This is who God wants me to be. This is who I am.

 

The healing of Simon’s mother-in-law is a classic healing story (Mark1:29-39). It’s all fine and good. It’s what Jesus does. It’s what he’s good at. But there is something sort of disturbing about this story that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with healing. “Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” Doesn’t that strike us as a little strange? To many of us who suffered through the flu this year, just the idea of popping out of bed and doing anything at all much less serving guests, is inconceivable. If it were me I would have thanked them all, especially Jesus, then tactfully usher them out of my room, asking them to help themselves to tea and left over fruit cake…really hoping that they would leave my home so that I could rest some more.

This story reminds me of a scene in the classic 1987 movie, Moonstruck in which Loretta’s fiancé, Johnny travelled to Sicily to be with his dying mother. Johnny, played by Danny Aiello, telephones Loretta (Cher) in tears as he and the wailing woman keep vigil; “it’s just a matter of time.” Then suddenly, out of the blue, Johnny’s mother is miraculously cured and jumps out of the bed and begins to prepare an elaborate dinner for the future mourners. It’s a miracle Johnny proclaims; it’s a sign and being superstitious, tells Loretta he cannot marry her. To me, like Simon’s mother-in-law, the real miracle is that the old woman begins to cook and serving everyone.

I realize that in that time and in a time not so long ago, the matriarch’s role as keeper of the house was to serve her family and guests. If you are brought back from the edge of death, or from the brink of what you thought your life had been, shouldn't there be something else for you, some sort of new vocation, new career, and new identity? And yet she served them? As if that was what she was expected to do? As if that was the only thing she thought she could do. As if that was the only thing she could do?

But, what if the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law gave her a new lease on life and a new purpose, beyond her traditional role as mother and house keeper? And what if in being brought back to who she was, she became a disciple, called to minister, to serve. Have you ever felt like God has brought you back from the brink ... to yourself? That you were called back from a place that was not fully you, to be the “real” you?

Jesus lifted her up. What if resurrection is being raised up to be who you always were and always meant to be? Not that of a successful rock star, athlete or business tycoon but the radical, emotional, incredible feeling of being you. Being raised up is not just some sort of spiritual future but is your present reality, in the here and now, to live as the real you…your mind, spirit, body, everything together, everything that you were always meant to be. The story of Simon’s mother-in-law reminds us that God does not call us to be something we are not, but is in the business of restoring us to who we really are.

Of course, most of the time it’s easier to live on the brink, to surround yourself with people and projects and performances that allow you to pretend this is you. This enables you to avoid the feelings and frustrations and fears that come with acknowledging what is important in your life. It is so hard to live who you are. To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes, "The world is full of people who will go through their whole lives and not actually live one day. I do not intend on being one of them.” I think a lot of us spend a good part of our lives living on the periphery of ourselves.

 God called Jesus to be who he was. That’s what the incarnation is all about. Jesus didn’t go around pretending to be something that he wasn't. “Please, please, let this cup pass. My God, my God, why have you forsaken ME?” are not laments about what should be but the truth about what is.

Being human is to what God committed God’s self and therefore, being who we are is what God wants us to be. God brings us back from the brinks of our lives, from despair, from disease, from desperation, to live. Because then, maybe, we will actually know, feel, and get that we are a part, that God needs us to be a part, of what’s at stake for God when God decided to become one of us.

 (Adapted from Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, February 1, 2015)

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

 

 

“Be silent and come out of him…And then the man convulses and cries out loudly and the unclean spirit leaves him.” Do we really know what an unclean spirit is?  While Mark  (Mark 1: 21-28) hasn’t told us a thing about what Jesus was saying and teaching, he graphically depicts Jesus’ power over things that people often label as “unclean.” Mark is making an important point: God’s Spirit in Jesus engages and fights against negative forces that are inherent with our human condition. The battle of good versus evil, right versus wrong, life versus death happens to all people. Christ came to shatter the subversive powers that “reduce” people to lower standards than God originally intended. Christ has come to free us from the demons like prejudice and pride, greed and guile. Christ is with us, whether alone or in community.  If we devote ourselves to anything less than a divinely directed destiny, we have missed the goal of faith.

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? We are not always sure. I don’t know every single day what God wants from me.  Some days I am just like that man with the unclean spirit. Isn’t there a part of all us that sometimes feels unclean? We don’t always understand why things are happening, events and emotions control us in ways we do not want. We are searching for some power that can set us free to live in the right way.

Mark’s Gospel helps us understand that Jesus stands ready to help us caste aside that which binds and constricts us, the demons that defeat our best and highest purposes. Christ stands ready with the power of grace, which breaks the power of evil over us. In him is the gift of true life. Jesus has much to do with us. (Adapted from, http://bloomingcactus.typepad.com/ 1/ 17/06)

Stop What You’re Doing...Follow Me

 

When I entered basic training, I was warned never to volunteer for anything or respond to a request for volunteers. It was common for a drill sergeant to “ask” unwitting recruits for “volunteers” for duties that appeared to be easier than what was originally planned. Invariably, these jobs never turned out to easy. In time we learned to avoid eye contact with the inviting sergeant and stand way in the back of the formation to hide and avoid being “volunteered.” Matthew’s (Matthew 1:14-20 )account of how Peter, Andrew, James and John immediately responded to Jesus invitation reminded me of my time in basic training. I’m always amazed as to how quickly the disciples dropped everything and just followed Jesus. I wonder how I would respond to a request from a stranger who asked me to stop what I was doing and follow him. I think I would have tried to avoid eye contact, and if asked to volunteer, make some excuse or at least ask for some time to think about it. After all, how could I possibly stop what I’m doing right now? It's too important. Maybe later.

Could we drop everything, leave our families and communities, and follow someone we didn’t even know? Both Matthew and Mark emphasize the word “immediately to describe the new recruits’ snap decision. Snap decisions are not always good, but sometimes they are. I think we all have made snap decision that turned out really well. Don’t we sometimes wonder what prompted those decisions?

And so what does Matthew’s Gospel mean to us? Does it mean leaving behind the promise of a steady income in a successful family business? Or, maybe its letting go of things that hold us bound - as symbolized by the fisherman’s nets in our story. It can be any manner of things and will vary from one person to another. While Jesus does not ask everyone to leave everything behind, no one can be a disciple and follow His call to repent without leaving something behind, or without letting go of the nets that keep us ensnared.

Jesus is calling us to a new way of life and asking us to “repent,” or turn the focus of our lives to being God centered. At its most basic level, discipleship means saying “yes” to Jesus and following him wherever he leads. There are times we try to run away and go back to where we were before but like the young recruit trying to be invisible, we can’t hide in the back out of sight. Jesus is relentless, and as often as we try to run and hide, he will find us.

With regard to “snap decisions” or responding to what we are inspired to do, John Powell writes There have been quite a few times when I have felt the winds of God’s grace in the sails of my small boat. Sometimes these graces have moved me in pleasant and sunlit directions. At other times the requested acts of love were born in the darkness of struggle and suffering. There have been spring times and there have been long cold winters of struggle for survival. God has come to me at times with the purest kindness, at times with the most affirming encouragement, and at other times with bold frightening challenges. I think that all of us have to watch and pray, to be ready to say “yes” when God’s language is concrete and his request is specific-“yes” in the sunlit spring times and “yes’ in the darkness of winter nights. (John Powell, S.J., The Christian Vision, The Truth That Sets Us Free, p147

In John’s Gospel (John 1: 35-42) Jesus' ministry begins not with a command to silence a demon, as in Mark; nor with a sermon to the crowds who have gathered on a mountain, as in Matthew, and not with a quotation from Isaiah, as in Luke. No, it begins with a question: "What are you looking for?"  This is a question which we continue to wrestle with as individuals and communities. Our answer will have as much to do with the journey to its revelation. What are we seeking? What motivates us? What is it that we really need, not just on the surface, but down deep into the core of our being?  This question is particularly relevant in this season of the Epiphany. Consider this…we have an advantage over the disciples: we know what’s coming and we know how it all will end. Yet, this question is timeless, what are we looking for?  

Immediately following their “introductions,” the disciples ask Jesus another question: "where are you staying?" We know that John is not one to mince words. We have learned in our readings that John selects his words for what they say and not necessarily what they literally mean. So, asking Jesus where he was “staying” has little to do with making inquiry about his local lodging or accommodations. Instead, it requires that we probe for what the phrase might say to us. What word might you select as a synonym for “stay?” Continue, dwell, lodge, sojourn, rest, settle, last, endure, persevere, be steadfast, abide, be in close and settled union and indwell? The list is endless and any of the preceding words might work at any given time.  

Marcus Borg writes in the Heart of Christianity, “that the Christian life is not about believing or a set of beliefs, but it’s about a deepening relationship with the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Paying attention to this relationship transforms us.” So, if we choose to interpret John’s question to mean our asking about an intimate, enduring relationship with God, the word “abide” has particular meaning that fits. We surrender our ego to God as the Word becomes flesh and abides in us, and sows the seed of transformation, and we are born into a new life.

 

Are we looking or just waiting

The Mystery of Christmas embraces both the feasts of the Nativity and the Epiphany. In the Nativity we commemorate God’s humble entrance into human life, incarnated in Jesus. In the Epiphany we celebrate Jesus as God’s gift to the world and embodies the expression for our longing for intimacy with God. (Matthew 2: 1-12)

Like the Magi, we need only the light of strong, unwavering faith to see Him, to find Him, to serve Him in the people around us and in the circumstances of our everyday living. Like the Magi, we need only to trust in and know God's love for us…only then we will recognize His presence and His power in sunrise and sunset, in storm and calm, in the faces of children and wisdom of the elderly, in moments of elation and heart-break. We will see His radiance and warmth behind every cloud of sorrow or failure that darkens our days.

The Magi went to extraordinary lengths to look for the Christ Child. They serve to remind us that there are those who wait for the coming of the Jesus with those who make the effort to find Him. Like the magi, our search goes on - but so does Epiphany…Are we actively looking or merely waiting… and what gifts do we bring?