Gesture Theology
Ephesians 5:15-20
August 20, 2006
I remember the very first sermon I ever preached. It was at License to Preach School down at DePauw University during the summer of 1972, between my freshman and sophomore years in college. I knew that I was headed for seminary by that time, and my pastor thought that this was something I should do. Besides, I thought that a license to preach might help me get a student appointment while I was still in college.
License to Preach School (they call it something different now) was an introduction to ministry. We took introductory classes on theology, ethics, The Discipline, and preaching. My first sermon was preached there and was five minutes long.
Now you have to remember what the times were like in 1972. We were pretty laid back and trying to be cool. I had hair down to the middle of my back. I wore blue jeans, was barefoot, and preached with my hands in my pockets. I have no idea what the sermon was about, but I’m sure it was lousy.
I’ve learned a few things about preaching in the intervening years. One of the things I have learned is that you can’t preach with your hands in your pockets. Besides looking pretty goofy, with your hands in your pockets, you can’t use any gestures. I tend to talk with my hands anyway, and not to use them when preaching would really put a crimp in my style. Without the ability or the freedom to gesture, most of us would be hindered in our everyday work and conversation.
There is a new computer technology that is coming to us in the near future. It is called “gesture technology.” It is technology right out of science fiction. Not too long ago, I watched a television rerun of the movie, “Minority Report.” It stars Tom Cruise and is set in the year 2054. I remember seeing it in the theaters when it was released back in 2002.
In the movie, law enforcement authorities have developed the ability to see crimes that are about to happen so that they can arrest the perpetrators before they actually commit the crime. Tom Cruise is a police officer and works for this “pre-crime” unit.
There’s a scene in which he is standing before a huge computer screen looking at crime reports. He is moving data from one column to another, deleting what he doesn’t need, and arranging it so that it makes sense. He’s doing it all with his hands. He simply points and drags the data with his fingers.
Back in the present, we are on the verge of actually developing this technology. In one experimental program, programmers have developed a set of gloves which can be worn by an operator. With the gloves, pictures and data can be manipulated on the screen. Apparently there are about 20 gestures to which the computer will respond.
Gesturing is important. It is one of the ways we communicate. Even the Psalms point to the value of the gesture to communicate with God.
One of the things you have to admit about United Methodists is that we are not very demonstrative in our worship practices. We’re all pretty well behaved. We sit pretty still. Even on Sunday nights around here, when the style is a lot less formal and the music a lot louder, we tend not to be very animated.
The psalms are good places to go to help limber us up, to get a sense of how important gestures were to worshipping congregations back them. Here are just a few examples.
Psalms 28:1-2 says, “To you O Lord, I call…Hear the voice of my supplications as I cry to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary.”
Psalms 63:4 says, “So I will bless you as long as I live. I will lift up my hands and call on your name.”
There are others places in the Bible that also underscore the importance and common usage of gestures in the act of worship. Lamentations 2:19 says, “Arise, cry out in the night…Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him.”
Even in the New Testament, we hear Paul’s advice to Timothy: “I desire then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument” (I Tim. 2:8).
I am often asked if I prefer traditional or contemporary worship. I usually start my response by reminding folks that the worship style we call traditional was at one time really contemporary and cutting edge. In fifty years, if any of us are still around, we will be rebelling against some new style of worship in that time. We’ll say something like this: “If it was good enough for us in 2006, it ought to be good enough for our grandchildren.”
But more to the point, when I’m asked about my references of worship style, I usually say that I don’t much care what style worship is, as long as it is passionate.
I have been involved in high liturgy that has taken my spirit to the doorstep of heaven. Last year, I was in a worship service with a rock band, special effects, smoke swirling around the singers, stage scenery, and a congregation of a couple of thousand loud and boisterous worshippers. I came away thinking that if worship in heaven is going to be that passionate, I can’t wait.
Worship, regardless of style, is absolutely necessary for people of God. We worship God because God deserves it. Worship is more for God than it is for us. The problem with worship occurs when it gets separated from real life. When the gestures of worship become an end to themselves, then we fail to carry worship to its logical conclusions. When we pay attention to the gestures of worship, but neglect the gestures of living faithfully, then we’ve got a problem.
When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he told them, “Be careful how you live.” The Message says, “Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.”
