Sermon from 9 January 2007

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Readings: Hebrews 2:14-18, Psalm 105:1-15, Mark 1:29-39


The beginning of Mark's Gospel is filled with stories of healing, stories of Jesus' teaching in the synagogues, and stories of people being astounded. By today's story, in the middle of the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, Jesus has already called four of his twelve disciples, who simply walk out on their previous lives as fishermen to follow him, earlier in the day of today's story he had just taught and astounded listeners in the synagogue, and been recognized as the Holy One of God by a demon whom he cast out, as soon as they left the synagogue, they went to Simon's house where he healed Simon's Mother-in-law, then that evening the whole town came out with their sick and suffering and brought them to Jesus for healing. Jesus was instantly famous, and his disciples were thrilled.

While his earliest and closest disciples reveled in Jesus' fame and success, Jesus got up before dawn to seek out a deserted place where he could pray. Upon hunting for him and finally finding him, Simon and the other three confronted him saying "everyone is searching for you" – as if to say, what are you doing here praying? Don't you know you're famous! Come celebrate with us!

Jesus answer is redirective, and foreshadows his struggle to teach his disciples his true purpose over the whole course of the next three years – "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."

For the rest of Jesus' ministry, he seems to constantly be seeking those dark deserted places where he can steal away for a few precious moments of personal prayer. As his fame spreads, however, it seems that he can go nowhere without being followed, anticipated, or headed off by the needy throngs of people hungry for his healing and his teachings. At this earliest sign of the years to come, we see already a gap between Jesus' understanding of his purpose and ministry and the disciple's understanding. Here the path that Jesus and the disciples will walk together is established, but there is a crack in the middle of this path that will eventually open into an ever widening chasm with the disciples on one side and Jesus on the other. What will separate them, and what has and continues to separate us from God is prayer.

The highpoint of the disciples' walk with Jesus comes not too long after today's story, when they are sent out and given the authority to cast out demons and to heal in Jesus' name. The low point comes not too long again after the high point when the disciples find themselves unable to cast out a demon, which Jesus later tells them could only be cast out through prayer. Where had they lost sight of their reliance on God for the authority granted them? When had they fallen into that all too human trap of believing that somehow they as humans had what was necessary to heal and cast out demons?

The rocky start to the disciples' ministry with Jesus, described in the tension of today's Gospel between prayerful and humble acceptance of God's grace working through us, and our own human desire for power, glory, and the self- sufficiency to claim authority over the challenges that face us are a good place to start.

I take my own life as an example. There are days when I just simply feel stressed out. I've been working tirelessly to manage family, home, job, future planning, social life, finances, and still have enough time left to eat, sleep, and spend some good quality time with Fuego and the pets. "What's happened to me," I wonder to myself as I feel the soreness in my neck and feel my shoulders pressing against my ears, "this isn't who I am, this isn't who I want to be... where did the easygoing and mellow person that I usually am go?" And so I wonder to myself, "okay, what is it that's stressing me out?" Well, there's the two-hundred pages of homework that I really didn't want to read last night at the end of a long day… but I really don't think that's it." Unable to find an answer on my own, I finally turn to God and realize that even though I work every day in ministry, just as the disciples did with Jesus, it has been nearly a month since I've had the time to just sit in contemplative prayer. And so I sit. In the midst of preparing for my sermon, running out of time to get it all written down, I simply stop. I sit in silence, and I pray.

The beauty of the disciples is that they are us. They are the human reaction and living misunderstanding of God's purpose amongst is in Christ. Jesus, as he redirects and strives throughout his ministry to teach them, similarly strives throughout our lives to remind and to teach us that we aren't meant to take on life from our own authority. There is quite simply too much for us to do and see and get accomplished in this life for us to try to do it without God's help. We were created to be in relationship with God, and it is sometimes only through the constant reminder of our stress and failure to accomplish everything we need to accomplish with any sense of peace that we come to be reminded that even when we are working to God's will in the world, it can never be enough if we forget from where our strength, our authority, and our peace comes.

The author of Hebrews reminds us today that Christ shared with us the same things that we go through in our existence of flesh and blood. He is our help, he is our example, he is our reminder that a life lived for God can only be done cooperatively with God through prayer.

In the words of the Psalmist, Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name! We were never meant to face this world without God... So let us pray.

Amen.