“Jesus and the Garasene Demoniac” Mark 5: 1-20

If you have had the opportunity to see Jesus at Sight and Sound, this particular story may seem familiar to you. In the musical, it is part of the song “To Rescue the One” - “He left the 99 when you were the one. He left the 99 when I was the one, now that man is the one. He is the one.” Its this powerful song sung from the perspective of the disciples about their transformative experience with Jesus that has led them to this, this place that they probably though they would never be, in order to offer that same transformation for someone that society has written off. 

I have to imagine that the disciples, however, are a little skeptical at first when they cross the sea and find themselves in the most unclean of unclean place. They followed Jesus to the tombs, this place of the dead who were considered unclean, in the land of the Gentiles, an unclean people. Maybe they started to whisper amongst themselves at first, wondering what in the world Jesus has brought them here for. 

Then they see him. A man with an unclean spirit. A man who lived her amongst the tombs. The towns people were so afraid of him that they had tried to chain him up, only he would break through the chains again and again. He could no longer talk. All he could do was howl. Hurting himself with stones. This is the one that Jesus had came to see.

But before Jesus could even call out to him, the man sees Jesus, runs to him and bows down before him, asking what Jesus could want to do with him. Or rather, the demons inside of him cried out to Jesus before Jesus asked them their name and they said that the were called Legion, many. 

And Jesus, with all of the strength and authority that we have seen in the last few chapters commands the demons to free the man, leaving him and going instead into two-thousand swine. 

When the towns people looked at this man, all that they were able to see was his affliction, that he was so possessed that he needed to be left alone, chained up if at all possible, and ignored the rest of the time. They could no longer see his humanity, so they cut him off from society. 

See that’s what happened back in Jesus’s time when it came to uncleanness. It wasn’t just about you being identified as unclean, you were then isolated, kept apart from other people, out of fear that you could contiminate them or hurt them. 

But because worship was a communal thing, so when you were deemed to be unclean, you were cut off from the body, and didn’t have a way to access God through worshipping with others. 

But here comes Jesus, to one of the most alienated people that we find in the Gospel of Mark, and seeks him out. Specifically. To offer him freedom, hope, and restoration. 

Friends, if this story tells us anything it is no one is beyond the reach of Jesus Christ. Yet, how often are we like the towns people, picking and choosing who we are willing to bring the Gospel to. Who are the people we sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly cut off, because of our own fear or thoughts of who is worthy to come into the presence of God?

Jesus came, dear Church, to seek and save the lost. But that isn’t just the lost who are acceptably lost. Those who we think its okay to talk to or be with. Jesus came for even people like this man, maybe most especially people like this man, who are cut off from society. Cut off from the Church. 

When I went to school in Pittsburg, I was blessed to be part of church communities that understood who they were there for. There was a big church right across from campus that was known for being pretty swanky. It was the church I also attended for campus ministry throughout the week. But what impressed me the most with that church is that on Sunday, when folks wandered in from off the street who were housing insecure, they were given the place of honor to sit. Even if they would get up and down throughout the service or raise their voice, they were treated as one of the body. They understood what it meant to treat others as Jesus treated this man. 

But I have also been part of churches were this didn’t happen. Where people whispered about folks struggles behind their back or shunned them because of what they were wearing or how they acted. While studying abroad, one of the places I spent time volunteering was a drop in center for those struggling with addiction and those engaged in prostitution. And the stories I heard about how folks were treated by churches still breaks my heart all of these years later. Because the Church missed the point - that Jesus came to bring healing and freedom not just to those who we think deserve it, but will go seeking out those who others have written off.

This man literally had his life transformed because Jesus came to him and healed him. In Sight and Sound’s Jesus he explains it as, “He saw me. I won’t be the same.” Jesus didn’t just see this man visually. He saw into his heart. He saw who he could be when he was set free. This man who had lost his name, his place in society, his humanity, Jesus restores him and then sends him out to be a missionary, declaring what happened in his life. 

