Today we are ending the church season of Epiphany. A season that celebrates Christ as the son of God. A Season that starts with the wisemen traveling to a far off land to see a newborn baby king in unsuspecting circumstances. It is a season of light, one that starts with a star and is defined the words of Isaiah, "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who walked in deepest darkness, upon them a light has shined."
Vern Victorson, pastor of First Lutheran in Albany surprised me a couple of months ago by using a phrase that I used to always associate with this verse and this season that I hadn't heard in a long time. He went out to visit some family near Seattle where I lived for many years and he came back and said it was dark and gloomy all of the days that we were there but on the last day, on the way to the airport, the mountain was out! It was amazing, he said. That phrase, the mountain is out, is unique to the Seattle area but everyone there knows what it means. To give you a sense of what it means, you need to understand the setting.
Seattle is a rainy place. When I first moved there, a particularly rainy year was
drawing to a close. Now, Seattle is a rainy place in general. It has a
reputation for being a place where people sit inside, in dim coffee
shops and read books, for a long time both the bookstore and library
patronage was higher there than anywhere else in the country. When it
rains all of the time what is there to do but stay inside and read
books and play games and stare out the rainy window. People have to
stay inside a lot! Which leads to the next part of Seattle's identity,
it is a place where at least in pictures and descriptions, everyone
walks around with umbrellas and galoshes. There is even a festival
there at the end of each summer, a huge festival named for umbrellas!
You get the picture right, it is rainy and people spend a great
deal of time with things covering their heads, ceilings, hats, hoods,
umbrellas, newspapers if they get stuck out in it and don't have
anything else, rain clouds it they get stuck out in it and don't even
have a newspaper. So all this said when I say that I moved to this
place at the close of a rainy year, I mean rainy. I mean rain week
after week. I mean rain, everyday, I mean rain or at least threatening
clouds for nearly all of 200 days (almost a whole year). 200 days with something hanging over the heads of all of Seattle. 200 days of walking in darkness.
This makes people a little grouchy and depressed but it does something
else to people too. It heightens their awareness of good
weather. One day, the first truly clear, sunny day that we'd had since I got there, I noticed a strange thing. People were stopping in the streets to stare south. And they had these amazingly serene, happy, peaceful looks on their faces. So I stopped to look too. And there, so close it seemed like you could reach out and touch it was an enormous mountain. Huge, beautiful and snow covered, magnificent, Mount Rainier and it really, really seemed like it was just at the end of the nearest street. As Vern said, the Mountain was out! Where had it been before? I walked by that place everyday and I had been there at least a few weeks. Never had I seen this glowing mountain before. It turns out that you can only see it on nice days. Very nice days, completely clear
and sunny days. Only on those days does the mountain come out and when it does you know. You know before you see it, you know from the moods of the people around you, you know from the crisp clean feel of the air and the energy around you. You know because people share the news, they come into stores, classrooms, libraries, doctor offices, hospitals everywhere and the say, "The mountain is out. Did you see?". I've heard people tell others things like, "you have to go and see. I'll hold your place in line, go before it's gone."
And rightly so because it fades just as quickly as it comes out. It is about 100 miles from the city and so haze anywhere in between obstructs the view of it. For a confirmation lesson recently I tried to find a picture that would capture this phenomenon for the students. I must have looked at 50 pictures but none of them captured the closeness of the mountain, the hugeness, the majesty of it. The best that I could do was describe it to them like I am to you now, which is only giving you a vague since of the experience.
That, I think, is why people in Seattle transform into these friendly bearers of good news whenever the mountain is out. You can't capture it. You can't share it in any way half as good as saying, "come and see. I know the days have been dark, I know you haven't seen the sun, I know winter is coming and it will rain, you'll have something covering your head for weeks and weeks you'll be in darkness but right now the sun is shining, right now you can experience true light, right now you can have an experience of the mountain, come and see."
In the gospel lesson today Jesus and three of his disciples take a trip up the side of a mountain and while they are up there the sky lightens, the clouds part, there is a dazzling bright light, Jesus is made to shine, his garments glow with a white whiter than snow and God is so close it is as if they can touch him. And so the very first thing that Peter wants to do is hold onto the feeling. To keep it.
He sees something good, something amazing after walking around in darkness, after hearing terrifying news from Jesus and he wants to prolong the good. It is as if the dark cloud that has been hanging over his head is gone and he can finally see light again. So he says, this is great, let's put down roots, lets stay here! And roots are good, roots make sense but not in this case. He says let's build a foundation so that this amazing connection with God can be permanent. And a foundation is good, you need a foundation! But not in this case. He says let's keep this just like it is so nothing will ever change and it can belong to us, just to us! And Jesus says hold it! You can almost hear the sound, there has been great triumphant music playing, coming to a crescendo, sounds of birds and good things and all of the sudden, the record screeches to a stop and everyone is startled back to reality.
No! You can't keep it for yourself! Didn't you just hear the voice of God say, Jesus is my son, listen to him? And hasn't Jesus been saying all along that he came to spread the good news? No Peter, you can't keep the mountain to yourself.
So they walk back down.
