Category Archives: Faith

Good Grapes 

1 Reply

I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” – John 15:5 

Our neighbor’s grapevine straddled the fence between our yards.  A few years ago, I decided it was time to put those grapes on our side of the fence to good use.  I read the complete article on jelly making from Joy of Cooking, and decided to try the “old-fashioned natural” method that didn’t require a thermometer or commercial pectin.  I knew the jelly probably would be less stiff, but the cookbook promised “a far superior product, depending on the quality of the fruit.”   As I mashed grapes, waited for them to cook, and strained the grapes and juice through a jelly bag, I kept thinking about that “quality of the fruit” phrase.  <!–more–> I had time to sit down with John 15 again, and think about Jesus’ vine metaphor.

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” (John 15:1-17)

First, it’s important to remember that we are the branches, not the fruit.  We may be cut off from Christ, the vine, if we produce no fruit at all.  We may be pruned to produce more and better fruit, and we are admonished to abide in Christ, just as the branch abides in the vine.  Notice that we can only produce fruit if we abide in the vine.  That fruit is love, given freely.

Our job, as branches, isn’t to focus on the fruit. Our job is to stay connected to the Vine. God will take care of the fruit. For jelly, it’s best to harvest the grapes when they are just barely ripe, and maybe a few are even a little green.  Branches don’t like to let go of their grapes, so the clusters have to be cut from the vine.  Likewise, we may enjoy feeling God’s love for us, but refrain from sharing it – it’s sweet to hold on and savor that goodness; it’s hard, sometimes, to make ourselves vulnerable to others, to give away the love God has made known to us.  But Jesus encourages us to let God the vine dresser distribute the fruit according to His plan.

Sometimes, that may mean that the fruit is a little green, not so sweet.   Mature fruit has its own purpose, however.  By definition, fruit holds seeds. Unless the fruit ripens, it will be impossible for those seeds to develop into something worth planting.  As followers of Jesus, our purpose is to make more disciples.  We need to allow our own seeds of faith, surrounded by the ripe fruit of God’s love, to develop into something worth planting in the hearts of others.

A couple more observations:  When you make jelly, draining the cooked grapes through a jelly bag strains out everything but the clear juice.  If you squeeze the bag to get more juice faster, all you accomplish is getting stuff in your jelly that belongs in the compost.  It’s important to let God refine us in His own good time, for the highest quality, for the clearest product.

And finally, sometimes things get messy.  Love isn’t always tidy.  Following Christ isn’t always neat and easy.  Grape juice stains easily.  But, depending on the quality of the fruit, God promises a far superior product to anything the world can offer.

May the gift of Christ’s Spirit bear much good fruit in our lives.  Let us allow God to take his time with us, as we share his love with others, planting seeds of faith in those around us.  May God prune us and tend us, that the fruit we bear for his Kingdom might be sweet and plentiful.

“It’s That Simple” – Sermon on 1 John 3:16-24 

2 Replies

Easter 4B April 26, 2015
The young woman stood in the doorway, looking embarrassed. I hadn’t seen her in nearly a year. As I looked up her records from the last time she had come to ask for help, I hoped I had made some notes about her story that would jog my memory. When I found her papers in my Emergency Assistance file, my heart sank.

 A few months after I began this appointment, I set a limit on how many times a person could receive vouchers for food and gas, and she had already met that limit. 

At the time, setting a limit seemed the right thing to do. I had come to realize that several people had let the church become part of their monthly income stream. What we gave them couldn’t really be called “emergency assistance” anymore, because it had become part of their regular budget. They spent what income they received from other sources on entertainment instead of groceries, because they knew they could get groceries through the church.

Maybe I was being too judgmental, but I didn’t think it was good stewardship to use our emergency assistance fund to support poor lifestyle choices. So I set a limit. Three times, and you’re done. I figured someone who was really experiencing a temporary financial emergency would not need help for more than three months in a row. Ninety days ought to be enough time to get back on track. People who kept coming back time and again needed more than a voucher for groceries. They needed an entire life transformation. If they wanted to come talk with me about faith, my door was open. But my voucher file was closed.

And now, here this woman stood, near tears, desperate for whatever I could offer her. She’d tried everything she knew, and I was her last hope. It had been nearly a year since she’d been in my office. Couldn’t I do something?

