The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Robert L. Griffin at the
Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, February 1, 2009.
In our gospel reading today, we can be reminded that the Gospel of Mark is
commonly accepted as the first to be written of the Gospels, some 40 years
following the execution of Jesus. Of the gospels, Mark’s is by far the one
that best reveals the human side of Jesus. Mark’s Jesus spends most of his
time performing incredible acts of mercy and is depicted as one seeking to
develop relationships.
We must also remember that the motivation of the gospel writers is not to
“preserve the facts about Jesus’ life on earth but to meet the many different
needs of the people in the newly formed first-century Christian community.”
Our modern churches today, like the spiritual communities of Jesus’ day,
are also made up of people with a great variety of spiritual needs. Our
affirmation: “Here at the Sunshine Cathedral, we are students and seekers of
truth…” speaks to our openness to truth from wherever it may come and our
willingness to evolve, change, and grow. We change, our needs change, and as
we evolve and move forward, we find new truths to minister to where we are at
any given time.
Mark, and the other New Testaments writers, are not only seeking truth,
they are daring to speak truth to power. They are learning that they can be
nourished by the spirit of truth no matter what is happening to them or around
them. Come what may, they can be sustained by their truth that they have
discovered themselves to be children of God.
It seems that Mark and his community belonged to that part of the early
Christian community which believed that Jesus was going to return very soon.
In order to be on guard and ready, Mark urged the people of his day, his
audience, to learn from his Jesus, the meaning of radical, here and now
discipleship, as if there were no tomorrow.
Mark is saying, we have one life, and we have no idea how long it will
last… what are we going to do with today? He is challenging his community to
not sit around star-gazing waiting for the return of Jesus. He’s encouraging
them to be active disciples, seekers of truth, bearers of hope, to be not just
hearers of the word, but also doers.
So, our story picks up today after Jesus has passed along the Sea of
Galilee, where he has called Simon, Andrew, James and John to leave their jobs
and to come follow him. Jesus and his small band of followers had traveled
from the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum. In antiquity, Capernaum was an important
city located on the NW shore of the Sea of Galilee. After Jesus left Nazareth,
Capernaum became the primary location of his ministry in
Galilee.[1]
After arriving in Capernaum, the Sabbath arrives and Jesus goes to the
synagogue. It does not say that his newly called followers went with him. It
just says he entered the synagogue and taught. Presumably, he taught those
that had come to worship. Neither Mark, nor the readers of Mark know exactly
what Jesus taught, but what Mark does reveal to us is that Jesus taught with
authority. Jesus did not speak like one of the scribes who were originally the
people that copied the scriptures and whose authority was based on their
ability to recite the opinion of many Rabbis on a given topic; this was not
Jesus’ approach.
Jesus did not need someone to interpret the Scripture for him, he spoke as
one who had the right to say what scripture meant to him — and that carried
with it what the hearers of Jesus described as “a new teaching with
authority”.
Jesus taught with such authority that it left people astounded and amazed.
Mark’s recording of Jesus’ first teaching is so powerful that Mark uses the
words “astounding” and “amazed” more than once in this short passage to
capture and emphasize what people must have felt at Jesus’ first teaching
moment. Mark wanted them to remember the passion with which Jesus, for
himself, interpreted the scriptures. He also wants to empower his readers to
be able to do the very same thing.
As often is the case, once a new thing happens, such as Jesus speaking with
authority, someone cries out! Someone attending the service, right there in
the synagogue, an unlikely person and unlikely voice; someone who just
appeared out of nowhere, someone who must have been hearing Jesus’ teaching,
just cried out. When we hear something new, even if it is empowering, we
sometimes react by resisting, by crying out. Empowerment scares us, change
scares us, and we are tempted to resist and sometimes resist loudly. But this
temptation can be an “unclean spirit”, that is, an unhealthy attitude.
Mark doesn’t tell us who this person is with the unhealthy attitude, the
unclean spirit is; what he does tell us is that he cried out, “What have you
to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” This not your typical sermon affirmation
like Amen, Preach It, Say That, That’s Right, YES… no this was a different
response to the challenging message Jesus has just given.