And as they walk down I wonder if they are talking about how to convey the majesty and awe of this experience to the other disciples and to all people. Trying, like I did, to find a picture accurate enough that it makes the others understand. But Jesus, the only one who ever sees the situation very clearly in the gospel says there is no way that telling people will do the trick. His meaning might not have been to keep a secret so much as convey a truth, you'll need to show those people if you want them to truly understand. Show those people at the very least how being on the mountain changed you, so that they will be willing to come out and look for God too. You need to go into banks, stores, classrooms and libraries and say God is out, come and see. Come and see what God is doing. Come and see the place where I saw God, come and hear the things that I learned from the voice of God.
It takes until the next mountain top and a little bit after that, even, before they really get it, after Jesus is crucified on a mountain top and overcomes death before they know that what they are meant to show people has way less to do with the mountain itself and everything to do with what happened there. It is then that they start telling people and showing people that God is all around, you don't have to go up the mountainside, you don't have to sacrifice in the temple, God sent his only son here to this place, right here so that the people who walk in deep darkness can have everlasting light.
Come and see what he has done, come and see how he has healed the sick. Come and see how he has mended the broken, come and see how he has given hope to the hopeless. God is here right now, God is out in the world right now. Come and see. We'll hold your place in line, we'll watch your shopping cart or better yet, we'll take your hand and show you just where to look, God is present in our lives here at Trinity, God is present in our work as a church, God is present in the anchor and in the Sunday School, God is present in the fellowship that we have with one another, God is present in the wine and bread we share and most of all God is present in the love we show to one another and to the strangers in our midst. Come and see. Amen
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Epiphany 5 B; Mark 1:29-39
"Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."
A couple of our texts include a phrase about waiting on the Lord.
First we have these beautiful words from Isaiah. Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint.--If only they wait for the Lord.
I have known several faithful people who have adopted these words, "I'm waiting on the Lord," almost as a kind of mantra.
First there was a dear sweet woman at the parish that I served in Philadelphia. I would visit her in her home because she didn't get out much anymore. There was really nothing wrong with her except her advanced age. She could get around fine, when she had too she even took the bus to the store to do some shopping. She had decent energy but oh how she complained. She meant well and she loved our visits, she loved her family too, though it seemed they could never visit often enough or for a long enough duration. Her life had become rather empty and she seemed like she was just waiting around. In fact when I would go over to visit I would ask how she was doing and the answer was always, "not so good vicar, I'm just waiting on the Lord". Just waiting on the Lord and oh she sounded tired and weak when she said it. Just waiting on the Lord for life to be over!
And then there was another woman, Betty, not quite as physically well but just as elderly. She walked, ever so slowly, to church on Sundays and other times and was amazing at serving people. She would serve food to bereaved families at funerals. She would serve snacks to the Vacation Bible School kids. She would serve on the alter guild and at the alter. And she would certainly serve the Lord with a prayer for anyone at anytime, often whether they asked for it or not. I would sometimes visit her at home too but though I would often run into her doing one thing or another for someone else. Watching her great grandchildren or tending her sick neighbors garden, even when her health was bad, she would call the neighbors that she worried about and she would write cards to the children that she cared for. I actually often worried that she was doing too much and would try to lighten her load, and slow her down.
But when I would visit, I would ask her the same thing. How are you doing today Betty, and she would give me the same answer, almost. I'm doing great vicar, she would say, I'm just waiting on the Lord. Just waiting for the Lord.
Now her words were the same as the woman from the first story. They both knew that they were waiting to return to the Lord, so to speak, but their emphasis and their meaning were entirely different.
One was waiting for it all to be over. The other was waiting on the Lord hand and foot, heart and soul, with all that she had and all that she was and she loved it and she was not weary and she was not faint but her strength was renewed.
And it wasn't just because she understood waiting to be service you see, it was because she knew that she had been waited upon. I would watch her at communion and at the confession and
forgiveness, at remembrance of baptism and she always looked like she knew God was
saying the words just for her. She knew that she was made whole,
healed, forgiven and completed so that she was free and she knew that that
freedom allowed her to wait on the Lord.
Betty served because Jesus served her first.
We have a story today from early in the gospel of Mark about Jesus going to the house of Simon and Andrew. Simon's mother-in-law, the woman of the house, was sick in bed and as soon as Jesus heard about that he went to her bedside and he healed he. And the very next thing that she did was stand up and serve the Lord and the disciples!
Now to our ears today this doesn't sound particularly nice. As soon as her fever cleared she hopped up and started serving the men in her house. But there are a couple of things about that. First, serving would have been an honor and a cultural privilege to her as the elder and most honored woman of the house. Being unable to serve would have felt about as bad as the fever itself did. But there is more to this story than honor. She knew that a great man, a prophet, at the least, and healer, maybe even a real agent of God, maybe even the son of God had knelt down beside her, in her own home, taken her hand and waited on her in her illness so what response could she possibly have but to serve, to wait on people in his name.
She served because Jesus served her first.
Now going back to my story about Betty. Jesus had never knelt down by Betty's bed and cured her of all her illness. In fact she was living with several major health problems and she knew that she wasn't very long for this world but, she would tell you that she had seen the Lord. She had seen him bring a husband back to her from the war. She had seen him bless her with children. She had seen him comfort her when she lost that same husband and when she went through terrible times in the raising of one or two of those children. God had worked in her life through her church and her family and the very world around her. And she had paid attention!
