After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. 4 And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
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A week from today, I will be boarding a ship and sailing the western Caribbean. It is going to be a wonderful vacation, travelling with my sister.. But in many ways, it is also a dream; someone there to make the beds up in the morning and take them down at night; someone else who will cook and serve and clean up all the meals; as a long-time customer, a private lounge where breakfast, evening hors d’oeuvres and drinks are served; interesting ports, formal nights, and being spoiled completely. For the people who work on those ships, it is real life, and not easy; for us, it’s a dream. Coming back to reality can be a real shock.
Well, if you hadn’t guessed by now, let me just say I love to cruise. In cruisers’ lingo there is a term jokingly called PCD, or Post-Cruise Depression. The joke goes that the only way to live with it is to book another cruise so you can look forward to something. It may sound funny, but depending on the experience, it can really be hard to come back to earth.
I don’t use this story to trivialise what we call mountaintop experiences, but the aftermath is the same. It is so unreal, so good, that coming back “down” is hard.
So what is this transfiguration business? What’s the point? We have some disciples supposedly seeing both Moses and Elijah. How did the disciples know the two figures with Jesus were Moses and Elijah?
Well, we could say it was the story teller’s way of showing that Jesus was really God’s son, and was now the sole authority for God on earth. Moses and Elijah represented the law and the prophets, the very heart of belief for the Jews. It may well be that Mark inserted Moses and Elijah into the text to make the point, that the law and the prophets came together and were incarnated in the person of Jesus.
But maybe that wraps it all up a little too neatly. Maybe we need to wrestle with this passage just a little. We can’t just assume that what we think it says, is it what it really says. Words and their meanings change, the story is set in a period of history about which we know a little, - but not everything. Mark and Matthew are the only two Gospels which mention this experience at all, and there is lots of scholarly literature which would give us ten sermons at least. This isn’t a scholarly sermon.
What would you think if you saw a person’s appearance change “from the inside out”, right before your eyes. “His clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them”. Clearly the vision is beyond description with mere human words.
There is a theory in some quarters that each human gives off light, an aura. In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation supposedly surrounding a person or object. For example, in religious art, people of particular power or holiness are depicted with a halo around the head, or some light around the body.
Then too, the Celtic peoples talk about the “thin places” where the connection to the spiritual plane is thinnest, and easiest to pass through. All we know in this story is that Jesus and the disciples went up a mountain. Tradition has that it was Mount Tabor, but in fact the mountain is never named. Maybe it doesn’t matter what mountain it was - mountains in the Bible always figure in important events. Was this one of those thin places, where Jesus and the disciples were so in touch with the spiritual that they had this experience? And after it was over they sat there shaking, and asking each other “What just happened?”.
Some of you, I am sure, have had something of the same kind of experience. Maybe you had something “other worldly” occur in your life that might be called a mystical experience, or a “mountain top” experience. You may not have wanted to share it with anyone. You couldn’t find the words to describe it, or you didn’t quite know what had happened yourself; you were afraid someone would think you were crazy. It’s funny isn’t it? We are a church, we are willing to say we believe some of the most unbelievable things, and yet we are afraid to speak about spiritual experiences because people might laugh at us, or call us crazy. We come away from such experiences shaking, saying to ourselves “What just happened?” We not only don’t want to talk about such experiences, but if we do tell someone, we ask them to keep it private, not to tell anyone else.
Then there is the other reality - that in comparison to the brightness, the high of the experience, the real world - the one we live in every day - seems drab in comparison. We want to run back into the experience. Or we are completely stunned and can’t figure what to do next - and we want to hold on.
That was how Peter reacted...wanting to stay in the brightness and colour and clarity of vision of the experience. The wondrous experience didn’t end with the vision. A cloud came down and they heard a voice - or at least they thought they did. And then the cloud lifted; Moses and Elijah were nowhere to be seen, and Jesus appeared once again in his probably dusty clothes. It was a colossal let-down. Mystical encounter with God - over. Can’t hold onto it. Nothing to do now but go back down the mountain into reality.
