21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not
been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the
foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens
like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;
23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of
the earth as nothing.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has
their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and
they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?
says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by
name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is
missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My
way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my
God?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is
the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does
not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the
powerless.
30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young
will fall exhausted;
31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their
strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run
and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the
house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30Now
Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him
about her at once. 31He came and took her by the hand and
lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve
them.
32That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who
were sick or possessed with demons. 33And the whole city
was gathered around the door. 34And he cured many who
were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he
would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew
him.
35In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up
and went out to a deserted place, and there he
prayed. 36And Simon and his companions hunted for
him. 37When they found him, they said to him, Everyone
is searching for you.
38He
answered, Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so
that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came
out to do.
39And he went throughout Galilee,
proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
The gospel of Mark is a fast paced, action oriented gospel. The New
Revised Standard Version of the bible gives us variety of English
translations… but in the original language there are more
than forty times in the gospel of Mark that the
word immediately
is used… 12 of them are in the first
chapter… Mark moves: bam, bam, bam… one thing to the
next to the next. No space to stop, no space to think – it's one
example after another of the character and identity of Jesus as well
as the story of his movement from obscurity to being well known and
widely followed.
Last week's text ended with Jesus' fame spreading throughout the
region of Galilee because he cast out the first of the unclean
spirits. We're not even out of the first chapter yet and we've
already been in the wilderness, the Jordan river, and a synagogue.
And then in today's passage we find ourselves in Simon's house.
Simon's mother-in-law is sick with a fever, which may not seem like
a big deal to our 21st century ears, but before antibiotics and
before modern medicine, a fever could be a scary thing. It probably
would have seemed like a big deal to first century ears, but in the
story, it wasn't much to Jesus… three verses, fever's gone
and Simon's mother-in-law is living into her role serving the guests
in her home as a giver of hospitality. And moving on…
because that's how Mark's gospel works… on to the next thing.
That evening, when the sun went down… Now, it was against the
rules to seek healing on the Sabbath, so people didn't come
immediately. They heard about Jesus and they wanted to know if what
they heard was true. If there was even a chance that it was true,
they wanted to be a part of it. So they prepared… they knew
they couldn't wait till morning. They didn't want to wait till
morning. They wanted to go as soon as they could. They watched the
sun go down over the horizon because sunset marked the end of the
Sabbath. And as soon as the Sabbath was over, the whole city showed
up at the door. I'm sure that the phrase the whole city
was
an exaggeration, but the scene is set: people crowding the door, all
wanting a piece of Jesus. There was something incredible going on.
Nothing draws people in like stories of change, stories of
transformation, stories of hope. So the people came as soon as they
could. They came expectant, ready to hear and ready to see, ready
to be healed and ready to be made clean, ready to become part of the
community again. There was excitement in the air. So much so that
Jesus got swept up in to a whirlwind of healing and exorcism. He
cured many who were sick with various diseases and he cast out many
demons. I just imagine the scene people being healed, people being
made whole, people pushing and crowding to try to get there sooner;
and the crowd grows. More people hearing about what was going on
and showing up hoping for their own miracle… Maybe by the
time they tucked in for the night, the whole town really was there.
I have no idea how they would have decided where to stop; how many people got in that night, how many people were helped. I don't know, but it couldn't have been everyone who came. I imagine people lined up, camping out in the street sure that tomorrow morning they'd get their chance to see Jesus and they'd get their chance to be healed too.
But then we get a little curve-ball in Mark's gospel. In the morning Jesus is nowhere to be found. The people who need help are still there, looking for him and the disciples are getting anxious because they don't want to have to answer to all the people who expect him and all the people who have deep needs to be healed: there's sure to be disappointment, I'd be afraid there would be a riot. But in the midst of the whirlwind of activity that's the beginning of Mark's gospel, Jesus left early in the morning.
In this day and age, it seems like our calendars are always full.
It seems like we all have so much to do… so much that we have
to do, so much that we want to do, so much that we feel like we
should do and even more that we feel like we could do if time
allowed… which it almost never does. People who hear this
story tend to line up in two categories. One reaction is, How
dare he go away…there are so many people to help… how
can he help some of them and not help others? It's just not
right.
I see this as something like the disciple's reaction.
The other reaction, which may be even more common in our time goes
something like, Wouldn't it be nice if I could get away…
to leave the busyness and trouble behind for just a few moments.
And that's the point where we start praying. God, give me a
break, please let me get away.
But Jesus wasn't on an escape
retreat or a vacation type of get-away. He didn't go to the beach.
