Sermon Blogging / First Sunday at Edenton Street UMC, September 8, 2024
Mark 7:24-37
How is your posture? This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of sitting down with part of the worship team here at Edenton Street reflecting over this Sunday’s service. It didn’t take more than a moment, and someone noticed I had already put in the title for today’s sermon – that question – How is your Posture? Immediately, everybody around the table did just what I saw some of you do just now, straighten up, wiggle in your seat, and maybe even throw the shoulders back a bit from the hunched-over position! See how that works? How is your posture? The context for that question today is less about what you might discuss with an orthopedic doctor or chiropractor, but more about what you might expect to hear from a Cognitive Behavior therapist, an expert on Interpersonal Communication Theory, or a proponent of Emotional Intelligence or relationship theory. In that context, the question is of a different sort.
Postures in that sense have to do with the ways a person engages other people and the world around them – and there is a long list of possible postures. A defensive posture is one who is guarded and protective, skeptical, cautious and even suspicious. An open posture is receptive, empathetic, and willing to listen and engage. A curious posture brings a sense of wonder, exploration, and openness to learning. A critical posture displays a tendency to examine deeply, evaluate, judge, and scrutinize -and incidentally, I am hoping that anyone who drove to church with that posture will prayerfully consider taking it easy on this preacher’s first time in the pulpit at ESUMC! But you get what I mean, right? Postures – there are hundreds of them: assertive, aggressive, passive (maybe even passive-aggressive), collaborative, optimistic, pessimistic – you get it. So let me know pause and ask the question again – How is your Posture? I am aware that by asking that deeper question some would say I have already gone from preaching to meddling, but that does not make the question any less important for all would-be followers of Jesus.
Postures. It is an interesting way to read today’s Gospel text from Mark chapter 7. Jesus sets out for the region of Tyre, headed toward Gentile territory. We are told he is trying to do so incognito. I get it. Spiritual leaders are always “on.” Maybe he just desired some downtime. At any rate, Mark tells us that “he entered a house and didn’t want anyone to know he was there.” No worries, it didn’t last long. A woman comes to him, and not just any woman, a gentile woman, “one of Syrophoenician origin.” I probably don’t have to tell you what being a woman and a Gentile foreigner meant culturally, socially, and politically in first-century Palestine, but let’s just say her even speaking to a man, let alone a Jewish man, broke all the rules of decorum and religious protocol.
I think it is fair to say this Syrophoenician woman had an assertive posture towards Jesus – she confidently expresses her thoughts, feelings, and needs in a direct, honest, and respectful way – she comes to Jesus, she bows at his feet, she earnestly petitions and even begs Jesus to cast the unclean spirit out of her tormented daughter. Jesus’ posture in response – well what shall we say? At first, it seems detached and maybe even a bit defensive: “He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’” Ouch.
This is one of those passages we try to avoid, gloss over, or quickly explain away. It makes us uncomfortable. It is awkward. It feels like that moment when you are eating out with others and someone at your table suddenly starts snapping at the wait staff for little or no reason and you instantly want to disappear. It gets awkward and you just want it to stop. You get that “I wish I were not here” kind of feeling in your gut. Yet, in this case, it’s worse. This is Jesus! Yes, Jesus says in several places in scripture that his mission was first to the Jews. Maybe that is the theological point about his mission he is so bluntly laying down here, but, “dogs” … really? But before we get stuck there, I want to invite you to notice something. Jesus’ posture changes. Quickly. Notice the movement. It doesn’t stay put. If it can be described as detached or dismissive at first, it quickly takes a quick turn to being curious (perhaps a bit of awe and wonder at her witty response) and then turns to being open. Jesus’ posture changes – clearly and definitively – no doubt about it, and it happens not on the Mount of Transfiguration[1], but here in the Phoenician home of encounter where minds, hearts, bodies, and postures are all changed before our watching eyes.
This woman is truly prophetic. I love the way Sam Wells, the former Dean of Duke Chapel and current Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in central London, once defined the word prophetic: “it means placing an individual, and institution, or a situation in the light of God’s story. It means recalling that all people are made in God’s image, that God has called all, wants to redeem all, and wants to heal all – all people and all creation.[2] This encounter changes Jesus, changes this woman, and changes and heals her daughter, and it even changes what happens in the next verses. The very next story – the Ephphatha healing of the man who was deaf and mute is a healing about opening up – and I would submit it was an opening of not only ears and mouths, but hearts and minds and postures that are closed, weary, skeptical, and hunched over from longstanding systems that have left people unseen, unheard, feeling abandoned, and pushed to the margins.