She knew the times when Jesus had waited on her, almost as if she had seen him kneel down by her bedside and so she was ready and willing to wait on Him. Just like Simon's mother-in-law had paid attention in the midst of her fever to the busy and important man, Jesus, with crowds following him, with well educated men asking questions with people bringing out those who were more sick than her. She had paid attention to him leaving all of that behind to kneel down by her bed and pray with her and make her whole.
Because of this, because of Jesus and his self-giving love for them these women served without thought, they got up and waited on him, in Betty's case by waiting on his children in this world.
Again we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah: "those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength."
This text can have two meanings. We use it sometimes at funerals. As a sort of final affirmation of the lives of those to whom the Lord was faithful. But I think the most faithful reading of this verse is one that refers to how we live. We live as people who have been served by God. God works in our lives. Forgives our sins, completes us where we are broken, mends our relationships and lives among us to take on our lives, good and bad. Jesus said he came to serve, not to be served. He came to wait upon us.
And so we live as people who serve the Lord, who wait on the Lord because the Lord waits on us. Amen
A couple of our texts include a phrase about waiting on the Lord.
First we have these beautiful words from Isaiah. Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint.--If only they wait for the Lord.
I have known several faithful people who have adopted these words, "I'm waiting on the Lord," almost as a kind of mantra.
First there was a dear sweet woman at the parish that I served in Philadelphia. I would visit her in her home because she didn't get out much anymore. There was really nothing wrong with her except her advanced age. She could get around fine, when she had too she even took the bus to the store to do some shopping. She had decent energy but oh how she complained. She meant well and she loved our visits, she loved her family too, though it seemed they could never visit often enough or for a long enough duration. Her life had become rather empty and she seemed like she was just waiting around. In fact when I would go over to visit I would ask how she was doing and the answer was always, "not so good vicar, I'm just waiting on the Lord". Just waiting on the Lord and oh she sounded tired and weak when she said it. Just waiting on the Lord for life to be over!
And then there was another woman, Betty, not quite as physically well but just as elderly. She walked, ever so slowly, to church on Sundays and other times and was amazing at serving people. She would serve food to bereaved families at funerals. She would serve snacks to the Vacation Bible School kids. She would serve on the alter guild and at the alter. And she would certainly serve the Lord with a prayer for anyone at anytime, often whether they asked for it or not. I would sometimes visit her at home too but though I would often run into her doing one thing or another for someone else. Watching her great grandchildren or tending her sick neighbors garden, even when her health was bad, she would call the neighbors that she worried about and she would write cards to the children that she cared for. I actually often worried that she was doing too much and would try to lighten her load, and slow her down.
But when I would visit, I would ask her the same thing. How are you doing today Betty, and she would give me the same answer, almost. I'm doing great vicar, she would say, I'm just waiting on the Lord. Just waiting for the Lord.
Now her words were the same as the woman from the first story. They both knew that they were waiting to return to the Lord, so to speak, but their emphasis and their meaning were entirely different.
One was waiting for it all to be over. The other was waiting on the Lord hand and foot, heart and soul, with all that she had and all that she was and she loved it and she was not weary and she was not faint but her strength was renewed.
And it wasn't just because she understood waiting to be service you see, it was because she knew that she had been waited upon. I would watch her at communion and at the confession and
forgiveness, at remembrance of baptism and she always looked like she knew God was
saying the words just for her. She knew that she was made whole,
healed, forgiven and completed so that she was free and she knew that that
freedom allowed her to wait on the Lord.
Betty served because Jesus served her first.
We have a story today from early in the gospel of Mark about Jesus going to the house of Simon and Andrew. Simon's mother-in-law, the woman of the house, was sick in bed and as soon as Jesus heard about that he went to her bedside and he healed he. And the very next thing that she did was stand up and serve the Lord and the disciples!
Now to our ears today this doesn't sound particularly nice. As soon as her fever cleared she hopped up and started serving the men in her house. But there are a couple of things about that. First, serving would have been an honor and a cultural privilege to her as the elder and most honored woman of the house. Being unable to serve would have felt about as bad as the fever itself did. But there is more to this story than honor. She knew that a great man, a prophet, at the least, and healer, maybe even a real agent of God, maybe even the son of God had knelt down beside her, in her own home, taken her hand and waited on her in her illness so what response could she possibly have but to serve, to wait on people in his name.
She served because Jesus served her first.
Now going back to my story about Betty. Jesus had never knelt down by Betty's bed and cured her of all her illness. In fact she was living with several major health problems and she knew that she wasn't very long for this world but, she would tell you that she had seen the Lord. She had seen him bring a husband back to her from the war. She had seen him bless her with children. She had seen him comfort her when she lost that same husband and when she went through terrible times in the raising of one or two of those children. God had worked in her life through her church and her family and the very world around her. And she had paid attention!
