The 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
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? 22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; 23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. 24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. 25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. 27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"? 28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. 30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; 31 but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:21-31 NRSV)
As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. 32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34 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. 35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." 38 He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." 39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons. (Mark 1:29-39 NRSV)
“FEVER OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN”
Years ago when I worked at the University of Iowa I was invited by my boss to attend a weekly meeting called Infectious Disease Grand Rounds. At it, doctors would present cases so that they could all learn from them, so they could become better doctors. Once they asked my boss a question about one of our projects and he turned to me for the answer. That was my moment to shine. My boss’s specialty was antibiotics. Another time Dr. Dennison, a pediatric infectious disease specialist presented a case with a cough, giving clues, letting the doctors figure it out as he went along. I figured it out quickly, because I have a laboratory rather than a clinical background, since it was cultured on Bordet-Gengou Agar. He even imitated the unique cough of the disease since it forces the sufferer to inhale sharply and make a “whooping” sound. It was pertussis, or Whooping Cough. I think that was the only time I was ahead of the doctors. Most of the time, though, I just listened and learned. One presentation was on fevers of unknown origin. They are fevers unlike most, which can be traced to a cause like an infection. Dr. Nassif said that he wished he had some colorful way of introducing the topic. I thought of the Peggy Lee song “Fever”.
This morning the Gospel reading has the story of a fever. At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel we are getting pictures of who Jesus is. This is one of those early pictures. He and the other disciples went to Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever. We know nothing about it. They told Jesus about her and he took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her. Then she was able to return to her life as it was before the illness and be hospitable to the guests. We do not know the cause of the fever, but we know how it left her. They brought others who were sick or afflicted by demons to Jesus and he healed them.
That is similar to the passage from Isaiah this morning. We are reminded that God is far above us. The heavens are like a curtain, we are like grasshoppers. God can bring the important things of the earth to nothing. Even the most important has only a brief life and then is gone. And the reverse is true. Because of God’s greatness, because God does not grow weary, God can lift up the faint and the weak. Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength. Despite this greatness, God cares about us.
There is an additional picture of Jesus in this gospel passage. He went out early to a deserted place to pray. The disciples were looking for him and found him. They tell him that people are looking for him. His response is not anger at the interruption, but to tell them of his plan to go to other towns, to other people and take care of their needs. Not only does he have the power to heal far beyond that of the doctors of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, he, like Simon’s mother-in-law, lives to serve. Despite his great power, he cares for people.
Things can stop us from doing what we want in life or being able to do something that serves others. This is a simple lesson that we, or others on our behalf can bring our need to God, who has great power to act for us, power to restore us to being well or doing well. The list is long of those things that interrupt our lives, it includes illnesses, attitudes, losses, circumstances that can stop our lives as we know them.
What Jesus did reminds us that there are times we need to be away from all the activity. This was something important for him to do. This was prayer, not merely rest, though it probably restored him in many ways. And yet, when the need arose, he was ready.
Sometimes we need to be reminded when those things that limit us are under our own power. There are times we are kept from some things by our own decisions. Scott Walker is a pastor from Texas who learned this phase from a friend: “Every time you say yes to one thing, you say no to another.”
It has helped him be more thoughtful about such things like invitation to speak in the community. But to say yes to it meant that he would not have a day off, in order to restore his energy from the week and spend time with his family. So in the end he said no thanks. It has helped him consider what he needs to do to make the priorities in his life possible and to decide what are priorities.
God’s power is present in our lives in many ways to restore us, so that we, like him, may continue to bring the Kingdom of God into the world around us. Part of that power might be in helping us understand what is really important and what we can leave behind. Knowing our purpose in life can help us make other decisions. Jesus put God first and others second in how he lived. He responded to needs but was not overwhelmed by them. When Jesus said yes to prayer, it helped him be able to say yes to the people who needed him.
