Monday, February 23, 2015

God Acts: A Sermon on Mark 1:9-15

Do you have any idea how many times the number forty appears in the Bible? A lot, as it turns out. The number forty plays an important role in our readings today. We always start our forty day Lenten journey with the story of Jesus forty days in the wilderness from one of the three Gospels. And this year’s lectionary cycle pairs Jesus forty days in the wilderness with the covenant God made with Noah, a covenant made after Noah was in the waters of the flood for forty days. Off the top of my head I could think of a couple other examples of the number forty. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness forty years after they escaped Egypt. Moses was on the mountain forty days to receive the Ten Commandments. I have this program on my computer where I can run word searches through the Bible, so I decided to run one on the number forty. Oh my gosh, I was amazed at how often it came up! Isaac was forty when he got married, his son Esau was forty when he got married. While the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, they sent spies to check out the Promised Land, the spy was forty years old and he was in the Promised Land forty days. In the time of the Judges there were forty years of peace, followed by forty years of war with the Philistines. King David reigned for forty years, King Solomon reigned for forty years, I could quite literally go on like this all morning. What struck me about all of these instances of forty, and what I think is more important than the exact amount of time itself, is that the use of the number forty is meant to clue us into something. In each of these examples, forty signifies the amount of time it took the people to be ready for something, the time in which God needed to act. Think about it. Noah was on the flood forty days because a new covenant was being formed. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness not because they were bad at asking for directions, but because God was making out of them a new people. In forty days, Moses was gathering the laws that would create a new community. Each of these periods of forty were not just dead time where people were hanging around waiting, they were periods of rich, creative work on the part of God in setting up a new reality for God’s people, a reality so different that it would take a long break from the old so that people would be ready to receive the new.

So in our Gospel reading for today, “Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

Something I noticed about this wilderness period for Jesus is that the wilderness falls right on the heels of Jesus baptism in the Jordan. Immediately after the Spirit of God descended on Jesus and declared him God’s Son, that very same Spirit drove him into the wilderness. Jesus wasn’t called into the wilderness, he wasn’t invited into the wilderness, the Spirit didn’t walk along beside him gently as Jesus braved the wilderness. No the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. Which I think means we can assume something; Jesus didn’t really want to go. The wilderness was not high on Jesus priority list of places to begin his ministry. Jesus, like the rest of us, wasn’t really interested in spending any time in the uncertainty of the wilderness, Jesus would have been just as happy to have headed back to Galilee following the announcement of him as God’s Beloved Son. But the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, because God was about to do a new thing with Jesus and that new thing was going to take some time.

Another thing I thought was important was that in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted, actually tested is a better word, by Satan. Not, by the Holy Spirit. I’d never caught that difference before. The Holy Spirit didn’t drive Jesus out to be tested; the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Now, yes, in the wilderness, Jesus met Satan, Jesus was tested, but testing Jesus, putting Jesus through suffering, was not the role of the Holy Spirit. Suffering, testing, happened in the wilderness, but it was not the point of the wilderness. I think this is important because I think so often when we find ourselves or others in wilderness times, it is tempting to look for answers in attributing that testing to God. Like God wants us to suffer so we can undergo some sort of great learning. And I think this story tells us that is not the case. Wilderness times, times of uncertainty, times when we do not know the way forward, those can be God times, times when God is doing a new thing in our lives and until that new thing has come into creation we cannot see the way. But suffering, testing, pain, while that can be found in those wilderness times, it is not God’s purpose for us, it is not God’s hope for us. We’ll get into this a lot more next week when Peter and Jesus talk about carrying the cross, but for now I want to make the distinction between wilderness as a time of creativity and as a time of suffering. The Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, but the Holy Spirit did not test Jesus, Satan did that. Testing, tempting, was not the work of God, though it happened in a place God had set up for Jesus to be.