In every single one of the sermons I’ve heard and written on this text, the major focus is on the reaction of the disciples. It’s almost as if we assume Jesus knew what was going to happen, or made it happen, or made it some kind of teaching. The text doesn’t tell us that, though. The text says that Jesus and the disciples went up a mountain, and this experience happened to all of them. The text tells us that when it was over Jesus told them not to talk about it. In fact it looks to me like Jesus was a little stunned as well. Oh, he had a couple of similar experiences before - fasting in the desert, and then his baptism. But I can tell you from personal experience that no one goes out of his or her way to have one of those experiences. They are too dramatic and intense, and frankly draining. Jesus recognised the nature of the experience, but he also knew what the reaction would be if they all came running down the mountain saying they had seen Moses and Elijah, and seen Jesus talking to them, and shining like the brightest of suns. I have a feeling that despite his previous experience, Jesus was also saying “What just happened?” HE didn’t see Moses and Elijah - at least the text doesn’t say he did, it says the disciples did. And it says their vision was covered by a cloud. So we don’t actually know what happened to Jesus.
When we are fortunate enough to have those kinds of experiences that let us know there is something beyond our earthly world, experiences that leave us wanting to stay in the moment, rather than return to reality, we have to realise that we can’t package them or hold onto them to re-experience whenever we wish. We can’t come out of a prayer time in which God seemed especially close and hold onto that feeling. I think Jesus was wise enough to know that, even if the disciples didn’t. And sometimes the learnings from those experiences take years.. something inside us will shift and we have a moment of insight again, a clearer understanding of the experience.
So here we are, down from the mountain, back from the dream, back to living in a real world that seems rather mundane. What now?
The disciples caught a glimpse of what the realm of God would be like. Jesus kept telling them that the realm was at hand, and here was the view. Then they had to come back to what the world is, and live in it. There was a point. They were being called to come back to the ordinary world, to bring to it something extraordinary. They had to learn how to translate the wonder and insight of their experience into the ordinary day to day world.
It is what we are called to as well. Who are we? What is the vision of the realm? How do we retain the inspiration and joy as we return to the ordinary? Hold these questions, as we begin the walk along the road of Lent, to the cross and the tomb, and beyond. May it be so.
Sources:
1. With thanks to Rev. Beverly Snedeker for inspiration for this sermon.
2. What Just Happened? February 22, 2009 Transfiguration Sunday
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
“Who are the Lepers?” Mark 1:40-45 Sixth Sunday of Epiphany February 12, 2012 Humber United Church
Rev. Nancy Price, in Nova Scotia, tells the story of a young doctor treating a child with AIDS. It was clear this child was suffering, was alone, and because of the child's physical condition would not know love or care. This young doctor hugged and held the child. His family, and even the nurses, chastised him for showing affection and care to this terrified child.
Now, it is clear that AIDS can’t be contracted by hugging someone - but we still treat those suffering as if they are lepers. Remember the proposals to take all the AIDS sufferers and isolate them on a island? Separate everyone from the mainstream population?
Remember the pictures of Princess Diana, hugging people with AIDS, with sick and dying children on her lap? When commenting about Diana, Nelson Mandela said:
"When she stroked the limbs of someone with leprosy, or sat on the bed of a man with HIV/AIDS and held his hand, she transformed public attitudes and improved the life chances of such people; people felt if a British princess can go to a ward with HIV patients, then there's nothing to be superstitious about."
The Biblical word for leprosy includes several types of skin disease, including what today is known as Hansen’s Disease, a kind of tuberculosis of the body. Did you know that today there are about 100 cases in the US each year, and as it becomes more drug resistant, chances are there will be an increase in diagnoses. Leprosy was also a word used for psoriasis, acne, rosacea, liver-coloured birthmarks. Culturally, if the outside was blemished, it was assumed that the “inside” was blemished too. Sin was seen as the root cause of all forms of leprosy. I’m sorry to say that attitude still persists today in some circles.
