Feeling Kind of Scribely

This sermon was heard on at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday February 8, 2009, the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

There were no services on Sunday February 1st due to the ice storm that covered the Ozarks and extended through Kentucky. Several members of the congregation asked if I would be able to recycle my sermon from the first to the eighth. While I did not recycle, I did combine many of the thoughts and words from that sermon on Mark 1:21-28 and combined it with the Mark 1:29-39 passage.

Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:21-39

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

It sure has been a couple of weeks here in the Ozarks. You have come into the sanctuary, a place of safety, and you have me in before you bringing the message of God’s grace and salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. I haven’t felt this inadequate in ministry in a good long time.

Marie and I were without power for three days. Trees were splintering in the creek bed just south of the manse. Branches hung precariously over a power line, and everything was caked with ice. While we were cold for half of a week there are others who are still without power.

Believe you me, I gave thanks and praise to the Lord our God when power was restored to the manse. I was thankful when I discovered that the church did not lose power and the pipes were not frozen. I was even more thankful to find the pump in the cellar working overtime from the melt.

I was thankful when I was able to get in touch with members of this part of the body of Christ. I was thankful too when I was finally able to get off of our street and see what was going on in town. I was thankful for the crews from all over the region that have come to lend a hand restoring power to people in the area. I felt great joy as I heard of everyone’s incremental restoration of essential services.

Still, I would love nothing more than to with my own breath fix all that was broken by the storm. In the Old Testament, they would call that breath ruach, the wind that blew across the abyss to create life as we have come to know it.

Actually, that’s not quite true, the breath that blew across the abyss created life as we were intended to know it. There is a big difference between life as we were supposed to know it and life as we have come to know it.

Anyway, right now, I feel so inadequate that all I have been able to do is invent a word—scribely. It’s the adverbial form of the word scribe. It means “like a scribe.” How’s that? I want to fix everything that is broken and all I can create is a word that means “like a scribe.”

The scribes were great teachers. They knew the scriptures. They were legal scholars responsible for interpreting scripture. Still, their authority was limited.

So Simon, Andrew, James, and John went with Jesus to Capernaum; and when the Sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. What he said was lost to the ages. I think it would be a good guess that he said something like, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” He brought this same message after the arrest of John the Baptist.

The people were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. As I said, the scribes did have authority, but evidence of their lack of great authority was about to come as Jesus exorcised an unclean spirit from a man right in the synagogue. The scribes had very good teachings. They had the Law and the prophets. As good as it was it did not have the authority Jesus had and exercised that day in the synagogue.

I wanted to restore all of us to the way we were before the storm, and it would have been a good restoration. The scribes taught the lessons that were taught for over a thousand years, and these were very good lessons. But these hopes, these lessons, these restorations are lacking compared to the work and authority Jesus previewed that day in a synagogue in Capernaum.

I wanted to be able to restore us to life the way it was before the storm, life we were comfortable living. But this is the restoration to life after the fall; this is the restoration of a scribe. I was joyful, giving thanks to God; as well I should; as we are all required to give thanks. As I was feeling kind of scribely in my thanksgiving prayers, I was not able to apply the authority of Jesus. Scribes can restore life after the fall. Christ restores us to the life God intended us to live in the beginning.

Through our own power, through the authority of the scribes, we can be restored to the way we were before the storm. But only through the power and authority which belongs to Christ alone are we able to be restored to God.

By this time, Jesus’ fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. Kurt Vonnegut once said you can leave it to a crowd to look to the wrong end of a miracle,[1] and it was true in this case too. The people were looking at the new teaching with authority, not the one who wields that authority. The people were amazed at seeing the healing, not the healer.

So this begs the question, what is the proper response to the one who teaches with authority, what is the proper response to the one who is fully human and fully divine? I believe the answer is found in the next half of our reading.

As soon as they left the synagogue, the five entered the house of Simon and Andrew. 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.