When circumstances, like a fever, afflict us and are not under our control, we can be restored to health and purpose. God does this in many ways. This is one of the stories that emerged from the ten years after the attacks of 9/11. Steve and Liz Alderman were in France on that day. As news came in, they were able to get in touch with two of their three children. Peter, sadly, had been at a meeting on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center. As they mourned his loss, they found out that he had many friends, because they found that he valued people. Steve retired from his practice as a radiation oncologist and Liz gave up her artwork under the weight of grief. Their lives came to a standstill. Eventually they realized the severity of the depression and found that they could either never move again or start to get back to life in small steps. With time purpose came back into their lives. They also became aware of how many people in the world suffered disasters or mass violence without any help. They set up a foundation in Peter’s honor to train physicians in war- and disaster-torn countries around the world to treat not only the bodies of their patients, but also their emotions. In direct ways and through people, God is still healing all around us.
The Scripture readings for today tell us of a powerful God who is also a caring God. Where are we weak? Let us wait upon the Lord and we will renew our strength. When are we sick? Jesus will lift us up. This is so our lives and God’s purposes will continue. Illness and disaster do not rule the world; God does. What does Jesus have for us when he is a guest in our house? Renewed strength, renewed life.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. 16 This is what you requested of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: "If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." 17 Then the LORD replied to me: "They are right in what they have said. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19 Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. 20 But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak-- that prophet shall die." (Deuteronomy 18 NRSV)
21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching-- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. (Mark 1 NRSV)
“HEALING EVIL”
As a child I had a nervous stomach. It would bother me from time to time and particularly when I was in college. The summer I was an undergraduate research participant in Madison, it got to the point where I went to the doctor about it. It was at the student health center. I don’t know why, but the doctor explained what she was doing in incredibly great detail. Perhaps they wanted to educate us patients about heath care. The first part she called “subjective” and that was what my complaint was. The other part was called “objective” and that was what the doctor could observe on examination and tests. I thought about that. The physical findings should match the complaint. If they don’t match, the illness might be an unknown or mysterious one, or might be “all in the patient’s head”, that is, imaginary.
The reading from the Gospel tells us more about who Jesus was. But first, the reading from Deuteronomy tells us that Moses predicted long ago that another prophet like him would arise. That prophet will proclaim God’s word to the people because they did not want to see God directly. The prophet will tell them what God wants to say and they are to heed it. It will be the words from God and if a person does not heed those words, that person will be held accountable. But the prophet needed to speak only the words God gave to the prophet. If the prophet spoke words other than the ones God gave the prophet he or she would die.
The Early Church saw that Jesus was that prophet. He was raised up from his people. He spoke the word of God truly. He should be listened to. The Gospel of Mark gives us a picture of Jesus at the start of his ministry. As Jesus began his work of declaring God’s word, this incident happened. He taught in the synagogue in Capernaum, and the people were amazed. He taught in a new way, “not like the scribes”, it says. This is not to say that Jesus was a loud or vigorous teacher, whereas the scribes were pedantic or timid. It is that Jesus not only talks, he does something . He not only tells the people that the kingdom of God has come, he brings it into their midst by what he does. What he did was to cast out the unclean spirit of a man who had come into the synagogue. It is a confrontation in which the evil spirits know who Jesus is and he knows who they are. He commands and it is done. Then the people notice and are amazed at his teaching.
The biblical world distinguished between illness and possession by evil spirits, but it was a simpler world. They lacked the diagnostic sophistication of this modern age. Much of what they would call demonic, we might understand differently. I say this because we need to understand the passage as not commanding us all to go out and cast out evil spirits. There are those who think that evil spirits are imaginary. Now I am not one of those persons who says there are no evil spirits, but I am not one who sees them behind every bush, either. Sometimes there is evil in this world that goes beyond anything that can be easily explained. There is evil that sometimes seems to go beyond this world. Perhaps that is where the demonic element is found. Whether demons are real or not, evil is. Whatever we think of demons, we do have the opportunity to make the world a better place by casting out evil. Evil comes into this world and we can be like Jesus when we help heal the world of it.