She knew the times when Jesus had waited on her, almost as if she had seen him kneel down by her bedside and so she was ready and willing to wait on Him. Just like Simon's mother-in-law had paid attention in the midst of her fever to the busy and important man, Jesus, with crowds following him, with well educated men asking questions with people bringing out those who were more sick than her. She had paid attention to him leaving all of that behind to kneel down by her bed and pray with her and make her whole.
Because of this, because of Jesus and his self-giving love for them these women served without thought, they got up and waited on him, in Betty's case by waiting on his children in this world.
Again we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah: "those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength."
This text can have two meanings. We use it sometimes at funerals. As a sort of final affirmation of the lives of those to whom the Lord was faithful. But I think the most faithful reading of this verse is one that refers to how we live. We live as people who have been served by God. God works in our lives. Forgives our sins, completes us where we are broken, mends our relationships and lives among us to take on our lives, good and bad. Jesus said he came to serve, not to be served. He came to wait upon us.
And so we live as people who serve the Lord, who wait on the Lord because the Lord waits on us. Amen
Epiphany 6 B; Mark 1:40-45
I knew a school teacher once, Mrs. Daugherty, a stout but tiny old Irish woman who was formidable. She had a reputation for being not mean necessarily but especially strict. She was one of the ones about whom there were rumors, that even though paddling kids hadn't been allowed in the school for 20 years or so, she still had a paddle hanging in her office. And it didn't really matter if this was true because any kid with sense knew enough to know that they didn't want to find out.
Well one year she was met with a kid, Lee, who was going to be her match, at least people thought this might be the case. This was a kid who had been in and out of detention centers already, who was mean and cruel to the other kids, who never did his work, who really spent the first day, maybe two of each class session in the classroom with a teacher, and then the rest sitting on a chair outside the principal's office or in a makeshift detention that had been created just for him, down in the gym with the big, burly gym teacher who could handle him. The police had even been called to the school before about Lee and everyone knew after he was old enough to not be required by law to be there he would be done with school. So when he entered Mrs. Daugherty's classroom, paddle or not, no one was holding their breath about how long he would make it there but folks were braced for the storm or these two strong personalities meeting.
On the first day of school Lee came to dressed rather inappropriately, with dirty hair and no materials. He sat at a desk not assigned to him and when roll was called, looked at Mrs. Daugherty as if to say I dare you to call my name. And looked back with something like an acceptance of the dare. When she did call it, he didn't say anything and she just smiled at him, nodded and passed right by. Which set up a pattern that lasted for weeks. She would call on each kid for something, Lee would refuse to participate and she would smile kindly at him and move on. When all the other kids were working quietly and Lee was tearing up paper or doing something distracting she would walk up to him and talk to him like she didn't even notice. He wouldn't really talk back but she would sit there talking about owls or trees or algebra, whatever the class was learning about. Lee would tear paper, Mrs. Daugherty would talk. Lee would get in trouble at recess, she would come back to the classroom from her break and sit there, with him at his desk, and she would talk about basketball or soccer. Lee would sit, Mrs. Daugherty would talk. Finally after months of this without a word about it from anyone, Lee stopped ripping paper and started doing his work. He stopped hitting kids on the playground and started bouncing a ball. But Mrs. Daugherty would still sit by him and talk to him in class sometimes and once in a while he would even talk back.
We're not going to pretend that Lee's problems were solved for the rest of his life because of this one year. But Lee was different after that. He still couldn't really follow the rules but he was kinder and less aggressive. He spoke sometimes instead of throwing, hitting or pushing, which was a huge changed. He graduated from high school six years later, walked across the stage and everything! It was as if he had been healed or whatever he was sick with as an elementary school kid.
I had the chance to talk to Mrs. Daugherty about him years later and I asked her where she got the patience to never raise her voice, never send him away, never lose her temper with Lee. She told me that she didn't really treat Lee any differently than she did any of her other children. That they each had walls that they had put up or someone had put up for them, barriers to learning, to behaving, to succeeding and mostly to being loved. All she ever did with any student was try to find ways to love them through, around or in spite of those walls and barriers. With some kids that meant being strict, with Lee it didn't, all he had ever known were rules and punishment. So with Lee it was almost easier because all she had to do was love all of him exactly like he was, embrace the wall, so to speak, and eventually she was allowed in. Sure it took patience but that was her job, God gave her a room full of little puzzles each year and her job was to figure out as much as she could about who they were and what they needed before they had to move on.
I tell you this story because I want to ask if any of you have ever meet someone who was just plain angry at the whole world? Someone like Lee who just can't be civil or pleasant no matter what? Most of us have in one form or another and Jesus seems to have met someone like that in our gospel lesson today. He was a leper which means that he had some kind of skin disorder. We really don't know what. We really don't even know if he was very sick. What we do know is that all of society, even the church, especially the church had let this man down, blamed him for his own illness and left him behind, on the outside. Maybe he started out being patient when he was told to stay out of the temple while he was sick. He understood. But then maybe patience had turned into sadness when his friends stopped coming by. And then sadness to fear when he was told that he had to live outside of town and tear his clothes and declare himself unclean to all passerby and then, finally fear to anger when he finally looked around and his whole life was gone, those that he loved were moving on, those he respected didn't respect him and those he cared for were languishing without his support.
