He withdrew

¹³Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.  ¹⁴When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.  ¹⁵When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves."  ¹⁶Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."  ¹⁷They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."  ¹⁸And he said, "Bring them here to me."  ¹⁹Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.  ²⁰And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.  ²¹And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.  Mark 6

This summer was a season to withdraw, to get away.  Like Jesus modeled for his disciples and for us.  I’m grateful for the 2 weeks off.  I had very limited contact and received NO phone calls during this time away.  I returned to read this gospel, a text that has its middle action cut out to make a point.  Jesus provides retreat, rest, recuperation, and healing to people who need these things.  A church that imitates Jesus is called to offer them same to one another and to our neighbors.   It would be easy today to point to the gospel of Mark and say, “See, Jesus invited his disciples to retreat, to a little vacation across the lake.  We all need rest and renewal.”   While I was away, I learned that a colleague, the pastor I served with at my previous call (Grace Lancaster) recently had a heart attack and is recovering for the month of July at his 2^nd  home in New Hampshire.  That news was shocking because Steve is only 50 and in excellent health, an athlete really.   We must learn to balance work and rest, productive time and grace time; we all need renewal to continue the important work this church is called to do.  We are called, brothers and sisters, to embody freedom in Christ. This freedom is a freedom to serve our neighbors generously and joyfully.  This comes from the master’s work, work that is hidden from our ears today in the gospel.  I remind you that the text that was cut out of the gospel for today includes the feeding of the multitudes and the stilling of the storm/walking on water scenes.  Jesus actually delays their retreat in order to compassionately serve the sick and hungry people they encounter.  He takes his disciples into new territory, not only to get away from the crowds, but to encounter more strangers who are hungry and hurting. He took them away to show them the scope and breadth of the mission.  

Americans are not great at maintaining healthy rhythms; daily, weekly, annually.  We tend to overwork, vacation, overwork, repeat…until we retire or die.  Bad stress causes heart attacks and anxiety for many of us.  For so many of our friends and neighbors, the constancy of labor without vacation or breaks is necessary to sustain their households.  Between hard work and household chores and child-rearing, many of our friends and neighbors get no physical or mental breaks ever.  What would a church that took seriously the need to create time and space for people to get time off look like?  What if some adults here offered a free parents night out, in which we served dinner and a movie to kids from 6 to 9 pm?   

We know that time heals. And although I’m dealing with some back pain probably soft tissue or muscle related that I incurred during vacation, I know that healing takes time.  Often, the doctor tells us we need to take more healing time than we are willing or able to give ourselves.  We are impatient patients.  And we do not take seriously mental and emotional health care, requiring times of silence, stillness, and self-reflection. We prefer quick fixes.  But time heals. How do we give people permission to enter into a season of prolonged healing and renewal?

While we were in Williamsburg, we pulled into a gas station.  We pulled around an elderly man who was having some difficulty at the pump.  His car was not close enough to the pump and he was moving very slowly.  We watched this scene unfold.  After I was done filling my tank, I noticed people passing by, shaking their heads or ignoring the scene.  The man got back in his car and attempted to move it closer to the tank.  He moved it further away.  He couldn’t back up to the tank.  I decided to intervene.  I asked the man if I could help him.  He said he would be grateful.  He gave me his keys and I backed the car to the pump.  He didn’t know how to use the credit card machine, so I helped him with it.  He said, its hell getting old.  And he said thank you.  He gassed up the car and we drove away.  I couldn't help but think that part of my vacation was for him.  I was where I was needed, even when we were on retreat.  Because the mercy mission is evreywhere, for everyone, at any time.  I was grateful for the time away.  For the injured back that slows me down.  And for the elderly man who needed someone to pay attention to him and lend a hand. 

