Kushner’s reflection was sparked by the news that his 3-year old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease which meant he would only live to see his teens. It is a profound book and well worth reading. The only caveat I would add to Kushner’s reflection is this: no one on earth is merely “good people.” Rather, we are all rebels in open war against God, and we constantly are choosing the wrong dance partner. God does not send suffering to merely “good people;” he sends it to his children so they lay down their arms, surrender to him, and learn to dance with him alone.

Praised be Jesus Christ!