The most frustrating part of the story, however, is that the town’s people. They weren’t changed. They didn’t get it. In fact, they saw this man completely transformed and their first instinct isn’t to be in awe or worship Jesus or ask to follow him - its to ask him to leave. To leave their neighborhood. To go away. 

Compare that to the man, who begs Jesus to follow him, but Jesus has another mission for him in life. 

Friends, are we the people who are begging to follow Jesus on the mission, no matter what it may be and no matter where we may be called to go, because we are so moved by what Jesus has done for us? Or are we the people sending the man away and quite frankly sending Jesus away as well?

Because here’s the thing - Jesus didn’t just change peoples lives back in scripture. He’s still doing that today. Jesus is in the people changing business for the sake of the Kingdom. And if we are going to follow him we better be giving testimony to that, but also be willing to go to those Jesus reached out to in compassion to be bearers of the Good News. 

All too often as the church, we have lived out of a place of fear. Fear of others. Fear of change. Fear of what God may be doing, instead of one of awe. Instead of one of anticipation. Instead of one of proclamation. 

It’s time to be unleashed from fear. Set free from that which holds us back from proclaiming the Good News - that Jesus searched for us, found us, and changed us. Because he loves us and because he knows us. In the words from Jesus, “The leaper, the blindman, the deaf and the lame, the sick and the broken. He know their name” 

How has Jesus changed your life and how are you proclaiming it? Amen. 

“Parables in Mark” Mark 4: 1-34

“Listen!” How many times have we said that in our lives? Or how many times have we heard it? From parents. From teachers. From grandparents and other adults in our lives. Implied in that statement is the idea that ‘I need you to pay attention, because this is going to be important.’

Jesus found himself one day teaching along the seashore - only the crowd got so large that he had to go out onto a boat so he could teach them. You can imagine it right? People crowding around, leaning in, just hoping to hear what Jesus has to say. Then all of a sudden he says “Listen” and starts to tell a story. 

But not just any type of story - a parable. Parables take common things that people understand but use them to explain things in a whole new way in hopes of opening folks up to a new understanding. And these parables Jesus was telling that particular day they had something big that he wanted folks to open their hearts and minds up to - the very Kingdom of God. 

Friends, this was the first deep dive explanation that Jesus gives in the Gospels about what the Kingdom fo God is all about and he has to tell parable after parable after parable, trying to get not only the crowds to understand, but later the disciples. 

Jesus starts these stories by saying, “you all, listen” and tells a parable that may be familiar to us - the one of the sower and the seeds. Remember, Jesus is talking to a lot of folks who farmed. Folks who understood the ground. People who knew, implicitly, that you need good, fertile soil in order to grow food. But Jesus tells this story of four different types of soil that seed can land on, and what happens to the seed in each instance. 

Then Jesus did something interesting - he went from talking to everyone “you all” to a call for each individual to listen. “Let anyone who has ears listen.”

But here’s the thing about listening. Sometimes we may hear with our ears but we aren’t really listening. I would imagine that some of folks hearing this parable thought it was just a nice story. Others may of heard, but they didn’t dwell on what Jesus was saying, just letting it slip right by them. Still others may have got confused and frustrated in the details. That’s not really listening. Or at least not listening that leads to understanding. They may have understood the context of the parable as farmers, but they weren’t understanding the overall meaning - what Jesus was really trying to convey. Martin Luther described understanding as the relationship between the learned tongue, the ready ear, and the prepared heart. 

In fact, we can imagine that many in the crowd didn’t understand, because the disciples, these folks that Jesus had called away to follow him didn’t understand either. In fact, if we are honest, the disciples probably both didn’t understand what Jesus was trying to preach in this parable as well as what they were doing in the first place. Most rabbis taught in synagogues and here they were going from town to town, house to house, outdoor setting to outdoor setting, doing amazing things that their brains can’t fully understand. 