Remember the stories about sacrifices in the temple? The people believed, because the religious leaders told them, that every animal for sacrifice had to be completely unblemished. Purity laws required it. Someone who was considered unclean was cut off from the community, not allowed to worship with them.
A leper approached Jesus. We don’t know what the skin condition was, or how long he had it. What seems clear is that he was not willing to remain isolated from human contact or human community. He went to Jesus and issued what was tantamount to a challenge. He said to Jesus “If you choose, you can make me clean.”. Some translations say Jesus was angry; some translate the word as ‘indignant’. Some translate is as compassion. I have chosen to see Jesus as angry at religious and cultural attitudes which cut off certain people, and compassionate towards the man who seeks him out.
Note that the man does not directly say to Jesus “make my body whole and unblemished.” He says “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” I see it as a challenge to set aside the norm of society which isolated people who were ill, and to accept them into the mainstream despite their disease.
‘Especially if the translation "declare me clean" is used, this leper is approaching Jesus as a priest -- one who had the power and authority to declare lepers clean and thus restore them to normal society. But the leper also knows that by touching him, Jesus makes himself unclean in the eyes of the religious authorities.
Myers (Binding the Strong Man) writes about this: "The leper appears aware that his approach to Jesus, a nonpriest, was itself in violation of the symbolic system, which is why he gives Jesus a chance to refuse. It is almost as if he says, "You could declare me clean if only you would dare (1:40)."
But there is something more. Our translation reads “reached out his hand”, but a closer translation says Jesus took the man to him. In other words, he hugged the man. By hugging the man, even by touching him, Jesus himself then became “unclean”. So Jesus also could not go into the normal places - synagogue, marketplace. He had to remain isolated and outside as well.
Jesus touched the leper. He left the safety of his ‘clean’ world and entered the world of the leper with the simple act of touching him.
In a couple of weeks, I will be in the city of of Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia. In the Old City, built in roughly 1535, is the Cathedral of San Pedro Claver, a Jesuit known as the Patron Saint of Slaves, who went to Colombia in 1610 as a student priest. Cartagena was a main centre for the slave trade in the Americas for over 100 years. Ten thousand slaves entered the port each year, from West Africa, under conditions so foul that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Pope Paul III condemned the slave trade, Pius IX called it “supreme villainy" but it continued to flourish. Claver declared himself "the slave of the Negroes forever."
“As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and miserable passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love. Claver understood that concrete service like the distributing of medicine, food or brandy to his black brothers and sisters could be as effective a communication of the word of God as mere verbal preaching. As Peter Claver often said, "We must speak to them with our hands before we try to speak to them with our lips."
We must speak with our hands before we try to speak with our lips.
So I find myself asking who are the lepers among us today?
People with HIV-AIDS are still seen as “lepers”. Even though you cannot get the disease by touching someone, we still behave as if we can. There have been proposals to round up those with AIDS and put them in one place, a kind of modern-day leper colony. The virus and the disease are spreading throughout the African population particularly. Children are being born with the disease.
Today is Autism Sunday, a day in which we recognise Autism Spectrum Disorder, which affects the function and development of the brain. Autistic individuals see, hear and sense things differently - and as a result their ability to reason, communicate and interact with others is affected. As a spectrum disorder, there is a wide variation in its manifestation. It is not a mental disorder, nor is it a form of mental. It is still not well understood. Yet individuals with autism are still treated as if they are somehow not quite right. I found myself wondering if the man Jesus healed in the synagogue might have been autistic - back then an autistic individual might be seen as being possessed.
These are a couple of examples - but there are more. I encourage you to think about who might be seen as a leper among us.
What does it mean, in this day and age, to be “clean”? Is cleanliness next to godliness? If we shower every day and make sure we don’t have a bad odour, no pimples or acne, no chapped skin - are we godly people? Is that all it takes to be clean inside? Or is it the other way around? Is it that being loving and generous people (godly people) makes us clean inside? Is outer cleanliness an indication of what kind of people we really are?
