A DAY IN THE MINISTRY
OF JESUS
You may have noticed our theme for
this morning: A Day in the Ministry of
Jesus, a Year in the Life of the Church.
In our Gospel reading this morning, in the first chapter of Mark, we’re
given a twenty-four hour period, a day in the ministry of Jesus of
Nazareth. And in following Jesus through
these twenty-four hours, Mark gives us a glimpse into the astonishing depth and
breadth of what Jesus has come to do and be among us.
Before Jann leads you in the first
part of the passage, one observation: the day is not really an ordinary day, is
it? It's a Sabbath day. But of course that's appropriate because
Jesus is not an ordinary person. He's
the Holy One, the living embodiment of Sabbath, of God's presence on
earth. On this Sabbath, Jesus, like
every good Jew, went to synagogue.
FIRST SCRIPTURE READING:
Mark
1:21-28 (NT p. 35)
BRIEF MEDITATION
There’s a strange thing about us in the
United Church of Christ: most of us came
from somewhere else, some other faith tradition. And that’s putting it mildly, in the passive
voice – more accurately, many of us came running
from some other faith tradition; some because we were where we couldn’t accept what
we found there, some because we were chased out.
Church hasn’t always been a safe place
for us. In a previous church setting,
for many of us, something was said, something was done, or, worst of all,
something was professed in the name of Jesus that brought us up short, that hit
us upside the head, that didn’t seem like Gospel. And that was the beginning of the journey
that led us here.
So maybe we of all people can
sympathize with Jesus here as he begins his day by seeking the warm safety of synagogue
but finds himself immediately confronted by an enemy, a demon: "What
do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?"
Interesting, isn't it, that the first
place Jesus encounters a demon is not in a brothel, it’s not in a tavern, it’s
not in a Roman court or in the home of an evil person. The first place Jesus encounters a demon is
in the synagogue, in a supposedly holy place.
"What do you want with us,
Jesus of
And who's the "us" here? Notice how the demon appears right after
Jesus has challenged the authority of the scribes, of the religious powers that
be. Could it be that the demon speaks
for the scribes, for the religious authorities, for all of those who have a
stake in keeping things the way they are, no matter how corrupt, untrue, or
unjust? Could it be not just the man who
is possessed, but the synagogue itself?
So what brought you here? Why the UCC?
What did you leave in order to come join us here? Or is there something about this church, this
fellowship, that helps you feel the Gospel, that helps you encounter the authoritative
teaching of Jesus?
I’m going to ask you, for a minute to
two, to turn to your neighbor and share a bit of your own story, what you left
and what you’ve found here. If you don’t
know the person next to you, simply introduce yourself. If it’s convenient, feel free to meet in a
group of three rather than two. And take
a look around – make sure no one is left out.
Tell somebody about your own church
story. Why do you leave where you
were? And why did you come here? Let’s take a few moments to share those
thoughts.
CONVERSATION TIME
In this first part of Jesus' typical
day, Jesus didn't come to accept things as they are and preach a nice,
nonthreatening word of love and hope. Through
this exorcism, he offered a direct threat and clear attack on "the way
things are."
By coming here, you have left “the way
things are” for something new, something you thought might be better and more
faithful. As we consider the life of our
church over this past year, as you read through our Annual Reports, here’s a
good question for us to consider: have
we been faithful to the authoritative teaching of Jesus, to the Gospel? Are we working towards that newness of life
that Jesus brought, even when called to resist “the way things are?”
As a church, the part of our worship
that every Sunday best expresses our desire to be an agent for change in this
world is our offering. Here we bring the
tangible gifts of our money and time to recommit ourselves to upbuild the
SECOND SCRIPTURE READING:
Mark
1:29-34 (NT p. 35)
BRIEF MEDITATION
I don’t know if any of you noticed the
display our History Committee put up at the end of the hallway out by the
bridge – it commemorates the 40th Anniversary of the ground-breaking
of this church building. Do you know
when the first Christian church building was founded? Well, the earliest remains of a church
building come from Syria and date back to about 250 A.D. So for over two hundred years, Christians had
no churches. All those folks who were
the first readers of Mark’s Gospel had no churches. So where did they worship? Like Jesus, they went to the synagogue, to
the temple. Of course, it wasn’t long
before they got booted out of the synagogue.
So where did they worship then?
In homes… in fact, that first church building I mentioned was really a
converted house.
So this passage, Jesus' first healing
miracle taking place in the home of Peter and Andrew, held a special
significance to the early Christians.
They had been kicked out of the synagogue and now worshipped in their
homes. Or perhaps they left the
synagogue for reasons of security, because worshipping in public would mark
them for political persecution. But no
matter where they were, Jesus came to them.
And the power of Jesus, expressed as healing, was present with
them. It didn’t need a supposedly holy
location like the synagogue. It could
come anywhere, even to your home.
In fact, it seems to me, that’s where
Jesus wants to come. Remember what Jesus
says to the vertically-challenged Zaccheus in Luke’s Gospel? “Zaccheus,
I must come to your house today!”
That’s what Jesus says to each one of us. Jesus must come to our houses because Jesus
desires an intimate connection with each of us.
Jesus comes to us where we are, as we are, offering hope and
healing.
When my family gathered last month for
my mother’s funeral, we shared many stories about mom and one really stood out
for me, one I had never heard before.
