2012-02-05 Life Happens

LIFE HAPPENS

Scriptures:     Psalm 147:1-11, Mark 1:29-39

             Those of you with a slightly salacious or naughty turn of mind will recognize that the title of this sermon is a rather cleaner version of the word that usually appears before “happens”.  Actually, they are really quite opposites.  “Life happens” is a positive affirmation.  “S___ happens” is a way of focusing on all the negatives in our lives.  And as the gospel of John has Jesus saying to us:  “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (10:10)

            We are continuing to work our way through the first chapter of Mark in this Epiphany season, and our gospel passage today follows immediately on last week’s where Jesus brought an unclean spirit out of a man who came to him in the synagogue at Capernaum.  He is still very much in a healing mode, and the Biblical testimony is that he does this by casting out demons.  Again, as we said last week, not something that our modern 21^st century mind-set really wants to consider.  On the other hand, when we are sick – I mean really sick – doesn’t it often feel as though there is a demon inside us?  Perhaps what Jesus was dealing with is just a 1^st century way of saying what we 21^st century people also experience.

      David Wesley Reid reminds us of how often this happens in the Bible when he says:  “Life comes to life in the presence of God.  Elijah breathing life into a dead boy’s body.  Isaiah telling us to wait upon the Lord for renewal of strength. Paul doing whatever it takes to elicit the life-giving blessings of the gospel in the churchgoers of Corinth.  Jesus healing the sick and broken.  Again and again, the message is the same:  wherever God is, wherever Jesus is, life comes to life. Things will be all right.”

            Now, this, of course, is a most comforting thought to hold onto.  And Jesus is in our lives in order to give us comfort.  But as I’ve often said, one of the key paradoxes of our faith is that the task of Christianity in the world is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  (By the way, over the years I have attributed this quote to Harry Emerson Fosdick, but like most preachers, I guess, he must have quoted it in a sermon in order to make it relevant to Christianity.  I discovered on the Internet that it was first coined by the American humorist and journalist Finley Peter Dunne, who was using it in relationship to the power of the press, basically saying that in his time newspapers had become too powerful if they could both comfort and afflict in this way.  But I digress.)

            Today our focus is on the comforting part – the healing – although in a sense the fact that Jesus is here casting out demons means that he is dealing with those principalities and powers that would afflict us.  And the concern will be – as it should be for every sermon – to see how Jesus’ healing ministry here can help us in understanding how we can heal in Jesus’ name.

            Note the sense of urgency here:  “As soon as they left the synagogue…;” “…and they told him about her at once.”  You have this feeling with Mark that Jesus must be about his mission without a moment to waste and with a rush to get to the end – although the latter part of our lesson mitigates that somewhat (we’ll get to that pause in a little bit).  Also note that Jesus isn’t referenced by name in this passage; it is as though it is being told from the perspective of Peter (here still called Simon) – in fact, it is his mother-in-law who is the focal point.  This is speculative, but possibly Mark is using this healing story to bind Simon Peter closer to his Master, so that the betrayal at the end of the Gospel is all that much more dramatically striking.  In any case Jesus is healing a close relative of one of his closest disciples.  Here is a true rendering of that phrase that’s kicked around so often with such political purpose:  “family values”.  However, it is curious, isn’t it, that Simon Peter’s wife is not mentioned at all, and his mother-in-law is never named.  She was evidently the one who provided hospitality and ran the household for Simon.  But now she is so sick she can’t really undertake these tasks.  And so the story proceeds with such a gentle touch:  “He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.”  Kate Huey says, “Mark doesn’t mention the woman’s ‘faith,’ and he doesn’t say that Jesus spoke special words over the woman or that he did anything more dramatic than simply taking her by the hand. And yet, what a powerful gesture, one that brought her from ‘un-wholeness to ‘wholeness.’”  (We’ll return to this idea of “wholeness” next week.)

            Gentleness and power and authority:  these are Jesus’ stock-in-trade.  This is the picture Mark is painting for us of the one who is our Savior.  These attributes are why we follow – and what we would like to emulate.

            Why do we follow?  I like the way John Marks Hicks puts it, at least in part because it’s a nice alliteration:  “As we follow Jesus, we, too, must remember why we follow Jesus, that is, to herald and to heal.  We announce the presence of the kingdom of God and we demonstrate its presence through redemptive ministry.  By this we practice the kingdom of God.  We engage in healing and reconciling acts that reverse the curse in the world.  We are called to embody the kingdom of God now, in both word and deed.  The ministry of Jesus, which we follow, enact and embody, is both the heralding of good news and the enactment of that good news in the lives of people, in the brokenness of the world.”

