The air was almost visible with moisture. It rose from the ground, hung to us like winter coats, making each breath a drink, each movement an effort. Each face around the circle glistened, some dripped, with sweat. The sun was just dipping behind the tops of the trees and the houses in the village, bringing the slightest hope of relief from the oppressive afternoon heat. The methodical swish of makeshift fans provided the rhythm of the evening, upon which the clicking of grasshoppers and the buzz of mosquitoes and the occasional chorus of laughter harmonized. Just as the western clouds were beginning to light up a vivid orange, the drummers began. Chaotic at first, six competing patterns, on six different drums, by six individuals, each focused on his own hands. Slowly, the drummers woke up to one another. The six became one. One group, working together, building off of one another, each taking the lead and soaring over the foundation of the others then seamlessly resting back to support the next soloist. Then the small groups of friends, clumped around chatting and catching up, joined the song. Six drums, two cowbells, many clapping hands, and at last, many voices. A call and response song drew in the few timid souls still lingering on the fringes of the crowd until all were singing, clapping, and shouting Alleluia.

After several songs had been sung, played, and clapped, the real evening arrived. The dancing began.

Now, let me catch you up.

This May I travelled with a group from Texas Christian University on a study abroad trip to Ghana. Located in West Africa, Ghana is a democratically governed nation that gained its independence from Britain in 1957. Though bordered by the tumultuous Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana is one of the most stable countries in West Africa, which is why my parents actually let me go. I was there with 13 other students on an independent study project for my Religious Studies major. Most of the students were on the trip for general cultural humanities credit, so we had many different experiences during our time there. Our lead professor, Komla Aggor, is a native Ghanaian, who left Ghana for his graduate studies. On this particular day, we were visiting his hometown: Kpando-a medium-sized town in the Volta region of eastern Ghana. We spent the day volunteering at a children's home (which would definitely be the basis my second sermon were I to do a series on my trip). For our evening activity, Dr. Aggor arranged for a local dance group to do a demonstration of traditional dance for us. We gathered in a field beside a local convenient store, mingled a bit with the locals, then sat in the chairs which were set up in what scrap of shade was available. Turns out, the evening was less a demonstration performed for us as much as an invitation for us to join a typical celebration. We sat and watched for a bit (me wide-eyed and bursting with excitement, since I was a percussionist for eight years), and then, they danced.

Even with an open invitation to join in whenever we felt comfortable, many in our group were content to sit and watch from the relative cool of the shade. I couldn't. I could not be content to simply watch, when the women dancing in front of us were so full of passion, full of energy, and full of visible joy. How could I not become a part of something so beautiful? So I danced. Sort of. I tried to dance. (Much of traditional African dance requires hip motions a white girl from the TX suburbs just cannot do…) Though for much of the time the only TCU student dancing and somewhat self-conscious about my lack of coordination, I was euphoric. As the local women showed me the steps, lovingly laughed at and corrected my mistakes, and pulled me around and around the swaying circle, I began to feel comfortable. I began to feel at home. At home in a strange village, halfway around the world, where only a few of the people spoke English and most of those as a second language.

I did not exchange more than five words with any of the women who guided and encouraged me, but I felt so connected. As we kept circling, pantomiming the planting of seeds, the gathering of crops, and the sharing of the Earth's bounty, one of the local women looked me in the eyes, smiled, then wrapped a white cloth around me. You see, most of the dancers were wearing white skirts with white scarves or wraps. (I was wearing a green, obviously NOT white dress). As the circle dance changed into a looser, free-style dance, several more women threw their wraps around my shoulders, one tied hers around my hair, and another wiped the sweat from my very rosy face. I was already terribly hot, so the five extra layers of cloth were not exactly a welcome addition to my ensemble, but the moment was incredible. Each woman looked in my face, beaming with heartfelt hospitality. All of them wore brilliant smiles, and many laughed and hugged me as they offered this incredible gift, that I don't know if they even understood. By wrapping their cloths around me, they made me a part of their community.

For me, it was a moment of what cultural and religious anthropologist Victor Turner calls existential or spontaneous communitas, or an experience of temporary, sacred togetherness. Our social positions, our dancing abilities, our languages did not matter. It did not matter that I am not Ghanaian. We were one-a unified group of equals. By extending their cloths to me, they said to me, in a physical, tangible, way, "you are part of our family. Part of this body. We want you to be part of our joy!"

