OK, I did ad lib a little near the end of this one at Salem, especially about reaching out to the community around us and bringing the community into the church, so this is not exactly what I said, but it is very close. I also thought it was interesting how one person who had been through the kind of CPE that I went through focused on that part of the sermon, which was nothing but a semron illustration.
Here is a link to the texts for the day at Sundays and Seasons: http://members.sundaysandseasons.com/planner_rcl_view.php?event_date_id=952
pax Christi,
Pr. J
2-15-2009, Epiphany 6B
Salem-Luther Memorial - Parrottsville, Tennessee
Mark 1:40-45
no title
Back in the summer of 1989 I was doing a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education at Baptist Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. That means my job that summer was to be a hospital chaplain and to sit through endless group sessions while a collection of judgmental rank amateur armchair psychologists, otherwise known as my peer group, tried to psychoanalyze every move and every sneeze I made, as if they didn‘t have their own log in their own eye. And I had a lot of sneezes for them. This is what they used to call “cut throat CPE.” I think it was a very unethical way of weeding out people during the seminary training process, but that‘s another story. Needless to say, I survived, and while the members of my peer group psychoanalyzed one another into oblivion they never did psychoanalyze me so I proudly remain an enigma to this day. Those peer group sessions were probably the hardest part of CPE, a complete waste of time, and I didn‘t learn anything from them.
What was easier, although it did not seem easy at the time, and what was the true learning experience of CPE, was to be out on the floors of the hospital answering calls from patients and staff, sometimes at 3 a.m. , what they used to call the “witching hour.”
I got one such call from a nurse who had a near hysterical patient on her hands, a young man. She would not elaborate on his illness. It took about ten minutes to get to the other side of the hospital. I found the room and there was a sign on the closed door: take necessary precautions, report to the nurses’ station. I went to the nurses’ station and told them who I was and where I was headed. They said I needed to wear a face mask; they weren’t sure, but they thought the guy in the room had AIDS. Back then AIDS was still a new disease. No one knew much about it. They gave me a face mask, “Wear this in the room,” they said. So I put the mask on and went in.
There was a young man in the bed, 22 or 24, scrawny and looking very stressed out, and his girlfriend was pacing the floor. They were obviously scared. That’s what you saw at first glance. A closer look and you could see that this man was covered, absolutely covered in tiny little black pimples, all over his arms, his neck, his face, his hands. The doctors told him he might have AIDS; they really didn’t know, and, in their exemplary bedside manner they told him AIDS was fatal - no cure, and that he should get his affairs in order, and so he was terrified. As he talked it turned out that he was a drug addict, had been shooting heroin and sharing dirty needles, and the doctors thought that was how he had gotten AIDS. They weren’t sure. They were doing tests to see if he had the HIV virus. Meanwhile this man was watching his life pass before his eyes, was acutely aware of every mistake he had ever made, especially getting into drugs. He had never been much for religion, but now he decided it would be a good time to pray. Would God really hear his prayer? He doubted it. I told him otherwise; God isn‘t so cheap. He wanted someone to hold his hands while I said a prayer for him. That meant his girlfriend and me, and he put his black pimple-covered hands out for both of us.
You are the chaplain on duty. Absolutely nothing in your training up to this point has prepared you for this; in fact, this is your training. What would you do? Let’s have your peer group in the pews psychoanalyze you.
This is similar to the situation Jesus faced in the gospel reading. A man said to be a "leper" came to Jesus. To be honest, any skin disorder, any skin disorder at all back then was called leprosy. You could have acne! - and you would be a lepros: one who has leprosy. That could be bad news indeed, and not just from a medical standpoint. Here’s what the Law had to say about that in Leviticus (13:45):
The person with the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He shall live alone, his dwelling place shall be outside the community.
The Law went on to say that the unclean person would be banned from the temple, tradition banned him from the synagogue, and he would have to go through an elaborate and expensive series of rituals just to have authorities civil and religious recognize his healing when he did recover.
Did the man have leprosy as we know it today, or did he have some lesser illness? I tend to think he had something other than genuine leprosy. Modern medical leprosy, Hansen’s Disease, was very rare in Palestine in the first century, but who knows what he really suffered from. What really matters is that he has been banned from the community, he has been marked unclean - not from a medical standpoint at all but entirely from a religious standpoint, his humanity has been stolen from him, and he has been branded by a dysfunctional religion as one who is unacceptable to God simply because of an illness. Indeed, Deuteronomy itself (chapter 28) would go so far as to say that this man has been marked by God as punishment for his sin. And the smug and complacent righteous would point their fingers at him and say, “See the sinner in the hands of an angry God!”
And you didn’t think society could be so cruel, did you?
What does Jesus do? The man has come to him, out of sheer desperation, with nowhere else to turn, cut off from his home, his family, his friends and neighbors, shunned by his own faith community as a sinner under punishment from God, homeless, hungry, perhaps starving now, not able to understand why any of this is happening to him, at his wit’s end. He has come as close as he dare under the Law, he has thrown himself down on his knees to beg Jesus, the Holy One of God who now has a reputation for healing people in Capernaum. “If you choose, you can make me clean!”
What does Jesus do?