Of course, Jesus didn’t give the disciples a straight forward answer to the question they asked either. They came to him, asking about the parables, and he told them that they had been given the secrets of the Kingdom. Only they miss the point that he is the secret, the Messiah, standing right in front of them. 

So Jesus breaks down for them step by step, piece by piece what this parable means, what he wanted the people to think and hear and understand when he spoke to them, but still didn’t tell the disciples this larger secret, the secret of who is he and why he came. At least not yet. 

Other times, we are like the disciples and we don’t understand. When we get to the parable of the lamp under a bushel basket, we skim right past what Jesus is saying to put our own understanding in place. In other words, at times we may hear, but not listen or understand as well. 

One of my favorite parts of scripture is that it tells this giant story from beginning to end about God. Only from time to time, we swap pieces of the story out in our minds instead of dwelling in it. Take for example this teaching about the lamp that is to not be hidden. We often think that means the same thing as Matthew, chapter 5, where Jesus tells those listening to the Sermon on the Mount that they are to be the light of the world. But that’s not what Mark 4 is getting at. Instead, here Jesus is saying the light that shines forth is God’s Kingdom, especially in the context of everything before and after this section. While Matthew 5 tells us to shine brightly, Mark 4 tells us to be witnesses to God’s Kingdom, telling those around us to look at what God has done. Be a witness to everything that the light of God touches. 

We also misunderstand who the Kingdom of God belongs to. The next part of the parable tells about seed that is scattered on the ground, and then the seed does what the seed is meant to do - grow. 

When we think that this is our church, that we own it, then we forget who the seed belongs to, my friends. When we think its about all that we do for the Kingdom, so that we can get recognized and a pat on the back, we forget that its about the seed. Its about the seed of the Gospel being planted in people’s hearts. We hear the word, but we don’t understand. 

Which leads to the last parable of the mustard seed. We often hear that the mustard seed is the smallest seed, which isn’t exactly true. There are seeds that are smaller, but this is one that the people around Jesus would have understood and known. Here is this seed that is about a millimeter in diameter and grows into this ten foot bush. But Jesus audience may have heard but not understood what he was saying because they were waiting for something else - for a tree. In Isaiah we find that people are waiting for the Kingdom to come as a mighty tree, not as a bush, so they may have glossed right over what Jesus was trying to say. 

So what’s the point? What is Jesus trying to tell people about the Kingdom of God? That it cannot be contained by their inability to understand and comprehend. This is God’s Kingdom. Where God reigns. We are simply watching and waiting and being invited to participate in it. 

All too often I think we, unknowingly, try to put God in a box. Thinking that if God doesn’t act in the way that we want, that it must not be God. But that’s not how the Kingdom of God works. The Kingdom is the entire story of God, dear friends. And even if we cannot catch all of it in our minds, just like the disciples didn’t catch on to the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, it doesn’t stop it from happening of being true. 

Just like the mustard seed that blossoms into this bush, in the Kingdom of God, small things can lead to big things. Seeds can grow. People can come. In fact, if we believe these parables, people will come, if we are faithful to that which we are called to do. 

Church, this is why we do what we do. Not for our sake. But to proclaim the Kingdom of God! We are called to scattered the seed, but we trust that because of who God is, that seed will take root in God’s timing for God’s glory. The Kingdom of God is moving! Do you believe it! Then let us bear witness to the life changing Gospel of Jesus Christ! Amen. 

“Jesus Teaches and Heals” Mark 2: 1-22

I don’t know about you, but there are some lessons from kindergarten Sunday school class that just stuck with me throughout life. Maybe it was the catchy pictures on the cover of the Cokesbury Sunday school pamphlets or the texture of the pieces we put on the felt board when we heard the story being told, but there are a handful of stories from scripture that have borrowed their way deep inside of my heart and my head. This is one of those stories. 