Such openness and connectedness should not have surprised me the way it did. We as Christian people should be comfortable with, familiar with, fluent in such radical hospitality, for the gospel of Jesus Christ is at its core this very idea: to offer open arms and open hearts to all of God's children, whether they are from your community, your country, or your continent or not. In our churchiness we often theologize and assign lofty ideas and words to describe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now as a future seminarian, I can't say that I don't love that churchiness most of the time, BUT, when it really it comes down to it, Jesus' message is not a churchiness message but one simple message of loving neighborliness. In fact, Jesus, in a strange moment of very clear language, unambiguously states that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind, and the second, which is almost equal, is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 24:36-48). I don't think Jesus encouraged such a paradigm of compassion so that we have good block parties and so the neighbors' kids don't trample our hedges. Jesus' Good News is not simply about niceness, but is a message of creating real, intentional community. In Romans chapter 12, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and Ephesians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul describes the church as the very body of Christ -emphasizing a metaphor for community and interdependency. Paul's inspiration comes from Jesus' example. Jesus sought and seeks to remind us of how we are created to be people in such relationship. Jesus didn't come up with it either, hate to break it to ya. It's a message that we see at the very beginning-we are created to live in community with one another. When I say the beginning. I mean THEEE beginning - as in "In the beginning…"

And now, Genesis 2:8-23, as retold by Caroline: And then God cultivated a garden - a beautiful place with all manner of plants, beautiful to the eye, pleasing to the nose, and delightful to the tongue. God scattered fruit trees throughout the garden: pomegranates with their hidden jewels, crisp pears with golden skins, plums - dark as midnight and filled with sweet juice. God provided for the trees giving them cool water, which came up from the ground and spread out in every direction. God named each precious creation. God then took the creature which was formed from the dust and placed it in the garden. The creature had all manner of good things to see and to smell and to taste, but something was not quite right. God looked at the Creature and said, "My child, I gave you life with my breath; it is not good for you to be alone. I shall find you a companion." Then God brought forth from the earth each kind of animal. Each was good and pleasing to God and to the Creature. But not one was the perfect companion. So God made the creature sleep and took from its side a single rib. From that God formed the Creature's perfect companion. When the Creature awoke, he saw what God had made and said, "She is my companion. Flesh of my flesh. Bone of my bone."

We were created not to be alone. We were created to be in relationship with one another. I believe that when we truly create community, we tap into the bits inside us that are whole and holy and as they were at the beginning. When we experience life together, we more completely understand the joy that is being a child of God. Again, I am not sharing a new idea; it has permeated all the major world religions for millennia- "We are most fully human when we do not put ourselves at the center of everything." Jesus reminds us, like the women of Kpando reminded me, that in inviting others to share our lives, we really LIVE. Jesus, in his teachings, his miracles, and his ordinary (and not so ordinary) interactions with people foregrounded the importance of real life. Of not just getting by or existing or hoping for a future we may never reach, but of truly living. Like we heard in the gospel reading today, Jesus came that we might have life-to have life in abundance.

Though many of the Ghanaians I met had few things "in abundance," they certainly understood abundant life. I felt it in a hot, humid field next to a convenient store. I heard it in the lively music that was always drifting upon the breeze. I saw it in the faces of children laughing, playing soccer, and turning haphazard cartwheels. One phrase keeps coming back to my mind as I think of my time in Ghana: Clap for Jesus. I saw it first emblazoned on the rear windows of several bus-taxis also known as tro-tros. I saw it again as the name of a corner store. You see, Ghanaians like to name their stores with religiously infused phrases such as "By God's Grace frozen foods" and "God Can Do Metal Work and auto repair." I love the phrase, Clap for Jesus, yes, for its whimsy, but more importantly for the message it forces me to recall. Clapping is physical and auditory and just plain fun. Especially when you are clapping with other people. I don't know if you have ever clapped by yourself, it's a little awkward and just not as fun. But clapping with a whole crowd, is nothing short of infectious. You know that moment at the end of a really great performance, when the urge to clap rising all the way from your toes. One person starts clapping, breaking the silence, then everybody joins in, and the room is filled with energy and life. I cannot help but think this is how our joy as Christians should be. Jesus promises that when we gather together he is also present. How can we beat that? How could anything be more infectious?

We should, as the Ghanaians encourage, Clap for Jesus. I keep remembering this one phrase, and it continues to remind me that I am Created by God to live in community with you and with all of God's creation. Created to dance with joy and sublime abandon as David danced before the Ark of the Covenant as it was carried into Jerusalem. I keep remembering, and I must continue to remember, and hope you will also remember. We must be community for each other and for the strangers who come into our midst. Let that community multiply your joy as a child of God. Let's clap for Jesus.

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