A few years ago in the Toronto Star, there was a story about a native man who allowed his two children to freeze to death. In petitioning the judge, one of the elders commented that the man should be restored to health, that is, healed - within the circle of the community - that in fact to exclude him from the community would prevent his healing, and hence the community could not be healed either. In this understanding, if someone is unwell and separated from the community, the only way to heal the community is bring the person back within the circle so that all can be healed.
And this is the other part of the story. In reaching out, holding and touching the leper, Jesus did what the priests in the temple have the power to do, but refuse to do - he has restored this man to community. In the same way, in reaching out and touching those who are considered “lepers” today - those lepers are restored to life in community. Healing takes place - perhaps the healing of the disease if that is possible, but certainly the healing of the soul. The community is also healed. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Healing and Touch by Rev. Fran Ota February 14, 2009
2. Rev. Randy Quinn, from the sermon “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness”.
3. Rev. Nancy Price, from the Midrash discussion list
4. Nelson Mandela, November 2, 2002
5. Brian P. Stoffregen Exegetical Notes, at CrossMarks Christian Resources http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark1x40.htm
6. St. Peter Claver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Claver
7. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/587620
Now, it is clear that AIDS can’t be contracted by hugging someone - but we still treat those suffering as if they are lepers. Remember the proposals to take all the AIDS sufferers and isolate them on a island? Separate everyone from the mainstream population?
Remember the pictures of Princess Diana, hugging people with AIDS, with sick and dying children on her lap? When commenting about Diana, Nelson Mandela said:
"When she stroked the limbs of someone with leprosy, or sat on the bed of a man with HIV/AIDS and held his hand, she transformed public attitudes and improved the life chances of such people; people felt if a British princess can go to a ward with HIV patients, then there's nothing to be superstitious about."
The Biblical word for leprosy includes several types of skin disease, including what today is known as Hansen’s Disease, a kind of tuberculosis of the body. Did you know that today there are about 100 cases in the US each year, and as it becomes more drug resistant, chances are there will be an increase in diagnoses. Leprosy was also a word used for psoriasis, acne, rosacea, liver-coloured birthmarks. Culturally, if the outside was blemished, it was assumed that the “inside” was blemished too. Sin was seen as the root cause of all forms of leprosy. I’m sorry to say that attitude still persists today in some circles.
Remember the stories about sacrifices in the temple? The people believed, because the religious leaders told them, that every animal for sacrifice had to be completely unblemished. Purity laws required it. Someone who was considered unclean was cut off from the community, not allowed to worship with them.
A leper approached Jesus. We don’t know what the skin condition was, or how long he had it. What seems clear is that he was not willing to remain isolated from human contact or human community. He went to Jesus and issued what was tantamount to a challenge. He said to Jesus “If you choose, you can make me clean.”. Some translations say Jesus was angry; some translate the word as ‘indignant’. Some translate is as compassion. I have chosen to see Jesus as angry at religious and cultural attitudes which cut off certain people, and compassionate towards the man who seeks him out.
Note that the man does not directly say to Jesus “make my body whole and unblemished.” He says “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” I see it as a challenge to set aside the norm of society which isolated people who were ill, and to accept them into the mainstream despite their disease.
‘Especially if the translation "declare me clean" is used, this leper is approaching Jesus as a priest -- one who had the power and authority to declare lepers clean and thus restore them to normal society. But the leper also knows that by touching him, Jesus makes himself unclean in the eyes of the religious authorities.
Myers (Binding the Strong Man) writes about this: "The leper appears aware that his approach to Jesus, a nonpriest, was itself in violation of the symbolic system, which is why he gives Jesus a chance to refuse. It is almost as if he says, "You could declare me clean if only you would dare (1:40)."
But there is something more. Our translation reads “reached out his hand”, but a closer translation says Jesus took the man to him. In other words, he hugged the man. By hugging the man, even by touching him, Jesus himself then became “unclean”. So Jesus also could not go into the normal places - synagogue, marketplace. He had to remain isolated and outside as well.
