Holy Postures: Open Up
Mark 7:24-37
I was serving a church several years ago that had a monthly carry-in dinner. Like most church dinners, the food was always bountiful and tasty. After a few months of these dinners, though, I noticed something about them that bothered me.
From the benediction of the worship service, to the kitchen being cleaned up after the meal was done, only took about 30 minutes. People got their food, and then they sat down to eat their food with as little talking as possible. Once their plate was clean, they picked up the dishes they brought to share, and headed out the door. It was vaguely reminiscent of a Saturday Night live sketch of the Coneheads, and their propensity to consume mass quantities as quickly as possible. And I tried to figure out why every dinner was like this.
The tables were set up in long continuous rows. Everyone could be seated in such a way that it only took up about half of the fellowship hall, and it was the half closest to the doors. On the plus side, this was an efficient arrangement that was easy to set up and easy to clean. But it also made it almost impossible to talk to anyone except the person directly opposite you or next to you. The result of this set up was efficiency, at the expense of fellowship.
This problem might befuddle some people, but I saw it as an opportunity to test a theory. When I was at the university, I took 9 credit hours in nonverbal communications, as part of my theory emphasis in Communications Studies. Parts of those lessons were on the use of space and how that could affect a group. I wanted to apply what I had learned in those classes to these dinners.
So, one month I asked the committee in charge of setting up the dinner to let me set up the tables, and they agreed to let me do it. I placed the tables at odd angles, with none of them connected to another, spreading them out so that it took up the whole room. There were no straight lines anywhere in the room between where the food was served and where people could sit down and how the people could get out the doors.
The theory was that the people would have to watch where they were going – they would have to look up as they moved through the room. They would have to see where people were sitting, and decide who they wanted to sit with, instead of just taking the next available seat. They would be with a smaller group of people at their table – all of whom they could talk to while they ate. That was the theory.
After the service, and after shaking all the hands, I went to the Fellowship Hall for the dinner. And all of the tables had been moved back into long continuous rows. The committee assumed that I had not finished the job of setting the tables out in “the right way,” so they moved them. And the dinner was over in about 30 minutes again.
I went back to the committee and again asked them to let me set up the tables for the next dinner. I explained to them that I had intended the tables to be at all those odd angles. I explained that I wanted to see if it would make any difference in the fellowship. The committee didn’t see the point of it, but they agreed to let me try it anyway.
I watched what happened at the next dinner. Because the tables were not in a long row, people looked for others to sit with. The noise level in the room went up as people talked and laughed together. When someone went to get a second cup of coffee or a second piece of pie, they often ended up at a different table when they returned, and a new conversation would start up. Ninety minutes later, people were still visiting and making connections. It was the same people, eating the same food, in the same room. Yet by changing the posture of the room, by opening it up, they saw each other – and it changed how they related to each other.
And that was the last time, at least while I was at that church, that tables were set up in long continuous rows that discouraged fellowship. Moving the tables helped that congregation move forward. Church wasn’t just an hour on Sunday morning any more. Dinners were not just about consuming mass quantities. They were learning what it felt like to be connected to each other as the family of God, through the grace of Jesus Christ. It was just a little thing to do, but it opened up that congregation.
Sometimes, I think every pastor needs to take nonverbal communication classes. It could help them learn about what is important in the church they are serving. It could help themsee how people greet each other and how long they stick around after worship. It could help them look at how a room is organized, and where our eyes are directed. Those are just some of the nonverbal messages which can either hold a congregation back, or help them move forward in faith.
You can tell a lot about the relationships in a congregation by noticing the postures of the people. Where they sit, when they sit, when they move, when they touch, and when and where they kneel, all convey a message about their relationship to God and each other.
These postures can be seen, but they also show up in our language. Will we stand up and be counted? Will we bow our heads in prayer? Will we open our arms to welcome others? People believe us when our postures and our words agree. And when they don’t agree, they will believe the postures, so it is important that we pay attention to all these nonverbal messages.
I was mentoring a young pastor many years ago who shared with me a challenge in her congregation. They were studying the passage where Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive someone. We remember that Jesus replied, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven.” The challenge came from the lay leader of her church. This person stood up, shut her Bible, and said to the class, “I don’t care what Jesus said. If you forgive someone more than once, you are a fool.” And the class said, “Amen.”
The lay leader was literally standing on her own authority. By shutting her Bible, sheshowed that she was not open to the word of God. Her posture and her words agreed, and that made it easier for the class to believe her – even when her position didn’t agree with Jesus.
This is nothing new, of course. Many people struggle with the Bible. Many people struggle with religion. Many people just struggle. And the struggle comes when the posture and the words don’t agree.
Many people struggle with John Wesley. For example, John advocated for us to “go on to perfection in love,” and yet in his publications, he named“idiots and lunatics” in his prayers. These words seem to indicate a terrible prejudice against a particular group of people. At the very least, they don’t sound very loving for someone who claims that he wants to be perfect in love.