So he lived out of town, like the priests said he had to, out in the wilderness without companionship and he taunted the passerby, at least that is what he seems to be doing when Jesus happens by. It isn't as if he is calling out because his faith is so intense, at least the complicated greek words don't indicate it. What they show is that he did something much more like yell "I dare you, to make me clean". Yeah, I dare you and your God to care about me. To think about me. To look at me in my dirty clothes and open sores and tear stained face. I dare you Jesus. I dare you to care about me.
And Jesus does. He reaches out to him. He says quite literally I accept your dare. I'll do it. I'll take you up on that. And he reaches out to him and he heals him. Jesus saw right through the wall that this man had put up to protect himself.
This is the third in a series of stories about Jesus healing the sick, broken and outcast in Mark, we've gone over the two other stories during the past couple weeks and they are all quite different but the theme that carries through all of them is that of Jesus' reactions to people and their reactions to him. The ailments that people have are different, the ways that they encounter Jesus are different but the healing is just the same.
They express very little faith, very little desire for healing or the love of God but Jesus looks at them and sees who they are and what they need. We have so many stories of healing in the New testament and sometimes I wonder why. Why devote so much time to these accounts when we could have been given answers to the mysteries of life or simple instructions for how to run a successful church, raise a happy family, solve the religious debates that have divided the church for centuries and so on and so on.
The only answer that I can come up with is that healing is what it is all about. It is as if we are all students in Mrs. Daugherty's classroom. Each one of us a little puzzle with secret wounds and secret walls and defenses that we put up, maybe not as big and obvious as the leper's but maybe just as painful to us. And Jesus is the one, who is willing, when no one else is, to hear a real plea in our dare to heal us to cure us and to help us let the walls down and he does.
He does it through words of healing and absolution, telling us each and every day as we sit there and act defiant, that we are loved and forgiven. Talking to us about whatever the church is learning about that day, sitting with us when we are forced to be all by ourselves. And then finally going out with us and speaking through us when it is our turn to be the loving voice for the Lees in our lives and the healing hands to the lepers in our world. Amen.
Well one year she was met with a kid, Lee, who was going to be her match, at least people thought this might be the case. This was a kid who had been in and out of detention centers already, who was mean and cruel to the other kids, who never did his work, who really spent the first day, maybe two of each class session in the classroom with a teacher, and then the rest sitting on a chair outside the principal's office or in a makeshift detention that had been created just for him, down in the gym with the big, burly gym teacher who could handle him. The police had even been called to the school before about Lee and everyone knew after he was old enough to not be required by law to be there he would be done with school. So when he entered Mrs. Daugherty's classroom, paddle or not, no one was holding their breath about how long he would make it there but folks were braced for the storm or these two strong personalities meeting.
On the first day of school Lee came to dressed rather inappropriately, with dirty hair and no materials. He sat at a desk not assigned to him and when roll was called, looked at Mrs. Daugherty as if to say I dare you to call my name. And looked back with something like an acceptance of the dare. When she did call it, he didn't say anything and she just smiled at him, nodded and passed right by. Which set up a pattern that lasted for weeks. She would call on each kid for something, Lee would refuse to participate and she would smile kindly at him and move on. When all the other kids were working quietly and Lee was tearing up paper or doing something distracting she would walk up to him and talk to him like she didn't even notice. He wouldn't really talk back but she would sit there talking about owls or trees or algebra, whatever the class was learning about. Lee would tear paper, Mrs. Daugherty would talk. Lee would get in trouble at recess, she would come back to the classroom from her break and sit there, with him at his desk, and she would talk about basketball or soccer. Lee would sit, Mrs. Daugherty would talk. Finally after months of this without a word about it from anyone, Lee stopped ripping paper and started doing his work. He stopped hitting kids on the playground and started bouncing a ball. But Mrs. Daugherty would still sit by him and talk to him in class sometimes and once in a while he would even talk back.
We're not going to pretend that Lee's problems were solved for the rest of his life because of this one year. But Lee was different after that. He still couldn't really follow the rules but he was kinder and less aggressive. He spoke sometimes instead of throwing, hitting or pushing, which was a huge changed. He graduated from high school six years later, walked across the stage and everything! It was as if he had been healed or whatever he was sick with as an elementary school kid.
I had the chance to talk to Mrs. Daugherty about him years later and I asked her where she got the patience to never raise her voice, never send him away, never lose her temper with Lee. She told me that she didn't really treat Lee any differently than she did any of her other children. That they each had walls that they had put up or someone had put up for them, barriers to learning, to behaving, to succeeding and mostly to being loved. All she ever did with any student was try to find ways to love them through, around or in spite of those walls and barriers. With some kids that meant being strict, with Lee it didn't, all he had ever known were rules and punishment. So with Lee it was almost easier because all she had to do was love all of him exactly like he was, embrace the wall, so to speak, and eventually she was allowed in. Sure it took patience but that was her job, God gave her a room full of little puzzles each year and her job was to figure out as much as she could about who they were and what they needed before they had to move on.
