St. Paul's Church, Newburyport, MA

Grace to you, and peace, from God our creator and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen

Last week I was running an errand, and I passed an old white bus with a group of glum-faced men in orange jump suits in it. A sign on the bus said “trial court community service program.” I wonder what “serving” means to those sad guys? We’ll come back to that in a few minutes.

First, let’s spend some time on the Gospel reading.  Mark’s amazing: he packs a huge amount of back-story about Jesus and his friends into a couple of hundred words.

[J]esus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.  (Mark 1: 29-34, NRSV)

They live in a town that’s anchored by a synagogue.  Simon (Peter) and Andrew share a home; they’re either brothers or very good friends.  They went home after services and brought along Jesus and his group of people. Their welcome into this house seems like an ordinary Sabbath-day event. That means they and their families must somehow be coming to terms with their new life. It’s only a day or so since Jesus called them away from their fishing nets, but they didn’t just walk away from their community, and they haven’t been ostracized.

Simon Peter has a mother-in-law. This means he must have a wife, and an ordinary human life! Who knew? Mark doesn’t tell us the mother-in-law’s name.  Let’s give her a good Hebrew name: We’ll call her Refaela.

Refaela is ill.  Jesus, her guest, greets her, takes her by the hand, and helps her out of bed.  Then her fever goes away and she begins to serve – the Gospel word means minister to – all her guests.  No glum face or orange jump suit for her!

Some Bible scholars make a big deal of wondering whether Jesus was deliberately making himself ritually impure according to Jewish law, by  – horrors – touching a woman, not to mention a sick woman, and by healing her – working – on the Jewish Sabbath.  Should we read the gospel that way?

Jesus certainly did take Refaela by the hand. He did heal her, and on the Sabbath.  But this was right at the beginning of his work. What’s more, the purity-obsessed scribes and Pharisees were far away: They hadn’t yet entered the picture as Jesus’s opponents. We’re still in the first chapter of Mark, so let’s keep it simple. Jesus greeted his hostess like a friendly and dutiful young guest. He behaved like any good friend of her son-in-law would do when he’s invited for the Sabbath meal at his village home. And she responded by gathering him and her other guests for a meal, and feeding them.

So, this domestic scene isn’t about Jesus stirring up trouble. Mark seems to be painting a picture of a joyful gathering on a restful day, eating together and taking care of each other like the realm of God was at hand. These things – serving each other and caring for each other – are wonderful, but they’re also normal.

That’s all in stark contrast to the action beyond the peaceful threshold of the house.  Outside, there’s another back-story. There’s no need to stir up trouble. There’s plenty there already.  It’s the story of sentient evil: of the demons who recognize Jesus. It’s the story of Jesus silencing those evil demons, and driving them out. It’s a story of battle between evil and good.  The people around Jesus can’t see the demons. What they do see is demon-possessed people set free, and sick people made whole.

Mark gives us listeners the whole cosmic back-story. He shows us God’s realm of peace and love (Refaela’s home) contrasted with the realm of conflict (outside her door). Both realms are real. Mark wants us to know that. We do know it.

Certainly the realm of conflict is real for us. In our world, for example, “service” is a chore the trial court makes us do, and takes us to in an old white bus.  Peace, healing, and happiness has nothing to do with service.  Or does it? Service is a punishment. Or is it?

I sometimes have spent Saturday mornings helping clean up the riverbed of a stream a few miles from here. It’s a chance to get outdoors and spend some time with friends, and maybe do something useful. One Saturday we gathered in a mall parking lot in Lawrence. I got there a few minutes late, so my friends had already taken off in their canoes.  Now this part of the river was a mess. Jesus battled demons — willful evil –  and I felt we were doing the same thing.  Chemical drums, blown out truck tires, huge hunks of Styrofoam, even a cast-off cigarette vending machine.  In our world it seems we cast our demons off the nearest bridge to try to get rid of them. That part of the river was foul. I paddled fast by some of this junk hoping to catch up with my friends

I found them with a bunch of tough young men I’d never met. Their language was strong enough to corrode the old steel drums into rusty muck.  We definitely weren’t in Refaela’s house enjoying each other’s company in peace.