Has this ever happened to you? You’ve done something to anger your husband or wife. You don’t really know what you’ve done, but you know that you’ve done something. And you try to make amends. You say, “Honey, what’s the matter?” And your spouse responds, “Nothing!” But there is a decided chill in the air, the arms are crossed, and he or she is staring out the window with a clenched jaw. Obviously the verbal and non-verbal messages are different.
The same thing can sometimes be said about the relationship between our worship and our lives outside the sanctuary. We may say one thing, but our actions are different. We may lift up our hands in worship and not carry that worship back out in to the world. Sometimes all this hand-lifting can be separated from holy living.
The letter to the Ephesians doesn’t seem to be written as a response to a particular specific incident in the life of the early church. It is rather focused on giving specific ethical advice to the people of this new church on how to live lives as disciples of Christ.
You see, these people were claiming that they had given their allegiance to Christ. They proclaimed that they were now different people. How could they be believed if they didn’t live out their professions, if what they claimed wasn’t really visible in their lives?
At the time that this letter was written, the systematic persecution of Christians by the Romans had not yet begun. But because they were the new kids on the block, they were viewed with a healthy dose of suspicion. The writer of Ephesians was telling them that their actions had to match their words, or else there would be no chance that they would be believed.
The same thing is going on today. Our gestures and our confession must be in sync. We can’t say one thing in worship and do the complete opposite throughout the rest of the week.
Let’s face some facts. The modern Christian community can sometimes be our own worst enemy. Sometimes I have a feeling that Satan really doesn’t have to work that hard, because we make it so easy for others to distrust or ignore the church.
Every time some television evangelist makes some goofy remark about assassinating a world leader or New Orleans hurricane deaths being God’s will for America; every time some splinter church in Kansas says that military deaths are God’s punishment for homosexuality; every time national denominational structures get bogged down in hot-button issues and ignore the real needs of real people in the pews and in the streets; every time a local church is caught in some scandal of some kind: that is when it becomes obvious to outsiders that our gestures aren’t in sync with our actions.
Sending mixed signals not only confuses others, it harms us. Whenever the church does something stupid, those of us who have been Christians for a long time are able to take that in stride, because we know that at our best, we are still Christians in training. We know that we are all sinners, that we all make mistakes, that none of us measure up to what God desires of us. But for those who are on the outside looking in, we become very hard to understand. It is confusing for others to see us acting in ways we say we don’t want to act. It is confusing for outsiders when we don’t live like we say we live. It is confusing to others when Christians fail to live up to the standards they set for themselves.
And that harms our witness. People won’t pay any attention to us. We won’t have the chance to deliver our message, because we won’t even be able to get our foot in the door to begin the conversation.
When Julius Caesar landed with his Roman legions on the shores of Great Britain, he marched his troops up to the top of the Cliffs of Dover. As they looked down at the fleet of ships which had brought them to England, they saw that each one had been set on fire. Caesar had deliberately burned the fleet as a gesture that there was only one course of actions acceptable – victory. There would be no retreat.
That was a gesture that certainly got the troops attention and was one which they instinctively understood. As it turned out, it certainly was not an empty gesture, because his troops were indeed successful.
There was a story in the Washington Post on July 29th of this year, about some Christians in Lebanon who understand that the way they live their lives is the best gesture of the shape of their faith.
Some Shiite Muslims who lived along the border of Israel fled the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon and ended up in a village which was no safer than the ones from which they were running. This one particular village was being hit by Israeli bombs and artillery shells about every fifteen seconds. The fleeing Muslims found shelter in the basement of a Christian church.
This is a country that was just beginning to restore democracy after fifteen years of civil war. The infrastructure of the country was slowly being rebuilt. Peace was beginning to break out. And now, the Muslims found themselves among Christians, the very same people with whom they had once been engaged in battle. Their politics were very different. They disagreed over Hezbollah and over the causes and justifications for the present war. But they shared a similar plight. They shared a common misery brought on by war.
Traveling along this road, you would come to a Sunni village, then a Shia village, and then a Christian town. But they were all threatened.
One Christian brought 120 people into his home over the space of a couple of weeks. The people in the church helped feed their visitors. Other Christians invited fleeing Muslims to find shelter in their homes.
These Christians took their gestures beyond their worship, out into the messiness and danger of everyday life. It is one thing for Christians to remember how Jesus told us to love our enemies. It is another thing to actually do it.
The Apostle Paul says, “Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.” Following Christ requires more than just gestures. It demands that our gestures match our lives. That is when we become believable. That is when we become inviting. That is when we truly become the Body of Christ.