The story of Jesus healing the paralytic kicks off a series of five stories that all take place in Capernum, ending with Jesus healing the man with the withered hand. Here’s the thing about these healings, no two are exactly alike. In fact, Jesus says and does different things for each person, meeting them right where they are at. 

Except for this story. In this particular story, the people come to meet Jesus where he is at.

Jesus is at home, teaching so many people that it’s standing room only, the whole way back to the door. People are crammed in to hear what Jesus has to say. Only they don’t notice the people trying to get their friend through that jam packed door. 

Can you imagine it? I can see the friends trying to elbow their way through. Saying excuse me. Please let us through. We have to see Jesus. But no one noticed them. Or at the very least no one let them through. 

One commentator put it this way (and I paraphrase) - the good church people were blocking these friends way to Jesus.

Ouch. Oh friends. Can we sit and dwell with that for a while? Here is a man who is desperately in need of healing from Jesus and the good folks listening to Jesus are in the way. When I read that, the question that kept coming to my mind is where and when has the church, the good people who want to love and follow Jesus, actually got in the way of someone who needs the Lord? It shakes your very soul a little bit, does it not? 

But thankfully, these friends, this man’s community. They will not give up. The go up on the roof, cut a hole in it, and start to lower their friend down. Now here’s the thing, roofs aren’t usually meant to have holes cut in them, are they? No. They are meant to keep things out. But these folks are already fed up with the crowd blocking them below so they aren’t going to let the roof prevent them from coming in from above. In other words, these friends will do absolutely anything to get their friend in the presence of Jesus. 

Friends, who do we want to be today? Do we want to be the good, well meaning crowd who block people from coming to Jesus or do we want to be the friends who will do absolutely anything to get people in front of our Savior? 

Because when that friend came to be in the presence of Jesus, absolutely powerful things started to happen. Jesus saw their faith (the faith of this man and his friends) and said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” And all of a sudden those good-church going people who were blocking the door, they weren’t so pleasant any more. Instead, they started questioning in their hearts who this person they were just listening to a minute before was. Who was he to say that this man’s sins were forgiven! The paralytic didn’t even ask to be forgiven of his sins. He didn’t repent. He didn’t bring forth the proper offering. And surely this teacher didn’t have the power to forgive. 

I started chuckling as I recalled his part of the story in preparing for this sermon. Forgiveness is always a controversial thing is it not? Something that is really easy to say, but so much harder to do. Other people always have opinions. Did you really forgive that person? Why did you forgive him? Why are you having such a hard time forgiving her? Friends, have you been there? Have you known the struggles with forgiveness in your own life? Does it make you a little more sympathetic to these good-church going people?

But Jesus did say that this man’s sins were forgiven. Then he healed his body and told him to stand up in walk. 

Friends, do not be confused. This man was not sick because he had sinned. When we think that is what Jesus is saying here it can lead us to judge others in our lives who are ill or to ask why God caused illness in our own life. Instead, through this man, Jesus showed exactly why he came - to bring hope. To heal. To forgive sin. To bind up the broken hearted. And friends, the exact things Jesus showed us through this man is what the world is still in need of today. 

The question is how far are we willing to go to be bearers of that hope, friends. Are we willing to be a community of faith like those friends, who will do anything? How are we as a people of faith bearing the hope of Jesus in the world?

Today is a special day in the life of the church. It’s Baptism of the Lord Sunday, when we remember the day that Jesus was baptized by John. We remember because that story is directly connected to the day we were baptized, when we found our identity in Christ. 

For the paralytic man, he went from being sick to healed, because of Jesus. 

For Levi, he went from probably being called awful names and known only as a tax collector, to being a disciples. 

For you and me, we went from what the world said about us, to what Jesus says about us, that we are his beloved who are bearers of his name - Christ. 