But, those young men sure could work. Somebody said, “let’s get those barrels up to the road,” and they just did it.  Then they tackled the truck tires: dug them out of the muck and dragged them to a dumptruck.  They were kind enough to leave the light stuff – foam blocks, car tires – for the older folks like me to clean up.  It was awesome to see them work.

Somebody went for pizza, and we got to talking.  It turned out these young men were residents of the Riverside School in Lowell.  This school takes teenagers who are in trouble with the law, as a substitute for the juvenile lockup.  These guys were really happy to be with us helping us casting out our modern demons – toxic greed and carelessness – casting them out of the river.

At Riverside School, they treat community service not as a punishment, but as a privilege.  If you misbehave at Riverside – swear at a staff member, smoke indoors, or steal from another resident, that kind of thing – you don’t get to help cook the meals or clean the bathroom.  If you’re in trouble, you get to eat, you get to go to class and do your homework, but not serve. At chore time, you sit in your room.

These guys were the privileged ones. They spent the day up to their knees in the mud struggling with filthy rubbish. It was their reward for weeks of positive behavior.  They had a great time.  What an amazing day it was, to be with people who experienced service as a privilege and an honor.

Back to Refaela:  She too knew it was a privilege to serve. When Jesus met her, she had a fever and was lying in bed.  Most of us know what that’s like.  We’re drawn into ourselves. If we can put together any thoughts or prayers at all, they’re wretched and selfish – Make it go away!

The stranger who visited her home answered that prayer. By his grace he set her free from her pain.  Her response was to jump up and welcome her guests by service. So, she’s like those teenagers from the Riverside School: her service is a privilege.

How about you? How about me?  Are you and I those sad-faced passengers riding on that white “Community Service Program” bus? Do we serve our neighbors because we’re on trial, and some judge has sentenced us to do it?

Or do we serve and care for one another because we’ve been set free from our sickness and self-centeredness?  There’s no doubt that we live in a world full of demons – rusting barrels, bald tires buried in the mud, addictions, anger, pain – but we also live in the realm of God, like Mark teaches us.

It’s my prayer that each of you will, this week, be filled with the joy of God’s realm as you care for somebody and serve somebody. Filled with that holy joy may you dispose of your filthy demons, for Jesus’s sake and for the life of the world +

Amen.

Feast of the conversion of St. Paul – Annual Meeting , January 29, 2012            

Before I get into the meat of this sermon, I need to offer this definition – the definition of the word Midrash – some of you may know it all ready:

Midrash – Stories elaborating on incidents in the Bible,  to derive a principle of Jewish law, or provide a moral lesson.

What follows here is a my own midrash – my own elaborating on the incidents of the life of our Patron Saint, Paul, born as Saul of Tarsus, whose feast day we observe on this our annual meeting Sunday.

His life was steeped in the traditions of the patriarchs.  He had been praying the prayers and listening to the Torah from before he could remember.  He had more zeal for the fire of God contained in Judaism than most of his peers.  So when he heard that the followers of Jesus had not been dispersed by the bloody Roman execution, he felt he must act. This radical new group had to be stopped.  They threatened the purity of the Jewish tradition and could bring the wrath of Rome down on all of them.

He was absolutely convinced he was right.  His fervor for this position let him slip past any restraint he would usually have felt.  Soon he was in hot pursuit of the apostates, breathing threats of violence as he went.  He would stop at nothing to deal a fatal blow to those who claimed Jesus to be the Messiah.

On the Damascus Road it was as if an invisible hand knocked him off his horse.  The light was blinding, and the energy he felt around him was at the same time gentle and fierce.

The voice that spoke was, larger than life: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’

 He asked: `Who are you, Lord?’

The voice answered:  `I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.

Blind and awestruck, in that moment Saul knew that by all rights he should be dead.  The way of the world was to pursue enemies, overtake them and put an end to them by whatever means necessary.  So this was a wonder, that he should be commended to stand up and join in the very movement he detested and was looking to destroy. Relief was overtaken by confusion as he was taken into the home of one of the followers of Jesus.

