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Fifth Sunday after Epiphany Mark 1:29-39 February 5, 2012
I have a church cartoon file.
In it there is an old cartoon from some journal from years ago.
It shows a pastor down on his knees in his office, Bible or prayer book open on the chair in front of him.
Secretary sticks her head in the door, looks at him and says,” Good, you’re not busy.”
I was reminded of this cartoon when I started preparing this sermon and I ran across verse 36 and 37 where we are told: “And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” (verses 36-37)
Which is just another way to say, “Good, you’re not busy.”
That’s pretty much what happened to Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.
The story takes place early in Jesus’ ministry.
He has been baptized and then tempted in the wilderness.
He has returned to the area and begun gathering disciples and doing some teaching in the synagogue, where he healed a man with “unclean spirits.”
And today, they leave worship and go to Simon’s house for dinner.
While there Jesus learns that Simon’s mother-in-law is not well and he very matter-of-factly heals her.
Word of both healings spreads and instead of a restful Sabbath afternoon, Jesus spends the day healing sickness and casting out demons.
A very full workload for anybody, even the Son of God.
So, early the next morning Jesus sets out to find some “me time.”
Or, perhaps more correctly, some “me and God time.”
After a day like the one he’d had, he needed to think, to pray, to just be in the presence of the holy for a little while.
But it was not to be.
Here come “Simon and his companions,” like a mob of zealous church secretaries.
When they find him sitting quietly alone they say, “Good, you’re not busy. Everybody is searching.”
They probably expected Jesus to jump up and say, “My goodness, where did the time go?
Boy, I’ve got to get back to town and get on those healings and exorcisms right away.
Thanks for coming to get me.”
But that’s not what he said.
And that’s not what he did.
Instead, Jesus got up, stretched and said, “Let’s go to the next town, so I can preach the message there too. After all, that’s what I’m here for.”
Or as Mark puts it, “. . . so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”
What is this message that Jesus has come out to proclaim?
Simply put: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news.” (1:15)
In this simple and to the point proclamation, Jesus offers both a promise and an invitation; a promise that God has not forgotten or abandoned the world, and it is an invitation to become a participant in God’s work in the world.
One of the most important keys to reading Mark’s gospel is to realize that all the healings and exorcisms show us not only who Jesus is, but they also show us who God is and who we are and who we are called to be.
And this is important.
It is important because, just as we have some messed up ideas today of who and what God is about, the same was true back then.
And if our perception of who and what God is about is messed up, it will in the end, influence and mess up our perception as to who we are as Christians and what we are to be about.
Right?
The healings and casting out of demons shows Jesus to be a healer and proclaimer sent from God, carrying on God’s work in the world.
They also reveal clearly that our God is a God who is present and not far off.
A God of love and compassion,
A God who is active in the world and in our lives.
These healings also revel to us who we are.
We are the people whom God loves; loves enough to touch and heal and care for.
And, we are people invited by God to join in the divine mission and ministry of healing and reconciliation in the world.
And it is in the context of this life of service to God and the world that going off alone to pray makes sense, for Jesus and for us.
Every few months, there is another article in the secular and religious press about why a lot of people have left the church.
What I have found interesting is the reoccurring theme or phrase used and held by folks is that they are , “spiritual but not religious.”
Or, I have also found that people will say: “They like Jesus, just not the church.”
This notion of being “spiritual without being religious,” has led to a notion that spirituality and prayer being mainly personal and private, for one’s own good and benefit.
And sadly the “value” of God and Jesus and the Church in our increasingly materialistic and consumerist culture is calculated purely on their effectiveness in “making my life better”, and unfortunately has little interest in the lives of others, and more often than not, there is little regard for the very people Jesus cared about: the poor, the marginalized, the hungry, and those rejected by the religious establishment.
This is why you have folks moving from church to church or abandoning the concept of church all together while saying, “Well, I just wasn’t getting fed; I wasn’t getting anything out of it.”
Listen up people; it’s not about you.
Or, as my friend Tom often says, “Get over yourselves!”
And you know what, that’s good advice because it it’s about you, or me, or any other one person.
It’s not about the church board or the youth program or the Sunday School or whatever.
The bottom line is that it’s about God and it’s about your neighbor, it’s about the world and it’s about the people in the world.
It’s about joining Jesus in his mission to proclaim the Good News of God’s love and grace to all the people in the world.
And that is hard work and you can’t do it 24/7 and you need friends and you need God to be able to pull it off.
Jesus went to synagogue, Jesus had a small group, Jesus spent time alone, Jesus proclaimed the kingdom, and Jesus did healings.
It is only as a part of this sort of rhythmic cycle that the personal time with God fits, it cannot stand on its own.
In a perfect world disciples, that is followers of Jesus, would find the time and opportunity to develop a life of weekly worship, daily prayer, Bible reading, seeking out nurturing relationships and opportunities to serve in and beyond the community of faith.
In other words, each of us would be intentional in the developing the Marks of Discipleship, which has been something we have been talking about for the past couple weeks in our confirmation classes.
For us to answer God’s call to follow Jesus, we need public time gathered around Word and Table, we need the support of and conversation with like-minded folk, we need private prayer and meditation, we need to become more familiar with God’s story and we need to be out there, sharing God’s love in word and deed with God’s suffering children.
As followers of Jesus we are called to a life of prayer and service, living within God’s community so that we will be strengthened and empowered to love and serve and heal and serve our neighbor in need.
This season of Epiphany is a wonderful time for Jesus to be revealed to us that we might know who he is and what he is about.
It is also a time for our mission and ministry to be revealed to us, as individuals and as a community of faith.
And today’s reading reminds us that our calling in part involves being called into God’s presence so that we may be sent back out into God’s world, proclaiming God’s love, healing God’s people.
The rhythm of faith is simple, gathering for worship and then seeking out ways to serve.
Worship and service.
In this rhythm of life we receive both a promise and an invitation.
The promise is that God is with us in both quiet times and busy times.
The invitation is to seek out ways to serve and share—to make a difference in the lives of others—extending God’s amazing love and grace to a world that is dependant on each of you.
And while that might seem a bit daunting, our Lord assures us that we are not alone, we have one another and more importantly, we have Him at our side.
And for this we can say.
Amen. Thanks be to God!
Pastor Stephen Blenkush
Zion Lutheran Church
Milaca MN
ZionMilaca.org
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