But sometimes friends, we need a space to remember that. We need a space to remember the convents that we are part of, whether we were baptized when we were a child or as and adult. Whether we took vows of confirmation of that baptismal covenant as a teen or as an adult. We need a space to remember again who Christ says that we are. 

So we are going to take time in a moment to do just that. This is not a re-baptism, because the God’s grace and cleansing that met you in your baptism, friends that keeps going. God does not screw up. I love how the United Methodist’s website puts it, “Because baptism is a sacrament of God’s grace and a covenant that God has initiated, it should not be repeated. However, God’s continuing and patient forgiveness, God’s prevenient grace, will prompt us to renew the commitment first made at our baptism.”

But when we remember our baptism. We remember who Christ says that we are. That we have our identity in him. That he says that we are his. 

And we remember the vows that we have taken. The vow to help each other uphold our baptismal covenant. The renouncing of sin and belief in forgiveness. And we remember what comes next - that we promise to support the church with our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. 

Friends, if you need to remember who you are - come, the waters are ready. If you need to remember what you promised - come, and find refreshment. If you need to hear anew today that you are forgiven, come - Jesus is waiting. Friends, will you come? Amen. 

“Jesus’s Ministry Begins” Mark 1: 21-45

We have arrived at the New Year, Church. Some of you have been waiting for the calendar to flip for quite some time - thinking that if you can just make it to the new year, surely it will be better than the last. Others were sad to see 2019 come to an end - it had so many cherished memories for you. But the old year is gone and the new lies before us.

The New Year is naturally a time to bring about change. Sometimes we make resolutions to do so. Sometimes we just jump in with both feet first. Today, my friends, we are jumping. We are jumping into a year of intentionally looking at the stories found in scripture. And there is no better way to start that off then with the stories of Jesus. The stories we may have heard before - some that we may be hearing for the first time. 

Each of the four Gospels tells the stories of Jesus a little differently. Matthew starts with the genealogy of Jesus. Luke starts with the births of Jesus and John the baptist. John starts with Jesus being at the very beginning of creation as the light of the world. Mark jumps right in to the beginning of Jesus’s earthly ministry - a ministry marked by healing and teaching. 

At first glance, as we read this passage of scripture today, it may be hard to see how the stories of the man with unclean spirits, Simon’s mother in law, and the leaper have in common - but isn’t healing and teaching what it boils down to?

I’m going to be honest, I deeply struggle with some of those titles you find in your Bible above sections of text. Especially the first one today “the man with an unclean spirit”. Like most of the people Jesus interacts with in the Gospel of Mark, he doesn’t have a name. But I don’t like that he is defined by what he needs healed of. Even as overwhelming as that particular struggle is in this text. 

But I don’t just dislike that little one sentence header over the text, because I think it leads us astray as readers and hearers. It makes us miss the point. Friends, this text isn’t about the man. It isn’t even really about the miraculous healing that he experienced, though that was life changing for him. It’s about Jesus. It’s about Jesus who has authority even over the demons in our lives. It’s about Jesus who has come to liberate those who are suffering. It’s about Jesus who came to set the reign of God lose in this world. 

In the second part of Jesus’s healing and teaching today, he comes into Simon’s (Peter) house to find his mother in law sick in bed. Friends, in this healing, Jesus didn’t even have to say anything. He just picked her right up out of bed. And in doing so, the fever that had held her down was just gone. 

Friends, Jesus was in Simon and Andrew’s house. He was in the very home of two people who left their nets behind to go and follow Jesus, and yet they couldn’t heal Simon’s mother in law. At least not yet. Not at this point in Jesus’s ministry. Because that wasn’t their role. It wasn’t the authority they had. Jesus can heal because he is Jesus. 

And word spread. Jesus became known as a healer. People started bringing their sick and possessed from near and far and he cured them. 