Now, if you were a first century Christian, and you were reading this text, or more likely if you were listening to this text read to you in Greek then verse 41 alone would be the kind of verse that would make you catch your breath at several places because it is very dramatic in Greek. Right away you would see that Jesus himself immediately had a gut wrenching emotional reaction to the leper. They make it all sound so holy in our cleaned up English version today: “moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him,…”
Actually, the very first word of verse 41 in the Greek text [splagchnistheis] sounds about as bad as it’s meaning and the basic image it conveys has to do with your stomach sort of lurching about and getting all twisted up and tangled up in knots and cramping and making you bend over in pain, really tough stuff here. A very strong emotional reaction is implied, and that one word has been rendered for us as: “moved with pity,” but a better reading is: “moved with compassion.” Jesus "suffered-with" the man. Jesus had no choice but to feel a deep emotional response to what he was confronted with. That‘s the first place where you would catch your breath as a first century Christian hearing the story.
The next place is where Jesus responds: he stretched out his hand, and you catch your breath again - is he going to do the unthinkable? Is he going to touch the untouchable? Surely not!
And then, our sanitized reading merely says he “touched” the man, but listen to the story like a first century Christian familiar with the ancient words and their nuances and layered meanings and you catch your breath again and maybe even jump in your seat because you see that Jesus not just "touched" the man, but he suddenly grabbed him in a clenching grip as one would apprehend a fleeing criminal, and, at the same time, he said a single, sharp word in the Greek text that means, “I choose!” [thelo].
Then he said another single word that has multiple, layered meanings, “Be clean!” “Be innocent!” “Be pure!” [katharistheti], and it is rendered as a command: this is the way it will be: you will be clean, you will be innocent, you will be pure, now! And so Jesus restored this man’s stolen humanity. And in response the man told everyone what Jesus had done, and the word spread - that’s gossip - and the story grew in the telling, and finally became part of the Gospel, the Good Gossip.
Have you figured out what you would have done for the man in the hospital yet? The clock is ticking and he is waiting for you to take his hand and your peers are waiting to psychoanalyze you no matter what you do.
I had no idea what I was getting into, but I took one hand and his girlfriend took the other hand and I said a prayer for him, and he had a very tight grip. He truly thought he was going to die. But in that moment, which he thought would be one of his last, he knew his humanity had been restored to him by Jesus who had compassion for him.
The test results finally came back. He did not have the HIV virus. He did not have AIDS. He had some other condition connected to his being a drug addict and sharing needles, or that‘s what he said. He would live, and his relief was beyond words. And who knows where he is now and what he’s doing, but at least he knew then that there is a God, and that this God of power and compassion is very much present in his life.
Fr. Timothy Crellin, the priest at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Boston, teaches that from the sense of healing and trust in God’s presence that we find in our lives, we move out to the community – to the world around us where we reach across the barriers of our modern world, putting aside fear and prejudice to reach out with courage and compassion to give a healing touch our sisters and brothers.
We have to be Christ for each other, and not just for each other, but for the stranger, those we do not know, and the community around us. We have to be Christ for the community if we are to be true to our calling as disciples, and we have to let others be Christ for us.
Forgiveness, compassion, and love. It begins in our hearts, in our own lives, where Jesus has stretched out his own hand to touch us, and it moves out to the world around us. Jesus gives us power to do the work. He taught us what we need to know to be his disciples by giving us the example of his own unlimited compassion.
Thanks be to God that Jesus invites us to come forward and to show our true selves, heals us, and sends us out to our sisters and brothers with the power of his compassion.
Peace be with you.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
A little more on Capernaum and the house...
For those who may want to learn more about Capernaum and its early Christian house church here's a few tidbits to launch you off on your own voyages of discovery.
You can find a really good website about Kaphar Nahum and the house that may have been the one mentioned in Mark here. This was the first site I found about Capernaum a few years back and it remains one of the best: http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/sites/TScpmenu.html.
There are many (MANY) other websites dealing with Capernaum and the house, far too many to list here, and probably many that are a little lacking in the quality department. You might try looking at these sites:
http://www.allaboutarchaeology.org/house-of-peter-at-capernaum-faq.htm
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/3/Capernaum-%20The%20Church%20of%20the%20House%20of%20Peter
http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/capernaum.htmlhttp://www.ffhl.org/2006/Capernaum.asp
http://www.facingthechallenge.org/peter.php
I distinctly remember reading in a newspaper article years ago before I started seminary (like the early 1980's or late 1970's) about the Franciscan excavation at Capernaum and how graffitti on some part of the house contained words that we know today as part of the Kyrie: "Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy." Of course, I didn't save that article after all this time and the best references I can come up with on the internet at short notice merely acknowledge that graffitti in Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, and Greek references "Jesus," "Peter," "Christ," and "Lord." So if anyone comes across an actual reference to the "kyrie-like" lines, let me know. I also understand there is now some dispute among the scholars as to the actual reading of some of the graffitti. I also find the reference to 1st century fish hooks in the house to be somewhat interesting (Early Christian symbols of the faith? Long forgotten tools of the trade left behind by a historical Simon Peter? Both?)May you keep thinking, keep asking questions, keep searching, and keep using your historical and spiritual imagination.
Pr. J
You can find a really good website about Kaphar Nahum and the house that may have been the one mentioned in Mark here. This was the first site I found about Capernaum a few years back and it remains one of the best: http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/sites/TScpmenu.html.