Jesus touched the leper. He left the safety of his ‘clean’ world and entered the world of the leper with the simple act of touching him.
In a couple of weeks, I will be in the city of of Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia. In the Old City, built in roughly 1535, is the Cathedral of San Pedro Claver, a Jesuit known as the Patron Saint of Slaves, who went to Colombia in 1610 as a student priest. Cartagena was a main centre for the slave trade in the Americas for over 100 years. Ten thousand slaves entered the port each year, from West Africa, under conditions so foul that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Pope Paul III condemned the slave trade, Pius IX called it “supreme villainy" but it continued to flourish. Claver declared himself "the slave of the Negroes forever."
“As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and miserable passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love. Claver understood that concrete service like the distributing of medicine, food or brandy to his black brothers and sisters could be as effective a communication of the word of God as mere verbal preaching. As Peter Claver often said, "We must speak to them with our hands before we try to speak to them with our lips."
We must speak with our hands before we try to speak with our lips.
So I find myself asking who are the lepers among us today?
People with HIV-AIDS are still seen as “lepers”. Even though you cannot get the disease by touching someone, we still behave as if we can. There have been proposals to round up those with AIDS and put them in one place, a kind of modern-day leper colony. The virus and the disease are spreading throughout the African population particularly. Children are being born with the disease.
Today is Autism Sunday, a day in which we recognise Autism Spectrum Disorder, which affects the function and development of the brain. Autistic individuals see, hear and sense things differently - and as a result their ability to reason, communicate and interact with others is affected. As a spectrum disorder, there is a wide variation in its manifestation. It is not a mental disorder, nor is it a form of mental. It is still not well understood. Yet individuals with autism are still treated as if they are somehow not quite right. I found myself wondering if the man Jesus healed in the synagogue might have been autistic - back then an autistic individual might be seen as being possessed.
These are a couple of examples - but there are more. I encourage you to think about who might be seen as a leper among us.
What does it mean, in this day and age, to be “clean”? Is cleanliness next to godliness? If we shower every day and make sure we don’t have a bad odour, no pimples or acne, no chapped skin - are we godly people? Is that all it takes to be clean inside? Or is it the other way around? Is it that being loving and generous people (godly people) makes us clean inside? Is outer cleanliness an indication of what kind of people we really are?
A few years ago in the Toronto Star, there was a story about a native man who allowed his two children to freeze to death. In petitioning the judge, one of the elders commented that the man should be restored to health, that is, healed - within the circle of the community - that in fact to exclude him from the community would prevent his healing, and hence the community could not be healed either. In this understanding, if someone is unwell and separated from the community, the only way to heal the community is bring the person back within the circle so that all can be healed.
And this is the other part of the story. In reaching out, holding and touching the leper, Jesus did what the priests in the temple have the power to do, but refuse to do - he has restored this man to community. In the same way, in reaching out and touching those who are considered “lepers” today - those lepers are restored to life in community. Healing takes place - perhaps the healing of the disease if that is possible, but certainly the healing of the soul. The community is also healed. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Healing and Touch by Rev. Fran Ota February 14, 2009
2. Rev. Randy Quinn, from the sermon “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness”.
3. Rev. Nancy Price, from the Midrash discussion list
4. Nelson Mandela, November 2, 2002
5. Brian P. Stoffregen Exegetical Notes, at CrossMarks Christian Resources http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark1x40.htm
6. St. Peter Claver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Claver
7. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/587620
Saturday, February 4, 2012
“All Things to All People?” a sermon based on Mark 1:29-39 February 5, 2012 Humber United Church
As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her right away. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon - possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
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One of my favourite cartoonists has always been Lynn Johnston, who created “For Better or for Worse”. In particular I remember one where Elly is sick in bed with a fever and cold, bags under her eyes, hair sticking out all over and looking as miserable as anyone can be. As she is lying there she is thinking “Let’s see - Michael will be home from school at 4, Elizabeth will be home at 11:30, and John will be home at 5:30. That means I have an hour to be sick.”
