“Our Lenten Offering” Ash Wednesday February 25, 2009

(First read the texts for this sermon: Isaiah 58:1-12; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21)

It all begins with the ashes on our foreheads, and the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The reality of Lent begins there – with the remembrance that life is short.

And the years flash past. How is it that I have been ordained a pastor for 30 years? How is it that I’m old enough to receive a senior citizen discount? A week ago a former parishioner in a former parish called to say that her younger-than-me husband had died. Life is so short.

Does all of this strike you as morose? Depressing?

Some would react that way. Instead, let me suggest the alternate reality for us who follow Jesus. The phrase, “remember that your are dust, and to dust you shall return,” is a path to joy. Because those words drive home the reality that each day is to be received, a gift from the God who loves us. You and I do not deserve a single one of those days. (You have heard me say this many times.)

Where does joy come from? Joy comes from thankfulness. And we are thankful when we remember that the gift of each day is precious. That there is a limited number of days, and so we cannot take a single one for granted. That there cannot be such thing as “the boring routine”; or “the same old same old” – because each day is one of a limited edition; each day is precious; pure gift from the God who has created our lives!

One purpose of the season of Lent is to remember this! The gospel writer of Mark gives this keynote passage, only 14 verses into the gospel: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

To repent means to return, and to remember. To return to what you and I already know: that everything comes from God. That each day of life is a gift. Lent itself is a gift of grace, an opportunity to practice responding to each day as the gift that it is.

Our response is our Lenten offering! It is our Lenten offering! In thankfulness, we offer ourselves, our time, our abilities, our possessions, our lives, to God!

I’m not sure that a follower of Jesus can do any of this unless s/he prays. Prayer will be the faith practice we’ll focus on during Wednesday nights this Lent, in the context of Holden Evening Prayer. I’ll use the Lord’s Prayer as a point of departure, but I won’t simply talk at you! We’ll practice prayer. And my prayer is that the Spirit will work on you during the weeks of Lent to deepen your practice.

Here’s a preview: Prayer is not about “asking God for stuff.” Not primarily. Prayer is, most importantly, opening to what God is doing in my life, in your life, during our life-long repentance, our return to God, our life-long conversion. Prayer is discerning how the Spirit is leading you and me along the journey into God. Obviously, then, prayer must most often be about listening. Listening for God means this: even when we are speaking our needs in prayer – our fears, our anxieties, our hopes – the Spirit works to bring our desires into line with God’s desires!

When I talk like this (which is so much different from what many of us learned about prayer as children), I hear people say, “I don’t know how to pray.” Well, that’s what we’ll practice on Wednesday nights in Lent. Our prayer will be part of our Lenten offering.

Jesus refers to prayer, in tonight’s verses from the gospel of Matthew. The gospel writer also has Jesus talking about generosity. (That old fashioned phrase, to “give alms,” means to give money.) When many people think of an offering, they think of giving money. But what else will be part of your Lenten offering –your response, in thankfulness, for each day that is a gift?

The prophet Isaiah tonight encourages us to think of engaging in social justice actions as one generous response to what God has first given us. The prophet declares:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,… (Isaiah 58:6-7)

According to the prophet, God does not care about our “fasts,” our worship services, our pietistic practices, unless they translate into action on behalf of the poor. Acting to build social justice means being generous with your time, with your talents. It’s a Lenten offering!

I am aware that all of this talk can be deadly! It is so easy to turn Lent into law, into obligation, into what you should do. I want to avoid that! Because the season of Lent is a gift of grace, from the God who loves you and me. God loves us with an anguished love when we wander. God is joyous when we return from our wanderings. God desires that you and I will respond to God’s love in ways that increase our joy!

And so, on this Ash Wednesday, you and I hear these words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” What might be your Lenten offering, in joyful response to the gift of each precious day in this life that is too short?

Might your response to the shortness of life be to exercise for 30 minutes a day, five days a week? Would a joyous response be to ride your bicycle on the bike path for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, turning your pedaling into prayer? Would it be gardening for the same amount of time, digging in the dirt while you pray? How about refinishing furniture, or reading a novel 30 minutes a day, five days a week, consciously thankful for the gift of the day? How about visiting friends you’ve neglected, thankful for their presence in your life?

You see what I’m suggesting. I’m raising possibilities of how to respond to this year’s gift of Lent, in positive ways, in joyous ways, in ways that increase our health, in those ways opening ourselves to God’s presence and blessings that we receive each precious day that God gives to us.