Talitha Cum

A sermon preached on June 28th, 2015.  On  Mark 6;  raising Jairus' daughter, healing the bleeding woman

This has been a week of social change.  SCOTUS rulings on gay marriage and health care; confederate flags, the symbol of persistent and unrepentant racism, removed from southern capitols and Dukes of Hazzard merchandise.  Even Walmart has banned the flag, thus offending the innocent and ignorant who proudly flew her from the back of pickup trucks or wore her on Tshirts, hats, and boxer shorts.  The flag is only a symbol and we daresn’t believe that racism will go away as quickly as it has. However, it may be a sign of remorse, long-overdue repentance that finally got through to us when an historic black church---a place that stood for peace and justice and prayer---was the scene of violent death.  Rev. Pinckney and the 8 other innocent brothers and sisters who died there at the hands of an angry white man somehow broke the spirit of overt racism.  I believe a new day is dawning, a day Dr. King dreamed about. A day when freedom could be for all men, women, and children-regardless of race or sexual orientation.  A day when oppressed minorities could be free to prosper in safety.  I believe we are witnessing hope rising. 

But it is not easy. One person’s greatest blessing is another person’s curse.   History tilts and some people lose their balance.  The pace of change can be dizzying and provoke anxiety and fear.  We may feel as if we are thrown into chaos with no mooring, no anchor to hold.  This is why faith is necessary in challenging times such as these.

The two girls in this story are inextricably bound together by the storyteller and by the one who touches their lives on the same day.

One, a 12-year old daughter sick on the brink of death. Her father, a synagogue leader comes to Jesus and begs him to come and heal her.  Jesus goes willingly.  On the way, a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years crawls up behind him and touches his cloak.  If she could only touch him, his power would heal her,  she hopes.  She bleeds. She’s not a hemophiliac with a paper cut.  She’s a bleeding woman.  She is infertile, unclean according to the law, and therefore cursed.  She has been cast out of the synagogue, labeled as broken.  She can’t be cured.  God has abandoned her.  She has no one.  No family. No friend.  No husband.  No child.  No resources.  She spent all her money on health care that did nothing for her.  She is at the end of her rope and the end of her hope.  Her last and only hope is Jesus of Nazareth, a man who can heal. 

She distracts Jesus, interrupting his hasty journey to his friend Jairus’ home.  Who touched me?  The disciples couldn’t care less.  Everyone touches Jesus.  Move on master.  There isn’t time.  But he stops.  And looks around.  Who touched me?  And there she is, on the ground.  Crying.  It was me.  I’m sorry, Lord. I needed you.  He takes her hand and lifts her up.  Daughter, your faith has healed you. He claims her when no one else would claim her.  He touches her when no one else would touch her.  He sees her and hears her when no one else would see and hear her.  Her lets her in, this one who had been left out to bleed to death.  After 12 years of suffering, she is free to live.  Thanks be to Jesus.

Too late.  Jesus is too late.  Death has come and taken the girl.  He cannot heal her now.  Do not fear, only believe.  He says.  He goes in and touches the girl.  Talitha cum.  Little Girl, Rise. Ad she sits up. Feed her, he says. Maybe she was only sleeping as he suggested.  Maybe she’s just hungry, underfed., malnourished.  Maybe she was a diabetic who needed a little sugar in her blood.  Jesus knows.  What we see and hear is mourning turned into joy.  Despair turned into elation.  Death reversed and life restored.

Women were inferior to men.  They had value, but they were inferior.  They were household servants and bearers of children, hopefully boys. A daughter was a burden, a blessing and a curse.  All daughters of Eve were cursed for their disobedience.  Misogyny and the abuse of women persists.  Women are still treated as inferior to men, though much has changed in the last 100 years.  Jesus acknowledges their value, their beloved status as daughters of God when it was culturally unnatural an unpopular to do so.   Jesus pours himself out as a servant to women.  Because Jesus is for those who are deprivileged, marked as cursed, abused, abandoned, and bleeding on the street.  Jesus’ actions are personal and systemic, as he selectively heals those at the bottom of the human pyramid lifting up the lowly, the weary ones, the poor and dispossessed. He is setting the world right-side up.  It’s just that those who stood in their feet are now standing on their heads.     