Now, what is worth pointing out is that Jesus never worried about becoming
unclean or sick by fraternizing with or touching the spiritually or physically
or morally unclean. To associate with the unclean would have meant Jesus would
be called unclean, but he didn’t seem to care. Jesus even seems to have gone
out of his way in some cases to minister to the so-called unclean, to those
unhappy souls who habitually cry out. He offended those who saw themselves as
the keepers of religious holiness, but he offered hope and healing to those
who were tormented by physical ailments and psychological demons.
The question a text like Mark 1 raises for us is: Are we more concerned
with public opinion than we are with reaching out, including, and empowering
society’s outcasts? The answer to this question in Jesus’ case seems obvious
from the very beginning in Mark. Jesus did not particularly care who he
scandalized if he believed he was doing God’s work and helping to bring in
God’s dominion. He was more concerned with personal wholeness than with public
perception; he was more concerned with who got the cure than with who got the
credit.
One might think that Jesus is the hero of this story, and you know what, he
very well could be. And what I do give Jesus credit for here is that he spoke
with authority and there was a response. However, the response didn’t come
from those you would consider to be likely suspects; it didn’t come from one
of the teachers, one of his newly called followers, one of the scribes. The
response came from an unlikely source, and that unlikely source becomes the
hero. The person, who is willing to hear Jesus’ challenge, and even after
responding with fear at first, finally allows the inner healing to take place.
Someone was different, wounded, hurt cries out, but also listens and also is
changed. Someone with an unclean spirit listens to Jesus, approaches Jesus,
cries out but also pours out his heart and in so doing his heart is made
clean. His attitude changes. He is renewed. He is healed. He is set free. In
Jesus’ presence, the unclean is worthy and because he is worthy he is made
clean.
Mark 1 challenges us today to ask, do we have any such people in our
congregations who show up for worship on Sunday mornings and think that there
are people who ought not to be there? Are there members who stifle any
attempts at bringing the church into a new century? Do we welcome children,
autistic persons, single parents, and people with AIDS? The person who has
been arrested for prostitution, the ex-convict, the married person who has
come to realize she is really a lesbian, or he is gay? The young, the elderly,
the transgender person, the interfaith couple — are they welcome? Should these
people be HERE? Mark’s story suggests the answer is YES! In the presence of
Christ ALL are welcome, all are worthy, and all have sacred value!
The unlikely voices of our passage reading this morning represents those
who are and have been on the margins of society crying out, Jesus what have
you to do with us? Jesus’ answer is, “I have love to share with you, healing
to offer you, hope to give you, acceptance for you, acknowledgment of your
sacred value… that’s what I have to do with you!”
Those who need a hand up cry out: Jesus, what have you to do with us?
Those who are not paid a decent wage cry out: Jesus, what have you to do
with us?
Those who are struggling to accept their sexual orientation cry out: Jesus,
what have you to do with us?
Those who know the pain of discrimination cry out: Jesus, what have you to
do with us?
There are the unlikely voices are among us this morning, one might be
sitting right next to you, crying within, Jesus, what have you to do with me?
And when Jesus said, “be silent and come out of him!” Jesus was offering
this person hope. Saying do not let whatever you are going through dictate
what your future will be, you are not your past problems, nor your current
circumstance. Let the fears and regrets come out of you so that you can come
into a place of hope and healing.
We are encouraged today to believe that there is meaning behind the visible
world. Call that meaning God, or Love, or the Process of Life, but there is
more than our difficulties, more than our disappointments, more than our pain.
We can seek the truth of life’s meaning for ourselves and come to believe that
Jesus has a place for us in the community of hope and empowerment. Together,
we can be the unlikely voices calling out for justice, compassion, and
reconciliation, and we can discover that we are the heroic souls that
experience the healing touch of God’s unconditional love. Amen.
[1]http://www.olivebranch.com/isreal/galilee.htm