I tell you this story because I want to ask if any of you have ever meet someone who was just plain angry at the whole world? Someone like Lee who just can't be civil or pleasant no matter what? Most of us have in one form or another and Jesus seems to have met someone like that in our gospel lesson today. He was a leper which means that he had some kind of skin disorder. We really don't know what. We really don't even know if he was very sick. What we do know is that all of society, even the church, especially the church had let this man down, blamed him for his own illness and left him behind, on the outside. Maybe he started out being patient when he was told to stay out of the temple while he was sick. He understood. But then maybe patience had turned into sadness when his friends stopped coming by. And then sadness to fear when he was told that he had to live outside of town and tear his clothes and declare himself unclean to all passerby and then, finally fear to anger when he finally looked around and his whole life was gone, those that he loved were moving on, those he respected didn't respect him and those he cared for were languishing without his support.
So he lived out of town, like the priests said he had to, out in the wilderness without companionship and he taunted the passerby, at least that is what he seems to be doing when Jesus happens by. It isn't as if he is calling out because his faith is so intense, at least the complicated greek words don't indicate it. What they show is that he did something much more like yell "I dare you, to make me clean". Yeah, I dare you and your God to care about me. To think about me. To look at me in my dirty clothes and open sores and tear stained face. I dare you Jesus. I dare you to care about me.
And Jesus does. He reaches out to him. He says quite literally I accept your dare. I'll do it. I'll take you up on that. And he reaches out to him and he heals him. Jesus saw right through the wall that this man had put up to protect himself.
This is the third in a series of stories about Jesus healing the sick, broken and outcast in Mark, we've gone over the two other stories during the past couple weeks and they are all quite different but the theme that carries through all of them is that of Jesus' reactions to people and their reactions to him. The ailments that people have are different, the ways that they encounter Jesus are different but the healing is just the same.
They express very little faith, very little desire for healing or the love of God but Jesus looks at them and sees who they are and what they need. We have so many stories of healing in the New testament and sometimes I wonder why. Why devote so much time to these accounts when we could have been given answers to the mysteries of life or simple instructions for how to run a successful church, raise a happy family, solve the religious debates that have divided the church for centuries and so on and so on.
The only answer that I can come up with is that healing is what it is all about. It is as if we are all students in Mrs. Daugherty's classroom. Each one of us a little puzzle with secret wounds and secret walls and defenses that we put up, maybe not as big and obvious as the leper's but maybe just as painful to us. And Jesus is the one, who is willing, when no one else is, to hear a real plea in our dare to heal us to cure us and to help us let the walls down and he does.
He does it through words of healing and absolution, telling us each and every day as we sit there and act defiant, that we are loved and forgiven. Talking to us about whatever the church is learning about that day, sitting with us when we are forced to be all by ourselves. And then finally going out with us and speaking through us when it is our turn to be the loving voice for the Lees in our lives and the healing hands to the lepers in our world. Amen.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Epiphany 4 B Mark 1:21-28
I was at the main branch of the Albany public library recently. It was as rather busy day there, people studying at tables, using computers and browsing the stacks. But still, super quiet, super peaceful just like a library should be. A man came in with a group of young adults, folks in their twenties and thirties who had some developmental disabilities and he was teaching them. He was explaining to them in a hushed, whispering voice how you have to be quiet in the library. He showed them where the check-out counter was and where various items of interest for them were kept and they all started browsing too.
So we were all obeying the rules and silently choosing our reading materials with a nice peaceful feeling when one of the young women from the group made a loud crashing noise. At least that was what it seemed like a first. She sort of crashed into a shelf loudly. People looked alarmed at the noise and went back to what they were doing. But she hadn't just crashed into the shelf, she was falling to the ground, kind of slowly like she was trying to stop herself.
Next thing we all knew she was lying on the floor convulsing, having a seizure. As I looked around some folks looked frustrated. Sometimes people are frustrated by this kind of thing. Other people looked sad or panicked, but mostly people looked concerned and very uncomfortable. This was the library you need to be quiet here, this was in public and obvious disease makes people uncomfortable and worst of all no one knew what to do. They were afraid.
The man who was leading the group was just around the corner and somehow he figured out that something was amiss. So he walked swiftly up to her with great concern, as if he didn't even know that all eyes in the place were on them.
It was more silent than before as he knelt beside her and gently moved her afflicted body out, away from the shelf and out of harm's way and put his jacket down to protect her head, gently arranged her hands and feet in a safer, more comfortable way and started whispering and murmuring softly to her.
"It will be okay. Shh, Shh, it will be over in a minute, you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Shh, shh. Don't worry, I'm right here with you, you're safe, you're perfectly safe, everything will be okay".
Without my noticing how it had happened the rest of their group had gathered around them, out of the way but near and were looking on calmly and with a certain peace. They knew she was safe and in good hands and they were calmed by the love and authority of their teacher. For them, because he was there, even terrifying illness had no power.
In our gospel lesson today Jesus is teaching at the synagogue. Everyone is there scrubbed up and dressed well for worship in the Lord's house. Everyone is duly silent and respectful because if there is anything we've been taught through the ages it is to be silent in libraries and churches. Everything is normal and safe, people are listening to this enthralling teacher with a nice peaceful feeling, when all of sudden someone made a crashing sound.