Jesus again exercises power with authority. He heals Simon’s mother-in-law who was in bed with a fever. Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up. So how did she respond after she was restored to health? She began to serve Jesus and the four. She responded to Jesus in service.

She did not go out into the countryside spreading the good news. She did not enter a convent or even seminary to dedicate her life to Jesus. She didn’t go to Africa or Appalachia to serve the fully human fully divine Lord who made her whole. She didn’t have to; she served the Lord where he was. She served him and his companions in Simon and Andrew’s house. This is our first clue about who we are to serve and where. We are to serve God where God is—and where God places us.

Our reading continues: “That evening, at sundown, the people of Capernaum 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.”

Here we are shown one way to respond to Jesus is to seek Jesus. The people knew the power and the authority he possessed, even if they did not know he was the Son of God and the Son of Man. Remember, Jesus stopped the demons from telling the world exactly who he is. So knowing just the tip of the iceberg of whom Jesus is, the people came to him, seeking him as the font of wellness for those who were ailing. So too, we are to seek Jesus.

The final response in this section begins with this piece from our reading: “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.’”

In this piece from the reading, we learn that even Jesus needs to go to a deserted place and pray.

There is a movie called “Pow-Wow Highway” which is the story of two Native American men, Delbert and Red Bow, who make a trek from their reservation in Montana to Santa Fe, New Mexico to get their friend and sister out of jail.[2] Of the two, Red Bow more intensely identifies with his cultural heritage. Yet it is Delbert who insists on stopping at every holy site on the way to New Mexico.

At one point, they arrive in the middle of the night at Bear Butte, just outside of Sturgis, South Dakota where Delbert climbs the holy mountain and waits and prays until dawn. As Delbert gets back to the car, Red Bow asks him, “What in the world are you doing Delbert? We’re headed south to Santa Fe; you’ve got us way up here in the middle of nowhere.”

Delbert carefully replies, “We’re gathering our strength, just gathering our strength to get ready for the journey ahead.”

Delbert knew he and Red Bow needed holy time to gather their strength to get ready for the journey ahead. Jesus knew he needed holy time to gather his strength to get ready for the journey ahead. So too do we need holy time to gather our strength to get ready for the journey ahead.

The final way we are called to respond to the Lord follows after the four sought Jesus out. Jesus told them that they were not returning to Simon and Andrew’s house to heal those who came; they were going on to neighboring towns so that others may hear the message “for that is what I came out to do.” We are to follow Jesus’ example here again, we are to do what we have been sent to do.

It would have been easy, way too easy, for Jesus to become a one trick pony—healing those who were sick and demon possessed. Someone would have built a shrine so Jesus could hang out all day and take care of those who were brought to him. But healing the sick and demon possessed is a result of his ministry, not the root.

He left there because he was not sent to stay in one place; he came to go on so that he may proclaim the message to all of the lost sheep of Israel. For that is what he came out to do. While healing the sick and demon possessed was a part of his ministry, he came to proclaim the message that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”

We also are to discern what our mission; our vocation is in the kingdom of God. It may be something we can easily do—like Jesus healing the sick. Then again, that may be the symptom and not the source. That may be the tangent and not the whole curve.

Where the first part of our reading today shows us that the Lord has power and authority, the second half teaches us how to respond to the Lord who has power and authority. Jesus shows us restoration and what that entails. It entails service, prayer, and following. For me it is easy to do the scribely thing. In Christ, there is more than being scribely, there is authority. With authority comes responsibility to use it for the glory of the God.

Yes, let us rejoice that we have been restored to power after the storm, but let us remember that there is a restoration beyond the storm of the fall. Let us rejoice that this restoration is available to us through our Lord Jesus Christ, through his power and through his authority, an authority that is far beyond that of the scribes.

[1] Vonnegut, Kurt, Palm Sunday, Delacort
[2] “Pow-Wow Highway” reference from HomileticsOnline, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=93000118, retrieved on February 2, 2009.