In other words, our Lenten offering is to offer ourselves – as we return to God in joyful thankfulness!

I pray for you a holy Lent.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

“Our Imaginations, Transformed By God’s Imagination” Transfiguration Sunday February 22, 2009

(First, read the text for this sermon: Mark 9:2-9)

There have been remarkable news images this past week – of California state legislators. California was facing a budget deficit of $41 billion, and the state constitution requires a balanced budget! What could be the solution? To get to that point, the Speaker of the California House decided to lock representatives into the House chambers until a resolution would be worked out.

Was that a good move to make? Representatives pictured were exhausted. Some were dead asleep at their desks, and even on the floor! Was that the best environment for imaginative thinking? (That, of course, is what’s needed to come to good solutions to huge problems.)

Usually, when there is a lot of stress, there is very little imagination. The heavy pressure makes it hard to be creative, to perceive options. We often fall back to simply wishing that everything could be the way it was, during flush times. When the reality of the challenges seems so overwhelming, it is very difficult to imagine another reality.

These days, the imagination deficit is as big as the budget deficit. Our representatives in Washington are working hard to get the economy back to where it was, say, a year ago – as if everything was fine a year ago. So they’re propping up car makers who have shown little innovation, and they’re propping up banks which were motivated by the deadly sin of greed when making shaky mortgages, and they’re propping up people with the same motivation, who borrowed more than they could pay to move into a house. The aim, of course, is so we can all get back out there and buy lots of stuff again. Then everything will be fine again, right?

But could it be that that’s the wrong approach – to try to restore what was old? Instead – is something new happening? Can you imagine what that might be? That’s hard to do, isn’t it?

Jesus’ closest disciples are suffering from an imagination deficit, in this morning’s story from the gospel of Mark.

Just before this morning’s story, we read in Mark: Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. What is going on here? Do not tell anyone about him?

It gets even more confusing and frightening: Then [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." What is going on here? Jesus is saying that the Son of Man must suffer and be killed? That’s not what any of the disciples signed up for! That’s not what any of them expected, according to the old, accepted prophecy of the Son of Man, the figure they expected God to send, to free Israel!

Do the disciples have the imagination to understand what Jesus says next, either? [Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

And then, six days later, Jesus leads his three closest followers up a mountain. And [Jesus] was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

This is a precursor of the resurrection. This is something entirely new! You know this. I know this. That’s because you and I know how the story is going to turn out. You and I know about Easter. But the disciples don’t understand any of this. They haven’t been able to process what Jesus told them six days ago. They are suffering from imagination deficit! That’s obvious in what Peter says next. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

Peter’s imagination has not been transformed. He is not imagining the new thing that God is doing. Instead, he is wanting to preserve this moment. He can only conceive of what is old. He’s there with this all-star trio of Elijah and Moses and Jesus, and he wants to create a religious shrine on the mountain to remember this occasion forever! It’s all he can figure out to say, suffering as he is from imagination deficit. In fact, we read, [h]e did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

Unfortunately, it gets even worse for Peter and James and John! Then a cloud overshadowed them. That evokes our Biblical imaginations: you and I know that this setting – up on a mountain, engulfed in a cloud – is the same as in the story of Moses on the mountain. You and I know that this is the presence of God! But Peter and James and John so far are showing no signs of such imagination and insight. Then a voice comes from the cloud, and I imagine the voice of God with this inflection: "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! Jeez!" (Because, so far, they haven’t been listening!)

Then we read, As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Don’t say anything, in other words, because before Jesus’ resurrection can be understood, first people will need to see that it is necessary for him to suffer and to die.

But – why suffering? Why death? Why is the cross necessary? Even at the end of Mark’s narrative, the disciples are unable to imagine what God is doing. Why is God having to enter into human suffering? Why can’t God just be all-powerful, as we’ve expected God to be, making everything better in one “poof?” Here‘s how the gospel of Mark ends, when Jesus’ followers find the tomb to be empty: So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. The end.

So – how would you be: up there with Elijah and Moses and Jesus, on the mountain, engulfed in a cloud, hearing a voice? How’s your imagination? What is God doing that is new?

Isn’t that the same question for us who are living in these days? Obviously, huge changes are happening. Where is God in all of this? What is God doing that is new? Perhaps you and I will experience a dramatic transfiguration. More likely, this is the question: How can we offer our imaginations to the Holy Spirit, so that our imaginations will be transformed by God’s imagination? How can our imaginations be transformed to envision the future that God desires for God’s creation?

