Healing and Service

The 4^th century synagogue we can visit in that town these days is right on top of the stones of the first century synagogue which is the likely location of the story we just heard.

Right next door is a house that may well be the house of Peter's mother in law.

At least it has been honored as such for as many centuries as there are any records.

These are real places on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee where real people lived and struggled.

What happened when Jesus came among them so long ago?

He(1) healed them, he(2) called them, he (3)sent them, he(4) left them and went on to other places...and we suppose, came back to (5)check on them again later, and, likely, someone else to do so, also.

None of this should sound so strange to us; it has been our experience of Jesus also!

(1) He heals us in Holy Baptism.

One of our favorite hymns starts its second stanza this way:

Open now the crystal fountain Where the healing waters flow....

(2)He calls and commissions us with different jobs to do.

Some are quick and easy one-time things, like visiting the Selinsgrove Center; others are life-time assignments, such as trying to raise our children in the faith.

(3)He sends us out from this gathering each Sunday.

We can't stay here, even though it would be comfortable to remain.

There things to be done, people to be seen, a message to be lived.

A conversation is different than a monologue where one speaker just babbles on and on.

A conversation has time for silence and reflection, for response and rumination, time for change.

A conversation is what God is having with us in Jesus.

He is giving us time, enticing us, winning us over, re-directing us...as well as saving us from ourselves and from the power of sin and death.

Fortunately, he has lots more patience in this task than I do

I keep looking for faster and more visible results.

(4)Jesus sends us out, giving us time to think and to do, and in that time, to respond in faithful words and actions.

(5)Then when we gather next Sunday, he is back to check on us.

In the prayers of confession, we admit to we haven't said and done all that we should.

In the lessons we recognize that our experiences run parallel with those of Israel of old and disciples of New Testament times as well... the same problems, the same failings.

And Jesus offers the same time and prescriptions for amendment of life:

“Follow me.”[Mark 1:17] “Sin no more”[John 8:11] “I will ask the Father and he will send you an Advocate to be with you forever.”[Jn14:16] and many similar pronouncements.

None of this should be any surprise to us; we've heard all of this often enough.

The problem was stated succinctly last Sunday by Pr. Shipman on the way out the door with a standard pastor-joke.

He said, “Well, pastor, that was a fine sermon; I just wish my neighbor had heard it.”

We are forever thinking that the sharp edge of the gospel should be cutting someone else and not ourselves.

I just pruned my pear tree last week.

I took two major branch out of the center as well as more than a hundred short ones across the top.

[yes, I'm compulsive enough to count]

Someone might say: Just leave those branches.

They're so nice.

They look so pretty.

They carried a couple of bird nests last year.

They grew up so nice and tall.

I pruned them out of the center of the tree so that there would be more light reaching the lower branches, the ones that actually bear fruit.

The ones I pruned don't actually do much but wave around, use up water and fertilizer, and look pretty.

If they happen to have any fruit at all, it is up so high that it is dangerous to try to reach with my ladder anyway.

[I think it forgot that it was supposed to be a semi-dwarf tree.]

Was I being mean or cruel with this pruning?

Or was this what was best for the tree?

I know that when I act in this way I can get more than 600 pears in a good year from this one semi-dwarf tree.

If I didn't, I would have lots of broken branches and very little fruit.

So what does Jesus do in these encounters we are hearing in the Gospel of Mark in these weeks in Epiphany?

He speaks with authority, acting decisively, effectively, and calmly in doing what needs to be done.

He acts with compassion, the divine mercy for us in our fallen situation.

That is to say, he pruned away the illness, the evil growth in the lives of many.

It was very clear to himself what he was doing and why he was doing it.

It was not bragging, not a circus sideshow; rather it was simply people in great need being helped as a sign of the in-breaking kingdom of God.

In other words, when the kingdom of God is come in its fullness, this is a sample of what that final harvest will be like.

Get ready to enjoy it!

Let anything that will get it its way be pruned away.

Are we clear on what we are doing and why?

Or is it like the commercial from many years ago ...”time to make the doughnuts”...without any real understanding of why and to what end.?

The old Westminster catechism gets to the point: It says “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

It is easy to see why there was so much confusion and hubbub around Jesus.

Few people had the focus right.

Most everyone was trying to get a little piece of Jesus for their own purposes.

It was “Heal me because I want it”....

Instead of “Heal me so that I can better glorify God.”

Jesus drew himself apart for prayer, for conversation with the Father, the Gospel lesson today says,

in order to keep his focus straight.

He could have been busy with all sorts of things, but set aside considerable time for that quiet conversation.

I remember Luther writing someplace that on a particular day he had so much to do that he needed to spend two hours in prayer before he even started.

[That is not a mis-print!]

That ought to give pause to all of us gathered here.

It ought to startle even more the several hundred of our members who have

chosen not to be here for prayer this morning.

What do each of us need to allow Jesus to prune out of our lives in order to make room for prayer to grow?...

on Sundays, on weekdays

corporately, individually, in families....

--The middle-school student terrified of being singled out as different if he or she gives thanks for food in the cafeteria.

--The adult with the deer in the headlights expression when asked to begin a meeting or a meal with prayer.

--The stone-cold silence when the doctor has just left the room after giving a poor prognosis report.

Oh, yes, there are all sorts of things that need to be pruned out so that the gentle warming light of Christ can shine on us.

And as that pruning takes place, as that light shines, as that healing progresses, ...we begin to bear good fruit.

I had a telephone interview with a person from the Family Promise national office this week who wanted to learn about our experience thus far.

One of her questions had to do with how does this fit in with other activities of the congregation.

And so I began to list them.

--for 40 years or more, a Christmas party for a group of severe disadvantaged women who would never have anything else.

--teddy bears for children in crisis moments

--hats, mittens and clothing for children at Christmas

--100 quilts a year for decades now.

--a generation ago it was refugee resettlement projects

--support for pregnancy care center locally

--potassium permanganate and shoes for the mossy foot treatment program in Africa

--flip charts for the Divine Drama Bible teaching program in Liberia

She laughed and said “Enough, I get the idea; you do things because you are sent.”

Just one more thing:

Some of you know that I was struck with a migraine on December 5 and it has not not completely left me since that day.

There have been some days better than others, but the Christmas season was a struggle.

It is much better now than it has been, and I thank those that have been remembering me in prayer during this time.

I hope with medical care, medicine, therapy, and prayer that it will finally be gone, but compared with what many in the congregation face each day it is a small thing.

But even if I were never to be healed of this headache, I will still rejoice in the healing power of Christ Jesus who deals with the even larger problem, the healing of the sickness of sin and the brokenness between God and me, and indeed, all of us.

Will you rejoice with me in saying Amen!

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.