really meet Jesus, she scolded herself, you ll wish you d given more.

Transcription

1 George A. Mason 5 th Sunday after Epiphany Wilshire Baptist Church 4 February 2018 Fifth in a series, Renewing the Jesus Movement Dallas, Texas The Life We Give Mark 1:29-39 A friend in our church was telling me about an encounter she had that somewhat embarrassed her, but taught her at the same time. Which, by the way, is everything, isn t it? I mean, learning through vulnerability. She was in her car at a gas station on Northwest Highway when a man tried to wash her windshield for a tip. This happens all the time in tourist areas of poor countries, but here she was in Dallas, and she was initially a bit annoyed because she didn t need her windows washed. But she is trying to be a better Christian by being more awake to life in the moment, so she stopped and gave the man a dollar bill, telling him he didn t need to do anything for it; he could just have it. Then she started feeling bad that it was so little, and she even had the thought immediately after giving it to him that this is another growing edge for her she never gives enough. She has been trying to figure how to be a better giver to the church, and here she was again, giving so little, she thought. When you really meet Jesus, she scolded herself, you ll wish you d given more. But before she could drive away, shaming herself again the way she habitually does to herself this is her pastor talking, don t you know?! the man stopped her, looked her in the eyes and said, Bless you for your compassion. It touched her deeply. I was shocked, she said, because he seemed to have looked into my heart and blessed me for what I had thought of as nothing at all. Since I was only giving him a buck, I was not impressed with myself. But he wasn t counting the amount of money; he was counting the fact that I d looked at him as a human being. And he was right! It had been pure compassion. I didn t want him to feel defeated or ashamed of his attempt to pick up a little money by doing something useful. I didn t value that in myself, but it seemed as if he did. During this season of Epiphany, we ve been looking at ways in which we can renew the Jesus movement in our time, and

2 we ve been following Mark s Gospel in regard to what Jesus did. Compassion was at the heart of it all. He began his ministry in Galilee, where he taught and healed and cast out demons. We ll dive deeper into the demons thing in a moment, but for now the big picture is this: Jesus ministry was life-giving. He gave his life not only on the cross, but also at every step of the way to the cross. And in doing so, he gave life to those he came into contact with. He looked with compassion at people who were bruised and broken. His healing work was done not simply to make them well for the moment, physically or mentally; it was to give them a taste of the full life and the dignity that God had intended for them from the beginning of time and is bringing about at the end of time. This is his purpose, and it should be ours as his followers. The phrase that caught my attention in our text today from Mark s Gospel is the one in which Jesus says that is what I came out to do. You probably think the language of coming out is what piqued my interest. And, yes, there s that. I mean that there is something to be learned from the struggle for authenticity that our gay and transgender sisters and brothers endure and the breakthrough it represents when they come out. Jesus had to be true to his own identity and mission and not be captive to what other people wanted him to be and do. We all have this struggle at some level, and apparently even Jesus did. We hosted a live-streamed event on Thursday night from The Riverside Church in New York that featured a conversation between the popular writer and speaker Brené Brown and the Black Lives Matter activist and podcaster DeRay McKesson. It was called The Courage to Show Up. One of my takeaways was this: Comfort is the enemy of courage, and we all tend to choose comfort over courage. Comfort assumes there is only so much life to go around, and we try to secure our own share. Courage assumes that an abundance of life is available for all of us and, therefore we give it to others freely, trusting that we will all have a share when we do. Comfort operates from fear, courage from love. Jesus could have had a comfortable life by paying attention to his own interests 2

3 alone, but that wasn t who he was or what he was meant to be. It also took courage for him to come out from the comfort of being just a populist preacher in Galilee. What he came out for was to be the Savior of the world more than just a local hero. We see that in this scene, where the disciples catch up with him in the early morning after a full night of healing work in Capernaum. He had withdrawn alone to a quiet place. When his disciples find him, they say everyone is looking for him. His time of prayer and meditation must have clarified for him that he couldn t limit his work to one town or region. He tells his disciples that they have to go to neighboring towns, too, to proclaim the message and give life to others as well. This is what he came out to do. The mission of the church is never only a mission to the church. It is that, because we are God s people, but so is everyone else. Our healing mission therefore takes us out of our comfort zones and into courageous encounters. It takes us to places like Tanzania, for instance, to work with partners like Peter Kamanda. We all love our kids and want them to have a good education. That is one of our chief concerns as parents. But as followers of Jesus, we also care about other people s children, because in the spiritual sense there is no such thing as other people s children. That is why we are advocating good public education here in Dallas and in Texas. No one should be denied the opportunity to learn and flourish because they have lost the genetic lottery by being born to parents without the resources others have. God is the father of us all. But even that s not enough. We don t care about just American children; we care about African children too. This is why we have helped to build a residential dormitory at a school in Tanzania, so that girls who were regularly being molested on their way to school will be protected from abuse and allowed to grow up with their hearts intact. This is life-giving work. As is giving to the Phil Strickland Offering for World Hunger. We who have food to eat and clean water to drink give in order to do the same for those who don t. This is life-giving work. Let s home in on this story from 3