God the Holy Spirit does transform us, as we practice the faith. When we worship with openness to what the Spirit will say to us today; when we offer our anxieties and griefs and joys to God in prayer, and then listen for what comes; when we read and pray over passages in the Bible, noticing how the Spirit is leading us through those words into the mystery of God’s judgment and grace, then we experience the life-long journey of conversion, of turning to God. As God the Holy Spirit moves within and among us, opening us up in these ways, transforming our imaginations by God’s imagination for the future, then we come to perceive what God is doing that is new.

I invite you into the practices of faith that will lead to such transformation. The season of Lent, which begins this Wednesday, is a special period of openness to the Spirit’s movement. As a start, let me invite you into a deeper practice of prayer. I am no longer surprised when I hear someone say, “I don’t know how to pray.” That foundational practice of the faith will be the subject of our Wednesday evening experiences this Lent.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

”Christ – In the Mess and the Muck” Epiphany 6 Lectionary 6 February 15, 2009

(First, read the text for this sermon: Mark 1:40-45)

It’s great to escape, isn’t it? On a cold day like today, don’t you love those advertisements, for resorts or airlines, showing a beautiful person in a bathing suit, on a deserted tropical beach? Don’t you think: “Hey! That could be me! I’d enjoy that beach! I’m that beautiful!” (Of course, that last thought illustrates our tendency to escape into fantasy.)

It’s great to escape – especially when our days are full of anxiety. Indeed, some look at Sunday morning worship as a time for an escape into some sort of fantasy, to pretend that the mess and the muck of daily life just isn’t out there. But then we read a story such as this morning’s, from the gospel of Mark. We see that Christ is right there, in the mess and the muck. And we remember that Jesus the Christ is our model of human life as God created it to be lived. We are not baptized into escapism.

This is actually a shocking passage from Mark! We read, A leper came to [Jesus] begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."

There’s lots to pay attention to in that one verse. Notice that the leper does not say, “If you choose, you can heal me.” No, it’s “you can make me clean.” That’s because leprosy was not only a disease of the skin. The disfigurement was bad enough. But, even worse, a person with a skin disease was shunned and isolated by religious people who wanted to be clean. Someone with any kind of a skin disease was unclean, and anyone who came into physical contact became unclean himself! Those with skin diseases certainly were not permitted to enter a place of worship. For an example of such a teaching, here are some verses from Leviticus (21:16-21): No one of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the food of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near,… or a man with a blemish in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs….[S]ince he has a blemish, he shall not come near…

You and I understand who God is through Jesus, and so we dismiss teachings like this from the Holiness Code in Leviticus. But Jesus himself confronted religious leaders who thought that the purity instructions in Leviticus were the word of God! And the leper who approaches Jesus must be a member of the chosen people. He wants to be made clean.

What comes next is what’s shocking. We read: Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Here’s the offensive thing: Jesus touches this unclean man.

When Jesus does that, he makes himself unclean!

Jesus is the Christ – in the mess and the muck. Right there.

That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Because, in reality, that’s where you and I are: in the mess and the muck. Indeed, this is a time of great dis-ease. These are weeks and months of high anxiety. We need to be giving special attention to our health – our physical health and our spiritual health and our emotional health.

But we cannot escape if we are to remain faithful to the ministry God the Holy Spirit calls us to. That’s because Jesus is the Christ – in the mess and the muck. Right there. And here I’ve added another dimension to the title of this sermon. Not only does Jesus come to us when we are in the mess and the muck of our daily lives. That’s where we encounter Jesus, too, in other people who are struggling!

St. Francis is our model. Doesn’t Francis look angelic up there, in our stained glass window? There he is, frolicking among the deer and the birds. What a beautiful flower that is, blooming at his feet. That’s our romantic picture of him, isn’t it? Let me read you a description of Francis’ own encounter with lepers, from a biography by Johannes Jorgensen (St. Francis of Assisi). This episode comes from a time early in Francis’ life, when he is living in luxury. He is the son of a rich merchant. This is before God converts him to do the work that God has in mind for him.

"The [leper] hospital lay midway between Assisi and Portiuncula … On his walks in this place, Francis now and then passed by the hospital, but the mere sight of it had filled him with horror. He would not even give [money] to a leper unless someone else would take it for him. Especially when the wind blew from the hospital, and the weak, nauseating odor, peculiar to the leper, came across the road, he would hurry past with averted face and fingers in his nostrils.