Sometimes that is by use of the medical skill and knowledge. In generations past mental illness was seen as some kind of personal or moral failure. It is more hopeful that nowadays it is seen as just an illness of the mind. When it is seen as an illness, then people can seek treatment for it. It is not that they are “bad people”; it is that something is wrong with them. A broken arm does not have the stigma (at least usually) that mental illness does. And much in our world needs healing. One of the professors at the University of Iowa would point out that the Russian dictator Josef Stalin was abused as a child. Some of the folks who heard him would dismiss that idea, since they were still thinking in terms of the Cold War and could not say anything that would make the enemy more human. Now, it really is hard to say anything nice about Stalin; he was a ruthless dictator with a truly evil regime. But, it is not hard to see that what we experience when young shapes how we think and act as adults and think, What could have possibly been different if someone had helped Stalin before he rose to power? How would have history been changed if the evil that was done to him had been healed before he inflicted it on others?
Perhaps where we can begin to heal the world is to start to set it right. There is much in this world that is wrong but not demonic. Sometimes healing evil is in our hands, when we have the opportunity to right a wrong or help someone who is on the wrong path in life get on the right one. It makes the world a better place. Sometimes that is done carefully, quietly, persistently, gently, but other times it might be that kind of confrontation with evil like Jesus had in the synagogue in Capernaum. There was an obituary recently of Stetson Kennedy, 1916-2011. He was unable to serve in the military in WWII due to health so he fought racist terrorist here rather than abroad by infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan and revealing its secrets to journalist and the authorities and in a book. Kennedy first saw racism in how his classmates treated the black people in Jacksonville, Florida, but grew up to do something about it. There are times when we follow Jesus’ teaching by removing evil from our lives, from the lives of others, and our world.
There are other times when we ourselves are in need of healing. That is the time to recall Jesus as the healer. Fay Angus tells the story of a time she found help with fear. She was putting off a medical test both for the discomfort of the test and what it might reveal. She and her husband were in a park, picnicking, watching the family next to them. The children took turns spinning around and falling backward into their father’s arms. The youngest of them was reluctant to do this last part. Finally he did and then he couldn’t stop. He did it over and over. Fay found in this a lesson to trust God with her life and health. Jesus came to heal us from those evil things that limit or harm our lives.
The Gospel tells us that Jesus came into our world to change it. He can cast out its evil. That is a teacher with authority. He does not only give us God’s words, he acts for God around us. He touches our lives. He makes the world a new place. He calls us to follow him into this new world. We follow him into that new world when we oppose evil like he did, and we find it when we let him heal us. It is teaching—with power. It is teaching we can hear. It is teaching that can help us live.
15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. 16 This is what you requested of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: "If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." 17 Then the LORD replied to me: "They are right in what they have said. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19 Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. 20 But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak-- that prophet shall die." (Deuteronomy 18 NRSV)
21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching-- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. (Mark 1 NRSV)
“HEALING EVIL”
As a child I had a nervous stomach. It would bother me from time to time and particularly when I was in college. The summer I was an undergraduate research participant in Madison, it got to the point where I went to the doctor about it. It was at the student health center. I don’t know why, but the doctor explained what she was doing in incredibly great detail. Perhaps they wanted to educate us patients about heath care. The first part she called “subjective” and that was what my complaint was. The other part was called “objective” and that was what the doctor could observe on examination and tests. I thought about that. The physical findings should match the complaint. If they don’t match, the illness might be an unknown or mysterious one, or might be “all in the patient’s head”, that is, imaginary.