The final healing story in this text is about a leaper. Leaperasy was a catch all phrase for skin conditions, some of which were contagious. Some weren’t. All of which lead to folks being placed outside of the community out of fear. It is here that Jesus comes across this person who has been an outcast in society whom recognizes something about Jesus and cries out, “if you choose, you can make me clean.” He laid the ball in Jesus’s court. Make a choice about me, but don’t ignore me. And Jesus immediately healed him. 

But tucked in between these amazing healing stories is another piece of scripture. When it was still dark, in between healing Simon’s mother in law and all of these folks coming for their own healing and healing the man with leaporsey, Jesus went off into the quiet of the dark to pray. And even there his disciples did not leave him alone. Instead, Simon came hunting for him and tells Jesus that everyone is looking for him. In other words, get up Jesus. It’s time to go back. There are people looking for a healing. And instead, Jesus said it’s time to move on. Time to go and teach folks. Proclaiming the message that is behind the healing in the first place. 

There are often two reactions that come when reading this beginning of Jesus’s ministry in the Gospel of Mark. The first is amazement. We talked last week about being so moved to amazement by God that it leads us to praise. But there’s a flip side to amazement, a cautionary tale if you will. Amazement is not faith. And if we are not careful, amazement can just as easily lead us to miss the point as it can to praise God. In fact, sometimes in the Gospel of Mark, the miracles confuse people. They don’t understand.

In fact, Jesus’s interaction with Simon would lead us to believe that he doesn’t understand as well. He thinks this healing this is great, but Jesus is saying that’s not the point. The point is Jesus’s agenda, which is proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Yes, part of that healing is proclaiming that God is with those who suffer. Jesus isn’t afraid to be with those who are sick. But that also isn’t the totality of why Jesus came. There’s something bigger that is being proclaimed than healing of the body in this world. Jesus is coming to set the soul free as well. This is about the faithfulness of God. 

The second reaction if we read this through discipleship is what does this text have to do with me today? I’m so glad you asked. First, I think these scripture passage speak to us about what it looks like to be in ministry. Jesus didn’t come with gimmicks, he simply met people in their needs right where they were at. He didn’t ask them to come to him. He went out to where they were. And all along the way he found people who didn’t quite get what was going on, they certainly didn’t know he was the Messiah in the Gospel of Mark, but they knew there was something about him. Something about who he was that was drawing people to him. 

Friends, that’s ministry. It’s going out to the people and taking care of their needs, meeting them where they are at. It’s teaching about the Kingdom of God with the urgency that Jesus had in this text. 

I think so often we can become discouraged today wondering why we bother. Well, we bother because Jesus did. We care because Jesus cares. We go and reach out to folks because they matter to Jesus and if they matter to Jesus they should matter to us. 

Today is Epiphany. This is generally the day we read the story of the Magi coming to meet Jesus and presenting him with gifts. And at first glance this story of Jesus’s ministry and our call to follow him today has nothing to do with that. But I believe that it truly does. 

While the Magi came to give Jesus’s gift, friends, we are gifted to go out into the world. To serve Jesus in this coming year. To proclaim the Kingdom. And to think about doing that, I would invite you to reach into your bulletin and pull out a small piece of paper you should find there. 

For the last several years, some churches have been using Epiphany Sunday, this gifting Sunday, to present star words. Everyone’s word is a little bit different. But this star word can be seen as a guide for us in the coming year. Your word may be something that fits you and where you are in life right now perfectly. Praise be to God. Maybe your word brings you encouragement and a new way of thinking of living into the mission of God in the coming year. Excellent!

Or maybe you will find yourself like the crowds in today’s scripture - not really understanding. Finding your word to be a little confusing and you want to move on to the next shiny thing. Than sit with your word for a while and see what God may be doing through it in your life. 

Friends, folks came to Jesus, even if they didn’t totally get it, totally understand the gift he was to the world, because there was something in him that drew them to the light. We are to go out into the world and shine that same light in the coming year. How could the word you received help you to be a bearer of the Christ light in 2020? Amen.