Sermon for SMHP, Year B, Epiphany + 5, Feb. 4, 2024
Mark 1:29-39
29As soon as they left
the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.30Now
Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once.31He
came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and
she began to serve them.
32That
evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with
demons.33And the whole city was gathered around the door.34And
he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons;
and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.35In
the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted
place, and there he prayed.36And Simon and his companions hunted for
him.37When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching
for you.”38He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so
that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”39And
he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and
casting out demons.
Hang
on to your Insert—you’re going to need it again in a minute. As we have been these weeks in Epiphany,
we’re going to stick closely to the text before us. The longer I spend in the pulpit, the more
convinced I am that Mark, chapter one, is essential reading for Christians.
It’s sort of a How
To manual. In this chapter we’ve had
healings, casting out of demons, proclamation of the gospel message, and Jesus
withdrawing to a deserted place by himself to pray.
Oh
wait, that’s not the chapter, that’s just this morning’s lesson. I
sometimes feel like Ferris Bueller reading through this chapter. It definitely feels like Mark is in
the middle of things, so we are in the middle of things. And those things happen fast. Twenty-nine verses into this gospel, and it
seems as though we’ve been on the road with Jesus for months.
So
much is happening, and it’s happening right now. Mark’s favorite word is “immediately.” In Greek euthus. Mark uses this word 42 times, which is about
50% more than all of the other gospel writers…put together. Which is
impressive, since this is the shortest and sparest of the gospel
narratives. It’s also the first, written
at a time when both Christians and Jews were under attack from the Roman Empire
and its increasingly tyrannical leaders.
There
is an urgency in this gospel that I think we would do well to recover. The gospel is under attack, and while the
gospel will be just fine, the church is taking a beating. Before this is all over, the church will
follow Jesus all the way to the end, where it will die in ignominy and be
reborn in glory. In some places, and I
believe this is one of them, that shift is happening already, as old models of
heavy, top-down leadership disappear, and our ministry gets lighter and more
nimble.
Like
Jesus, in the first chapter of Mark.
Confident in the work, and working the plan.
Jesus
knows what he’s doing. That might sound
like an odd statement, but believe me, there’s lots of speculation. He’s doing the things and he knows he’s doing
the things, and yes, he fully understands what the things are. People who wonder whether he really
understands the magnitude of the task he has undertaken have not read, or not
read carefully, Mark 1:38.
We
have read it. Let’s read it
again. Get your Insert, or look up
front. For
context, which Mark helpfully provides—where are we? Still in Capernaum. Just left the synagogue where last
week’s lesson took place. They leave the
synagogue, go to Simon Peter’s house, which he shares with his brother and
presumably his wife and in laws, or at least his mother-in-law. Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law, and then a
bunch of other people, and casts out a bunch of demons, who aren’t allowed to
talk to Jesus because they know him—I’m glossing over all of this but it’s all
Super Super important because Mark, Chapter One is Super Super important.
Verse
35, Jesus takes a little prayer retreat, verse 36, the disciples hunt him down
to tell him—Verse 37—that “everybody” is looking for him, and we come to Verse
38. Read it with me:
38He
answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the
message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”
Chapter
One of Mark is so important, not because it has something really literary, like
the Sermon on the Mount, or the Magnificat.
And not because it contains a memorable story like the nativity or the
cleansing of the table. And not because
it has a really memorable teaching, like the parable of the Prodigal Son or the
separation of the sheep and the goats.
No, Chapter One
just describes the Ordinary work of Jesus. ALL of it.
In one chapter, we see the entire earthly ministry of Jesus, which is
encapsulated in the next verse. Read 39
with me:
39And
he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and
casting out demons.
The
ministry of Jesus Christ is about two things. Proclamation. And healing. I know I harp on this a lot and while some of
you are hearing it for the first time, others are thinking “yes, Pastor Donna,
we know.”
I
harp on it, because there seems to be some confusion out there in the world
about what Jesus came to do, and what ministry he left for us to do. And this is kind of the heart of
discipleship.
Jesus
came to do two things:
1.
Proclaim the gospel, the good news of God’s
love.
2.
And heal.
In Mark, that healing looks like good old fashioned “making people well,
as with Simon’s mother-in-law, and it looks like casting out demons, which is
also a thing we hear more about in Mark than in other gospels.
Up to the time
that he was executed by the authorities for proclaiming the wrong things and
healing the wrong people…on the wrong days, the whole ministry of Jesus centers
in those two actions, which we have seen over and over as we’ve been working
our way through Chapter One.
There are a few
other things that happen to him at the beginning of the chapter—he’s
baptized and then tempted by that crafty old devil, but there’s only one other
thing that Jesus does in this chapter…and it’s connected with the house they’re
in—or whose house it is.
He calls
disciples. He’s baptized…he’s tempted by
the devil…he calls some disciples, and then he takes those disciples around
their home territory showing them the work he’s calling them to do.
What’s the work?
Proclamation and
healing.
Proclamation and
healing is the ministry of Jesus Christ.
It is, therefore, the ministry of the disciples of Jesus Christ, who
have accepted a call to be On the Jesus Way.
Here’s why it is
vital that we understand this and why I harp on it incessantly. These have not been the central tasks of The
Church for a while now. That is why I
say that we may have to lay down our life in order to take it up again. Hopefully we can do that without actually
dying, but we cannot do that unless we reclaim the commitment to
proclamation and healing.
I’m going to get a
letter in the mail any day now, inviting me to fill out my “parochial
report.” Know what it’s going to ask
about?
How many people?
How much money?
There will be a
couple of questions about outreach ministry, which can mean healing ministries
with which we are feeding, clothing, and advocating for our neighbors in need.
But there won’t be
much I can write down on that report about the work of proclamation and healing
that happens here. Because the church
has struggled to find a way to count that work, and I mean that in two
senses—we can’t count it—1, 2, 3—and we haven’t figured out how much it counts
as the central work of ministry.
And hear me out
here: That is fine.
Think about what
we’ve read in Mark, Chapter One, this treatise about Jesus’ ministry and what
discipleship should look like—this Christianity
101.
How much of it was
about building churches?
Gosh, Pastor
Donna, do you think the church is not important? Well, if it isn’t, I’ve kinda wasted my
life.
Where the church
is engaged in the work of healing (in its broadest sense) and proclamation of a
message of hope and peace and love—it is the most important institution in the
world. And where it has lost sight of
the clearcut call we received from Jesus Christ, it is a danger to itself and
others.
People of God, we
cannot save the institutional church. Nobody
asked us to, first of all. And it’s not a primary task for disciples, despite
what the parochial report suggests.
There is exactly nothing in Mark One about building and maintaining
institutions.
We proclaim good
news of God’s love, which is for all people. We seek out and bring in those who have been
cast to the margins, and we help them heal when necessarily. We advocate for the poor, the differently
abled, and those in prison. And we
gather here once again to be strengthened for that work.
And when do we do
this work? Immediately.
Because when do
people need us to do it? Immediately.
May God, our
creator, graciously grant you the strength to join Jesus in the Way of
proclamation and healing, so that our world may know hope. And peace.
Amen
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