There are many (MANY) other websites dealing with Capernaum and the house, far too many to list here, and probably many that are a little lacking in the quality department. You might try looking at these sites:
http://www.allaboutarchaeology.org/house-of-peter-at-capernaum-faq.htm
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2000/3/Capernaum-%20The%20Church%20of%20the%20House%20of%20Peter
http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/capernaum.htmlhttp://www.ffhl.org/2006/Capernaum.asp
http://www.facingthechallenge.org/peter.php
I distinctly remember reading in a newspaper article years ago before I started seminary (like the early 1980's or late 1970's) about the Franciscan excavation at Capernaum and how graffitti on some part of the house contained words that we know today as part of the Kyrie: "Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy." Of course, I didn't save that article after all this time and the best references I can come up with on the internet at short notice merely acknowledge that graffitti in Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, and Greek references "Jesus," "Peter," "Christ," and "Lord." So if anyone comes across an actual reference to the "kyrie-like" lines, let me know. I also understand there is now some dispute among the scholars as to the actual reading of some of the graffitti. I also find the reference to 1st century fish hooks in the house to be somewhat interesting (Early Christian symbols of the faith? Long forgotten tools of the trade left behind by a historical Simon Peter? Both?)May you keep thinking, keep asking questions, keep searching, and keep using your historical and spiritual imagination.
Pr. J
Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany
Here is a link to the texts for the day at Sundays and Seasons: http://members.sundaysandseasons.com/planner_rcl_view.php?event_date_id=951
pax Christi,
Pr. J
2-8-2009, Epiphany 5B
Salem-Luther Memorial Parish - Parrottsville, Tennessee
Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
“Have you not known? Have you not heard?”
The reading from Isaiah opens with words filled with expectation and excitement. They remind me of the old style news boy on the street corner waving the latest edition of the newspaper and shouting, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” The opening words of the reading convey the sense that the bearer of the news knows something no one else knows and is bursting at the seams to tell everyone what is happening, but also they suggest a little bit of surprise on the part of the news bearer that other people do not know what the headlines are about.
This part of Isaiah was written during the Babylonian Captivity, when the people of Jerusalem had been taken captive into Babylon. Here Isaiah wants to let people know that God is about to do something powerful, grand, and compassionate: God is going to return the exiles to their lost home. In that way the people of God will know God’s grace at work in their lives. So the Book of Isaiah tells people that change is about to happen! Things new and different will happen soon for the nation of Israel.But the things that are new and different, the things that will change, the acts that God is about to do could very well have to do with one’s own personal life. That was the case of Simon’s mother-in-law in the Gospel reading.Last week the Gospel of Mark presented the story of Jesus healing the man with the unclean spirit. Basically Jesus made this man clean again and so made him acceptable to his community and gave him the assurance that he was acceptable to God. He also set the man straight about what the Holy One of God was there to do: that he came to heal people and not to destroy people.
After the scene at the synagogue we are told that Jesus went with his disciples to the home of Simon and Andrew. Their house, or what is thought by some to be their house, usually called the house of Peter, has been unearthed in the archeological dig at Capernaum only a few huundred feet from the synagogue. The house was used as a church from the first century of Christianity; in one room that appears to have served as a worship area parts of what we would call a liturgy were hand-written on the wall: Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Who knows? Maybe it was the same house mentioned in the Gospel reading.
There, we are told, Simon’s mother-in-law was in the bed with a fever. The story plays out in a very simple way: she did not ask for Jesus, they told Jesus about her; she did not reach for Jesus, he took her hand; she did not rise herself, he lifted her from her sick bed, and the fever left her. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see that house turned into a shrine a few years later and made into a place where early Christians remembered that Christ had mercy on a sick woman, and so the handwriting on the wall takes on extra meaning: Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Perhaps in those ancient hand-scrawled words on the wall of that house there is a hint as to just how Simon’s mother-in-law began to serve Jesus after her fever left her. Could she have been the leader, the pastor, of the very first house church, dedicated to serve the Messiah who healed her? I like to think she was.
Historically, we don’t know what really happened in that house or how it happened. But whatever it was, there was power behind it. And people sensed this. In the very next verse what do they say except that they brought to Jesus all who were sick. A large crowd was gathered at the door of the house. This was a big deal. This was news worthy. Not just anyone could command this attention. Everybody in Capernaum turned out for this: the wealthy and the poor, beggars and merchants, the sick and the doctors, slaves with their burdens, soldiers with their duty, children, women young and old, poets, thieves, pious people, people shunned as sinners, and fishermen. The Gospel of Mark gives us the impression that the whole city was crowding the narrow streets before the front doorstep of Simon's house to find this man who spoke and acted with authority.
And Jesus did not waste the opportunity.
He looked people in the eye.
He spoke directly to each person present.
He healed many at the door of the house, cast out their demons, that was the best way that they could make sense out of it.
I think people came to him with their problems. I think they came with the burdens that had been laid on them by Law and Tradition. They came to him branded as unclean, not well, broken, lame, sinner - many, if not most, just seeking forgiveness from God and acceptance because no one else would forgive them and accept them and he was their last hope for any compassion and humanity.