We are called to celebrate today. Jesus healed a woman and raised a girl to life. There is hope.  It’s not too late for this world to change. Discrimination and prejudice can die.  Love can overcome.   One daughter at a time. A little faith breaks the curse and opens the way to new and abundant life.  We see the new creation, the kingdom of God breaking in.  We are anchored to Jesus, the source of new life and freedom.  We are the church, called to enact his compassionate justice for our neighbors.  Let us do so with boldness and abandon.  For we will do nothing good that he has not already done.  He endorses and anoints and ordains us as his representatives, sent to heal and forgive and give life where there is suffering and death.  We can stop the bleeding and lift them up.  For we are children of GOD.  Amen.        

          

Scattered and Sown

DWELL

He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,  and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.  The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.  But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come."

             He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?  It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;  yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;  he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples."  Mark 4

REFLECT

Scattered and sown---these verbs describe how the Kingdom of God moves into our lives.  Sowing is a bit more intentional than scattering, though they have the same effect, right?  Some sort of growth, reproduction, multiplication, and maturation. Tiny, buried seeds germinate and grow into visible plants that grow and produce fruit and habitat and more seeds!  Germination takes time.  One waits to see if the seeds that were sown or scattered will emerge.  And then they do.  With water, soil, sun, and a little time. 

IN my garden the first plants to emerge this year were pumpkin plants, all over the garden.  As if I’d tossed pumpkin seeds everywhere.  Countless pumpkin sprouts popped up.  Thing is, I didn’t plant them.  I didn’t sow or scatter them, really.  What we did was toss our pumpkins onto the garden in the Fall.  We toss yard autumn leaves and other yard waste in there for composting.  So, in a sense I did scatter seeds.  As the pumpkins rotted, the seeds fell into the ground and spent a harsh winter there.  Dormant. Lifeless.  And then, the spring sun and rains came. I cleaned up the composted garden, removed the remaining pumpkins and added soil.  That’s all it took.  Now they grow.  We’re letting them grow.  Maybe this year we’ll grow our own pumpkin patch.  Right now they seem to be growing better than anything else we planted.  Scattered seeds will grow without intention, without work, without assistance.  It is the way of things.  Death and resurrection.  Burial and growth.  Seed and fruit.  The scattering of the seeds indiscriminately leads to a future harvest. 

Tiny seeds in the right conditions become plants with the DNA to mature and reproduce.  Mustard plants are not the tiniest, nor are they the biggest shrubs.  But they do spread.  Mustard spreads in a field, like mint.  Though we planted mint in our 4 X 4 raised beds, they jumped out and spread everywhere, invading the larger garden area, too.  You can’t control it.  It’s everywhere.  Mustard plants grow and spread and persist.  It’s hard to kill.  Just keeps on growing and moving.   

The Kingdom of God is like this.  It’s not an institution or a program or an organization with a board of directors.  It is not managed. Jesus suggests that His work ,words, and ways are being sown and scattered in a way that cannot be controlled or undone.  It’s already out there, like the pumpkin seeds in my garden.  His healing, his teachings, his powerful forgiveness are already being sown into the hearts and minds of people like you and me, who scatter and sow with our own lives, our own words and actions.  The church is like a farm or a garden plot or garden box.  It has good soil, starter seeds, a history of growth and reproduction.  But it is not the only place the seeds grow.  And, contrary to what so many are saying about the church, it is not dying.  Containers do not die.  The church is a container. That's all.  And sometimes not a very good container.  The church is not itself the Kingdom of God or the Word of God. It is, at best, vessel, instrument, container garden of faith.   2,000 years of the Spirit wind blowing the seeds of faith around the globe.  It’s not everywhere, though.  So the wind continues to blow.  This week I was a sower of Kingdom seeds in the lives of a family or two. I told them about God’s love for them, God’s promised provision for them, God’s desire for them to be part of the family of God.  I listened to their story with empathy and compassion. They were grateful.  And I believe the kingdom of God broke into that household this week, the kingdom of God invaded the untilled soil of their broken hearts. They emailed me a note saying that out encounter may have restored some faith.  I don’t know how or when germination might take place.  I don’t know if I’ll see them to water the seeds.  But I trust the power of the Word to take root and grow in places we do not expect, with people who have never been in church or have left church behind.  So the good news is the growth of the church or the kingdom of God is not all up to us.  You can have great soil and a nice container for it, but without the seeds you have nothing.  So wasting efforts on the church building makes no sense if the seeds of Christ’s teachings are not planted there. 