"It was in this that he felt his greatest weakness, and in it he was to win his greatest victory.

"For one day, as he was as usual calling upon God, it happened that the answer came. And the answer was this: 'Francis! Everything which you have loved and desired in the flesh, it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun thus, all that which now seems to you sweet and lovely will become intolerable and bitter, but all which you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.'

"There were the words which … showed him the way he was to follow…" Jorgensen writes that, one day, Francis encountered a leper in the road. "Here was the time to take the Lord at His word – to show his good will … And with a mighty victory over himself, Francis sprang from his horse, approached the leper, from whose deformed countenance the awful odor of corruption issued forth, placed his alms in the outstretched wasted hand – bent down quickly and kissed the fingers of the sick man, covered with the awful disease, whilst his system was nauseated with the action …"

Well, the story continues. The description becomes even more disagreeable. (This is a “PG-rated” excerpt from the biography of St. Francis!) What’s important is that Francis has undergone a conversion – to see Christ in that leper! By becoming a servant to this despised person, Francis is serving his Lord. By kissing the leper’s fingers, Francis is showing love to Jesus the Christ – even though “his system [is] nauseated with the action!”

This is a dramatic description of encountering Christ, and serving Christ, in the mess and the muck. It makes me think of my own hesitation, when first serving a parishioner who was dying of AIDS. This was 12 or 15 years ago. When the young man contracted AIDS, he was ostracized by those in his law-oriented church because that’s when they discovered that he was gay. And so, led by God the Holy Spirit who creates faith, he had found his way to our congregation. He had even joined the choir. But only months later, he was homebound, and I would visit with Holy Communion. I would share the bread and the wine. I would hold his hand tightly when I offered prayer. I knew, in my head, based on scientific fact, that I would not contract AIDS by such physical contact. But, in my heart, I had to overcome my fear that I still felt. And so I focused on the fact that I was encountering Christ in that young man who was despised and rejected by many, including those in the church where he had grown up! They had lost sight of the fact that there is Jesus the Christ – right there, in the mess and the muck.

The mess and the muck is frightening! Not long ago, many were afraid to touch someone suffering from cancer. Some of you are old enough to remember that. What about when death is approaching? The mother of a 20-year old about to die from cancer told me of long-time friends who had withdrawn, as Samantha’s disease progressed. She told me this, her eyes filled with tears of anger and pain. I said it wasn’t because those people didn’t love her. It’s that they were frightened by illness and death. This is the mess and muck at its worst.

But that is precisely where Christ encounters you and me, and it is where we encounter Christ: in the mess and the muck. Right there. In whatever anxiety we are feeling. In the fear. In the depression. In the anger. In the dis-ease.

Into all of that God the Holy Spirit sends us – to be Christ for each other.

How much we need each other during these days! How much we need the community that God the Holy Spirit creates among us in baptism; the community of resurrection hope; the community of people who welcome each other and support each other, living by the fruit of the Spirit; helping to form each other in what St. Paul describes: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

For that baptismal community that is created, thanks be to God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

“Good News! Healing! Wholeness! Joy!” Epiphany 5 Lectionary 5 February 8, 2009

These are days of high anxiety. Who among us is aware of a friend or family member who has been laid off, or who is worried about being laid off yourself, or who has had to lay off co-workers? Who among us owns a business and is anxiously comparing this year’s sales figures with last year’s? Who among us is afraid she won’t be able to retire when she had planned to? Who among us is retired, and is worried that the money won’t last? Who among us is a college student or a parent of a student, worried about the college savings fund? Who among us is a child, sensing anxiety and tension among his mother or father?

Have I covered everyone?

Over the past several Sundays, we have been reading in the first chapter of the gospel of Mark. These stories are presented to persuade us that, in Jesus the Christ, God brings good news and healing and wholeness and joy! God, as Holy Spirit, is moving to persuade of us that, in the midst of bad news and despair.

The Bible has a point of view! It is full of persuasive writing. The four gospels, for instance, were composed by four first-century followers of Jesus, who collected and edited stories that had been told in their respective communities about Jesus, and who presented those stories in written form to persuade people that, in Jesus, God has entered our human lives.

In Jesus, God has brought the kingdom to us! In Jesus, God comes among us with good news! What healing! What wholeness! What joy!