Someone who was sick. Started to thrash around and yell, in the middle of the assembly. Some folks looked frustrated. Sometimes people are frustrated by this kind of thing. Other people looked sad or panicked, but mostly people looked concerned and very uncomfortable. This was the synagogue you need to be quiet here, this was in public and obvious disease makes people
uncomfortable, there were rules about sick people not being in the synagogue because they might make others unclean, sick too, and worst of all no one knew what to do. They were afraid.
The man who was leading the group, teaching up front, Jesus, was just a few feet away so he walked swiftly up to the man with great concern, as if he didn't even know that all eyes in the place were on them.
It was more silent than before as he spoke to the man and gently healed his afflicted body. The text says he rebuked the demon, the sickness, that the man had and the sick man was calmed and made silent but his body convulsed. I imagine Jesus moving him then, out of harm's way and gently arranging his hands and feet in a safer, more comfortable manner and whispering and
murmuring softly to him.
"It will be okay. Shh, Shh, it will be over in a minute, you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Shh, shh. Don't worry, I'm right here with you, you're safe, everything will be okay".
And slowly, while this was happening, the group gathered around and they felt safe and oddly at peace because they knew that the sick man was in the hands of their great teacher. His love and his authority took away even the terrifying power of illness.
The sickness in this story is an interruption. It is an interruption. No one planned it. No one was prepared for it. Everyone was troubled by it and put off by it. It was a major problem, to the ministry happening, to the lives around it, to the man who was afflicted, and even to Jesus who was teaching and who loved the ones he taught.
Everyone was affected and infected by this illness because under Jewish law, an
unclean person in the synagogue made the others unclean if they touched him, but even more than that, this wasn't a big town folks, this wasn't a mega-synagogue. Everyone knew everyone. One of their own was sick. One that they knew and loved had a terrible illness.
So they were afraid and sad and worried and all eyes were on Jesus. What would he do? How would he respond? They didn't really know him yet, he was a new rabbi, a new teacher and they didn't know what to expect. He could have thrown the sick man out. He could have encouraged everyone to leave because doubt had been cast on them now too. Instead he threw the sickness out and kept the congregation, each and every one one of them, worthy or not.
One man was healed and so everyone was made clean by Jesus, there was no reason for them to be afraid of illness anymore.
But what is funny is that he healed the man and after he did they said he taught with authority. Not that he healed with authority but that he taught that way.
Yes, someone was healed but that wasn't the point. And we know that it isn't the point because we are not Jesus and we do not live at the appointed time when all the world is made peaceful and whole, that Paul is longing for in our Epistle lesson, and so we know that people are sick. We know that they are sick and not everyone always gets well. And even when they do we know that more sickness comes afterward to others. That it never stops completely, that someone, somewhere that we love is always afflicted in some way. And that was a given for the people that Jesus was teaching even more than it is for us. So the teaching was the point.
Jesus taught, by healing, that our God, the God of love, has authority. Not just authority but THE authority. Even in the midst of sickness and death, that our God pauses even in His most important teaching for the sake of someone who isn't okay. In order to be with them, in order to be God to them, in order to be a human with them. In order to bring them peace.
Do we have illness among us? Do we have illness in us brothers and sisters? Yes. We do, we always do. In one form or another, in one way or another we are always touched by brokenness. So what does Jesus' teaching do for us in that illness? Why do we care that he taught with authority more than we care about being healed?
Because the ultimate thing that he taught is that we are not alone, never alone, least alone when we live in brokenness and least alone when we minister to the broken.
Did Jesus heal everyone who was sick? No, he didn't get to everyone, but what he did do was teach that even illness doesn't have the final word, it barely even has a word at all. Rather the word that we hear in all types of trouble and fear is be calm, be still, because we are not alone.
And we are even empowered then, instead of walking away or turning our eyes from the uncomfortable scene of illness, illness of all types: mental, physical, emotional, relational, environmental, economic, marital, familial, career, spiritual, personal, cooperate, incurable and curable, all illness, our own and that of strangers, in the midst of all of it, we are empowered to gather around like that group of young people in the library and like that group in the synagogue and share our comfort with one another that we have a new teacher, who teaches with new authority and who brings us new life. Everyday! Amen
So we were all obeying the rules and silently choosing our reading materials with a nice peaceful feeling when one of the young women from the group made a loud crashing noise. At least that was what it seemed like a first. She sort of crashed into a shelf loudly. People looked alarmed at the noise and went back to what they were doing. But she hadn't just crashed into the shelf, she was falling to the ground, kind of slowly like she was trying to stop herself.
Next thing we all knew she was lying on the floor convulsing, having a seizure. As I looked around some folks looked frustrated. Sometimes people are frustrated by this kind of thing. Other people looked sad or panicked, but mostly people looked concerned and very uncomfortable. This was the library you need to be quiet here, this was in public and obvious disease makes people uncomfortable and worst of all no one knew what to do. They were afraid.
The man who was leading the group was just around the corner and somehow he figured out that something was amiss. So he walked swiftly up to her with great concern, as if he didn't even know that all eyes in the place were on them.