More than anything else I think he heard confessions as people told him what brought them to him, this Holy One of God who healed the man in the synagogue and healed Simon’s mother-in-law. He heard all the stories about people being rejected and shunned and cast out, and in turn he cast out the shame and guilt and mental pain that crippled so many in that time and place. He told them they were made clean again, they were forgiven, they were acceptable to God.
Surely God has come to them in this man Jesus. And as the people heard Jesus pronounce the blessing over them they were healed and their lives were made new again.
Word got around, you know, it’s the power of common gossip used for once for good and constructive means: Jesus heals us, and he is changing the way we live; he is changing the way we relate to others; he is changing the way we even think and feel about ourselves. No longer are we scum-of-the-earth-sinners because of illness, errors in judgment, mistakes, human imperfection, circumstances beyond our control, and just plain birth. Now we are sinners made into saints!; sinners who are the children of God, sinners who are the true heirs of the Kingdom that has been kept from us for so long by Law and Tradition. We are sinners who are taken by the hand and lifted up out of our sin and brought into the Kingdom by Jesus.
He makes us acceptable to God when no one else cared, or was willing or was able to do that. And in everything he did the words of the prophet Isaiah began to be fulfilled, not in the sense that Jesus was blindly acting out some so-called psychic’s predictions made long ago; let’s not be so silly as to confuse the prophet of God Isaiah with the likes of Nostradamus. Old Testament prophets were not prophets in the pagan sense that they foretold the future. That’s what the lady with the crystal ball does at the county fair. Isaiah did not use a crystal ball. His job as a prophet of God was to speak forth for God. And he did. There’s a difference between that and forecasting the future. Jesus fulfilled the words of Isaiah by making the word of God a real, living presence and benevolent power for the people who needed it the most: the sick, the lost, the suffering. He brought the kingdom of God near to them and opened its gates for them. And they were absolutely amazed to find that when they least expected it, because of Jesus they had all been made children of the God of compassion who had come down to them in the midst of all their pain and trouble.And the ancient words of Isaiah may well have whispered to people on the breeze as the wind swept over the crowded Capernaum streets while Jesus healed people at the door of the house:
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?...Yahweh is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth…He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless…They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not fall.
Throughout this section of Mark Jesus has been speaking with authority so that when Jesus speaks, it has an effect on people. Lives are transformed. People are changed for the better.In the language of the New Testament, people are healed.
They are forgiven.
Their sins are forgotten; the personal demons which haunt them are dispelled.
They become children of God with new inner strength, and with their lives lifted up as if they had risen on eagles' wings.
That is something we remember in communion, where we hear God's promise of new life given to us through Jesus who was crucified and died to bring that promise to us. We remember it today as we share the bread and cup.We remember it anywhere and every time the people of Jesus gather around him to be healed and lifted up, and in that gathering we find that Jesus still speaks to us, giving us a new teaching with authority.
Have your not known? Have you not heard?
Has the Gospel not been preached here before?
We can listen to Jesus when he speaks to us in the midst of our busy, noisy, crowded lives.
We can open our ears to him as we shoulder our burdens and do our duties.We can meet him on the front door step of our house, let him heal us, dispel our fever, and cast out our personal demons.
He will speak with authority, which many people do not like these days.
But if we let him speak to us and let him reach into our lives to heal us then he will remake our lives for the better, and everyday we will become more and more the children of God.
Thanks be to God
pax Christi,
Pr. J
2-8-2009, Epiphany 5B
Salem-Luther Memorial Parish - Parrottsville, Tennessee
Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
“Have you not known? Have you not heard?”
The reading from Isaiah opens with words filled with expectation and excitement. They remind me of the old style news boy on the street corner waving the latest edition of the newspaper and shouting, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” The opening words of the reading convey the sense that the bearer of the news knows something no one else knows and is bursting at the seams to tell everyone what is happening, but also they suggest a little bit of surprise on the part of the news bearer that other people do not know what the headlines are about.
This part of Isaiah was written during the Babylonian Captivity, when the people of Jerusalem had been taken captive into Babylon. Here Isaiah wants to let people know that God is about to do something powerful, grand, and compassionate: God is going to return the exiles to their lost home. In that way the people of God will know God’s grace at work in their lives. So the Book of Isaiah tells people that change is about to happen! Things new and different will happen soon for the nation of Israel.But the things that are new and different, the things that will change, the acts that God is about to do could very well have to do with one’s own personal life. That was the case of Simon’s mother-in-law in the Gospel reading.Last week the Gospel of Mark presented the story of Jesus healing the man with the unclean spirit. Basically Jesus made this man clean again and so made him acceptable to his community and gave him the assurance that he was acceptable to God. He also set the man straight about what the Holy One of God was there to do: that he came to heal people and not to destroy people.
After the scene at the synagogue we are told that Jesus went with his disciples to the home of Simon and Andrew. Their house, or what is thought by some to be their house, usually called the house of Peter, has been unearthed in the archeological dig at Capernaum only a few huundred feet from the synagogue. The house was used as a church from the first century of Christianity; in one room that appears to have served as a worship area parts of what we would call a liturgy were hand-written on the wall: Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Who knows? Maybe it was the same house mentioned in the Gospel reading.