When Jesus was teaching and healing during the early part of his ministry, there were times when the needs around him seemed overwhelming, too. In Matthew’s gospel we read, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). The fourth Sunday of Eastertide is called Shepherd Sunday. We recite Psalm 23, and remember that Jesus is our good shepherd, willing to lay down his life for us, the sheep of his flock. 

This morning’s passage from First John echoes these words from the gospel, but John calls us to be more than simple sheep when we choose to follow Jesus.

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. – 1 John 3:16-24

In these few verses, John touches on some themes we have already heard – God’s deep love for us, abiding in that love, believing that Jesus is the Son of God who died to save us from our sins, obeying Christ’s commands. As these themes weave themselves together, John moves toward the big point he wants to make clear, before his letter takes another direction. John’s big point is this: there’s only one thing you need to believe – Jesus is God’s Son, and you can tell that he loves you because he laid down his life for you. Now go show that kind of love to each other. It’s that simple.

Right, we nod. It’s that simple. But as we ponder what John means here, we begin to wonder. How, exactly, are we supposed to lay down our lives for each other? Does he mean we need to die for one another, just as Jesus did? But wait, didn’t Jesus die for all of us? How will our dying for each other prove anything? Let’s take a look at these verses again, to see what John is telling us about love, faith, and obedience.

First, love. John writes, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” (3:16)

When Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins, he went all out. He held nothing back, but sacrificed his own life for our sakes. John’s point is that we need to be so committed to sharing God’s love that we are willing to give our entire being to that purpose. Our lives are to be “a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), with all the attention we would normally give to satisfying our own desires redirected toward loving each other. 
“Laying down our lives” may mean sacrificing busy schedules that keep us too occupied to notice another’s need. Laying down our lives might mean setting aside our own personal agenda, so that we can be part of someone else’s life, and invite them to be part of ours. Laying down our lives could be taking the time to listen to someone who is hurting. Laying down our lives isn’t so much about dying for someone else, as it is living for someone else, putting their needs ahead of our own as an act of love.

And then John gets real. “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (3:17)

Loving in truth and action means sacrifice – but it isn’t always the kind of action or sacrifice you’d expect.

That woman who came to my door, looking for help, wasn’t unique. I see a dozen or so people just like her every month. They’ve reached the end of their rope, and the knot they tied in the end of it, so they’d have something to hang onto, has come unraveled. They are slipping. They are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Many times, I can’t help them. They need a place to live, or the utilities have been shut off. Their only car has broken down. The needs are overwhelming, and they are always urgent. Offering these people a voucher for $20 worth of groceries, knowing they will have to walk 20 blocks to redeem it, breaks my heart.

While I know that some of the people who come to me have made up a story they think will gain my sympathy, and some of those stories are so obviously untrue I have a hard time keeping a straight face as I listen to them, I also know that some of the heartbreaking stories I hear are very true. I know because I’ve already read about them in the newspaper. 

And while I know that many of the people who come to me for help are only there because they have made really poor choices, I also know that some of the people who come to me are truly victims of circumstance. They’ve been living by the skin of their teeth for so long, they don’t know any other way to live. When a catastrophe strikes, they have no reserves, no way to handle it without some help.

What’s the best way for those of us who have plenty to help others in need – not only material needs, but the deeper layers of need that cause brokenness and pain, that send people into a cycle of poverty? How can we invest ourselves in their lives, and share our lives with them to meet the deepest need of all: to know Christ and follow him?

Offering a voucher for groceries or gas does very little to solve the root problems of poverty and hunger. Poverty of spirit is a greater need than financial poverty, but sometimes the two are very closely related. Sometimes – hard as it may sound – the most sacrificial, loving thing we can do is refuse to settle for putting a band-aid on the problem. Sometimes saying “no” to a request is the most loving thing we can do.

As we listen for the underlying cause of a person’s poverty, we need to realize that it takes a long time to get past the layers of denial and  feeling victimized that often accompany deep need. These layers have built up over time, to protect the person from pain and shame. We can avoid shaming people who come to us for help, when we recognize them as our brothers and sisters.

Instead of seeing ourselves as the generous benefactor, and others as the poor recipient of our generosity, we can start seeing each person we meet as a beloved child of God, precious in God’s eyes, created in God’s likeness, just as we are. Recognizing that each person has something to offer to the community of faith, we begin to see everyone as a contributor in some way to our common good as the body of Christ.

Caring for one another is something we do within the community of faith. The danger here is that the church can become inwardly focused, taking care of ourselves more than the world we were put here to serve. But just as the airlines tell you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else, and Jesus says to pull the log out of your own eye before trying to remove the splinter from someone else’s eye, so we need to make sure that we are taking good care of one another in this congregation, even as we reach out to others, drawing them into our fellowship.

Sometimes, we will fail. Sometimes we just don’t do a very good job of paying attention to the needs of others, because our own needs are so great. When we doubt our own capacity to love, and beat ourselves up for not seeing the need around us, God is gracious. John writes that Christ “will reassure our hearts whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” (v. 20) He knows our desire to follow him, even when we fail at it, and we can go to him in confidence that he will respond to our desire to do his will.

Our assurance that Christ abides in us and we in him is grounded in our obedience to his command: believe that Jesus is God’s Son, and love each other sacrificially. That’s a single command, by the way. Believing in Christ and loving each other is all one thing. It’s that simple. 

And it takes practice. New ways of thinking and living require lots of conscious repetition before they become habits. Laying down our lives to take up a life of love does not come naturally to us. We are self-centered human beings, after all. But John reminds us that the Holy Spirit is right there with us, to guide us toward this kind of living, this way of loving. 

This is how we make disciples for the transformation of the world: recognizing that every person we encounter is a beloved child of God who brings value to the world, taking the time and energy to draw attention to that person’s value, so he or she can see just how great the Father’s love really is. 

Jane Goodall, who has dedicated her life to studying chimpanzees, once said, “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” Christ calls us to make a difference by being different. Loving others is not enough in itself, or everyone who showed love could claim to be a Christian. Loving others as an act of faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who laid down his life for all of us, transforms us into the people God created us to be. Laying down our lives brings us closer to the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. 

The young woman sat next to my desk, and told me her story. She described everything that had happened in the months since I had seen her last. She knew coming to me was a long shot, that she had used up all her available options. “I know you probably can’t help me with groceries, but could you at least pray for me? When you did that the last time, it really seemed to help,” she said. So we prayed together for all the needs she had shared. And I broke my own rule, and wrote her out another voucher for groceries and gas. It seemed pretty small, given her circumstances, but she was grateful. I invited her to supper on Wednesday night. She hasn’t shown up yet, but that isn’t what matters. 

What matters is that she heard someone say, “You have value. You are God’s own beloved child.” 

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” – if only for a few minutes at a time, as we learn more and more how to live as followers of Jesus. “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

Hoping Against Hope – Sermon on Romans 4:13-25 for Pentecost 2A and Lent 2B

Leave a reply

Out of the blue, we land in the middle of one of the Apostle Paul’s thickest chunks of writing this morning. So here’s a little refresher course in Paul’s letter to the church at Rome. This was not a church that Paul had started, and he did not personally know the people who would receive the letter. At the time he wrote to the Romans, Paul had not yet been to Rome. His letter was a kind of introduction to prepare the Roman Christians for a visit Paul was eagerly planning to make. He had heard rumors about the church in Rome, however.

Continue reading →

Rocky Roads (reblogged)

Leave a reply
February 1, 2015

The farmer from North Dakota shook his head as he looked out the bus window. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many rocks,” he said. We were in the middle of day three (or was it four?) of our pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and I realized that a farmer from North Dakota probably had a unique view of the landscape of Israel.

Rocks mean work. Rocks must be cleared before plowing and planting can happen. And the farmer was right: rocks were everywhere we looked. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus talked about seed landing on rocky soil. Here was clear evidence that Jesus used common experience to get through to his listeners. They would have known exactly what he meant by “rocky soil.” Rocks dotted every green hillside, every lush valley. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many rocks.

The season of Lent begins in a few short weeks. These 40 days of preparation for Easter have traditionally included the spiritual practices of prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor. We often describe the season of Lent as a journey toward the Cross, a path we follow to become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

But that path can be a rocky one. The roads Jesus walked were not always smoothly paved. When we choose to follow Jesus, we accept the challenge of walking where we might not otherwise want to go. The season of Lent gives us an opportunity to examine our hearts, and to recommit ourselves to the Way of the Cross. This Way is often steep and difficult to follow. It may be littered with rocks that can trip us up if we aren’t careful. But Jesus leads us forward, giving us sure footing if we look to him.