For several days he suffered great disorientation along with the blindness.  He was being cared for by people he did not really trust, and who clearly were not very trustful of him.  He was aware that they stood a ways off and whispered among themselves about him.  Once in a while he would catch a word or two: “chief persecutor… bloodthirsty…dangerous to our fellowship.”  He couldn’t blame them.   In fact as he sat in darkness, and reflected on what he had been doing recently he began to see himself through their eyes, and began to be shocked at the vitriol and violence that had possessed him.

After a few days miraculous things began to unfold.  Someone prayed over him and the blindness fell from his eyes like scaled. As he began to relax into the cautious but life giving care of these strangers he began to realize there would be no going back.  If he had been violently attacked on the Damascus road, he would have fought to find escape, to return to the mission he had set his whole being on.  But he had not been attacked – he had been embraced.  Though the community was still uneasy at his presence they seemed to sense, as he himself did too, that he was part of some larger plan going forward.  As his fear and their unease began to fade a new unspoken solidarity, which was bigger than any of them, began to emerge.

Years later he would look back and recognize the grace at work in those crucible days – the grace of how the living God wastes nothing in bringing all things to unity in mystical community.  He would try to express it in metaphors such as the body having many members, all needing each other, all joined in a single unity.  He would tutor many a church leader in the importance of not seeing anyone as expendable.  If Jesus could make use of him, he would tell them, there was hope for anyone, if approached with grace rather than violence.

As he taught among the Gentiles he realized that the fire of God, alive in the Judaic tradition, which he once believed he had to fight to preserve, was taking on new form and strength as it found new and fresh expressions among Gentile believers in Christ.  And to think, he had once regarded these Gentiles as nothing but heathens.  This was the miracle that led him to write to the leaders in the Galatian Church, that in Christ Jesus “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female.” A new wholeness – which embraced the tradition he so loved – was being born before his eyes and he wanted nothing more than to give his whole self to its flowering.

My friends, this Midrash of mine is offered in the Spirit of Paul.  May we remember his story as we set out together into a new year of ministry.  May we hope to see the fire of God each one of us has encountered in whatever tradition we were raised in, being taken in by a larger plan which is giving birth to new and fresh expressions of faith and ministry here in this place.  And may we give our very selves to its flowering, for the benefit and life of all who enter in among us and for all we are called to go out and serve.

In the name of Christ. Amen+

Grace to you, and peace, from God our creator and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Mark wrote the present-tense gospel – a gospel of suddenness, urgency, action. Now: the heavens tear open and the Spirit descends on Jesus. Now. The Spirit drives him into the wilderness for forty days. Now. Jesus preaches the good news in Galilee.  Events unfold in a continuous stream. It’s breaking news.

[N]ow after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea– for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.  (NRSV, Mark 1: 14-20)

But in the midst of the now … now … now action we hear Jesus saying  this phrase:  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”  There’s a subtlety here; these words aren’t the breaking news, but the world into which the news is breaking.

To translate Mark’s Greek precisely into English is tricky: we need to say:  The time already has been, and still is being, fulfilled.  The kingdom of God already has been, and still is, near.  Already and ongoing.

The immediate breaking news … the heavens ripping open, the Spirit driving Jesus into the wilderness, Jesus preaching the good news … is unfolding in a world that’s ready and waiting for the action.  The time was already fulfilled, and the kingdom of God was already near, then and there, on that day when Jesus took a walk along the lakeshore.

This isn’t just Greek grammar: it’s important. The world is just as ready for that Gospel action right now, right here. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is a present reality. There’s nothing more to wait for and nowhere else to go; we are to repent: turn our minds toward God’s realm now, and here.

Jesus felt the urgency of the realm of God, and so did the four disciples he met that day.  They acted: they didn’t wait for anything.  He said, “follow me,” and they did immediately. I wonder if they even stopped to say, “hey Dad, tell Mom we won’t be home for supper?”

Sometimes we think of those fishermen as simple-minded people, but that’s not who they were. Like you and me, they had lives to live: they weren’t waiting around for somebody to say “follow me.”  They prospered by their wits and skills. They could have told Jesus, “wait, wait til we catch some more fish,” or “wait til these nets are mended and ready for our next voyage, then we’ll follow you.”

Somehow they caught the now-and-here presence of the realm of God and the urgency of Jesus’s invitation. They knew there was nothing left to wait for. So they followed him to help him proclaim the good news.  They didn’t let their attachment to their own wits and skills stop them.