I also think it’s important to note that Jesus was not alone in the wilderness, “he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” When I first read “he was with the wild beasts,” this thought came to mind of one of those old cartoons, Jesus sitting alone at a campfire, surrounded by an encircling darkness of glowing red eyes. But, here’s your obscure Greek fact for the day, the word “with” is an unspecific terms. So we don’t really know what it means that he was “with” the wild beasts, but it seems actually more likely that being “with the wild beasts” means that Jesus and the wild beasts were together around the campfire, allies against the encircling wilderness. A better image may be Jesus, a lion, a wildebeest, and whatever other animals one might find in the Jordanian outback all seated together around a crackling campfire, protecting each other from the uncertainty of the wilderness. Envisioning the scene this way, we might ask ourselves, who are the unexpected companions we have found in wilderness journeys. Who are the unlikely bedfellows who have shared the path with us? And who might God have placed in our wilderness now to journey with us?

But Jesus was not just with the wild beasts, the text also tells us the angels waited on him. Now, of course, you might be thinking, he’s the Son of God, of course the angels waited on him. But here’s something I’d never thought of before, there’s another time in the Bible where there is wilderness and man and angels, and the angels are not waiting. In the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve ate of tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were driven out of the garden, same word there, Jesus was driven into the wilderness, and an angel was set to guard the entrance. So in Jesus time in the wilderness we see the beginning of the end of the angel as a guard. This new thing that God is doing with Jesus, this new thing that will end at the cross with the defeat of death and restored relationship between God and God’s creation, we already see the start of it right here in the wilderness, where the angel goes from guardian to guide, from adversary to companion on the journey. Already a new thing is happening in the wilderness, and it is happening despite all the temptation that Satan might be throwing at Jesus. Jesus time in the wilderness is a creative time, it is setting the stage for this new thing that God is going to be about in the world, and all the tempting of Satan cannot get in the way of the change that is about to come out of the wilderness.

This story of Jesus time in the wilderness is a great story for us, not just at the start of Lent, but at this time in the life of our church and in the life of our world. Because wilderness time is a time we can relate to. Advances in technology, changes in culture, moves in our personal lives, retirements, family changes, illnesses and joys, things are happening at a rapid rate, and even the great things can seem unsettling. It can be hard to see the way forward, hard to figure out who we will be at the end of all this shifting. But here’s what we know from Jesus time in the wilderness, from all of the forty day, week, year periods in scripture. We know God acts in times of uncertainty. We know that just because we cannot see the way through, does not mean that God cannot see the way through. We know that God’s vision is broad enough to encompass the whole of the wilderness, and that God meets us, leads us, guides us through these times, even when the path is unclear. We know that sometimes Satan shows up in the wilderness, but we know that evil, pain, suffering, while it may occur on our paths, is not a part of God’s plan. And we know that when we encounter suffering, we do not encounter it alone. We have companions on the journey. Some companions are holy angels, guides and leaders who walk with us, support us, and protect us. Other companions look at first like wild beasts, we may worry about their presence or wonder about their plans. But God uses strange tools to accomplish God’s mission, and the most unlikely relationship may be our greatest blessing.

So as we enter into this season of Lent, let us also enter into this season of wilderness. This season of creative becoming, trusting that God has a plan for our path and a will for our lives. And that in the uncertainty God is doing a new thing, and it will be different, greater and newer, than the thing we had before. Amen.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Speak On the Ashes: A Sermon for Ash Wednesday from Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

I read a story recently about Sojourner Truth that reminded me of Ash Wednesday. One of our local heroes, the former slave turned abolitionist preacher lived in Battle Creek, but she traveled all over the country giving speeches and teaching people about the sins of slavery and racial prejudice. The story I read was about a time she was scheduled to preach in Angola, Indiana when she received the news that someone was threatening to burn down the town house she was to speak in if she continued with the meeting. Undeterred, Truth responded, “then I will speak on the ashes.” I cannot imagine the courage, the confidence in her convictions that Truth would have needed, as a black woman and a former slave in the tinderbox of the years before the Civil War, to make such a bold statement. “Then I will speak on the ashes.”

I don’t think it is a far step to say that we too live in a tinderbox world, live in a world aflame. More connected than ever before, we seem as divided as ever. Protests this summer in Ferguson and New York. The recent shooting deaths of three young Muslim-Americans in North Carolina. Economic inequality, so clearly displayed in the reports yet again coming from just down the street from us in Triangle Trailer Park. The growing threat of extremism. And a government so divided that it seems only able to agree that things are not working. The flames of hatred, of poverty, of prejudice, of inequality, leave behind a world of ashes.