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Second century tradition ascribes the Gospel to Mark the Evangelist (also known as John Mark), the companion of Peter. It is supposedly based on the memories of Peter. However, the author uses a variety of sources including a passion narrative, collections of miracle stories, apocalyptic traditions, and sayings. Some of these sources were already written, some were oral. It was written in Greek for a Greek audience, shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, possibly in Syria. It is generally agreed that this is the earliest of the Gospels, but that the author is unknown.
In some ways, I wonder if it’s really important who wrote the Gospel. I do think, though, that it’s incredibly important that someone thought all of these things should be written down. One of the most interesting features of Mark’s Gospel is that we get no history, no poetic story about a baby as Luke does, no genealogy as Matthew does, and no theologising like John. He starts right in. “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.”
Mark’s Gospel moves at blinding speed. Jesus arrives with heaven-splitting force, deals with evil in the wilderness, announces the realm of God, chooses disciples and heals a man with a psychiatric illness in the blink of an eye. Everything in Mark happens “immediately”. Within the very first chapter, Jesus has set the framework for his ministry and for all those who would follow him. He moves from the synagogue, to the home, and out into the world.
Beginning with last week’s story of Jesus healing right there in the synagogue, we see that Jesus really doesn’t care where he is, and he really doesn’t care about the religious authorities’ interpretations of Sabbath law. He will heal those who are near him – whether it is a man in the synagogue, a woman in her home, people on the streets, or even in lands far away.
So today’s reading offers the second and third parts of that framework - the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, even as he is a guest in the house. She is ill with a fever, and the house is full of men who somehow don’t know what to do. They’re all hungry, but no one knows quite what to do. It’s still the Sabbath, which means that work should not take place, and (as we learn in many of the stories) even healing on the Sabbath is a violation, supposedly, of God’s law.
Jesus isn’t interested in the meal. He’s concerned about the sick woman upstairs. So he goes to her, and we see a healing touch - he takes her hand. Mark tells us she got up and began to serve them. Peter’s mother-in-law is generally understood to be the first deaconess in the new group. - and it’s a clue that this isn’t so much a story about a healing, as it is an example of the whole of Jesus’ ministry. Simon’s mother-in-law doesn’t see her role as serving a bunch of inept men, she interprets it as the beginning of *her* ministry. The first person to serve Jesus is a woman.
After the meal is over, a crowd begins to gather outside the house. Mark, with his typical exaggeration, says “The whole city was gathered around the door,”!
Well, we know that whenever there have been big events in the news, there is a media frenzy around the home of the families involved – sometimes it’s the home of the victims, sometimes it’s the perpetrators. Peter may have felt as if the entire world was standing outside his door, but Jesus meets the people, listens to their story, and offers a blessing. Like the meal earlier in the day, he kept his focus on the people around him.
Jesus is then fed and goes off to pray. The people keep coming and keep looking for him, and they are selfishly seeking him out so he can meet more of their own needs. Here we find the third piece of the framework for Jesus’ ministry. He sees the needs of people elsewhere, and leaves for other towns and places where healing is needed.
In a few sentences, Mark has given us all the things he considered most important about Jesus. The realm of God is lived out in three parts - synagogue, home, and outside the doors. The synagogue is part of the spiritual life, but always involves ministry, regardless of who the people are. There is no “us” and “them” inside the church. Jesus’ healing of the man in the synagogue demonstrates that to the fullest. Jesus demonstrates, though, that ministry is also outside the doors - right where people are, right where they live - and not necessarily the people *we* think need ministry.
Too often in the church, our primary paradigm is to meet our own needs. We ask what people want in worship, for instance, rather than asking what God wants for our worship. We talk about bringing more people into our church so we can pay our bills, instead of asking how we can help people meet their very real needs. The reality today is that there are a whole lot of people who say they are “spiritual but not religious.” What they are really saying is that they don’t find what feeds them inside our churches. In 1995, Canada’s leading religious sociologist, Dr. Reginald Bibby, wrote a book called “There’s Got to be More”, based on a study he had done of those people who had dropped away from church. He said people have three kinds of needs: spiritual, social and relational. When asked if they would go to church, those people answered “I would, if I thought it would be good for me and my family.” But they know that when churches talk about getting more people in, they care more about paying bills than about meeting needs, or real healing.