            To return to Jesus and Simon’s mother-in-law:  here at the beginning of his ministry after some rather dramatic moments (the river Jordan and the sky being ripped open, an unclean spirit shrieking its way out of the man), Jesus’ first healing is accomplished through gentle, even tender, touch.  Many of you know (and have even experienced) that my wife is a practitioner of therapeutic touch, and it can sometimes be incredible how just the lightest of touch can bring relief from pain.  The Rev. Wanda Copeland, of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Elk River, MN, notes:  “Healing does not have to be super-sized.  It does not have to involve millions of people.  Jesus healed the world around him a little at a time. He restored bodies gently and intentionally and with all the compassion he carried.”

P.C. Ennis writes, “Love not expressed, love not felt, is difficult to trust.  Theologically speaking, that is the reason for incarnation.  God knew the human need for nearness.  Jesus is the incarnation of God’s love, which makes it all the more demanding (if frightening) to realize that for some people, we are the only Jesus they will ever meet.”  Think about that rather daunting question for a moment:  if you, and this church, and the people in it are “the only Jesus” some people “will ever meet”, would those people recognize Jesus in you? Would you want them to?

Remember that I said last week that Mark’s Jesus is one who takes action in order to demonstrate his mission to the world.  Here in this second healing story in the first chapter of Mark is such an action.  We, then, who are to follow Jesus, must needs become healers, too.  That’s the “comfort” part of “comfort and afflict”.  We offer the world a healing touch in Jesus’ name.

But now comes a bit of a twist to the narrative.  (Remember Paul Harvey:  “And now for the rest of the story.”  Sorry, I seem to be full of digressions today.)  Jesus has not only healed Peter’s mother-in-law but also a whole host of people who saw his power (Mark gives us an indelible picture:  “And the whole city was gathered around the door…..”  Must have been exhausting.  So, what does he do the following morning?  “…he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”  That marvelous Bible story-teller Charles F. Stanley sets the scene: 

“Even though He was the sinless Son of God…He made prayer a priority…..  After teaching all morning in the synagogue, He went to Peter’s house and healed the disciple’s mother-in-law.  Word of the miracle quickly spread, and when evening came, the whole city gathered at the door.  Yet even after a busy night of casting out demons and healing the sick, Jesus got up early in the morning while it was still dark and went away to a secluded place to pray.  Soon Peter and the others found Him, and another demanding day began.”

            Jesus needed to re-charge his batteries.  And he did it through prayer.  We can relate to that.  Those of you familiar with the Meyers-Briggs Personality Inventory with its personality types will recall that a strong “I” personality (which stands for “introvert”) gets energy drained when he or she is around people too much and has to go off to be by him or herself for awhile in order to get energy back.  On the basis of this passage, we could surmise that Jesus was such an “I” personality.  But his chosen mode to get re-vitalized was to be in conversation with his heavenly parent – to wrestle and struggle through prayer with the questions about direction that he would have here at the start of his ministry.  We need that kind of re-vitalization that prayer can bring as well.

            Simon Peter and the others go out looking for him.  They are acting sort of like handlers in the modern political sense – “c’mon, Jesus, we don’t care how weary you are; it’s time to get back to your healing ministry that really wows the crowds.”  As he is portrayed throughout the gospels, Peter just doesn’t quite get it – until the very end.  He doesn’t see that Jesus is about much more than healing.

Dianne Bergant gets to the heart of the matter:  “Jesus realizes that the crowds are coming because they want miracles.  He, on the other hand, wants crowds to come to hear the gospel he will preach, yet he still performs miracles. The demons seem to know who he is and what he is about, while his followers and the crowds he attracts misunderstand him and his mission. Everything in this episode is complicated.”  And we are still only in the first chapter.

The Psalmist extols the wonder of what God is doing:  “The Lord builds up Jerusalem….. [God] heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds….. The Lord lifts up the downtrodden….. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving…..”  In other words, the Psalmist is saying, God is giving life, and giving it abundantly.  Jesus is showing us how God gives life and how all we have to do is accept this great gift. 

And so life happens.  It happened to Peter’s mother-in-law and to a city-load of people gathered outside her house and to those whom Jesus would go on to heal and to whom he would preach his gospel.  And it happens to us.  When we experience the kind of life God and Jesus offer us, it is up to us to respond.  We do represent Jesus to those we see and meet, and in so doing we cast out the demons that are inside of us and of others so that they and we may know that life happens to all of us.

 

 

Amen.                       

 

                                                Dave Pomeroy                     

                                                First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ

                                                Las Vegas, NV

                                                February 5, 2012