There, we are told, Simon’s mother-in-law was in the bed with a fever. The story plays out in a very simple way: she did not ask for Jesus, they told Jesus about her; she did not reach for Jesus, he took her hand; she did not rise herself, he lifted her from her sick bed, and the fever left her. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see that house turned into a shrine a few years later and made into a place where early Christians remembered that Christ had mercy on a sick woman, and so the handwriting on the wall takes on extra meaning: Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Perhaps in those ancient hand-scrawled words on the wall of that house there is a hint as to just how Simon’s mother-in-law began to serve Jesus after her fever left her. Could she have been the leader, the pastor, of the very first house church, dedicated to serve the Messiah who healed her? I like to think she was.
Historically, we don’t know what really happened in that house or how it happened. But whatever it was, there was power behind it. And people sensed this. In the very next verse what do they say except that they brought to Jesus all who were sick. A large crowd was gathered at the door of the house. This was a big deal. This was news worthy. Not just anyone could command this attention. Everybody in Capernaum turned out for this: the wealthy and the poor, beggars and merchants, the sick and the doctors, slaves with their burdens, soldiers with their duty, children, women young and old, poets, thieves, pious people, people shunned as sinners, and fishermen. The Gospel of Mark gives us the impression that the whole city was crowding the narrow streets before the front doorstep of Simon's house to find this man who spoke and acted with authority.
And Jesus did not waste the opportunity.
He looked people in the eye.
He spoke directly to each person present.
He healed many at the door of the house, cast out their demons, that was the best way that they could make sense out of it.
I think people came to him with their problems. I think they came with the burdens that had been laid on them by Law and Tradition. They came to him branded as unclean, not well, broken, lame, sinner - many, if not most, just seeking forgiveness from God and acceptance because no one else would forgive them and accept them and he was their last hope for any compassion and humanity.
More than anything else I think he heard confessions as people told him what brought them to him, this Holy One of God who healed the man in the synagogue and healed Simon’s mother-in-law. He heard all the stories about people being rejected and shunned and cast out, and in turn he cast out the shame and guilt and mental pain that crippled so many in that time and place. He told them they were made clean again, they were forgiven, they were acceptable to God.
Surely God has come to them in this man Jesus. And as the people heard Jesus pronounce the blessing over them they were healed and their lives were made new again.
Word got around, you know, it’s the power of common gossip used for once for good and constructive means: Jesus heals us, and he is changing the way we live; he is changing the way we relate to others; he is changing the way we even think and feel about ourselves. No longer are we scum-of-the-earth-sinners because of illness, errors in judgment, mistakes, human imperfection, circumstances beyond our control, and just plain birth. Now we are sinners made into saints!; sinners who are the children of God, sinners who are the true heirs of the Kingdom that has been kept from us for so long by Law and Tradition. We are sinners who are taken by the hand and lifted up out of our sin and brought into the Kingdom by Jesus.
He makes us acceptable to God when no one else cared, or was willing or was able to do that. And in everything he did the words of the prophet Isaiah began to be fulfilled, not in the sense that Jesus was blindly acting out some so-called psychic’s predictions made long ago; let’s not be so silly as to confuse the prophet of God Isaiah with the likes of Nostradamus. Old Testament prophets were not prophets in the pagan sense that they foretold the future. That’s what the lady with the crystal ball does at the county fair. Isaiah did not use a crystal ball. His job as a prophet of God was to speak forth for God. And he did. There’s a difference between that and forecasting the future. Jesus fulfilled the words of Isaiah by making the word of God a real, living presence and benevolent power for the people who needed it the most: the sick, the lost, the suffering. He brought the kingdom of God near to them and opened its gates for them. And they were absolutely amazed to find that when they least expected it, because of Jesus they had all been made children of the God of compassion who had come down to them in the midst of all their pain and trouble.And the ancient words of Isaiah may well have whispered to people on the breeze as the wind swept over the crowded Capernaum streets while Jesus healed people at the door of the house:
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?...Yahweh is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth…He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless…They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not fall.
Throughout this section of Mark Jesus has been speaking with authority so that when Jesus speaks, it has an effect on people. Lives are transformed. People are changed for the better.In the language of the New Testament, people are healed.
They are forgiven.
Their sins are forgotten; the personal demons which haunt them are dispelled.
They become children of God with new inner strength, and with their lives lifted up as if they had risen on eagles' wings.
That is something we remember in communion, where we hear God's promise of new life given to us through Jesus who was crucified and died to bring that promise to us. We remember it today as we share the bread and cup.We remember it anywhere and every time the people of Jesus gather around him to be healed and lifted up, and in that gathering we find that Jesus still speaks to us, giving us a new teaching with authority.
Have your not known? Have you not heard?
Has the Gospel not been preached here before?
We can listen to Jesus when he speaks to us in the midst of our busy, noisy, crowded lives.
We can open our ears to him as we shoulder our burdens and do our duties.We can meet him on the front door step of our house, let him heal us, dispel our fever, and cast out our personal demons.
He will speak with authority, which many people do not like these days.
But if we let him speak to us and let him reach into our lives to heal us then he will remake our lives for the better, and everyday we will become more and more the children of God.