Dr. Diana Butler Bass, in her book “Christianity for the Rest of Us”, talks about churches which have transformed themselves into vital and living places of healing and ministry, and how that happened. Calvin Presbyterian Church in western Pennsylvania developed a healing prayer ministry. But they said their healing is not personal or inward. One member says “Incorporating spirituality of prayer and trying to find God in all places has given life to the whole mission of living each other. Through that love, you spread the Gospel. Another one commented “Healing prayer is an attempt to reach needs away from the church, not necessarily here in the building.”
Simply trying to convince people they should come to our church, or come back to church, won’t work if we figure our church is fine just the way it is, and if they come they will see it. That route means WE don’t need to change, we want them to change. But if we want our churches to be vital places of spiritual life, we have to offer something that is meaningful to those people who don’t come. We need to look through the eyes of Jesus, and to do that, we have to shift the way we think. Perhaps most significantly, we have to find a way to allow God to use us to meet the needs of others.
And then what we do can become an answer to the prayers of others, as the good news is experienced in their lives and in our midst. What we do becomes the living embodiment of the ministry of the one we follow. Thanks be to God.
Sources:
1. Seeing the Needs of Others sermon based on Mark 1:29-39 by Rev. Randy L Quinn
2. Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighbourhood Church if Transforming the Faith. Diana Butler Bass. HarperCollins, 2006. P. 106.
3. Barclay, William. The Gospel of Mark (The Daily Study Bible Series). Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark
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One of my favourite cartoonists has always been Lynn Johnston, who created “For Better or for Worse”. In particular I remember one where Elly is sick in bed with a fever and cold, bags under her eyes, hair sticking out all over and looking as miserable as anyone can be. As she is lying there she is thinking “Let’s see - Michael will be home from school at 4, Elizabeth will be home at 11:30, and John will be home at 5:30. That means I have an hour to be sick.”
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Second century tradition ascribes the Gospel to Mark the Evangelist (also known as John Mark), the companion of Peter. It is supposedly based on the memories of Peter. However, the author uses a variety of sources including a passion narrative, collections of miracle stories, apocalyptic traditions, and sayings. Some of these sources were already written, some were oral. It was written in Greek for a Greek audience, shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, possibly in Syria. It is generally agreed that this is the earliest of the Gospels, but that the author is unknown.
In some ways, I wonder if it’s really important who wrote the Gospel. I do think, though, that it’s incredibly important that someone thought all of these things should be written down. One of the most interesting features of Mark’s Gospel is that we get no history, no poetic story about a baby as Luke does, no genealogy as Matthew does, and no theologising like John. He starts right in. “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.”
Mark’s Gospel moves at blinding speed. Jesus arrives with heaven-splitting force, deals with evil in the wilderness, announces the realm of God, chooses disciples and heals a man with a psychiatric illness in the blink of an eye. Everything in Mark happens “immediately”. Within the very first chapter, Jesus has set the framework for his ministry and for all those who would follow him. He moves from the synagogue, to the home, and out into the world.
Beginning with last week’s story of Jesus healing right there in the synagogue, we see that Jesus really doesn’t care where he is, and he really doesn’t care about the religious authorities’ interpretations of Sabbath law. He will heal those who are near him – whether it is a man in the synagogue, a woman in her home, people on the streets, or even in lands far away.
So today’s reading offers the second and third parts of that framework - the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, even as he is a guest in the house. She is ill with a fever, and the house is full of men who somehow don’t know what to do. They’re all hungry, but no one knows quite what to do. It’s still the Sabbath, which means that work should not take place, and (as we learn in many of the stories) even healing on the Sabbath is a violation, supposedly, of God’s law.
