“Living the Message”
Psalm 111, as rendered by Nan C. Merrill
Mark 1:21-28
Way back when, during my first few days here at First Church Amherst—which is to say, almost exactly 16 years ago and when I was still learning people’s names and had barely begun to learn what being a pastor would require of me—there arose on one of the church’s ministry teams a serious interpersonal conflict.
While the issues involved seemed rather minor, the conflict itself was all too real, and it became clear to me—green as I was—that some kind of pastoral intervention was needed.
And so it was that I found myself sitting in my church office with two smart, accomplished, dedicated people, each one a pillar of the church, suddenly feeling like I was trying to convince a couple of children to play nice in the sandbox.
After I had prayed but before I found a way to lower the temperature of the conversation by bringing God into it, a horrible thought flashed through my mind: I went to seminary for this? What about the big problems in the world? What about doing justice and building community and shepherding people in their walks with God? What about healing hearts and changing lives with God’s love?
And so it might have gone with the recently-baptized, fresh-from-the-wilderness, new-to-the-whole-calling-disciples-thing Jesus of Nazareth.
No sooner had Jesus impressed his new followers and everyone at the Capernaum synagogue with his authoritative teaching than some sketchy guy in the back stood up and said, “Hey, you! Do you think you can get me? Well, you’d better watch out, because I know who you really are.”
But Jesus, as the story goes, didn’t miss a beat. Jesus didn’t try to explain himself or justify himself. Jesus didn’t, as far as we know, question his calling or wonder what he’d gotten himself into.
He simply responded to the need of the moment. He simply loved the person right in front of him.
He healed the troubled man.
And Jesus continued to heal. According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus left the synagogue and went to Simon Peter’s house, where he was told that Peter’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever. Jesus “rebuked” the fever and it left the woman, and she was restored to health.
The word got out, and in no time at all there was a stream of sick people coming to the door and, according to the scriptures, Jesus laid his hand on each person and healed them.
And so it went, on and on, with Jesus cleansing a man with leprosy and telling a paralyzed man to get up and walk.
Between the healings Jesus went off by himself to pray. And still the people came to him.
I can’t help but wonder what Jesus prayed for. I can’t help but wonder if he was wrestling with his sense of call and purpose, because the Jesus in the Gospel of Luke makes a bit of turn.
Jesus does lots of healing there, too, but we also see him doing lots of teaching.
In Luke, after Jesus is baptized and tempted in the wilderness and before he goes to the synagogue in Capernaum, he goes to his hometown synagogue—in Nazareth. There he stands up to read, and proclaims these words of the prophet Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim God’s blessing.
The people were amazed at his teaching and his authority, and then—because he had had the nerve to suggest that he was the fulfillment of this prophecy—they drove him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff. And then he went to Capernaum and taught in the synagogue there and was confronted by the man with a so-called unclean spirit.
And he rebuked the evil and healed the man.
And so it went for Jesus: healing and crowds and more healing; teaching and blessing and crowds and more teaching and blessing; provoking and challenging; rebuking and making whole. From the individual who was hurting to entire unjust and broken systems and back again. Individual healing and systemic justice; individual calling and affirmation and new ways of thinking and being; compassion, care, challenge, and empowerment for individuals; and provocation, challenge, judgment, and judgment against people and systems that oppressed the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and the hopeless. And, whenever he could, as often as he could, time away with God.
Given my own pastoral healing, I have to believe it was all of a piece for Jesus. His encounters with people in need nurtured his love and deepened his desire to help. His time with the outcasts and the poor informed his teaching and shaped his calls for justice. And his time with God sustained him through it all.
As we go deeper into the Season of Epiphany, the season of revelation and light, it’s important to see Jesus for all of who he was. Not only a healer. Not only a prophet. Not only a holy troublemaker. Not only God’s beloved child. Not only the Word made flesh. Not only God’s love with skin on. Not only teacher and friend, rabbi and rabble-rouser, inspiration and enigma—but all of the above.
And as we consider what it means to follow Jesus—as individuals and as a church—I hope we will see that our following is never a matter of love or justice, the pastoral or the prophetic, the needs of our community or the needs of the world—but rather how to be so firmly grounded in the love, justice, peace, and hope of God that we will be able to discern what is most needed and what is most important at any given time.
This will require that, like Jesus, we make time and find ways to commune with the Holy. To let the Spirit transform us and sustain us. To gather together for worship and prayer, study and discernment, support and sharing, encouragement and joy.
Hear now the continuation of the story from the Gospel of Mark—after Jesus has spoken with authority and healed the man with the unclean spirit, after he had healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and all the other people who came to Peter’s house—it says:
In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” 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 to do.”
And so it was that Jesus continued to live the message of God’s empowering, transforming, healing love: Hanging out with all the wrong people. Teaching whenever and wherever he could. And always responding to whomever and whatever presented itself to him.
Beloveds, we are not neglecting the needs of the world when we care for one another, and we are not neglecting one another when we care for ourselves. The ever-shifting ministry of Jesus shows us that, even by God’s grace, we can only do so much at any given time, and we must trust God for the rest. The prayer life of Jesus shows us that we can only be God’s hands and feet when we are closely connected to the heart of God. The fact that Jesus’ ministry and teaching, proclamation, and building the kin-dom of God was constantly being interrupted by the immediate physical and emotional needs of the children of God shows us that loving our neighbors is how we begin, by God’s grace, to heal the world.
Beloveds, the multi-faceted ministry of Jesus tells us that God wants to heal us at the place of our deepest pain and greatest need, and that when we are healed by love, even as we are pursuing healing and holiness, we will become what the world needs. Our healthier, more rooted love will compel us to do justice, love kindness, make peace, and walk humbly and joyfully together with God.
May it be so.
