Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
February 1, 2009
Sermon by Pastor
The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (Mark 1:21‑28)
[Jesus
and his disciples] went to
The Gospel of the Lord.
Please join me in prayer.
Healer of our every ill, light of each tomorrow,
give us peace beyond our fear,
and hope beyond our sorrow.
O God, in this
Epiphany season you come to us in images of light and healing in a world dark
with want and pain. Grant us a measure of your mercy, that walking in the way
of love we might be agents of your light and love for others.
Amen.
I discovered upon returning to New York over New Year’s
that, in spite of all of the efforts of public-health campaigns in recent years
to eradicate smoking in public places, that, unlike Minnesota, there are still
some pretty smoky places in New York City.
And in spite of one of my very, very close friend’s attempts for years
to give up cigarettes, I noticed that she had not, even in 2009, yet kicked the
habit. In graduate school, my friend
used to talk about smoking like someone would talk about being possessed by a
demon. She had tried everything to quit,
every workshop, every method, every technique.
Nothing worked. She is the same
friend who often said that she had read so many articles and so many medical
journals that said that coffee and cigarettes were bad for your health that she
finally gave up reading.
It was Carl Jung who said this about habit: “An addiction is nothing more than a
spiritual journey. It’s just that you
got off at the wrong address,” suggesting to us that the battle with demons,
that we see played out so dramatically in the Gospel of Mark, can be an
external struggle with the forces of evil, or it can be intensely personal; as
Carl Jung saw it, a spiritual journey with detours and destinations for good or
ill along the way.
The battle with demons then can take the form of signing
on to a campaign to address climate change; or it can take the form of
simplifying our own lives by using less plastic or paper day-to-day. The battle with demons can take the form of
working to end injustice that we see in the world around us; or it can take the
form of New Year’s resolutions to exercise more, drink fewer cups of coffee a
day, or try to give up smoking. The
battle with demons can be public or private.
In either case, we know this from Mark’s Gospel: that we do not go it
alone; that into the struggle comes a power, heard, as Mark tells it, in the
voice of an itinerate preacher who comes into such a world as ours healing,
attending, even casting out demons.
The writer of Mark’s Gospel wants us to see that
wherever Jesus is at work in the world that is where God is at work in the
world. Yes, in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus
comes preaching and teaching the
Just then we read in Mark’s Gospel, “There was in their
synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 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!’ But Jesus rebuked
him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’
And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice,
came out.” The God who heals in this
ministry has come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and this God has come
near.
In this most beautiful season of Epiphany, as we work
through the Gospel texts given to us, we are continually challenged to see the
coming of the light against the backdrop of the struggle with darkness and
danger. No sooner have the Wise Magi
followed the star to honor a child, then the evil designs of Herod loom on the
horizon. No sooner will this child grow
up to begin the announcement of the kingdom for a new day, then he will be
confronted with the realities of the demonic and the desperate need of a world
for healing and restoration. As he moves
through the towns and villages, lepers will come to him; the poor will come;
the lame, the maimed, the blind, will all reach out for mercy. If God is at work in the world, according to
the Gospel of Mark, where we see Jesus at work in the world, then this is not a
God who is indifferent, away out there, but a God who is attentive, a God who
has come near.
Once when asked why he would leave a prominent Muslim
family in Pakistan and choose to become a professor of Christianity, Dr. Amjad
Ali of Luther Seminary did not speak about the transition from one world
religion to another in the traditional language of conversion. There was no dramatic moment he could point
to of being struck by lightning. There was no episodic conversion
experience. Instead, he spoke of a more
gentle and gradual realization that, while all of the world religions speak
eloquently of a God of peace and justice, what drew him to Christianity was the
nearness of this God; one entering into the struggles of the world as it is,
coming into the struggles of the human heart as we all know it; coming near as
a child in a manger, growing up to engage the suffering of the world as we know
it; stopping in the places of pain, taking note of the places of distress,
offering a ministry of mercy and healing, engaging the world, for all of its
complexities of good and evil, the honorable and the demonic, all the way to
the cross.
The God we meet in the Gospels, according to Dr. Amjad
Ali, is not a God away up or out there.
It is the one who comes near, and engages in the smallest and in the
largest of stories of human struggle.
As the hymn writer of our Hymn for the Day captures it
for us,
“Healer of our every ill, light
of each tomorrow,
give us peace beyond our fear, and hope
beyond our sorrow.”
As an owner of a puppy and a cat, I love the story of
the elder gentleman who once walked into what was advertised as a “Christian”
veterinary clinic, thinking that this might be the place to take his beloved
animal friend. In his arms, all wrapped
up in a soft blanket, he carried his cocker spaniel of thirteen years. The beloved friend had become ill, then had
stopped eating, and now lay motionless, although still breathing, in his arms.
“Our motto here,” the receptionist at the front counter
said—pointing to a poster on the wall—“is: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart and all your soul and all your might.’” “But,” the man asked, searching in distress
for his words, “do you also love animals with all your heart and soul and
mind?” “Like I said, sir,” the
receptionist repeated, pointing to the poster once again, “our motto here is:
‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and
mind.’” “Then thank you very much,” the
man said, as he turned to go, “but for my puppy to get well or die well, I have
to go somewhere where she will be loved as well.”
The God we meet in Mark’s Gospel is not a God away out
there but the one who comes near. “Healer of our every ill, light of each
tomorrow, give us peace beyond our fear, and hope beyond our sorrow.” This is the God who comes near with light and
steadfast love that endures forever.
Amen.