Jesus isn’t interested in the meal. He’s concerned about the sick woman upstairs. So he goes to her, and we see a healing touch - he takes her hand. Mark tells us she got up and began to serve them. Peter’s mother-in-law is generally understood to be the first deaconess in the new group. - and it’s a clue that this isn’t so much a story about a healing, as it is an example of the whole of Jesus’ ministry. Simon’s mother-in-law doesn’t see her role as serving a bunch of inept men, she interprets it as the beginning of *her* ministry. The first person to serve Jesus is a woman.
After the meal is over, a crowd begins to gather outside the house. Mark, with his typical exaggeration, says “The whole city was gathered around the door,”!
Well, we know that whenever there have been big events in the news, there is a media frenzy around the home of the families involved – sometimes it’s the home of the victims, sometimes it’s the perpetrators. Peter may have felt as if the entire world was standing outside his door, but Jesus meets the people, listens to their story, and offers a blessing. Like the meal earlier in the day, he kept his focus on the people around him.
Jesus is then fed and goes off to pray. The people keep coming and keep looking for him, and they are selfishly seeking him out so he can meet more of their own needs. Here we find the third piece of the framework for Jesus’ ministry. He sees the needs of people elsewhere, and leaves for other towns and places where healing is needed.
In a few sentences, Mark has given us all the things he considered most important about Jesus. The realm of God is lived out in three parts - synagogue, home, and outside the doors. The synagogue is part of the spiritual life, but always involves ministry, regardless of who the people are. There is no “us” and “them” inside the church. Jesus’ healing of the man in the synagogue demonstrates that to the fullest. Jesus demonstrates, though, that ministry is also outside the doors - right where people are, right where they live - and not necessarily the people *we* think need ministry.
Too often in the church, our primary paradigm is to meet our own needs. We ask what people want in worship, for instance, rather than asking what God wants for our worship. We talk about bringing more people into our church so we can pay our bills, instead of asking how we can help people meet their very real needs. The reality today is that there are a whole lot of people who say they are “spiritual but not religious.” What they are really saying is that they don’t find what feeds them inside our churches. In 1995, Canada’s leading religious sociologist, Dr. Reginald Bibby, wrote a book called “There’s Got to be More”, based on a study he had done of those people who had dropped away from church. He said people have three kinds of needs: spiritual, social and relational. When asked if they would go to church, those people answered “I would, if I thought it would be good for me and my family.” But they know that when churches talk about getting more people in, they care more about paying bills than about meeting needs, or real healing.
Dr. Diana Butler Bass, in her book “Christianity for the Rest of Us”, talks about churches which have transformed themselves into vital and living places of healing and ministry, and how that happened. Calvin Presbyterian Church in western Pennsylvania developed a healing prayer ministry. But they said their healing is not personal or inward. One member says “Incorporating spirituality of prayer and trying to find God in all places has given life to the whole mission of living each other. Through that love, you spread the Gospel. Another one commented “Healing prayer is an attempt to reach needs away from the church, not necessarily here in the building.”
Simply trying to convince people they should come to our church, or come back to church, won’t work if we figure our church is fine just the way it is, and if they come they will see it. That route means WE don’t need to change, we want them to change. But if we want our churches to be vital places of spiritual life, we have to offer something that is meaningful to those people who don’t come. We need to look through the eyes of Jesus, and to do that, we have to shift the way we think. Perhaps most significantly, we have to find a way to allow God to use us to meet the needs of others.
And then what we do can become an answer to the prayers of others, as the good news is experienced in their lives and in our midst. What we do becomes the living embodiment of the ministry of the one we follow. Thanks be to God.
Sources:
1. Seeing the Needs of Others sermon based on Mark 1:29-39 by Rev. Randy L Quinn
2. Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighbourhood Church if Transforming the Faith. Diana Butler Bass. HarperCollins, 2006. P. 106.
3. Barclay, William. The Gospel of Mark (The Daily Study Bible Series). Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark
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