Thanks be to God
Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany
Hi all,
Here is the actual sermon for this Sunday. May it open doors for someone.I am using only the text from Mark but here is a link to all of the texts for this day: http://members.sundaysandseasons.com/planner_rcl_view.php?event_date_id=950
via con Dios,
Pr. J
2-1-2009, Epiphany 4B
Salem-Luther Memorial Parish, Parrottsville, Tennessee
Mark 1:21-28
no title
The gospel reading pictures Jesus and his disciples in Capernaum where he taught in the synagogue when the Sabbath came. That much was to be expected of him. Earlier in Mark Jesus had been baptized by John. He has already openly begun a mission of his own, proclaiming the good news of God. He has chosen at least a few disciples, Simon, Andrew, James, and John, to follow him and to be something like apprentice rabbis, or that’s how they would have perceived it, and now, as a recognized, although still somewhat inexperienced and relatively unknown rabbi, he begins teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. It is the first time in Mark that Jesus appears in any leadership role in the synagogue. I imagine that on this occasion it would have seemed somewhat like the experience of a new, young pastor, straight out of seminary, who is preaching for the first time before the congregation that is going to decide whether or not to issue a formal call to that pastor. The congregation was curious, but probably didn’t expect much beyond what they were used to getting, especially from new, young, inexperienced rabbis.
The synagogue worship would have proceeded as usual with no hitches. A crowd of men would have stood in the main area of the synagogue, old men would stay seated on benches along the side walls. A crowd of women and young children would have been separated from them by a screen that would let them see and hear what happened, but they were not allowed to join in. And, this will come into play soon, the main doors of the synagogue were left open, a common practice, so that those who were not allowed into the synagogue, Gentiles and sinners, otherwise known as the unclean, could stand outside and listen to the rabbi teach. Jesus himself, as the teacher, probably did not even lead the liturgy or prayers. Someone else, another rabbi, was normally appointed to do that while another taught. But then there came the moment that the whole synagogue experience centered upon. The teaching moment. This was the whole purpose of the synagogue to begin with: more than worship and prayer, it was meant to be a place for the teaching of the word of God in the local community.
One of the scrolls was brought out. Mark does not say which. Maybe it was the scroll of Isaiah that Jesus read from in Nazareth. Maybe it was something else. It would have been written in Aramaic, not the same as Hebrew, and, depending on the scroll, it would not necessarily have read the same way as our familiar Old Testament. What ever it was, Jesus would have read from it. Then the scroll would have been reverently put back in its cabinet, and the whole assembly, including Jesus would have sat down to hear the new teacher teach upon the word of God. Everything would have been business as usual up to that moment.
Whatever it was that Jesus said when he was teaching, it left the listeners speechless, but in a good way. Usually when you see the New Testament say someone was astounded or amazed, the Greek text uses a word that means they were kind of knocked off their seats and couldn’t find any words to express themselves and did not know what to say. The young, new, inexperienced rabbi Jesus has knocked the listeners in the synagogue off their seats. It’s a good thing they were already sitting on the floor, or they would have fallen off their chairs onto their rumps. He has completely amazed them by going far beyond their expectations. He does not speak like a young, new, inexperienced rabbi. He doesn’t even speak like the rabbis they’re used to hearing. He speaks with authority. I just wish the Gospel of Mark told us, even briefly, what it was he said.
But there’s more!
Almost as if it were an after thought, Mark has someone with an unclean spirit come into in the synagogue. It didn’t take much to have an unclean spirit back then. Those people in the synagogue believed anything could make a person unclean and they believed much of that was caused by unseen and unclean spirits, and unclean spirits were a dime a dozen and lurking behind every corner and hiding under every rock. Much of the fall and winter, as you have learned, I go about my business with a stuffy nose. They would have said I had an unclean spirit that was causing my stuffy nose. And if it turned into a cold or the flu, then watch out! The unclean spirit is raging! And worse yet, people would believe that the unclean spirit would make me unclean. And since they believed this uncleanness was contagious I would be barred from the congregation, ruthlessly judged for allowing myself to have an unclean spirit to begin with, banned from contact with certain people, forbidden to go to certain places and gatherings, and pronounced unacceptable to God. And this condition of being unclean would persist long after my cold and stuffy nose went away on its own. It would last indefinitely. Perhaps my entire life. The only way to rid oneself of this impossible burden was to throw oneself on the mercy of the system and sacrifice whatever was demanded by Law and Tradition in terms of time, money, property, self-respect, and dignity. Many of the people could not have complied with Law and Tradition back then even if they had wanted to. They were condemned by circumstances to bear the label “sinner” their whole life and all of the stigma that came with that title. But who in their right mind wanted to be unacceptable to God? You couldn’t win for loosing back then.Jesus understood that. He knew that the last thing people needed when they were being weighed down by the burdens of Law and Tradition was to have more Law and Tradition heaped onto their already breaking backs. He knew that people needed the compassion of God. But the man branded as having an unclean spirit did not know that. Probably among the large crowd of people forced to stand outside the synagogue because of their uncleanness and listen as best they could through the open doors, he heard just enough to convince him that Jesus has come bearing the judgment of bitter God. He was panicking. He was hysterical with fear. His end truly is near!
If Jesus is the Holy One of God then surely he has come to destroy us who are unclean! Law and Tradition will demand that! That is the justice of God! If God is just then God will send Jesus to do this to us! There is no way out! If the time is NOW and the kingdom has come near and Jesus has authority then we - are - doomed! AAAAAUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!! In a panic he forgets all about Law and Tradition that keep him out on the street and runs into the synagogue, hysterical, and shouting, “Jesus of Nazareth - what do you want with us? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - the Holy One of God!
