June 28, 2009
Grace Church
Rev. Robert E. Hensley

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43

      Let us pray.  We bring before you, O Lord, the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the weak, the despondency of the weary, and the failing powers of the aged. O Lord, draw near to each; for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen. (St. Anselm [1033-1109]) 

      There was a priest walking along a residential street lined with beautiful old Victorian homes. He spotted a boy on a front porch of one very elegant looking dwelling. The doorbell was an old-fashioned one set high in the door, and the kid was too short to ring it, but kept trying to with jumps that didn't quite make it.  

      "Poor little guy," thought the priest. So he walked up to the porch, patted the lad on the shoulder and rang the bell vigorously with his other hand.  

      "And now what, my little man?" he said, smiling down at the boy. 

      "Now," said the boy breathlessly, "we run like hell." 

      There is a statue of St. Peter at St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome that is one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in the history of the church. Over time a tradition has developed of kissing the feet of St. Peter's statue.  The practice was first reported during the Middle Ages. 

      To this day even the most sophisticated, secularized visitor to St. Peter's must make his or her own decision when confronted by those shiny toes. To kiss or not to kiss, that is the question! Observers say very few make no gesture at all, though it isn't always a kiss; some reach out and touch another part of the apostle's anatomy. 

      Noticing St. Peter's toes is just one of the talents of modern semioticians – that is the term given to those people who have trained themselves to observe the signs of the times, semiotics being the science of signs. Signs are very rarely, if ever, verbal; rather they are both the cultural and individual body language that signal how we feel, who we think we are and what we really care about. Everything around us – from the clothes we wear, to the cars we drive, to the churches we attend – has a coded meaning or meanings at one level or another. 

      But you don't have to be a semiotician to read the most obvious signs. Since World War II, cars have always been a huge nonverbal message in American culture. If you drive down Los Angeles’ swank Rodeo Drive in a Ford Escort, you will feel very keenly the message that you are sending and receiving. The very fact that the culture of the high and snooty refer to it as Row-day-oh Drive instead of Row-dee-oh is just another case in point.  Some other signs of our times are a bit more subtle. The most popular "look" for high fashion models for some time now has been "waif" look. Childlike-looking young women, tipping the scales at barely 100 pounds, appearing pale and wan, have now for some time been the fashion industry's hottest sellers. Semioticians suggest that perhaps the strong and fit, wasp-waisted aerobics instructor look has given way to the fragile, emaciated, woebegone image as our subconscious has become more disturbed at the worldwide spread of HIV/AIDS and global ecological catastrophes. 

      The church, the body of Christ, also lives in this "semiosphere" – we are up to our eyeballs in signs and signals. Until quite recently, the church has always celebrated its nonverbal body language. The language of worship has traditionally been heavy with gesture and symbol. Gestures are not a form of second-class communication. Body language is just as important in conveying the gospel as is the mind's language. Words tell facts and what we want told; gestures tell feelings and emotions, hidden facts and moral values – or, as some have put it, the "secret movements of the soul." 

      Jesus was just as concerned with body language as he was with salvation language. Why would Jesus have spent so much time and energy devoted to caring for people's bodies if they were purely peripheral to faith? The stories of Jesus' healing miracles are not just to demonstrate his power over disease and death – they reveal how our bodies can reflect faithfulness and wholeness when committed to Christ. The hemorrhaging woman's faith in Jesus' ability to heal her went beyond what she knew intellectually. "She felt in her body that she was healed" (v.29) – not that she believed or observed or thought that she was healed – she felt deep within her body the movement of Jesus' healing power. 

      Movements of the body have always played an important role in the Christian faith. But today body language isn't deemed rational or objective enough to be taken seriously. The semiotician notes that we readily apologize for a careless word or action by admitting, "Sorry, I wasn't thinking" (Richard E. Cytowic, The Man Who Tasted Shapes [New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1993], p. 219).  But have you ever heard someone confess and say "Sorry, I wasn't feeling"? 

      A gesture of the body traditionally meant something about the soul. In the Middle Ages, a simple gesture carried with it legal power – it could bind a person more contractually than a written document drawn up by a notary and signed by both parties. For example, our tradition of the "laying of hands" of consecration at ordination and confirmation; "throwing down the gauntlet" of challenge; receiving the "royal touch" of healing or blessing and favor. 

      Have you ever "crossed your fingers" for luck? When you did, did you realize that you were making an ancient Christian symbol of faith, a bodily demonstration of faith in God's protective, caring nature? Crossed fingers were a Christian's "secret weapon" against evil. Instead of crossing oneself openly, and thus inviting the attention of dangerous foes, a Christian could call on the powerful protection of the Holy Cross by making this small, inconspicuous gesture. This, then, was a devout believer's direct communication to God through body language. 

      In the more liturgically-oriented denominations, we are used to a certain amount of familiar body language. We cross ourselves, bow when the processional cross passes by, bow our heads at the name of Jesus, and kneel for prayer or communion. In many Pentecostal and African-American traditions, things can get a lot more lively. Body language in those churches can involve jumping up, swaying, clapping hands, raising arms, dancing, sometimes even fainting.  And not just in the African-American tradition…we do a lot of jumping and dancing with the youngsters at the 9:15 service…not so much fainting, but the occasional wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

      I would like you to think for a moment, if you will, about the body language of Grace Church outside our walls, beyond the time of formal worship? What Grace Church is all about is communicated less by our words than by our image, our gestures, our postures, our lifestyles. Actions really do speak louder than words. As the Body of Christ, the gospel story we are telling as well as the body-life – the semiotics (signs) and the somatics (the physical) – are connected. 

      Every time Jesus reached out and healed, banishing sickness, hunger, even death itself, he was practicing the body language of "conspicuous compassion." This was the term used by attorneys appealing the decision of a judge to describe her reprehensible behavior in court. It seems Indianapolis Judge Paula Lapossa, when listening to a victim plead for forgiveness and rehabilitation for the person who had raped, shot at, and beaten her, was so moved by the woman's forgiving nature that she shed tears. The attorneys for the rapist appealed the judge's sentence on the grounds that the judge had shown herself unfit to render justice due to her "conspicuous compassion" (see Carol Kleiman, "Women at Work," Chicago Tribune, 26 August 1993, Business Section, 3). 

      Is the church finally ready to practice some "conspicuous compassion" of its own?

      With conspicuous compassion, the Body of Christ should weep loud and long for the rising number of children orphaned by AIDS. 

      With conspicuous compassion, the body of Christ should mourn the destruction of another acre of rain forest or the death by damming of another free-flowing river. 

      With conspicuous compassion, the Body of Christ should sob for the hunger pangs cramping so many millions of stomachs around the world and in our own country and community each and every night. 

      With conspicuous compassion, the Body of Christ should let the tears stream down its face when prejudice and bigotry drive wedges of hatred through people of all colors and nationalities and differing sexual orientations. 

      More often than we realize, our body language is all that people have by which to judge us. Too often the only "body language" struggling churches are concerned about is a "body count," or what we in the business refer to as “nickels and noses”. The more bodies present at the service or in the church school or anywhere in the building, and the more money in the offering plate, the more "successful" the church is regarded. 

      Some bad body language is easy to discern. Some, however, is much more subtle. 

      In the final analysis, being the body of Christ isn't a contest – it is a witness. The focus of attention on any church should not ever be on its programming and personalities – the Body's focus must always be on Christ.  Amen.