Sown and scattered.  God has planted the DNA of the kingdom in you; they are the gifts of the spirit, faith and hope and love.  You are the seeds scattered and sown.  You are sown into a neighborhood, a school, a retirement community.  We have bee sown onto main Street in Akron.  God intends for you to visibly embody the life of Jesus where you live.  And scattered, the places you travel, the people you meet along the way, every journey and resting place is a place to scatter the seeds of faith.  May you be scattered and sown as the seeds of Christ’s love and may you plant the seed in others.  Amen.   

PRAY

Lord Jesus, your kingdom moves and grows and multiplies around us, through us, within us, in spite of us, and for us.  We see it and feel it and taste your forgiveness.  Scatter us like seeds that we might sow the word of salvation, the word of love and compassion every where we go.  Amen.     

Paralyzed

DWELL. Mark 2

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic— ‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’

REFLECT

This is a healing story.  But it isn't the kind of healing story we think it is.  Most of them aren't.  Stories about healing in the bible are never just about a restored physical condition.  Truth is, there's no such thing.  our physical health is tied to our mental, emotional and spiritual health.    

The context is important, too.  We have a crowd listening to Jesus teach.  The room is full and the door is blocked.  No one else is getting access to Jesus.  There are people on the inside who have access and there are people on the outside who don't.  What's the difference? In that place, there was no handicapped access.  Mark tells us this for a reason. No one else is getting in to see Jesus.

Except for four persistent people who carry a paralyzed man to the house and lower him through the roof to Jesus' feet.  The clue that this healing is different is in Jesus' response to the presence of the paralyzed man.  he says, "Son, your sins are forgiven." This is not about a spinal chord injury or cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy or ALS.  These are terrible physiological diseases and injuries that can leave people paralyzed.  I think Mark is talking about a different sort of paralysis here.  A physical manifestation of a deeper, underlying condition at work in this man's life.   

1.  This is a story about the barriers and obstacles, the fear and doubt, that paralyze us and prevent us from living as Sons and Daughters of God.  Whatever psychologically and physically bound this man and held him down, it was preventing him from seeing and believing that he was a son of God with the power and authority of God in his life.  He could not stand on his own two feet.  What knocks people down and keeps them down? What prevents people from accepting the truth about themselves, that they are broken children of a loving and healing and forgiving God?  Forgiveness means to be set free from punishment.  Often, we punish ourselves with shame and guilt and self-hatred and envy.

All of us feel paralyzed, stuck, trapped, sometimes.  With no control, no power.  We lie down.  We give up.  We doubt ourselves.  

2.  None of us gets anywhere alone.  Friends, a community of caregivers, bear us up and go with us.  They surround us and keep us moving.  They fight for access and for healing on our behalf.  When we are paralyzed, others have to lift us up and do our walking and working for us.  And there are times when we are called on to lift and carry and walk and dig and go first in order to break down walls and move communities into compassion.  Name four people in your life who support you and lift you up.

3. The life God intends for us is accessible, despite the barriers and challenges, and closed doors we might face.  We persevere together.  I believe that this is church.  A people who are sometimes paralyzed and sometimes on the move together, seeking the life God intends for all of us, seeking to live into our truest, best selves.  The church is an empowerment movement toward Jesus, the one who forgives us enough to become more and more like him--authentic Son of God.   

4.  Too often, church looks like the closed door gathering of religious types hanging around Jesus, hoarding attention and witholding mercy, while those who need access to God's mercy lie outside without acknowledgement or a sense of power. More and more people have been denied access to God through the church.  Church has become barrier, instead of conduit.  Some of us know what that means.  We have experienced neither the forgiveness that sets us free and builds us up nor the empowerment that gets us moving toward God and the world at the same time.  That is the movement for those who accept the teachings of Jesus.  One moves closer to God and one moves deeper toward the world God made.  Access to God is never denial of the world.  We relearn what it means to live as human beings in and for the world God made and loves with such a costly and generous love. 

Let's become the church that brings the paralyzed to Jesus.  Let's be the church that provides full and complete access to God for those who seek it.  Let's be the church that lifts up those who are paralyzed and bear them to Jesus, the source of all healing and freedom.