Listen to how this is presented – to persuade you and me – in the first chapter of Mark. Notice that, in nine places, we encounter these words: “just as” and “immediately” and “just then” and “at once” and “as soon as.” In these stories there’s movement. There’s animation. There’s intervention!

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

[2] As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
[3] the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,' "

[4] John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. [5] And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. [6] Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. [7] He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. [8] I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

[9] In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. [10] And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. [11] And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

[12] And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. [13] He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

14] Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, [15] and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

[16] As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. [17] And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." [18] And immediately they left their nets and followed him. [19] As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. [20] Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

[21] They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. [22] They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. [23] Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, [24] 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." [25] But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" [26] And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. [27] They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching -- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." [28] At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

[29] As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. [30] Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. [31] He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

[32] That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. [33] And the whole city was gathered around the door. [34] And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

[35] In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. [36] And Simon and his companions hunted for him. [37] When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." [38] 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 out to do." [39] And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

[40] A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." [41] Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" [42] Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. [43] After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, [44] 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." [45] 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.

The action is fast and furious in this first chapter of Mark. There is great hunger for what Jesus is doing and saying, what Jesus is bringing into the people’s lives. Is that not true, as well, for you and me? That’s how the gospel stories engage us. The stories are presented to persuade us that Jesus feeds our hunger for good news and healing and wholeness and joy.

Wherever there is healing and wholeness and joy, there is God. And God brings all of that good news to us in the entanglements of our everyday lives. Right there! For instance, notice the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law. We usually pay the most attention to the dramatic call story of Simon and his brother, Andrew, who leave their fishing nets to follow Jesus. Do they leave everything behind? That does not seem to be the case. My favorite story takes place in Simon and Andrew’s house. Simon is obviously married. His mother-in-law is part of the household. And right there, into the entanglements of Simon’s everyday life, God enters in, through the flesh and blood of Jesus, bringing good news and healing and wholeness and joy. Wherever there are those things, there is God. Are you persuaded?

In this first chapter of Mark, there is great hunger for what Jesus is doing and saying, and what Jesus is bringing into the people’s lives. There is great uproar as well! Do you notice how Jesus encounters resistance? I wonder how often that is true, as well, for you and me. Even though these stories are presented to persuade us that wherever there is healing, there is God; and wherever there is wholeness, there is God; and wherever there is joy, there is God; how often is it that we don’t want to let go of our dis-ease and our dysfunction? How scary and risky is it to open ourselves to healing? What are the “demons,” the “unclean spirits” with which you find yourself in a death grip?

Letting go means changing our lives! It means turning towards God.

The core message of the entire gospel of Mark is this: in Jesus the Christ, [t]he time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. God the Holy Spirit moves within and among us, to persuade us of this! God the Holy Spirit moves within and among us, to form us by this Biblical world-view of possibility, of healing, of wholeness, of joy!

And so, the bottom line is this: when you find yourself engulfed by fear, by anxiety and despair and exhaustion and bad news: Repent! Believe in the good news!

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

“Authority. Obedience. Discipleship” Epiphany 4 Lectionary 4 February 1, 2009

(First, read the text for this sermon: Mark 1:21-28)

The Bible is full of such strange stories! As an example, take the story we read this morning, from the gospel of Mark.

We’re still in the first chapter of Mark, and the action has been proceeding at a break-neck pace. In only 20 verses, John the Baptizer has appeared to fulfill prophecy in Isaiah, Jesus has been baptized, Jesus has been tempted in the wilderness, Jesus has called two disciples, and then he has called two more. (All in 20 verses!) And now, in the story: They went to Capernaum, and when the sabbath came, [Jesus] entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Jesus and his disciples are observant Jews. (Even throughout the first several generations of the Jesus movement, Jesus’ followers continue to be observant Jews! So the hatred of the Jews, taught throughout history in some Christian traditions, makes absolutely no sense.) It is important to notice that the setting of this story in Mark is sabbath worship – which is presented as a place and time to encounter God! And, indeed, that’s what happens. But notice who recognizes God! Who in the room understand what is going on here?

The groups discussing the study book, Opening the Book of Faith, are talking about the “literary reading” of the Bible. Here’s a tip off: a literary tension throughout the gospel of Mark, which we’re reading this year, a tension that the gospel writer builds into the story, is between understanding and misunderstanding. And so, here’s what we read: They (that is, the human beings) were astounded at [Jesus’] teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then 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 of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching --with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

Who understands who Jesus is? It is the unclean spirit! Who are astounded, who are amazed, who keep on asking one another: “What is this? What is going on?” The human beings!