Will you come join the journey this Lent, and learn what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

“Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” – Matthew 11:6

You can find the original of this post on my church’s webpage under “From the Pastor’s Desk” for January 23, 2015 or click this link.

Eureka! Healed for a Purpose! Sermon on Mark 1:29-39

Leave a reply

Note: an updated sermon on this text is available here.

February 8, 2015

A kindergarten music teacher always introduced the first concert of the school year with these words to the parents: “Don’t blink, or you’ll miss a whole song.”

As we read through this first chapter of Mark’s gospel, I remember that advice. Mark wastes no time telling his story, and his urgency comes through, even when we try to divide his gospel into neat little passages that we can examine one by one. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss a whole story.

Spreading the events of a single day over several weeks gives us the opportunity to study those events closely, but we still get the impression that the people who were following Jesus had a hard time keeping up. Already, we’ve found Mark’s favorite word, “immediately” again and again – Mark uses it twelve times in the first chapter alone. So, just in case you need to catch your breath, or you made the mistake of blinking, here’s what has happened so far:

  • Jesus called four fishermen to follow him, and they left their boats and nets immediately.
  • They came to Capernaum, a small fishing village, where the four apparently lived.
  • On the Sabbath, Jesus went to the synagogue and began to teach with authority. A demon-possessed man challenged him, and named him as the Holy One of God – in other words, the Messiah – but Jesus told the unclean spirit to be silent and leave the man. It obeyed immediately.

It’s still the Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples have just left the synagogue after this encounter. The next part of the story happens in four distinct scenes over the next few hours. Hear the Word of the Lord as the story continues in the first chapter of the gospel of Mark, beginning at verse 29. Scene One:

29 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.

Maybe they went to Simon’s house because it was closest to the synagogue. Or maybe it was the largest home, with room for guests. Or maybe Simon just headed to his own house because he liked to take the lead. However they came to Simon’s home, we learn something about him that we didn’t know before. He has a family to support. And his wife’s mother is sick with a fever.

Simon tells Jesus this “immediately” – perhaps to explain why she does not come to greet the guests who have just arrived, or maybe to warn those guests that there is illness in the house they should avoid. Or maybe Simon has a hunch that this Jesus, who has just shown authority over an unclean spirit, might also have the authority to drive out a fever.

And that is exactly what Jesus does. He doesn’t say a word. He only puts out his hand and takes the hand of Simon’s mother-in-law. The fever is gone. Immediately. As Jesus brings her to her feet, the verb is identical to the one Mark will use in chapter 16 to describe Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. He lifts her up.

And the mother-in-law’s response to this miraculous healing is also immediate. She gets busy and serves them. Greta Ortega writes, “her service cannot be understood as a woman’s menial work under the domination of lazy males, but as a true messianic ministry.”[1] In essence, Simon’s mother-in-law becomes Jesus’ first deacon, reminding us that Jesus saw himself as a servant, too.

Later in his ministry, Jesus will tell his disciples, “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43-45)

And this brings us to Scene Two, beginning in verse 32:

32 That evening, at sunset, 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.

As the Sabbath draws to a close, we see that you can’t keep a secret in a small town like Capernaum. By now, everyone knows what happened in the synagogue, and many people will have already heard that Simon’s mother-in-law is no longer sick. As soon as Sabbath ends, a stream of people makes its way to Simon’s door, asking for healing, asking Jesus to do for them what they saw him do for that man in the synagogue.

Notice how Mark frames this story. Earlier in the day, Jesus performed a single exorcism in a very public place. Later in the day, he performs a single act of healing in a very private place, his friend’s home. Now the worlds collide. The private home becomes a public space, as Jesus heals and casts out unclean spirits for the many who come to Simon’s door.

And notice also that there is a clear distinction between healing and exorcism in Mark’s gospel. Mark will maintain this distinction throughout the coming chapters. The most important aspect of this difference is that Jesus never touches someone to expel an unclean spirit, but he often heals through the power of touch.