He went to a deserted place. In Greek, it's the same word as
wilderness. A few weeks ago I mentioned that whenever we
hear wilderness
in our scripture, we have to keep in mind the
story of the Hebrew people. Wilderness is the place where the
people of Israel wandered for 40 years. It was the place where they
learned to trust that God would provide and the place where they
learned to follow God's lead. Jesus didn't go away to get away. He
went away to a place where he expected to meet God. When I read
this story, I see an internal struggle going on in Jesus. He
recognized that healing people and casting out unclean spirits was
good. He knew he was helping a lot of people… based on the
energy and excitement of the night before, it would have been
relatively easy to stay and to make a name for himself as the
compassionate healer of Capernaum. But he wasn't sure that was
God's call for him.
So rather than remain in Capernaum doing what was good, he went away. He took a step out into the wilderness, expecting to meet God and want to discern his call. In our culture, discernment is usually understood as a thoughtful and deliberate decision making process. But in the Christian understanding, discernment isn't primarily about making decisions. Don't get me wrong… decisions do often come from discernment, but that's not the primary goal. In our tradition discernment is the prayer-filled practice of allowing our desires to be aligned with God's desires, allowing our will to be aligned with God's will and then allowing that to become the foundation from which our decisions are made. Jesus went into the wilderness to draw close to God and ask the question… God, what is your deepest desire for me? What am I here for?
The disciples looked for Jesus. All morning they hunted…
they already had his agenda planned. After all, it was obvious to
them what he should do… There were still so many people who
needed help right there in Capernaum. But when they found him,
Jesus said, Let's go somewhere else, so that I can proclaim the
message there too, because that's what I came to do.
He went
out seeking God, seeking vision, seeking clarity. The last verse of
our first scripture reading today said, Those who wait for the
Lord shall renew their strength
and that's exactly what
happened. Jesus found strength and a renewed sense of mission.
This is why I've come: to proclaim the message. He came into Mark's
gospel proclaiming The time has come. The kingdom of God has
drawn near. Repent and believe the good news.
His call wasn't
to become Jesus, the healer of Capernaum, as good and as helpful as
that would have been… his call was to become Jesus, the
Christ, the savior of the world, to proclaim that the kingdom of God
has drawn near and to show us how to live it. It really is amazing
that sometimes doing something good stands in the way of doing what
is best. Getting away
to pray and to discern can help us see
that distinction so that we can stand on the foundation of what we
understand God's desire for us to be.
The call to discernment is a call we can all hear on a variety of levels, and today I have two invitations regarding discernment for you.
The first is an invitation to discernment as a community. Together, we, The United Parish of Bowie, are a congregation of God's people and we are called to something... Our mission statement reads: United in Christ, our mission: to serve. It is a clear and compelling statement. In fact, when I first read about this church, that mission statement was one of the things that drew me here. But I haven't been here all that long, and one of the things I've been realizing lately is that I'm not sure that I know what the mission statement means to all of you. Who is united? What does it mean to serve? Who do we serve? How do we serve? So the first invitation to discernment is partly a plea to help me understand as you understand: What is God's deepest desire for us as a church? What are we here for? What does our mission statement mean? How do we live it? I'd invite you to spend a little bit of time prayerfully reflecting on those questions over the next few days, jot down your thoughts on a note or an email and send them to me, please. It will go a long way in helping me and the board to discern where we as a faith community are being led.
The second, is an invitation to discernment as individuals because
all of us have something we're dealing with. In one way or another,
we're caught up in our own whirlwind of action… that's the
way life works… one thing leads to another which leads to
another. No space to stop, no space to think, and when we're so
engrossed in trying to keep up, it's sometimes hard to remember
where we're going… It's sometimes hard to know if we're even
headed the right direction. But discernment starts in us when
we go away,
expecting to meet God. So I'd invite you
to go away.
Even if going away
is as simple as
turning off the radio in the car for a few minutes on your commute,
even if going away
means staying up for an extra ten minutes
before you go to bed without a book or the TV. Do whatever it takes
to go away
to where you expect to meet God. Where you can
let go of the shoulds,
and let go of the have-tos,
and
let go of the if I could only…
Ask the
question, God, what is your deepest desire for me?
And then
listen, pray, and trust. Because God is gracious and merciful, the
Holy Spirit lives within each of us and God's deepest desire is
always that which is best for us and best for the world we live in.
Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland on February 8, 2009 at the United Parish of Bowie.
© 2009 Daniel Holland