And the truth of life on this ashy sphere is that no matter how far away the evil, the violence, might be, the world is an insular place, and we are complicit in this brokenness. After killing his brother, Cain asked God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And God responded with a resounding yes. On this ashy sphere, we are bound up in each other, dependent on each other, connected to each other, in blessing and in brokenness. And so, on Ash Wednesday, we gather. To confess our brokenness. To confess the ways in which our sin, our brokenness, contribute to the enslavement of our fellow humanity. We make corporate confession this day for sins close and far, not just what we did, but what we allowed to happen in our name, what we benefited from in ways we did not know. We confess the ashy remains of broken lives, of a broken world.

We confess and then, in an ashy cross drawn upon our forehead we find that God was here all along, we find a God who is, as the prophet Joel proclaimed, “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” In this ashy cross on our forehead we are reminded that God speaks on the ashes. That from the burnt out remains of sin, God speaks life where there was death, hope where there was suffering, light where there was darkness. In this ashy cross upon our foreheads, we hear the resounding voice of a God who says “You are my Beloved,” and there is no burn of sin or death or darkness that can ever change the power of that voice.

God speaks on the ashes, because that is what God has always done. Our God is a God of new life, a God who is always speaking into the ashes and bringing something new. From the dust of creation, God formed humanity, breathing life where there had been only mud. When the Israelites stood between the Red Sea and the fires of Pharaoh’s army, God spoke through Moses, parting the sea and leading God’s people from slavery to freedom. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God spoke over the dry bones and life, and breath, came over those bones again. Jonah spent three days in the belly of a whale, then God spoke and Jonah was spewed onto high ground, free to bring good news of God’s mercy to the people of Nineveh. King Nebechanezzer threw the servants of God into a firey furnace, but God was with them in the furnace, and not a hair on their head was scorched. God speaks on the ashes and brings new life, because speaking on the ashes and bringing new life is what God does, it is who God is. It is God’s story, a story that finds its completion in a cross.

Ash Wednesday leads us to the cross. It leads us to the most powerful manifestation of God’s overwhelming love for humanity. At the cross we see a world so divided, so embattled, so fearful and full of hate that it led God’s own Son to death. But more than that, at the cross we see a God so committed to us that God turned death into everlasting life. In the death of Christ death itself was broken open, so that never again could death contain us. And then, God raised Jesus from the dead so that we too are raised. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God spoke on the ashes of all death, so that death would not have the last word. So that wherever there are ashes, there is life.

These ashy crosses make that promise visible. They make visible the promise of our baptism, that for us Christ died and through Christ we too are raised. These ashy crosses proclaim that nothing can separate us from the love of this God in Christ for us. These ashy crosses are not about marking our sorrow, or marking our shame, marking our brokenness, or marking our pain. These ashy crosses are about marking us as God’s. These ashy crosses are about a God who dances on the graves of all that hold us captive, a God who says not just that a different way is possible, but who promises that from the dust is where God always forms God’s best creation, from dust is where God always brings new life. These ashy crosses proclaim that we who are dust are God’s handiwork, the creation which God calls good. That we who were slaves now are free. That we dry bones have life again. Long after the ashes have worn of your face this evening, may you feel the presence of that promise, made visible tonight, but always there, always with you, always marking your forehead through the promise of the waters of baptism, and may you know, now and always, that your God is with you. Amen.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Transfiguration: A Sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-12 and Mark 9:2-9


This is kind of a strange text this morning. For one thing, after several weeks of slowly, meticulously working our way through the first chapter of Mark, it feels a little bit jarring to all of a sudden jump forward nine chapters to head up a mountain. Especially since next week it will be back to the first chapter of Mark again. The text also forces the whole tone our worship to stand in stark contrast to next week. Next week we begin our journey through Lent. The music slows, the colors change to purple, our worship takes on a more somber tone. But before we can do that, the Transfiguration calls for everything to be adorned in celebratory white, for the organ to explore its full range, for loud celebratory shouts of “Alleluia.” Especially since Transfiguration is a season that lasts exactly one Sunday, it can make today feel like a strange blip in what has been a very formulaic journey through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