Many years ago, I received a complaint from a church member about the loud conversations in the narthex before worship. I was perplexed, until I talked with the dear woman who had taken it upon herself to greet every senior member of our congregation with a hug on Sunday morning. Some of those seniors lived alone, and this was the one time during the week when they could enjoy the human connection that comes with physical touch. Some of them were a little hard of hearing, and because of that, this woman would talk more loudly to them as she engaged them in the only conversation they would have all week. What had sounded like irreverent noise to one member was actually the caring ministry of another.

This woman’s ‘hugging ministry’ was an example of the intimacy of relationship that human touch in scripture represents.[2] God created us for relationship, for nearness to himself, and that is why Jesus became human: to make God’s love real and tangible, to make God touchable. And this, as P. C. Ennis puts it, is what “makes it all the more demanding (if frightening) to realize that for some people, we are the only Jesus they will ever meet.”[3] God not only calls us into service through his Son, God calls us into community with those who long for that connection we all crave, that nearness to God made possible through Christ.

The story continues in verse 35. Scene Three:

35 In the morning, while it was still very dark,
he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 

This is one of only three times in Mark’s gospel when Jesus goes off to be alone in prayer. Luke describes several instances of Jesus seeking solitude, but in Mark, we only read about Jesus going off alone to pray here, then after he has fed the five thousand, and finally in the garden of Gethsemane on the night he is betrayed by Judas. These are pivotal moments in Mark’s story, and they all share one common element: darkness.

Darkness and wilderness are closely linked here. Jesus goes off to some deserted location, reminding us of his time in the desert at the beginning of his ministry, when he was preparing to withstand Satan’s temptation. After learning of John the Baptist’s death and then feeding 5000 (plus women and children), Jesus will send his disciples off in a boat so he can spend the night in prayer (6:46). On another night, in a lonely garden, Jesus will pray, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” (14:32-42) The darkness associated with Christ’s times of solitude is the very darkness where he questions God, where he faces fear, and where Jesus submits to his Father’s will.

Even Jesus struggled to find his purpose at the beginning of his ministry, but he knew how to discover it. He prayed. The one who knew God’s heart better than anyone still set aside time to be alone with his Father in the darkness, to seek God’s will in extended times of prayer.

Called to service, called to community, we are also called sometimes into the darkness. It is here that we meet God, and sometimes our fears, face to face. It is in solitude and darkness that we find our purpose and learn to trust completely in God’s will.

Keep in mind that going out alone, in the middle of the night, in unfamiliar territory, would have been a very dangerous thing for Jesus to do. There were no streetlamps to light the way, no motion activated floodlights to scare off the wild animals. There were no cell phones to notify others if something went wrong. There was no GPS to help you find your way back to town if you got lost.

Being alone in the dark wilderness wasn’t the safest place to be in the first century. For Jesus, though, it was the only place where he could talk one-on-one with his Father, without interruption. Well, almost without interruption.

The story concludes, beginning in verse 36: Scene Four.

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.

Simon and his friends must have expected that Jesus would just keep on doing what he had done yesterday – healing the sick, casting out demons, meeting the needs that were presented to him. So far, the plan had seemed to work pretty well. They had given up fishing, but fishing for people wasn’t so bad, if all you had to do was control the crowds that kept coming to see Jesus perform his miracles. They could work from home, instead of from the boats. It would be great! Come on, Jesus, let’s go watch you do all the heavy lifting! The crowds are clamoring. You don’t want to disappoint your public.

But Jesus tells them something they weren’t expecting to hear. “Let’s go to the neighboring towns so I can preach there, too. That’s my job.”

The disciples may have been thinking, “What, leave Capernaum? Leave the comfort and security of what we know? When you said, ‘Follow me’ we weren’t expecting to follow you that far, Jesus.” They may have thought it, but Mark doesn’t indicate that they said it. This was a moment of decision for the disciples. There would be many more like it. Each time, they would have to decide, “Do we keep following?”

And that is the choice we face each day, too. The people of Capernaum had missed the point. They showed up for the miracles, but they failed to hear the message Jesus was preaching to them. Repent, turn away from your old ways, and believe the Good News that the Kingdom of God is now present with you.
Be changed.
Be transformed.
Keep following.

Jesus never went out looking for people to heal.[4] That was never his primary mission. People came to him, seeking his healing touch, asking for his help, and he had compassion on them. Some of them did believe. Some did repent and follow Jesus, and their lives were changed forever. These were the ones who, like Simon’s mother-in-law, responded with gratitude and devotion.