For several years of her teaching career, Mom taught at the University
of Wisconsin/Eau Claire, primarily teaching Freshman Composition. So many of her students were spending their
first significant time away from home, on their own. And Mom wanted to make sure they were looked
after. She worried over her students,
giving them second, third, and fourth chances whenever they got into trouble or
fell behind. She just didn’t believe
that her students should fail!
There
was one student who was late with his work, didn’t respond to her second chance
offers, stopped coming to class, and wouldn’t even return her phone calls. So she went to his apartment. You can imagine the scene – this sixty-year-old
crazy woman/supermom/teacher rapping on the door and then the student opens the
door. What do you think he looked
like? An unshaven and perhaps hung-over
nineteen-year-old, depressed and in pajamas, maybe? He opens the door to an apartment filled with
dirty dishes and empty pizza boxes and suddenly there was Mom, pleading with
that student to finish his paper, do his work, hand it in so he could pass the
class! She even threatened to call his
parents. How many college teachers would
do that?
And it worked. He shaved.
He sobered up. He wrote his
paper. His spirits lifted. He didn’t fail.
Through mom, Jesus came home.
When has Jesus come home for you? When have you felt God reaching out to you in
loving and healing acceptance? Could I
ask you to turn to another neighbor and take a few moments to share your
thoughts with one another?
CONVERSATION TIME
Jesus comes home. I hope the church has blessed your home
life. Our Pathways Program, our Youth
Ministry, our Confirmation and Adult Study programs, our fellowship events, our
Stephens Ministers, our Friends in Christ, our pastors, and our ministers -
meaning each and every one of you – I hope we have made that connection, we
have offered that intimate glimpse of a loving, accepting God. Jesus means to come home with each and every
one of us.
THIRD SCRIPTURE READING:
Mark
1:35-39 (NT p. 35)
BRIEF MEDITATION
Mark’s day in the life of Jesus ends
with Jesus getting up before dawn, before the Sabbath day has ended, to go out
to a deserted place and pray.
Why do you think Jesus prays at the
end of this day? Do you think he’s
exhausted? Do you think he’s
discouraged? Do you think he’s taken
aback by the opposition he encountered at the synagogue and has had a foretaste
of what’s in store for him? Do you think
he just needs some “alone time”?
An
interesting thing about this passage is that it doesn’t tell us why Jesus went out to pray. It gives no reason. We can notice that Jesus starts his next day
the way he began the previous: by going
out to proclaim the message of the Gospel and casting out demons. But don’t let that persuade you that prayer
is simply a “so that” activity - something we do “so that” we can engage in
real ministry. For Jesus, prayer is not
simply utilitarian, practiced because it’s useful. It’s who he is, what he does, as much a part
of his life and being as breathing!
The
power of prayer has become popular in self-help circles for many utilitarian
reasons: so that we can feel better, so
that we can lose weight, so that we can stay healthy, so that we can get more
money and stuff. But prayer for Jesus
was not a “so-that” activity. It was
simply who he was. And I believe you
could say it is where he discovered
who he was. That’s how it should be for
us, too. Prayer is when we open up our
deepest places to find the God who made us and continues to call us to life.
What
do you need prayer for this morning?
Could you take one more opportunity to meet with someone else and tell
them what you need prayer for today?
CONVERSATION
TIME
I
hope you never get the idea that the church only welcomes you because we find
you useful. You see, God doesn’t love
you because of what you can do for God.
God doesn’t love “so that” you can do great things for God. God just loves you. If God had a refrigerator, your picture would
be on it.
Prayer
and worship in this church should always be a time to bask in God’s love, to
know God’s reassuring, accepting presence.
Prayer and worship is a time to rediscover who it is we truly are, who
it is we have been created to be.
At
the end of Jesus’ day was prayer. At the
end of the day for each of us there is God’s love, opening up to us if we would
open up to God.
Synagogue,
home, and prayer – that’s the journey Jesus takes on his typical day in Mark’s
Gospel thereby providing an example for us.
The
Confirmands and I were at the Martin Luther King, Jr. service last Monday night
at the Lawrence Chapel. All of us agreed that night that the most
inspiring moment came not from our wonderful keynote speaker, flown in from New
York; it came not from one of the public officials up on the dais for the
occasion; it came not from one of the clergy who brought their considerable
rhetoric skills to bear; it came from a fifth grader, a little girl who, in her
prize-winning essay, told us that following Dr. King’s example is “like a spark
that starts on our lips, goes all the way to our toes, and then stays in our
heart.”
Lips, toes, and hearts; synagogue, home, and
prayer; public, private, in our innermost selves. That’s what we’re about. That’s what this church is all about. Jesus has come and continues to come to all
the places of our lives, touching us, healing us, calling us.
Our
passage this morning ends with Jesus’ words:
“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.” Church, home, and prayer is where it begins
for us, but then it goes out:
to our family, to
our friends, to our neighbors; to our towns, to our cities, to our nation, and
to the world;
to the needy, to
the satisfied, to the friendly, to our enemies.
We are sent out
too, following the footsteps of a Savior who has gone before us, casting out the
powers that oppose us, offering healing to the afflicted, and challenge to the
gifted. We are sent out too, we who have
gathered in church, home, and prayer to offer new love and new lives, new hope,
new healing, to offer Jesus Christ to others.
God make it so always with us who seek to follow Christ at First
Congregational United Church of Christ of Appleton. Amen.
Sermon preached by
Reverend Steve Savides at First Congregational United Church of Christ,
Appleton, Wisconsin on January 27, 2008.