“I sense some amount of impatience in Jesus’ voice as he speaks to the hysterical man in the synagogue because Jesus basically says to him, “SHUT UP!” And the raving man is silenced. The only thing unclean about this man is what a sick, pathological religion has done to him with it’s Law and Tradition: it has turned him into a babbling, sniveling, neurotic wreck of a human being who expects nothing but the worst punishment from God for the least offense; if anything’s demonic, that is it. Jesus puts an end to that with very few words and restores this man’s stolen humanity.
And they were all amazed. No one had ever done this before. Not even the prophets had done this! They kept asking one another: what is this? A new teaching! With authority! Even the unclean spirits obey him!
This was the first impression that Jesus left on Capernaum and one gets the sense that the people of Capernaum now believe that nothing can stand in the way of Jesus. After that word spread. Jesus gives us a new teaching. He teaches with authority! He commands, and we are made clean! Law and Tradition gives us judgment, condemnation, and contempt! Jesus has authority. Jesus gives us the compassion of God!
This is the Good News of God.
Today there are many people outside of our faith communities. Branded “unclean”, they bear the stigma of judgment, shame, and contempt. As with the unclean spirits of Jesus’ day, it does not take much to brand someone as unclean these days. One mistake, and you’re out. One error of judgment, one disagreement, one argument with the wrong person, and too easily the stereotypes and labels and names are applied, and they can last a lifetime. I think there are many people who are waiting to hear what really comes out of our faith communities. Will they hear Law and Tradition, judgment and condemnation for the least offense? Many do. Or will they hear about Jesus who gives us the compassion of God?
We confess Jesus as the Holy One of God and his word in response to us is one that liberates us, frees us from judgment, lifts the burdens of guilt and shame off our breaking backs, and restores to us our humanity, dignity, and self-respect. He speaks a single command, and we find that we are no longer sinners before God, but are now acceptable to God for his sake. The stigma, the shame, the stereotypes, the names, the labels are removed once and for all and forevermore, and we are given a new name: Child of God, and we are made heirs of God’s eternal kingdom.
No wonder his fame spread in Galilee. How much you want to bet his fame can spread in Parrottsville also?
Peace be with you.
Here is the actual sermon for this Sunday. May it open doors for someone.I am using only the text from Mark but here is a link to all of the texts for this day: http://members.sundaysandseasons.com/planner_rcl_view.php?event_date_id=950
via con Dios,
Pr. J
2-1-2009, Epiphany 4B
Salem-Luther Memorial Parish, Parrottsville, Tennessee
Mark 1:21-28
no title
The gospel reading pictures Jesus and his disciples in Capernaum where he taught in the synagogue when the Sabbath came. That much was to be expected of him. Earlier in Mark Jesus had been baptized by John. He has already openly begun a mission of his own, proclaiming the good news of God. He has chosen at least a few disciples, Simon, Andrew, James, and John, to follow him and to be something like apprentice rabbis, or that’s how they would have perceived it, and now, as a recognized, although still somewhat inexperienced and relatively unknown rabbi, he begins teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. It is the first time in Mark that Jesus appears in any leadership role in the synagogue. I imagine that on this occasion it would have seemed somewhat like the experience of a new, young pastor, straight out of seminary, who is preaching for the first time before the congregation that is going to decide whether or not to issue a formal call to that pastor. The congregation was curious, but probably didn’t expect much beyond what they were used to getting, especially from new, young, inexperienced rabbis.
The synagogue worship would have proceeded as usual with no hitches. A crowd of men would have stood in the main area of the synagogue, old men would stay seated on benches along the side walls. A crowd of women and young children would have been separated from them by a screen that would let them see and hear what happened, but they were not allowed to join in. And, this will come into play soon, the main doors of the synagogue were left open, a common practice, so that those who were not allowed into the synagogue, Gentiles and sinners, otherwise known as the unclean, could stand outside and listen to the rabbi teach. Jesus himself, as the teacher, probably did not even lead the liturgy or prayers. Someone else, another rabbi, was normally appointed to do that while another taught. But then there came the moment that the whole synagogue experience centered upon. The teaching moment. This was the whole purpose of the synagogue to begin with: more than worship and prayer, it was meant to be a place for the teaching of the word of God in the local community.
One of the scrolls was brought out. Mark does not say which. Maybe it was the scroll of Isaiah that Jesus read from in Nazareth. Maybe it was something else. It would have been written in Aramaic, not the same as Hebrew, and, depending on the scroll, it would not necessarily have read the same way as our familiar Old Testament. What ever it was, Jesus would have read from it. Then the scroll would have been reverently put back in its cabinet, and the whole assembly, including Jesus would have sat down to hear the new teacher teach upon the word of God. Everything would have been business as usual up to that moment.