But Jesus had to choose between becoming the local healer and reaching as many people as possible with the good news of God’s love for them. The disciples would probably have preferred for Jesus to stay in Capernaum, healing from his home base, and theirs. But Jesus leads them out into their own dark wilderness: the unknown territory of introducing others to the Kingdom of God and leading them to repentance.

The disciples learned that you can’t be a true follower of Jesus by sitting in the comfort of your own living room. You have to get up, as Simon’s mother-in-law did, and join with others in the work of the Kingdom of God. Because for some people, we are the only Jesus they will ever meet.

We may not be the only ones who will satisfy their urgent, physical needs, but we are the only ones who will introduce them and welcome them into the family of God. We are the only ones who will help them recognize their need for a Savior. We are the only ones who can show them what it means to be transformed into Christ’s image through the daily disciplines of prayer and Bible study, service and sacrifice. We are the only ones who can show them what it means to decide every day to keep following Jesus. We are the only ones who can love them as Christ loved us, who can make that love tangible and touchable for them.
We are the only Jesus they will ever meet.

Let us pray.

O Lord, healer of our every ill, we come to you in our weakness, in our uncertainty. Just as your friends in Capernaum looked to you in expectation and hope, we come to you now, asking you to heal us, to free us from the unclean spirits that haunt us.

Because we know that you can, dear Jesus. we know you are able to do more than we can imagine. We know you can fix what’s wrong in us. So stretch out your hand and touch us, Lord. Heal our brokenness of body, mind, and spirit. Make us whole.

And then, Lord, help us to keep following you. Don’t let us turn back to our old ways of trying to cope. Help us to keep trusting you, even when you lead us into the dark unknown territory of going wherever you go.

Because we want to serve you, Lord, with the same gratitude and dedication Simon’s mother-in-law showed. We want to join with you, Lord, in the work of establishing your kingdom here on earth. And we want to stay with you, Lord, showing others the way through their own darkness, leading them to you.
We pray these things in your precious name. Amen.

[1] Greta Ortega, Feasting on the Word, Year B Volume 1, 334.

[2] P.C. Ennis, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, 334.

[3] Ennis, 336.

[4] R. T. France, NIGTC: The Gospel of Mark, 109.

Immediately – Sermon on Mark 1:14-20 for Epiphany 3B

Video from January 24, 2021

Water flows throughout today’s worship. From the story of Jonah to the Sea of Galilee, through the sacramental waters of our baptism, water connects us to the immediate, and to the eternal.

A sixth grade science teacher once told me that all the water in the world is the very same water that was present at Creation. The cycles of evaporation and condensation that were set in motion at the beginning of time have filtered the same molecules of water that flooded the earth in Noah’s time and flow out of the kitchen tap in ours. It’s all the same water. Continue reading →

From Darkness Into Light: Faith in the Promise – Sermon on Luke 1:26-38 Advent 4B

1 Reply

The gospel lesson for this Sunday is so important to our faith that it appears in the cycle of readings every year for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. The story of Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel has captured the imagination of artists and theologians for centuries. It’s an amazing story. It’s a story filled with mystery. Continue reading →

Hey, Mary!

Leave a reply

“Hey, Mary! God thinks you’re great. God is with you.”

(What on earth  …?)

“Stop being afraid. You are going to become the mother of the Son of God.”

“Okay, how are you going to do this?”

Mary didn’t blink an eye. She trusted that everything the angel had said was true. She just wondered how it was going to happen. What’s the protocol for virgin birth? How does infinite God become a finite human?

“Okay, tell me what to expect,” was all Mary wanted to know.
“How exactly is this going to work?”

“Look, your relative Elizabeth is also pregnant. She’s well beyond child-bearing years. If God can do that, God can do anything. Nothing is impossible with God.”

“Got it,” said Mary. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

Luke 1:26-38

“Preparing the Way” – Sermon on Mark 1:1-8 Advent 2B

Leave a reply

An updated version of this sermon for 2017, with photos of the Jordan River,
is available here .

 

Well Done! Sermon on Matthew 25:14-30

Leave a reply

11/16/2014

 

An updated version of this sermon for 2017 can be found here.