The reading from the Gospel tells us more about who Jesus was. But first, the reading from Deuteronomy tells us that Moses predicted long ago that another prophet like him would arise. That prophet will proclaim God’s word to the people because they did not want to see God directly. The prophet will tell them what God wants to say and they are to heed it. It will be the words from God and if a person does not heed those words, that person will be held accountable. But the prophet needed to speak only the words God gave to the prophet. If the prophet spoke words other than the ones God gave the prophet he or she would die.
The Early Church saw that Jesus was that prophet. He was raised up from his people. He spoke the word of God truly. He should be listened to. The Gospel of Mark gives us a picture of Jesus at the start of his ministry. As Jesus began his work of declaring God’s word, this incident happened. He taught in the synagogue in Capernaum, and the people were amazed. He taught in a new way, “not like the scribes”, it says. This is not to say that Jesus was a loud or vigorous teacher, whereas the scribes were pedantic or timid. It is that Jesus not only talks, he does something . He not only tells the people that the kingdom of God has come, he brings it into their midst by what he does. What he did was to cast out the unclean spirit of a man who had come into the synagogue. It is a confrontation in which the evil spirits know who Jesus is and he knows who they are. He commands and it is done. Then the people notice and are amazed at his teaching.
The biblical world distinguished between illness and possession by evil spirits, but it was a simpler world. They lacked the diagnostic sophistication of this modern age. Much of what they would call demonic, we might understand differently. I say this because we need to understand the passage as not commanding us all to go out and cast out evil spirits. There are those who think that evil spirits are imaginary. Now I am not one of those persons who says there are no evil spirits, but I am not one who sees them behind every bush, either. Sometimes there is evil in this world that goes beyond anything that can be easily explained. There is evil that sometimes seems to go beyond this world. Perhaps that is where the demonic element is found. Whether demons are real or not, evil is. Whatever we think of demons, we do have the opportunity to make the world a better place by casting out evil. Evil comes into this world and we can be like Jesus when we help heal the world of it.
Sometimes that is by use of the medical skill and knowledge. In generations past mental illness was seen as some kind of personal or moral failure. It is more hopeful that nowadays it is seen as just an illness of the mind. When it is seen as an illness, then people can seek treatment for it. It is not that they are “bad people”; it is that something is wrong with them. A broken arm does not have the stigma (at least usually) that mental illness does. And much in our world needs healing. One of the professors at the University of Iowa would point out that the Russian dictator Josef Stalin was abused as a child. Some of the folks who heard him would dismiss that idea, since they were still thinking in terms of the Cold War and could not say anything that would make the enemy more human. Now, it really is hard to say anything nice about Stalin; he was a ruthless dictator with a truly evil regime. But, it is not hard to see that what we experience when young shapes how we think and act as adults and think, What could have possibly been different if someone had helped Stalin before he rose to power? How would have history been changed if the evil that was done to him had been healed before he inflicted it on others?
Perhaps where we can begin to heal the world is to start to set it right. There is much in this world that is wrong but not demonic. Sometimes healing evil is in our hands, when we have the opportunity to right a wrong or help someone who is on the wrong path in life get on the right one. It makes the world a better place. Sometimes that is done carefully, quietly, persistently, gently, but other times it might be that kind of confrontation with evil like Jesus had in the synagogue in Capernaum. There was an obituary recently of Stetson Kennedy, 1916-2011. He was unable to serve in the military in WWII due to health so he fought racist terrorist here rather than abroad by infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan and revealing its secrets to journalist and the authorities and in a book. Kennedy first saw racism in how his classmates treated the black people in Jacksonville, Florida, but grew up to do something about it. There are times when we follow Jesus’ teaching by removing evil from our lives, from the lives of others, and our world.
There are other times when we ourselves are in need of healing. That is the time to recall Jesus as the healer. Fay Angus tells the story of a time she found help with fear. She was putting off a medical test both for the discomfort of the test and what it might reveal. She and her husband were in a park, picnicking, watching the family next to them. The children took turns spinning around and falling backward into their father’s arms. The youngest of them was reluctant to do this last part. Finally he did and then he couldn’t stop. He did it over and over. Fay found in this a lesson to trust God with her life and health. Jesus came to heal us from those evil things that limit or harm our lives.