What is this realm of God that they saw so clearly?  What does it look like? They saw it in the person of Jesus walking along the shore.

How do we recognize it?   One thing we know for sure: it hasn’t driven out the kingdom of this world.  It hasn’t transformed all us people, or the creatures of the world. If the lion were to lie down with the lamb today (the prophet Isaiah’s prediction) the most likely result would be lunch for the lion.

How do we recognize this realm of God that they saw?  I wonder if we can find it in our religion?  Maybe, maybe not. Archbishop Desmond Tutu (of Cape Town in South Africa) wondered the same thing in 2001, when he said,

Religion, which should foster sisterhood and brotherhood, which should encourage tolerance, respect, compassion, peace, reconciliation, caring, and sharing, has far too frequently – perversely – done the opposite.  … Some of the ghastliest atrocities have happened and are happening in the name of religion. It need not be so if we can learn the obvious: that no religion can hope to have a monopoly on God, on goodness and virtue and truth.

“If we can learn the obvious.”  Learning the obvious seems to be hard, even with the help of religion.   It certainly was hard for the prophet Jonah.  God sent him to bring goodness and virtue and truth to Nineveh – to the capital of the hated genocidal Assyrian kingdom – to the place that seemed furthest from the realm of God.  Jonah didn’t think Nineveh deserved goodness and virtue and truth. If it were today, we’d say he’s prejudiced against the race of Ninevites.  We all know the story: It took a three-day encounter with a fish’s digestive tract to persuade him to do God’s work.

But then he did it.

[T]he word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it. (NRSV, Jonah 3:1-5, 10)

It wasn’t very hard.  His words started a dialog. Both the people of Nineveh and God changed in the dialog. God’s realm of goodness and virtue and truth because reality for the people in that city.

How about you and me, and the people of this city? Can we recognize God’s realm?

Last Monday our neighbors the YWCA put on a breakfast event to honor Dr. Martin Luther King of blessed memory. Some of you were there.   The event featured an honest dialog about American racial prejudice.  Of course, this is suburban Massachusetts: almost everybody present was white. A film-maker named Aimée Sands served as our Jonah – the prophet whose witness got our dialog started.

Some of us gray-haired folks spoke about our struggles with racism: our irrational fear of those who don’t look like us.  It’s the kind of fear that sneaks up on us when we least expect it, and catches us unawares.  This fear – this racism – is the kingdom of this world.  We talked it over.

Then, a young man stood and said, “I can speak for the people in my school. We don’t have this problem of racism.” He declared that racism is not his generation’s problem.

Oh. Uh huh. Right.

It was all I could do to bite my tongue and keep quiet.  As the dialog went on, quite a few people talked about how deep racism runs, and how hidden it is in their own hearts. But, thanks be to God, the dialog continued. It deepened.  It didn’t turn into the verbal combat that our politicians seem to enjoy.

Here’s the good news for our city and our nation:  that young man and his schoolmates are just like James and John. They feel the urgency. God’s realm is present here and now.  They see it clearly, and they’re following its promise immediately.

James and John followed Jesus without question.  Me? I’m like their father Zebedee watching them walk away. I can think, or say, “wait, where are you going? Do you know what you’re getting into? Do you have the skills and wits for this?”

But I’m glad they’re not listening to those questions of mine.

We hear that young man, that high school student, say, “racism is a thing of the past,” and we want to say, “wait a minute, pal, it’s not that simple.”

But, you know what?  It IS that simple. He sees the realm of God clearly, and he’s responding fearlessly, just like those Galilean fishermen.  We know from the gospels that the fishermen had some hard lessons to learn. That young fellow probably does too.  But he’s responding, he’s going. He sees a world where the evil of race prejudice is no more.  May you and I see that world through that young man’s eyes. May he be steadfast in his path with God’s help. May you and I be steadfast in our path the God’s help.

God’s realm is where the lamb DOES lie down with the lion in safety. In God’s realm all the tribes and races of the world are judged, and found to be compassionate and loving. We’re all judged to be the bearers of goodness and virtue and truth.  The time for that is now, the place for that is here, and the need for it is urgent.

These things I say in Jesus’s name, and for the life of the world.

Amen.