It was more silent than before as he knelt beside her and gently moved her afflicted body out, away from the shelf and out of harm's way and put his jacket down to protect her head, gently arranged her hands and feet in a safer, more comfortable way and started whispering and murmuring softly to her.
"It will be okay. Shh, Shh, it will be over in a minute, you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Shh, shh. Don't worry, I'm right here with you, you're safe, you're perfectly safe, everything will be okay".
Without my noticing how it had happened the rest of their group had gathered around them, out of the way but near and were looking on calmly and with a certain peace. They knew she was safe and in good hands and they were calmed by the love and authority of their teacher. For them, because he was there, even terrifying illness had no power.
In our gospel lesson today Jesus is teaching at the synagogue. Everyone is there scrubbed up and dressed well for worship in the Lord's house. Everyone is duly silent and respectful because if there is anything we've been taught through the ages it is to be silent in libraries and churches. Everything is normal and safe, people are listening to this enthralling teacher with a nice peaceful feeling, when all of sudden someone made a crashing sound.
Someone who was sick. Started to thrash around and yell, in the middle of the assembly. Some folks looked frustrated. Sometimes people are frustrated by this kind of thing. Other people looked sad or panicked, but mostly people looked concerned and very uncomfortable. This was the synagogue you need to be quiet here, this was in public and obvious disease makes people
uncomfortable, there were rules about sick people not being in the synagogue because they might make others unclean, sick too, and worst of all no one knew what to do. They were afraid.
The man who was leading the group, teaching up front, Jesus, was just a few feet away so he walked swiftly up to the man with great concern, as if he didn't even know that all eyes in the place were on them.
It was more silent than before as he spoke to the man and gently healed his afflicted body. The text says he rebuked the demon, the sickness, that the man had and the sick man was calmed and made silent but his body convulsed. I imagine Jesus moving him then, out of harm's way and gently arranging his hands and feet in a safer, more comfortable manner and whispering and
murmuring softly to him.
"It will be okay. Shh, Shh, it will be over in a minute, you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Shh, shh. Don't worry, I'm right here with you, you're safe, everything will be okay".
And slowly, while this was happening, the group gathered around and they felt safe and oddly at peace because they knew that the sick man was in the hands of their great teacher. His love and his authority took away even the terrifying power of illness.
The sickness in this story is an interruption. It is an interruption. No one planned it. No one was prepared for it. Everyone was troubled by it and put off by it. It was a major problem, to the ministry happening, to the lives around it, to the man who was afflicted, and even to Jesus who was teaching and who loved the ones he taught.
Everyone was affected and infected by this illness because under Jewish law, an
unclean person in the synagogue made the others unclean if they touched him, but even more than that, this wasn't a big town folks, this wasn't a mega-synagogue. Everyone knew everyone. One of their own was sick. One that they knew and loved had a terrible illness.
So they were afraid and sad and worried and all eyes were on Jesus. What would he do? How would he respond? They didn't really know him yet, he was a new rabbi, a new teacher and they didn't know what to expect. He could have thrown the sick man out. He could have encouraged everyone to leave because doubt had been cast on them now too. Instead he threw the sickness out and kept the congregation, each and every one one of them, worthy or not.
One man was healed and so everyone was made clean by Jesus, there was no reason for them to be afraid of illness anymore.
But what is funny is that he healed the man and after he did they said he taught with authority. Not that he healed with authority but that he taught that way.
Yes, someone was healed but that wasn't the point. And we know that it isn't the point because we are not Jesus and we do not live at the appointed time when all the world is made peaceful and whole, that Paul is longing for in our Epistle lesson, and so we know that people are sick. We know that they are sick and not everyone always gets well. And even when they do we know that more sickness comes afterward to others. That it never stops completely, that someone, somewhere that we love is always afflicted in some way. And that was a given for the people that Jesus was teaching even more than it is for us. So the teaching was the point.
Jesus taught, by healing, that our God, the God of love, has authority. Not just authority but THE authority. Even in the midst of sickness and death, that our God pauses even in His most important teaching for the sake of someone who isn't okay. In order to be with them, in order to be God to them, in order to be a human with them. In order to bring them peace.
Do we have illness among us? Do we have illness in us brothers and sisters? Yes. We do, we always do. In one form or another, in one way or another we are always touched by brokenness. So what does Jesus' teaching do for us in that illness? Why do we care that he taught with authority more than we care about being healed?
Because the ultimate thing that he taught is that we are not alone, never alone, least alone when we live in brokenness and least alone when we minister to the broken.
Did Jesus heal everyone who was sick? No, he didn't get to everyone, but what he did do was teach that even illness doesn't have the final word, it barely even has a word at all. Rather the word that we hear in all types of trouble and fear is be calm, be still, because we are not alone.
And we are even empowered then, instead of walking away or turning our eyes from the uncomfortable scene of illness, illness of all types: mental, physical, emotional, relational, environmental, economic, marital, familial, career, spiritual, personal, cooperate, incurable and curable, all illness, our own and that of strangers, in the midst of all of it, we are empowered to gather around like that group of young people in the library and like that group in the synagogue and share our comfort with one another that we have a new teacher, who teaches with new authority and who brings us new life. Everyday! Amen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