We might chalk such a blip up to an over excitable lectionary committee, except the Transfiguration of Jesus plays exactly the same role in our church year as it plays in the Gospel of Mark. Mark’s Gospel is sixteen chapters long and is broken up into two distinct sections. The first section, chapters roughly one through eight, covers Jesus life and ministry, the roughly a year where Jesus was preaching, teaching, and healing in the Galilee region of northern Israel. We’ve talked before about Mark’s verbal tick with the word “immediately.” That tick is because Mark has to cover a lot of ground, his is the shortest of all the Gospel accounts. In just eight chapters, Jesus and his disciples are all over the Galilee. He heals a leper, a paralytic, a man with a withered hand, and those are just the ones that get section titles, casts out demons and spirits, they cross the sea of Galilee a couple of times, he feeds five thousand, and then he feeds four thousand, teaches and preaches, and draws crowds everywhere he goes. Every sentence is a miracle, every paragraph a different region of the country. The Gospel reads like an action flick, fast-paced and attention grabbing.

But in the second half of Mark’s Gospel the pace… slows… way… down… Chapter ten, they travel the roughly ninety miles between the Sea of Galilee and Jerusalem. About a three-day journey walking straight through, but they stopped and talked and healed some people, nowhere Jesus went was ever a straight shot, so it probably took them a little bit longer. Once they get to Jerusalem things get slower still. Chapters eleven to fourteen is slower still, covering four-five days. And then, the very end, the last less than twenty-four hours of Jesus life, the Last Supper, his betrayal, crucifixion, death, and burial, stretch out a full three chapters. Mark’s depiction of the passion slams the brakes on the rollicking adventure story, drawing the reader in to the every tightening drama that is unfolding around Jesus and this building conflict with the authorities.

And right in the middle of these two very different styles of writing sits this morning’s text. Acting as the literary hinge point of the Gospel, the break between the ministry of Jesus and the passion of Christ, Jesus left the crowds, left the twelve, and took just Peter, James, and John, his closest disciples, the three who had been with him since the beginning, up the mountain alone.

When they got up the mountain, something extraordinary occurred. Jesus was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white. The text actually translates to like offensively white, painfully white, divinely white. And just in case we somehow missed the connotation between Jesus transfiguration and the divine in-breaking of the moment, who appears on the mountain beside him but Moses and Elijah. Two other prophets of the Lord who also have mountain top experiences. Moses, you might remember, traveled up Mount Sinai to speak face-to-face with God on a regular basis, and he would return to the people of Israel with his face glowing so brightly he would have to veil himself. And we heard in the first reading about Elijah, how he was carried up into heaven in a chariot of fire born on a whirlwind with his desperate and faithful disciple Elisha running along behind shouting and gasping for a last glimpse at his teacher. There are other connections here; ancient Jewish wisdom posited that both Moses and Elijah did not die. Both are also intricately connected to the question of Jesus identity. Jesus is painted as the new Moses, sent to free God’s people from slavery under the Romans. And Elijah was of course to return to usher in the Messiah, claims we saw made about the role of John the Baptist, the “one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.”

Whether all of these interesting theological tidbits were bouncing around in Peter’s head or if he was simply blinded by the dazzling whiteness, his response is not all that different from Elisha’s. Elisha chased, trying to hang on to the moment. Peter stared, open mouthed, before finally stammering out, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.” But here’s where the Transfiguration story and the Elijah story differ. In the Elijah story, Elisha ran, and yelled as Elijah got further and further away. Then, once Elijah had disappeared from view, Elisha picked up his mantle, picked up the role of prophet that Elijah had left for him, and began to do his work. But for Peter, after his attempt to stay in the glory of the moment, a great cloud overshadowed them, a voice declared, “this is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” And then something happened, a crash or a flash or something that drove them to their knees because when the disciples looked around, they saw no one, only Jesus, and they went down the mountain together.

They went down the mountain together, and as they were traveling, Jesus turned to them and he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until, and this is the key part, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. For Jesus to command not to be spoken of, that’s a common theme in Mark’s Gospel, we’ve heard him say that several times already in just the first chapter. But this is the first time Jesus gave an end date to that secrecy; don’t tell anyone until after the resurrection.

