“Everyone is searching for you”. They were sorely lacking many things in th first century. None mre noticeable that GOOGLE and GPS. If only they had had these gifts, this statement would never have been made. We are searchers. Seekers. Lost and longing for direction. And we have created devices to help us along. Too bad they don’t get us closer to the one who can truly find us. “Everyone is searching for you.” This is a powerful statement that the disciples say to Jesus. After a night of the deepest human needs beating down their door, a night in which Jesus announcement of the Kingdom of God is realized in the most profoundly real ways through miraculous healings and release from demonic spirits. After a night in the darkness of human anguish, when the world began to see God in the hands and eyes of this Galilean preacher. They come to the desert, to the desolate and lonely place to find him alone in prayer. And they say, “Everyone is searching for you.” I suspect their goal was to get him back at it, return him to work, keep the healings coming. As his popularity grew, they could see the plan unfold. He wins over the peasant population, who are so enamoured by his work and ingratiated by his generosity toward them that they marshall the human resources to mount a legitimate offensive against Rome. They see him as a grassroots organizer, able to arouse the passions of the masses and foment the anger of their rivals into an ultimate battle that they will surely win with the Messiah with them. Like most powerful leaders in our world, Jesus will experience the two ways in which they become famous. He will be both the hero and the scapegoat. People love to praise the leader. People love to blame the leader. It’s the best way to deal with our own sins. Crown the leader; then hang the leader. “Everyone is searching for you,” could be said of people in every time and place. We want to anoint someone, a savior and a martyr to do our living and our dying for us. This search for Jesus is powerful and poignant, mostly because its true for so many people. Not only in Capernaum, but in the world. The world is searching, groaning, fighting, and dying for someone to help us. Obama and the congress are just the most recent examples of a never-ending search for salvation. Save us from extreme poverty and from obscene wealth. Save us from diseases that kill and weapons that maim. Save us from past resentments and future uncertainties. Save us from broken families and broken hearts. Save us from planetary catastrophe and from personal crises. Save us from the false deception of security and from the truth about death. Save us from loneliness and save us from the din of text message, cell phone, email, and facebook overload. Save us from an irrelevant life and save us from self-centeredness.
On Sunday mornings our disciple class has been wondering about grace. What is the grace of GOD? Jesus teaches us grace today; grace is not self-important. He was not the local medicine man/faith healer. He was the embodiment of a global message of salvation. He did not operate under the false assumption that he could fix every problem in their community. He did not operate without retaining the source of his power and identity as son of God through prayer. His actions required reflection and prayer. There is no bodily healing, no physical hope for salvation that is not accompanied by a spirit life. Just as there is not only spiritual salvation and healing, but Jesus came to redeem and heal the physical world, the whole creation. He teaches us that the rhythm of human life requires that we submit ourselves to a time of solitude and silence before God, as well as time immersed in the sea of human need. Evening and morning is the rhythm of the poem of creation in Genesis one. From the darkness of disease and demon-possession to the dawn of God’s glorious presence. That is the rhythm to which Jesus calls us. It is a holy rhythm and one are invited to connect with in order to receive the salvation he offers. Grace is submitting or surrendering to the wonder of all that God is and all that God gives. We live in a can-do,do it yourself culture. We live in a culture of independence and entitlement where everyone deserves an ipod, a flat screen, and an SUV. We live in an age where the self is idolized as the ultimate good. If its good for me than its good enough. We live in an age of self-doubt, when we assume life is as good as it gets and no one is gonna rescue anyone from the mess we’re in. Your life is your problem, your situation, and miracles are rare.
And then Jesus heals many. And not just anyone. He heals Simon’s mother-in-law, showing us that his ministry was not just general goodness, but had personal consequences for families familiar to the Christian community who first heard this gospel. He didn’t just heal anybody, he healed Simon-Peter’s mother-in-law. And trust me, I know how relieved Peter felt. I can’t do what I do if its not for my mother-in-law. Obviously Peter and his wife had children. And mother-in-laws are critical to the sustainability of a household, especially when the man of the house is exercising discipleship ministry in the church.
Everyone is searching for you, though many do not know it. They don’t know that you are the one whom they seek. So they look in the wrong places, at the wrong person and many are disappointed and leftAnd those of us who know you and what you are about and what you seek to do and be for this world have not shared you with them, either. We have kept you hidden and placid and stained-glassed and pure and have not unleashed yo on this broken and needy world crying out for justice and mercy and love and healing and freedom. But we know you will go, whether we are with you or not. You go. You show up. You offer. You bless. You touch and heal and raise up. Because you are grace. And we need grace. We seek you. Be our Lord and Savior. Amen.