What do you need to let go of, forgive, be free from, in order to get up and be more fully and completely the person God intends for you to be? What prevents you from embracing your true identity as an empowered child of God with a mission in this life to bring about the Kingdom/peaceful and just rule of God in this present place and time?  What would Jesus say to you, if you were on that mat? 

PRAY

Jesus, forgive our sins and free us to follow you. Amen.

    

    

Lepers---Addicts---Jesus

DWELL.  Mark 1, continued

A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

REFLECT

You cannot read the gospels without bumping into undesirables.  These are people we would rather avoid, if possible.  You may be thinking of those people right now.  They may have a different skin color than you do, or tattoos on their skin.  They may have marks on their skin from drug use.   They may live in dirty apartments in a part of town you will not travel.  They may be members of your own family.  They may have a chronic illness or addictions we cannot heal.  They may be schizophrenic or bipolar.  There are people around you that you naturally avoid because you are afraid of them.    

IN our story, Jesus encounters a leper.  Leprosy is a skin disease, considered contagious enough to require isolation from the general population.  People with the illness were sentenced to a life in a colony with other lepers.  The conditions were inhumane.  And sometimes, people were sentenced to this life with a misdiagnosis.  Nevertheless, the process of lawful return to general society required proper examination and evaluation by experts.  If the examiner, a priest, found you to be clean of the disease, you were expected to dutifully thank God and fulfill Jewish law by making proper temple sacrifice.  It was possible to be restored to community,unless you were found unclean by the priest.  This system of public health was also a system of social control.  Keep the undesirables out of the general population, so the rest of us do not get infected.  So we lock up the young black men and the poor white heroine addicts.  We still institutionalize the undesirables when we can.

But Jesus was moved with pity by an undesirable leper.  To be moved with pity is to feel pain in the gut for someone else.  Jesus identified with this man's suffering so much that he felt pain. 

This man knew that someone with authority in the broader community had to recognize him and declare him clean (healthy enough to return to the community as a full member again).  He needed a compassionate priest.  But he would accept the word of a rabbi known to heal sick people.  Jesus sends him off to regain his life in the world.  Follow the rules, but don't wait any longer.  Jesus gives this man a key to reentry.  And like an infectious disease, Jesus' work begins to spread rapidly. Because the leprous man is clean and free.  Because neither Jesus nor anyone else could quarantine him, silence him, keep him out of the public. God had touched him and he had to infect others with this news.  Jesus becomes ground zero in a new infection that threatens to change the DNA of every human being touched by him.  It is the DNA of inclusion and compassion and healing.  It is the DNA of mercy and hope and faith. Jesus gives the leper access to God and God's family in a way that the religious leaders of the day refused to offer. Its easier to maintain the status quo.  Lepers stay lepers. But Jesus sees deeper than the skin.  Jesus sees a person in pain, a beloved child of God.  Like himself.  

 When we recognize what is undesirable about ourselves and we let Jesus close to us, we experience a sense of restoration.  And it spreads when we bring the cleansing power of compassionate connection to others, especially those who are considered undesirable.  

Who are the cast offs, the outcasts, the marginalized in your community?  Who is labeled unworthy of compassion and love?  Who is disposable?  What hoops does the system make people on the bottom of the pyramid jump through to gain access to health and community?  

I suspect heroine addicts and those battling mental illness are high on the list of undesirable cast offs in our society.  I also suspect that Jesus suffers with them.  I have met many families isolated by the poverty that threatens them and prevents them from accessing the things they need to live complete lives.  Following Jesus means to go to these neighbors with compassion, pain in our hearts and in our guts, in order to reconcile with them.  To be disciples of Jesus means to meet the "undesirables" and offer them healing and hope through compassionate engagement.  We offer people access to a life with God and God's family, a life of full inclusion and hope for the future.  We walk in the same authority as Jesus did and we say to those who have been denied access, "Come inside.  There's room here for you, too."    

PRAY 

  Lord, help me to acknowledge my own "leprosy" and seek you out for healing.  Help me to have compassion for those who have been marginalized and exiled from a healthy community life. Amen.