So a couple different things happen in this text. One, Jesus set an end date on the disciples suffering. He’d already told them about his death, though they hadn’t really figured out quite what he was talking about yet, and he’d tell them several more times. And they never did really pick up on it. But here he gave them the promise that as the writing on the wall became clearer that he wasn’t getting out of this one alive, they could look back at this moment on the trail and remember that they could talk about it after he’d risen from the dead. Which meant that the death they were witnessing was only part of the story. There would be a time for telling a story, and that telling would come after Jesus who was dead, was dead no longer.

Two, in the glory of the Transfiguration Jesus gave them a taste of the power of God. As they entered into Jerusalem things would get dark, really dark, and fast. The dazzling whiteness would burn on their retinas and hopefully give them a reflection to hold onto when everything seemed hopeless. The appearance of Moses and Elijah would give them comfort that the same God who led the people from slavery into freedom and from exile into prosperity would certainly be with them as well. They could look back on their history and know that what seemed like the end was always just another beginning with God.

And finally, and what is I think the most important thing to take out of this story is that Jesus went with them. That is the crucial difference between the pre-crucifixion Jesus and Moses and Elijah, the difference that prefigures all other differences, Jesus went with them off the mountain. Moses stayed on Mount Sinai as the Israelites traveled into the Promised Land, Elijah went up into heaven and Elisha took up his master’s mantle and his work. But Jesus went with the disciples into Jerusalem, to his crucifixion, died, and then rose from the dead so that we too, even though we die, have life.

And so this morning I pray that the glory of Christ transfigured among us becomes burned in your vision, shifting your focus so that no matter where you go, the glory of Christ goes before you. But more than that, I pray that you feel Christ’s presence beside you, walking with you. That when you feel alone, and you see no one, you know, even if you cannot see, that with you is only Jesus, down the mountain with you. Never to leave you, always to guide you. Because that is God’s promise. Amen.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Home For Lunch: A Sermon on Mark 1:29-39

My thoughts on our text this morning borrow heavily from the sermon our Bishop preached this week at the synod Eucharist. So if you want to hear the original, probably more eloquent version of this sermon from the bishop, you can reach it from his website, I’m happy to give you the web address.*

I was listening to the bishop’s words this week because I was stuck on what to say about this text myself. Healing stories are hard, because it’s easy for me to get caught up in the pageantry of it all. In my mind, Jesus flies into the scene like some kind of Oprah of healing, passing out magical medicine to his studio audience like a door prize, “you get a healing, you get a healing.” And in a world where we so rarely experience magic Oprah Jesus, I get stuck up in these healing stories.

But what the bishop pointed out in his sermon was there is something outstandingly ordinary about how this story begins. Remember, the text just before this one, Jesus and the disciples were in the synagogue for prayers, when Jesus was accosted by a man with an unclean spirit. And with a word, Jesus silenced the spirit and cast the spirit out of the man. And everyone who saw it was amazed and kept asking each other about this new teaching.

But then, after the worship in the synagogue had ended, Simon and Andrew and James and John did what so many of us will do after worship is over today, they went home for lunch. And they took Jesus with them. As any of you might do with a traveling preacher who came to visit Trinity for a Sunday and had nowhere to go, they brought the preacher to lunch at their house. You have to wonder how much the incredible event of the casting out of an unclean spirit had really affected the disciples. They just witnessed Jesus perform a miracle and instead of running out into the world to tell everyone about it, they went home for lunch.

Not surprising that the disciples missed it, they’d been pretty busy. The past few verses had been a whirlwind for Simon, he’d gone from tending his nets to becoming a disciple to witnessing an exorcism. But now, bringing Jesus through the front door of his home, he was faced once again with simple, painful domestic concerns. His mother-in-law was sick with a fever. We can assume Simon probably cared for and worried about his mother-in-law. Maybe this illness hadn’t yet taken hold when Simon agreed to follow Jesus on the lakeshore; maybe it had been gnawing away at him the whole time. Either way, bringing Jesus into his home, Simon was once again forced to reckon with the painful, tender normalcy of an illness of someone he loved.

I say it’s normal not to downplay illness, but to recognize the universality of Simon’s concerns. For Simon, for any of us facing a loved one in pain, be the pain illness, addiction, grief, what-have-you, the experience is anything but normal, it is gut wrenching. I say it’s normal, because the helplessness is an all too common experience.