Whatever it was that Jesus said when he was teaching, it left the listeners speechless, but in a good way. Usually when you see the New Testament say someone was astounded or amazed, the Greek text uses a word that means they were kind of knocked off their seats and couldn’t find any words to express themselves and did not know what to say. The young, new, inexperienced rabbi Jesus has knocked the listeners in the synagogue off their seats. It’s a good thing they were already sitting on the floor, or they would have fallen off their chairs onto their rumps. He has completely amazed them by going far beyond their expectations. He does not speak like a young, new, inexperienced rabbi. He doesn’t even speak like the rabbis they’re used to hearing. He speaks with authority. I just wish the Gospel of Mark told us, even briefly, what it was he said.
But there’s more!
Almost as if it were an after thought, Mark has someone with an unclean spirit come into in the synagogue. It didn’t take much to have an unclean spirit back then. Those people in the synagogue believed anything could make a person unclean and they believed much of that was caused by unseen and unclean spirits, and unclean spirits were a dime a dozen and lurking behind every corner and hiding under every rock. Much of the fall and winter, as you have learned, I go about my business with a stuffy nose. They would have said I had an unclean spirit that was causing my stuffy nose. And if it turned into a cold or the flu, then watch out! The unclean spirit is raging! And worse yet, people would believe that the unclean spirit would make me unclean. And since they believed this uncleanness was contagious I would be barred from the congregation, ruthlessly judged for allowing myself to have an unclean spirit to begin with, banned from contact with certain people, forbidden to go to certain places and gatherings, and pronounced unacceptable to God. And this condition of being unclean would persist long after my cold and stuffy nose went away on its own. It would last indefinitely. Perhaps my entire life. The only way to rid oneself of this impossible burden was to throw oneself on the mercy of the system and sacrifice whatever was demanded by Law and Tradition in terms of time, money, property, self-respect, and dignity. Many of the people could not have complied with Law and Tradition back then even if they had wanted to. They were condemned by circumstances to bear the label “sinner” their whole life and all of the stigma that came with that title. But who in their right mind wanted to be unacceptable to God? You couldn’t win for loosing back then.Jesus understood that. He knew that the last thing people needed when they were being weighed down by the burdens of Law and Tradition was to have more Law and Tradition heaped onto their already breaking backs. He knew that people needed the compassion of God. But the man branded as having an unclean spirit did not know that. Probably among the large crowd of people forced to stand outside the synagogue because of their uncleanness and listen as best they could through the open doors, he heard just enough to convince him that Jesus has come bearing the judgment of bitter God. He was panicking. He was hysterical with fear. His end truly is near!
If Jesus is the Holy One of God then surely he has come to destroy us who are unclean! Law and Tradition will demand that! That is the justice of God! If God is just then God will send Jesus to do this to us! There is no way out! If the time is NOW and the kingdom has come near and Jesus has authority then we - are - doomed! AAAAAUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!! In a panic he forgets all about Law and Tradition that keep him out on the street and runs into the synagogue, hysterical, and shouting, “Jesus of Nazareth - what do you want with us? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - the Holy One of God!
“I sense some amount of impatience in Jesus’ voice as he speaks to the hysterical man in the synagogue because Jesus basically says to him, “SHUT UP!” And the raving man is silenced. The only thing unclean about this man is what a sick, pathological religion has done to him with it’s Law and Tradition: it has turned him into a babbling, sniveling, neurotic wreck of a human being who expects nothing but the worst punishment from God for the least offense; if anything’s demonic, that is it. Jesus puts an end to that with very few words and restores this man’s stolen humanity.
And they were all amazed. No one had ever done this before. Not even the prophets had done this! They kept asking one another: what is this? A new teaching! With authority! Even the unclean spirits obey him!
This was the first impression that Jesus left on Capernaum and one gets the sense that the people of Capernaum now believe that nothing can stand in the way of Jesus. After that word spread. Jesus gives us a new teaching. He teaches with authority! He commands, and we are made clean! Law and Tradition gives us judgment, condemnation, and contempt! Jesus has authority. Jesus gives us the compassion of God!
This is the Good News of God.
Today there are many people outside of our faith communities. Branded “unclean”, they bear the stigma of judgment, shame, and contempt. As with the unclean spirits of Jesus’ day, it does not take much to brand someone as unclean these days. One mistake, and you’re out. One error of judgment, one disagreement, one argument with the wrong person, and too easily the stereotypes and labels and names are applied, and they can last a lifetime. I think there are many people who are waiting to hear what really comes out of our faith communities. Will they hear Law and Tradition, judgment and condemnation for the least offense? Many do. Or will they hear about Jesus who gives us the compassion of God?
We confess Jesus as the Holy One of God and his word in response to us is one that liberates us, frees us from judgment, lifts the burdens of guilt and shame off our breaking backs, and restores to us our humanity, dignity, and self-respect. He speaks a single command, and we find that we are no longer sinners before God, but are now acceptable to God for his sake. The stigma, the shame, the stereotypes, the names, the labels are removed once and for all and forevermore, and we are given a new name: Child of God, and we are made heirs of God’s eternal kingdom.
No wonder his fame spread in Galilee. How much you want to bet his fame can spread in Parrottsville also?
Peace be with you.
Welcome
Welcome to the sermon blog for Salem Lutheran and Luther Memorial. This is where you may find sermons by myself and Deacon (now Licensed Lay Minister) Leslie. Sermons previosuly posted on the main church blog will be moved to this blog.
Peace be with you,
Pr. J
Peace be with you,
Pr. J
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