4 Mark today, which begins in a home. Jesus has just left the synagogue in Capernaum, where he has freed a man who had an unclean spirit. Immediately after that and everything in Mark seems to happen immediately Jesus goes to the house of Simon Peter and his brother Andrew. If you go to Capernaum today, you can stand in the ruins of the synagogue that had been build right over the synagogue where this would have taken place. And, literally, just steps away from it is Peter s house, which is now a church with a glass floor looking down on the basalt rock walls that framed the rooms of the house that Jesus entered. In one of those rooms, Peter s mother-in-law lay burning up with a fever. Jesus went to her, took her by the hand and lifted her up. And as soon as the fever left her, she began to serve them. Because she was healed, she was able to resume the life that allowed her to give life, too. Mark then gives us a picture of the scene that ensues. The whole town gathered at the door of the house and crowded around for healing. Jesus cured many diseases and cast out demons, not permitting them to speak, because they knew him. No one knows exactly why Jesus didn t permit the demons to speak, and commentators have various theories about it. Here s one thought of mine, for what it s worth. Most of us don t encounter people who are demon-possessed as if it s a daily reality in our communities. I m not going to say I know that the people in Jesus day that were said to be demon-possessed were really all just mentally ill, but I will say that even in our day of modern medicine, we talk of mentally ill people struggling with their demons. Are they literal or figurative demons? Who knows? But what they do is alter a person s sense of personhood. They take over a personality. They rob a person of the peace that should rule a heart and mind. Chronic depression is a black hole. Addiction to substances robs people of the power of agency over their own lives. People who have been molested or abused in some way, as well as those who have served in combat situations, may suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder. Brain scans show damage because of it. And it feels oppressive and immobilizing. These people often speak and act out of that pain, as if the demons are speaking instead of them. It 4

5 causes havoc in our families and churches. And speaking of churches, a pastor friend told me recently that a study indicates that we preach weekly to congregations that have an estimated 60 percent of the people in the pews who suffer from some sort of PTSD that would show up on a scan. That is demonic and real, whether the demons are literal or not. And by the way, we need to be honest about how much of that trauma in the church is caused by the church itself, instead of being cured by the church. Jesus doesn t permit the demons to speak because he sees the true selves of people beneath their illnesses, not just their presenting pathology. His wellness replaces their illness. We live today in a time when God has allowed us to discover the means of combating diseases through medicine. Healing isn t a choice between prayer and medicine, as if they are somehow opposed to one another. They are both God s healing tools. Jesus shows us that healing always involves relationships, though. Being up close and personal with people in love and compassion is what medical professionals like doctors and nurses and chaplains and social workers and counselors and pastors do. They treat the person, not the patient. They see the human being, not the illness. And that itself is life-giving. And we can all do this, whether we are healing professionals or just run-of-the-mill Jesus followers. You can be a faith healer, too! When we forgive another person who has hurt us, that is life-giving work. When we listen to a person s truth instead of just wanting to tell our own, that is life-giving work. When we notice a person who was otherwise invisible to us because she is a woman or a person of color or a child or an elderly person or on the opposite end of the political spectrum from us, that is life-giving work. We drive out the demons that have crowded the life of the person. We give space for grace. This brings me back to what my friend said to herself. She was right, you know, even if she was being too hard on herself. When you really meet Jesus, you ll wish you had given more. More money, yes. That always 5

6 helps. But more time and attention and love and compassion, too. This is the lifegiving work Jesus came out to do. And it s what he is calling us out to do by the healing power of his own Spirit at work in us. 6