Perhaps Jesus is modeling how all our postures can be transformed by God’s grace, and that transformation takes place in our encounter with others – perhaps even the unsuspecting stranger we have yet to meet. So let me offer a posture that is needed to enter into such encounters – it is also one I think is clearly present in this passage – the posture of humility. We discover this consistent posture in Jesus, not just here in Mark 7, but also in his “triumphal entry into Jerusalem” on a donkey rather than a war horse. This is Jesus in the great Christ hymn of Philippians 2, where we hear: He did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave … he humbled himself and became obedient.” Humility. It is not just a Christian virtue that can correct disordered love and pride, it does do that! It is a posture for anyone who wants to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
This past Sunday, I was reminded of how this posture can allow God’s Spirit to work in my heart. Denise and I visited the historic St. Paul A.M.E. Church just one block west of here that was formally established 176 years ago and was the first independent congregation of African Americans in Raleigh. Some of you know their history, for it is a congregation that was originally formed from the slave membership of Edenton Street Methodist Episcopal Church. I did a bit of a deep dive on that history this past week, but suffice it to say, it was a true privilege to worship with that congregation and to meet Rev. Dr. Larry McDonald, Sr. During worship, the pastor invited me to join the other ministers at the altar after his message, to help with Holy Communion. It is not lost on me that the very first words I uttered officially in any capacity in worship since arriving in Raleigh were said last Sunday as I knelt with Rev. McDonald and other ministers at the altar. He handed me the book of worship and pointed to the historic prayer of humble access.
I posted about the experience on Facebook and ended up having an interesting dialogue this week with a close friend who finds the old communion prayer off-putting and hard to hear – with the old language of unworthiness and undeserving: “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs …” I get it. It feels awkward. It is that same feeling I get in the restaurant or even when we first read about this awkward encounter with Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. And yet, this past Sunday something felt deeply right about beginning this new season on my knees with sisters and brothers from St. Paul AME with whom we have a shared past that is both storied as well as pained and difficult.
The words of the prayer echo the words of the Syrophoenician woman. Think of that. The words of this unnamed, assertive and prophetic woman of the first-century region of Tyre are now found on the lips of Anglicans and Methodists thousands of years later in worship. “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And, yes, this prayer does have awkward words in it like “unworthy,” but I take that to mean undeserving, not shameful. It is a prayer that goes against a modern culture of human entitlement and arrogance. It models a counter-cultural and radical posture of humility that echoes back to Moses’ removal of his sandals at the burning bush, Isaiah’s declaration of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips, and Peter’s outburst for Jesus to “depart from me for I am a sinner.”
This posture of humility before God is a stark reminder that grace is pure gift, and there is literally nothing humanity can do to deserve it – i.e. – commodify it, possess it, diminish it, or reduce it to an objectified transactional state of exchange. It reminds us that just as Jesus “did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped” and neither should we. This is why I love the old prayer of humble access – it flips achievement and human grasping on its head and suggests that the way up is down; the way to wholeheartedness is having our hearts broken open by something other than the idol of self.
Humility. It is a posture that critiques and disarms power as it is often understood in the world. It is the renunciation of a certain kind of power to receive a different and far better cruciform power – which is the true power of love that would do crazy stuff like – looking not to our own interests but to the interests of others – and a willingness to lay one’s life down for one’s friends.
Another former pastor of ESUMC once alluded to Jesus’ radical posture of humility in his sermon on the Good Samaritan. In speaking about why the Samaritan remained unnamed, he wrote:
“Maybe Jesus didn’t give it because he wanted to show his listeners that that man stopped for only one purpose, to help a neighbor in need. He did not stop so that someone would call him a hero, to get his name in the paper, to enhance his profession, to make more sales, or to be stroked and patted. Maybe Jesus is trying to show us that if we shout from the housetop the good we do, or expect recognition, or pout if we are not stroked, or threaten to quit if we are not appreciated, then the good we do is not enough. Our kindness and generosity are only genuinely Christian when they go hand-in-hand with gentleness, humility, and selflessness.”[3]
Humility. It may not be the posture any of us brought into the room today, but it does feel like the one we are called to take with us from worship today. It feels like the right posture to come to the table this morning with our hands and hearts open, ready to be changed, ready to be opened up, and ready to be moved from whatever posture we carried with us into worship so that that might be transformed by Jesus into one that is hopeful, expectant, and even assertive – coming to Jesus clearly naming our human neediness and desire for healing.
It feels right to start off today in worship – and perhaps more importantly – on our knees (and I don’t necessarily mean that physically for those who can’t kneel – we can still assume the same posture in prayer as we come before the throne of grace).
“We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.” – Prayer of Humble Access
[1] Mark 9:2-8.
[2] Slight paraphrase from “The Ten Letter Word,” sermon preached at Duke University Chapel on February 4, 2007, by Revd. Canon Dr. Sam Wells. Accessed here: https://chapel-archives.oit.duke.edu/documents/sermons/2007/070204.pdf
[3] The Ordinary Becomes Extra Ordinary, by Wallace H. Kirby, p. 134.
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