The Gospel tells us that Jesus came into our world to change it. He can cast out its evil. That is a teacher with authority. He does not only give us God’s words, he acts for God around us. He touches our lives. He makes the world a new place. He calls us to follow him into this new world. We follow him into that new world when we oppose evil like he did, and we find it when we let him heal us. It is teaching—with power. It is teaching we can hear. It is teaching that can help us live.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." 3 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. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
10 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. (Jonah 3 NRSV)
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." 16 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. 17 And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. (Mark 1 NRSV)
“READY OR NOT”
Years ago I did some computer programming. It was simple, very simple compared to nowadays. It usually did something with lab data. This was for mainframe computers that filled a room with printers the size of a piano. The personal computer was years away. I used BASIC, FORTRAN, PL/1. Those are antiques nowadays. My pride and joy was a program that computed Fibonacci Numbers. The Fibonacci series is the sum of the preceding two numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, and so on. There was a mistake in the program:
Do i = 1 to 200
Put page edit
Next i
As the program started I realized the mistake. The commands were out of order and would send 200 sheets of blank paper flying out of the printer. Fortunately there was a cancel button. In the computer lab many such programs were written (on punch cards!) and some had mistakes and did not do what the programmer wanted. And so the consultants had some basic guidelines. One was K.I.S.S. “Keep it simple, stupid.” The more complicated a program was, the harder it was to find and fix mistakes. It is a valuable lesson in many other ways.
God comes into our world whether we are ready for it or not. Many times this is in the form of God wanting us to do something. The readings from Scripture for today have that theme. The word of the Lord comes to the prophet Jonah. It is to proclaim judgment to the people of the city of Nineveh. He is not ready for that and so runs away. But God stops him. That is where the great fish comes in. He ends up on a boat, then overboard, then saved by the fish and returned to land. And the word of the Lord comes to him a second time. The message is the same. This time, though, he is ready and goes to that land, the land which is Israel’s enemy and preaches. It works; the people hear it and turn to the Lord and they are saved from judgment. Sometimes God has to lead us into being ready to serve God.
The Gospel reading is of the time Jesus came to Galilee and proclaimed the good news of God. Simon and Andrew were by the sea and Jesus tells them this amazing thing: “Follow me and I will make you fish for human beings.” They responded, very much unlike Jonah, immediately. They were fishermen and Jesus used an image that would be unmistakable to them. It is pretty simple. Just as they used to go gather fish so now they would be gathering human beings into a community of faith, centered on Jesus. James and John do likewise and so the disciples come to follow Jesus with this simple idea. They saw in Jesus someone, not only worth following, but worth dropping all they had, giving up all they had, to do it. They will follow Jesus and bring others to follow Jesus. It was simple.
For two thousand years the church has followed Jesus. It has grown more complicated. The first Christians proclaimed the gospel to the world around them. They, men and women, were fishers of people who, in turn, became part of the people of God. With time, these lands became filled with believers. Then people became Christians as they were born into Christian families, brought into the church through Baptism. The emphasis was shifted to teaching people about their faith, not in proclaiming the good news to those who were unfamiliar with it. There was no unbelieving world around the church. The times have changed and the number of people who have no church or no faith has grown. The church is no longer the center of things. In fact, in some places it is a minority. Perhaps it is time to rediscover the way the gospel can be shared with the world. The church sometimes needs to remember K.I.S.S. It is simple. God has a message and entrusts it to the servants of God.