What a strange passage. In fact, isn’t this a passage that we simply dismiss? You and I have been educated to look at reality objectively, to leave superstition behind, to be precise about what’s real and unreal, to use the scientific method. So – C’mon! An unclean spirit? The guy is suffering from epilepsy or something, right? It’s some kind of nervous system disorder that causes seizures, right?

Well, maybe. Probably. But here’s something that gives me pause. In the cultures where the majority of Christians live around the world, Christians read this passage as describing daily life. In most countries of Africa, for instance, exorcisms of evil spirits are regularly performed. On the Sunday morning that I worshiped at the Mongai Parish in Tanzania, a major part of the service was to give thanksgiving for miraculous healings. At the Sunday morning services of both parishes I visited in Tanzania, worshipers who had been excommunicated and who had proven that they deserved to be restored came forth to be welcomed back into the faith community. In an African culture ravaged by AIDS, with no medical care to speak of, where someone can be healthy, then sick and then dead within a matter of days; in fact, in the cultures where the majority of Christians live around the world, demons and unclean spirits and the forces of evil are experienced as daily realities. And so, it simply gives me pause. If the church is dying in western cultures, but wildly flourishing in Africa and Asia and Latin America, do we simply dismiss most of the Christians in the world as being superstitious? Or are they more cognizant of the powers at work? It’s a question that’s been in my mind since visiting Tanzania.

Indeed, it is interesting to ask someone in our culture who is addicted to alcohol or drugs to describe her experience. An addict describes his addiction in a way that sounds an awful lot like there is something inside him, that is alien to him, possessing him; an addiction that he would like to have removed from his body and mind! Talk to someone fighting cancer, or a fungal infection in the lungs: isn’t there something evil inside my body, needing to be eradicated?

Scientific knowledge about bacteria and viruses and chemical addictions and psychology and psychiatry are tools that God gives us for healing. Certainly that is true! I am saying, however, that we should pause before poo-pooing a story such as this one from Mark – because it does describe a power that is real. Do we call it the power of illness? Is it the power of evil? If an “unclean spirit” is not a literal description of what is going on, it certainly has value as a metaphor. God’s new age of salvation and health and healing is confronting the entrenched powers-that-be. Do you think those powers will give up without a fight? They crucified Jesus!

The gospel of Mark witnesses to the reality and movement of powers in creation. It is not only power that is in opposition to Jesus. In the earlier verses of chapter one, there is the power that causes Simon and Andrew and James and John to respond to Jesus’ call immediately. There is the “astounding” authority of Jesus. We read: They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching -- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."

There is authority. And there is obedience.

Those, of course, are important to the life of faith for you and me, day-to-day! There is the authority of God that Jesus embodies in his human flesh, the Word become flesh: the Word of conviction and forgiveness, grace and salvation. And there is our response to that Word. There is obedience. First comes humility, a gift of the Spirit, which opens us to the obedience of formation in the way of Jesus the Christ. In this, we become disciples.

I am often amazed at how my early-morning prayer and reading clarifies what I’m stumbling through, as I work on sermons, week after week. Here is something I came across in my daily devotional book this past Tuesday – words from the 20th century theologian Gerhard Ebeling, who writes about the life of faith from a thoroughly modern, scientific world view!

"The authority of Jesus reached its climax in the call to discipleship. This is something strange and unique, in contrast with the this world around him. Rabbis had pupils, and revolutionaries had adherents. Jesus’ call to discipleship could be misunderstood in both directions. But he asked neither for pupils nor for revolutionary action, but only that [people] should share in his way….[T]hey were to let their way be determined, without anxiety, by the rule of the God who is near. The call to discipleship is in the last resort simply the call to faith. For faith cannot be more concretely expressed than by saying, Be not anxious, for the heavenly Father knows what we need.

"These elements in the message of Jesus – the nearness of the rule of God, the clarity of his will, and the simplicity of discipleship, with joy, freedom, and lack of anxiety – are the interpretation of one thing, the call to faith. But it is all seen in the context of the remarkable authority of the Person of Jesus. If discipleship means sharing in the way of Jesus, then understanding his preaching of the will of God means sharing in his freedom, and understanding his message of the rule of God means sharing in his joy, his obedience, and his courage in the face of the nearness of God." (From The Nature of Faith)

Authority. Obedience. Discipleship.

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia