Mark 1: 21-39

Jesus and his disciples went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his 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.

Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. 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.

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

The first thing I have to say today is thank you. Thank you for the heartfelt wishes you’ve expressed and actions you’ve taken toward me this last week before and after my mother’s death. I cannot imagine experiencing this loss any place but here. I’m deeply grateful for your love and support during this difficult and disorienting time for me and my family.

I have to admit that the particular gospel we just heard, part of which holds the story of Jesus healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, brings a little stab to my heart in that my own mother, feverish and bedridden at the end, was not paid a visit by a mysterious healer who came into her dwelling, took her by the hand and lifted her up in the way that I and my siblings might have wished for.

This is an example of my own literal-mindedness when it comes to Scripture, a tendency that is always with me, in part, because I grew up in the American South during the latter half of the twentieth century, and, in part, because we all hunger for literal truths, for tangible actions from God on our behalf or on behalf of those we love in times of extreme personal need.

About my Southern background, though my family didn’t attend church regularly or, to be more truthful, at all, we kids did on occasion pull out a Bible from the back of a bookcase in our house, call out a question and then randomly turn to a page, and with eyes closed, point to somewhere on that page for an answer to our question. For us, then, Scripture was Ouija board or magic 8-ball to be turned to for quick answers.

But that’s not how Scripture works, is it? And not how life works either. Answers, if we get them in life, tend to come into being gradually, mysteriously, with greater complexity and subtlety in their unfolding than we would have ever guessed. Likewise, answers from Scripture, if you could even call them that, come in the form of images and figures that reverberate in our consciousness, images that re-describe our lives, infusing them with life-giving power that we do not have on our own.

And so, how does our gospel for today, the rapid-fire succession of Jesus teaching, healing, resting and committing himself to more of the same in other towns have the power to re-describe our lives, infusing them with life-giving power?

I suppose the place to start is the world that the Scripture, itself describes—synagogues or holy and public places where a man enters and behaves in a such way that he’s described as having an unclean spirit, homes in which things are out of kilter on account of someone central to the household being sick and incapacitated, crowds of people in need of mental or physical healing congregating outside, so much activity that God incarnate needs to get away for quiet prayer.

I don’t know what you may or may not hear in this, but to me it sounds like life on a typical day and night in lower Queen Anne, which is simply to say that the world described in this story is the world we inhabit—a raggedy, imperfect world of mental and physical illness and social isolation for those who do not fit in, a world teeming with need and noise, a world out of joint in the public religious realm, in the domestic private realm, and on the streets—a world out of joint.

Where is your world or our world out of joint? Where does it seem as if an unclean spirit has taken hold of your life, one that will just not be silent? Where are you bedridden, unable to rise, unable to function? Where are you standing at a threshold, not just waiting but clamoring for a healing touch?

Into all of these places, into all of these places comes the Holy One with urgency and purpose. He comes with a healing touch, but just as important he comes with a healing word. This is the healing and unbelievable word that threatens the existing religious system, and which, as the story goes, will also make the political authorities uncomfortable for its message disrupts a rigid economic and societal system of the haves and have-nots.

Into all of these places comes the Holy one with urgency and purpose.

And the healing word he gives us is this: the kingdom of God has come near.

God’s kingdom has arrived. In that kingdom we, each of us, is made whole and has been given dignity in God, independent of our worthiness or raggedness, independent of our health, independent of our social acceptability, independent of our economic status, independent of any religious categories or practices that would seek to cut across this.

The kingdom of God has drawn near.

And here on the Sunday of our Annual Meeting, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on what it means for us—the community of St. Paul’s—that the kingdom of God has drawn near. It means that we right now are whole, even perfect just the way we are. God has conferred that on us. We are whole, even perfect—before any more work on our finances, before any more work on the building, before any more outreach efforts, before a third Sunday liturgy or the next rector who might be better than the present one. We in Christ are whole, even perfect here, right now.

The kingdom of God has drawn near.

And so whether in our personal lives or in our public and communal lives—we stand on a foundation of wholeness and dignity though we daily experience our need for healing and the sting of the indignities that life can put us through. And, this, of course is a great contradiction and challenge: to claim what we have already been given as our own possession, to take it in like a deep breath of good air and to keep doing this in the face of the evidence to the contrary. We are whole and yet we feel the need for healing. We have been given dignity while at times we seem to be held in the fist of indignity.

The kingdom of God has drawn near.

This in some form was my mantra as I sat with my mother in the final days of her life, for to be with those who’re dying is seemingly to witness the loss of all wholeness, the loss of all dignity.

We believe that losing these is impossible because they are held absolute in Christ.

How can this be?

Well this is where only a story can do the work—and I’m not even sure this story is the right one but it is the one I bring you.

Early this last week after my mother’s death when my sister Pam was so expressive of her grief at losing our mother, I found myself unable to break through to my own thoughts and feelings. And, of course, I was so busy, the out-of-towner wanting to carry some of the work that Pam and her husband Don had shouldered for so long.  

Finally on Tuesday night I was by myself in my mother’s house. I went to her closet and put on her house shoes and as well as one of her chamois cloth shirts over my own shirt. It was then while wearing her clothes that I was able to sit down and write bits of reflections and memories that allowed me to begin to comprehend and receive the complex and interesting woman who had just passed out of my life.

In Christ, God has put on our clothes, has put us on, coming near to us in a way that comprehends all of who we are, receives all of who we are. But in that receiving God also clothes us with God’s very self—perfectly whole, full of dignity and ready for the healing and dignifying work of our lives.

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