Into this domestic scene steps Jesus. And he came and took Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand and lifted her up. And the fever left her, and she began to serve them. The healing in this quiet little tableau is no the flashy, commanding “be silent” of the synagogue. It is, instead, a hand outstretched, a gentle touch, a “lifting up” back into a position of honor.

Now wait a minute, you might be thinking. This woman just got up from the sickbed, and now she has to rush into service? Can’t someone else do the serving for an afternoon and let her rest? But here’s that thing, her instant move to service signified a return to her right place of honor. As would be true in so many of our homes, who got to show hospitality to a guest was a sign of respect to the host as well as the guest. Yes, Simon’s wife could have served Jesus, but as the head of the household, Simon’s mother-in-law was the rightful holder of that honor, an honor that the fever had stolen from her. So when Jesus lifted her up, when Jesus pulled her from the fever, he did more than just heal her illness, Jesus restored her to a place of honor in the family and in the community.

All Simon did was bring Jesus home with him, bring Jesus home to the person he loved who needed Jesus, and Jesus did the rest. And then, the story goes on, it didn’t stop there. From healing Simon’s mother-in-law, the whole city ended up gathered around the door, and Jesus cured many who were sick, healed various diseases, and cast out many demons. But it started with tired disciples bringing Jesus home.

As I was reflecting on this sermon I couldn’t help but notice the similarity between Jesus taking Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand and lifting her up, and the language the Women’s Co-op uses about offering a hand up not a hand out. And the bishop wondered, and I wondered too, if maybe ministry is just that simple. If maybe bringing healing, bringing life, bringing restoration of relationship is just as simple as bringing Jesus into our homes, our neighborhoods, our everyday concerns, and trusting Jesus to do the rest. Trusting that Jesus cares just as much about the ordinary as he does about the extraordinary. That Jesus is present in the simple, every day acts of breaking bread and sharing the cup, of gathering community and extending a hand.

And that bringing Jesus into these simple, ordinary relationships, trust that Jesus power comes even here has amazing and transformative results. After worship, we’ll gather for our annual meeting. We will have a potluck, we will break bread and eat soup, there will be coffee and water with frozen fruit in it and brownies. We will sit at folding tables and eat off disposable plates, it will all look overwhelmingly ordinary. Some will have the position of honor in service; others who held the position of honor in service for years will have the position of honor of being served. At the meeting we will pour over a packet of reports, we’ll discuss the budget, the roof, the parking lot. We’ll wonder about the past and worry about the future, it will all be exceptionally ordinary.

But here’s what this Gospel reading promises us, it promises us that Jesus will be there. That when we walk out the doors of the sanctuary and head down the hall for lunch, that Jesus comes with us. That Jesus is just as interested in the goings on of our day-to-day existence as he is in our worship. And that Jesus presence in our ordinary is transcendent. I know, because I get the privilege of seeing that every day. In the energy generated by a few coats of paint. In the constant hustle of women in the hallway, turning bags and bags of cast-off clothing into pure treasure. In strips of PVC pipe that turned into a bike rack for children at INASMUCH house, and varying degrees of skilled and unskilled labor is turning into a home for a family on Eagle Street, Jesus is transforming our church, our community, our world, even as we speak, even as we wonder, even as we, like the disciples go searching after him, begging him to return, Jesus is already here.

Simon brought Jesus home with him, and Jesus did the rest. That is the good news in our reading today, that is the promise we can cling to. That Jesus comes home with us, that Jesus wants to come home with us, wants to be in our churches, our houses, our lives, and that Jesus will do the rest. So as we head next door to eat potluck and discuss the budget, as we worry about ill loved ones, an ill community, an ill world, as we look for ways to use our hands in service, we can first know this. That Jesus is there with us, that Jesus comes into our places of fear and need and brokenness, and that he will do the rest. Amen.


* Bishop Satterlee's sermon on this text can be found on his website: http://craigasatterlee.com/logjam/february-8.html

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Be Silent: A Sermon on Mark 1:21-28

He didn’t really just appear in the synagogue, the man with the unclean spirit. He’d been there all along, hovering in the doorway, torn between in or out, coming or going. It was just that had no one noticed him. No one ever noticed him, it was one of the benefits of being an unclean spirit, you could come and go as you pleased, no one paid any attention. He wasn’t sure why he’d come to the synagogue that day, curiosity, maybe.

The unclean spirit didn’t bother him, he’d gotten used to it with time. Somedays it was loud, a steady pounding voice, judging him, condemning him, demanding him. You don’t belong, you don’t matter, you are unwelcome, you are unclean. Those days were hard. Most days it was not, most days it just ran like a steady hum in the back of his attention. But always, every day, it was noise.

He’d heard all about this teacher Jesus. Everyone in town had heard about Jesus. Simon and Andrew, James and John were not exactly quiet about it. How this Jesus had just appeared one day in the wilderness to be baptized by John, and when he was coming out of the water, how the heavens were torn apart and a voice from heaven declared, “This is my Son.” How Jesus had been going all around Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news.” And of course, the favorite story, how Simon and Andrew, James and John had come to follow him, how they’d been just standing on the seashore, minding their own business, when suddenly, out of nowhere, Jesus appeared and commanded, “Follow me,” and how seemingly despite themselves, they’d followed.

The stories were so amazing, the words so powerful, that when the Sabbath came around, and the word spread that Jesus would be teaching in the synagogue, everyone came, even the man with an unclean spirit. Came to see what Jesus would have to say.

Standing in the doorway, the man with the unclean spirit could see the astonishment on the face of the crowd. He could hear their murmuring, about how Jesus taught with authority and not as the scribes. He was not amazed.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. And he pushed through the crowd to where Jesus was teaching, shouting, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” His voice dripped with distain, thickening with false bravado as he tried to keep steady. Truth was, he was afraid. Afraid to have come flying out of the safety of anonymity. Afraid of the attention suddenly focused on him. Afraid of how Jesus might respond to this outburst. Could Jesus see through him, through his uncertainty, through his pride, to the desperate broken humanity within him yearning for a taste of hope, yearning for the promise that Jesus just might have the authority he claimed. Begging for relief from the disillusionment of false prophets and failed beliefs, impatient for a break from the cynicism. This question was both a challenge and a prayer, a challenge that Jesus prove this authority, a desperate, hopeful prayer that he would. Caged in fear, unwilling to be disappointed again, he pushed on, daring to voice the only possibility he could imagine. “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

The crowd around Jesus let out an audible gasp. How had this man with an unclean spirit gotten INTO THE SYNAGOGUE. This was a house of worship, a holy place of God. This man had no presence being here, no right to invade their holy space. In the midst of the crowd’s whispering, Jesus stood still. He faced the man with the unclean spirit, focused on him, with his full attention. Then the man with the unclean spirit began to stir uncomfortably. It felt like this teacher could see right through him.

Then like a clap of thunder, like the slamming of a gavel, Jesus spoke. His voice cut through the noise in the man’s head, and rebuked him. But it wasn’t a rebuke like the man had experienced before, it wasn’t harsh or painful or judgmental. It didn’t even seem to be directed at him. Rebuke wasn’t even really the right word, it was more like a command. But not even a command really. There was honor in Jesus’ voice, like he saw the man he was speaking to and respected him. The words were firm, there was no question of obedience, but gentle? It was like nothing the man with the unclean spirit had ever quite experienced.

Jesus spoke, and said, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And man with the unclean spirit’s mind was filled with a silence so loud it was deafening. And even the turmoil within him, the doubts, the fears, the questions, the uncertainty, that had always been a part of him, that had always run like a low din in the back of his mind, could not be heard over the sheer, overwhelming sound of silence. The silence echoed in his mind, pounded through his eardrums, he’d never heard anything so silent. Pressed against the silence, the noise inside his mind convulsed and like a rush the unclean spirit came out of him.

The crowd was amazed and kept asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” But the man who had had the unclean spirit was not amazed. The pressure released, the noise dissipated, and he was silent. For the first time in a long time, he took a deep breath and inhaled nothing but sheer, sweet, silence. It was a healing silence, gentle and soft. It washed over him like peace, filling every nook and cranny that had once held the noise of fear. As the crowd pushed and marveled he once again found himself pushed to the outside, overlooked by the crowd. But this time he was alone, blissfully alone and not afraid. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth,” the man had asked. He had his answer now, in the silence. Amen.