It is time to remember what Jesus calls us to. It is a way of life in which faith is not just knowledge or status but an approach to life. Brian McLaren was asked to introduce a famous speaker at a conference of pastors. He was prepared until he found out that there had been a mistake. He was supposed to interview Dr. Peter Senge from a remote site by satellite teleconferencing. He prepared for that and was delayed due to technical problems. At last it was on and he asked the speaker what he would like to say to five hundred Christian ministers. He said that he asked a manager of a bookstore on a college campus what books were selling and he said that after the business administration books they were ones on spirituality and in particular about Buddhism. Dr. Senge asked the assembled ministers why they thought that was. McLaren turned the question back on Senge who said this, “I think it’s because Buddhism presents itself as a way of life, and Christianity presents itself as a system of belief. So I would want to get Christian ministers thinking about how to rediscover their own faith as a way of life, because that’s what people are searching for today. That’s what they need most.”
What the speaker was getting at was that the Christian faith is more than a set of beliefs. It is a way we live following Jesus. It is a group of people, the church, and also people acting. It is an institution, but also a movement. Sometimes we forget that, especially when we only think about preserving the institution or our traditions.
All this talk about how the world is changing might frighten us. The future comes whether we are ready for it or not. Much has changed but there are some things that have not. God still loves the world and wants to be a part of it. God has called men and women to follow Jesus and serve others in his name. The plan that God has for the world is still the same as when Jesus proclaimed the good news of the kingdom and the disciples left their nets to follow him. What does the world need? What are people searching for? What do we have to give it?
We begin by rediscovering outreach. The church does not exist for itself. It is like those first disciples, called to proclaim the good news, that they have found Jesus. It can reach the lives of others in amazing ways, as Elizabeth Sherrill found years ago when traveling with Brother Andrew who was noted for meeting with groups of Christians behind the Iron Curtain. Elizabeth and her husband John were planning on following the old advice to travel light when they found Brother Andrew packing a large suitcase. It turned out is was clothes to be left behind for those whose faith had cost them positions and employment in a Communist society. She discovered that thing don’t mean much until they’re shared.
God called Jonah and the first disciples to serve God. The disciples responded immediately to that call but Jonah came to it late. But behind it all was God, wanting a message to go forth into the world. It is simple. What we have, even our faith, is to be shared with others. Let us seek to give what the world needs. The times are changing but God’s love for the world does not. God wants to bring the world to God’s own self. We can bring the message to those who need it. We can catch them. It is as simple as that.
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." 3 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. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
10 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. (Jonah 3 NRSV)
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." 16 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. 17 And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. (Mark 1 NRSV)
“READY OR NOT”
Years ago I did some computer programming. It was simple, very simple compared to nowadays. It usually did something with lab data. This was for mainframe computers that filled a room with printers the size of a piano. The personal computer was years away. I used BASIC, FORTRAN, PL/1. Those are antiques nowadays. My pride and joy was a program that computed Fibonacci Numbers. The Fibonacci series is the sum of the preceding two numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, and so on. There was a mistake in the program:
Do i = 1 to 200
Put page edit
Next i
As the program started I realized the mistake. The commands were out of order and would send 200 sheets of blank paper flying out of the printer. Fortunately there was a cancel button. In the computer lab many such programs were written (on punch cards!) and some had mistakes and did not do what the programmer wanted. And so the consultants had some basic guidelines. One was K.I.S.S. “Keep it simple, stupid.” The more complicated a program was, the harder it was to find and fix mistakes. It is a valuable lesson in many other ways.
God comes into our world whether we are ready for it or not. Many times this is in the form of God wanting us to do something. The readings from Scripture for today have that theme. The word of the Lord comes to the prophet Jonah. It is to proclaim judgment to the people of the city of Nineveh. He is not ready for that and so runs away. But God stops him. That is where the great fish comes in. He ends up on a boat, then overboard, then saved by the fish and returned to land. And the word of the Lord comes to him a second time. The message is the same. This time, though, he is ready and goes to that land, the land which is Israel’s enemy and preaches. It works; the people hear it and turn to the Lord and they are saved from judgment. Sometimes God has to lead us into being ready to serve God.