But in this case, John was praying to have the church open up to persons with physical, mental, and chemical imbalance challenges. If the grace of Jesus Christ is supposed to be truly open to all, then the church needs to be prepared for even the most challenging people. And that preparation begins with prayer. “Idiots” and “lunatics” were the technical and clinical terms used then, not the pejoratives they are today.
And in our reading, the disciples are struggling with Jesus. Jesus advocated the love and forgiveness of all people. And yet in our reading, he implies, in the style of some politicians today, that the Syro-phoenician woman is a dog. The words seem to indicate a terrible prejudice, or at least they don’t sound very loving for someone we believe to be perfect in love.
In this case, Jesus was trying to open up the kingdom of God beyond what the disciples had ever considered or practiced before. The problem the disciples had was that they had been raised in an efficient faith, with the laws and requirements laid out in long continuous rows. Everything and everyone had a place. Everything and everyone knew their place. Everything and everyone moved through the space as efficiently as possible.
In their efficient faith, there were Chosen People and not-chosen people. There were rituals to perform and rituals to shun. There were foods to eat and foods avoid. It was all laid out for the people, and the point was just to do it and not have to think about it or dwell on it.
The words and the postures of the disciples agreed: we are the Chosen;other people are not. We are the right and left hands of God; others are not even part of the body. We are made in the image of God; others are outcast and unclean dogs. We are blessed for following the Law; others are punished with physical ailments like deafness because they do not follow the Law.
It was an efficient faith which they believed would become even more efficient by following Jesus. But Jesus wasn’t sent from heaven to make our faith more efficient. He came that we might know that we were made to be in relationship with God and each other.
Jesus didn’t go from village to village to teach the people how to follow the Law more closely. He came that we might fulfill the Law by loving God and loving our neighbors. Jesus didn’t speak to sinners, and cast our demons, and heal the outcast because he pitied “those people.” He was involved with them because they are the beloved children of God. Jesus didn’t come to make the Chosen People more chosen. He came to make us all one in God’s redeeming love.
To help the disciples, and us, see this, Jesus had to change their posture. Jesus had to move the tables of law out of their long continuous rows, setting them up to fill the room. He didn’t get rid of any of the tables, mind you, but he did make it necessary for the people to look up. He made it necessary for them to look around and really see the space they shared with others.
Jesus took away their efficient straight lines to God. He took away their efficient straight lines to getting away from their neighbors.And he did this so they could see God all around them in their neighbors.
Of course, it wasn’t just the Chosen People who had to change how they saw the space they shared with others. The woman with the demon-possessed daughter, as well as the deaf man, had to change how they saw this space we share with God, as well.
My theory for this passage is that this is why Jesus says something which doesn’t sound like something Jesus would say. He says it because it helps the woman look up, and look around, to find a way through the laws, when they are not all lined up to keep her quiet. He said it so she would look up, and look around, and really see the space she was sharing with the Son of God. He says what he says because it changes her posture from begging for help, to someone who stands up for her daughter and has found the source of God’s help.
This discovery changes how she relates to her daughter, and to Jesus, and hopefully how she will relate to the disciples and to the people in the space around her. And her heart is filled with the joy of knowing that God loves her, and God loves her troubled daughter, and that God has helped her find a way forward in that joy.
Likewise, the deaf man learns that he is not a charity caseor an outcast sinner being punished by God, as the long row of laws have efficiently declared. Instead, he is someone that Jesus cares about directly. He is not someone who is helped because it will look good on Jesus’ resume as the messiah. He is helped because people who cared about him lifted him up to Jesus.
I believe that it was more than his eyes and tongue that were opened up. I believe that his heart was also opened up, and it was filled with joy. At least, we know it opened up the hearts of the man’s friends, who shared their good news about what Jesus had done for their friend to anyone who would listen.
One of the great temptations of our culture is to make everything simpler, easier, and more efficient. And there can be great value in this, but sometimes what we give up in order to be more efficient is the wrong thing to sacrifice. The efficiency of the disciples’ faith sacrificed the woman and her daughter. The efficiency of the disciples’ faith sacrificed the deaf man.
In our passage, by his posture and words, Jesus is declaring that these are the wrong things to sacrifice if we want to live in the kingdom of God. It is the wrong thing if it separates us from our neighbors. It is the wrong thing if it separates us from God. It is the wrong thing if it separates us from our joy in God’s love.
Following Jesus is about being filled with the joy of knowing that God loves you, and forgives you, and strengthens you, and guides you, and has prepared a place for you. Following Jesus is about being filled with the joy that we are connected to our neighbors in a living, loving, vital relationship which reveals the love and grace of God. This joy comes when we our postures and our words agree with the good news of Jesus Christ. So let us make a small change in our postures right now, and stand up to sing together our joy in Jesus!
UMH 89“Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”