The Gospel reading is of the time Jesus came to Galilee and proclaimed the good news of God. Simon and Andrew were by the sea and Jesus tells them this amazing thing: “Follow me and I will make you fish for human beings.” They responded, very much unlike Jonah, immediately. They were fishermen and Jesus used an image that would be unmistakable to them. It is pretty simple. Just as they used to go gather fish so now they would be gathering human beings into a community of faith, centered on Jesus. James and John do likewise and so the disciples come to follow Jesus with this simple idea. They saw in Jesus someone, not only worth following, but worth dropping all they had, giving up all they had, to do it. They will follow Jesus and bring others to follow Jesus. It was simple.
For two thousand years the church has followed Jesus. It has grown more complicated. The first Christians proclaimed the gospel to the world around them. They, men and women, were fishers of people who, in turn, became part of the people of God. With time, these lands became filled with believers. Then people became Christians as they were born into Christian families, brought into the church through Baptism. The emphasis was shifted to teaching people about their faith, not in proclaiming the good news to those who were unfamiliar with it. There was no unbelieving world around the church. The times have changed and the number of people who have no church or no faith has grown. The church is no longer the center of things. In fact, in some places it is a minority. Perhaps it is time to rediscover the way the gospel can be shared with the world. The church sometimes needs to remember K.I.S.S. It is simple. God has a message and entrusts it to the servants of God.
It is time to remember what Jesus calls us to. It is a way of life in which faith is not just knowledge or status but an approach to life. Brian McLaren was asked to introduce a famous speaker at a conference of pastors. He was prepared until he found out that there had been a mistake. He was supposed to interview Dr. Peter Senge from a remote site by satellite teleconferencing. He prepared for that and was delayed due to technical problems. At last it was on and he asked the speaker what he would like to say to five hundred Christian ministers. He said that he asked a manager of a bookstore on a college campus what books were selling and he said that after the business administration books they were ones on spirituality and in particular about Buddhism. Dr. Senge asked the assembled ministers why they thought that was. McLaren turned the question back on Senge who said this, “I think it’s because Buddhism presents itself as a way of life, and Christianity presents itself as a system of belief. So I would want to get Christian ministers thinking about how to rediscover their own faith as a way of life, because that’s what people are searching for today. That’s what they need most.”
What the speaker was getting at was that the Christian faith is more than a set of beliefs. It is a way we live following Jesus. It is a group of people, the church, and also people acting. It is an institution, but also a movement. Sometimes we forget that, especially when we only think about preserving the institution or our traditions.
All this talk about how the world is changing might frighten us. The future comes whether we are ready for it or not. Much has changed but there are some things that have not. God still loves the world and wants to be a part of it. God has called men and women to follow Jesus and serve others in his name. The plan that God has for the world is still the same as when Jesus proclaimed the good news of the kingdom and the disciples left their nets to follow him. What does the world need? What are people searching for? What do we have to give it?
We begin by rediscovering outreach. The church does not exist for itself. It is like those first disciples, called to proclaim the good news, that they have found Jesus. It can reach the lives of others in amazing ways, as Elizabeth Sherrill found years ago when traveling with Brother Andrew who was noted for meeting with groups of Christians behind the Iron Curtain. Elizabeth and her husband John were planning on following the old advice to travel light when they found Brother Andrew packing a large suitcase. It turned out is was clothes to be left behind for those whose faith had cost them positions and employment in a Communist society. She discovered that thing don’t mean much until they’re shared.
God called Jonah and the first disciples to serve God. The disciples responded immediately to that call but Jonah came to it late. But behind it all was God, wanting a message to go forth into the world. It is simple. What we have, even our faith, is to be shared with others. Let us seek to give what the world needs. The times are changing but God’s love for the world does not. God wants to bring the world to God’s own self. We can bring the message to those who need it. We can catch them. It is as simple as that.
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