2 Lent B Sermon

Peter didn't want to hear the truth. He didn't want to hear about death. Like us he didn't want to hear that the way of Christ involves taking up the cross.

2 Lent B

Transcribed from a sermon

Given on March 4, 2013

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Mark 8:31-38

I’ve been reading the biography of Steve Jobs, which is kind of long and very interesting. One of the things that has stuck with me is that when Steve Jobs was first diagnosed with cancer he didn’t believe it. He didn’t let it in. He was used to being in control. The book describes him as a very controlling, sometimes obnoxious, person, but also very effective genius. It reports that he had a reality distortion field around him. That you would come to him absolutely certain that you weren’t able to engineer what he wanted to have engineered and by the time you walked out the door you were convinced you could do it. He had this way of just changing reality to fit what he felt needed to happen. So when he was diagnosed with cancer that reality distortion field came into effect for himself as well as the people around him. But of course it didn’t change the cancer.

Sometimes it is really difficult to accept what we hear. People who work in hospice and with the dying often describe situations where a person is dying and their family comes up and says, “Don’t tell them they are dying. They don’t know.” Now usually the person who is dying knows full well that they are dying and would love to be able to talk to their family about it. But the family is not able to deal with it so instead they say, “It’s going to be fine. This next treatment is going to take care of it. Don’t worry. Why are you talking about death? You are going to be around a long time.”

We’ve all had times when we have found it hard to accept something that we have heard. Maybe it is when our daughter tells us that she is going to get married and she is much to young to get married. You know, twenty three, twenty six, still too young to get married.

Or when our son tells us that he has decided to join the Marines. And that was not what we had planned for our son. Or when a job we have had for many years in a company that we have trusted starts laying people off. It is hard to accept some things. Especially those things that change our sense of who we are, change our sense of the world around us and remind us that we are not in charge.

That takes us to our Gospel reading and Peter’s response to Jesus. First a little bit of context. In the verse before this one, before the first one we read today, Jesus has asked the disciples who they say he is. Peter has said for the first time, “You are the Christ.” So Peter has just pronounced that he believes that Jesus is the Messiah, and the next thing Jesus says is, “I’m going to be arrested, and persecuted, and suffer and die on the cross.” That would be like finding a candidate for president, a person who wasn’t very likely, and you get excited about it and you leave your home and you travel for a year and a half all over the country helping this candidate. Finally the polls are turning around and it looks like your candidate is going to be president. Everyone is excited about the possibility and then finally, as you are sitting around with the top people on the campaign, everybody says, “You will be the next president of the United States. You are going to change history.” Then the candidate looks at you and says, “No, I’m going to be assassinated next week.” What would you say? “Nooooo. You are not going to be assassinated! Don’t worry about it.”

So Peter’s response is perfectly understandable. He didn’t know what we know. He didn’t know about the cross. He didn’t know about the resurrection. And the predictions about the Messiah that the people believed then were that the Messiah was going to come and free them from Rome. He was going to be a military leader. He was going to change the culture, and was going to give them back their own community, their own state. They hadn’t focused on Isaiah’s prediction of a suffering servant. They focused on the New Jerusalem. So you can understand Peter. And Peter, much like we might do, was quietly took Jesus aside and said, “Um, excuse me, I’m your right hand man. I just told you that you are the Messiah. This thing about death doesn’t play well. It’s bad PR and it scares me terribly so please stop talking about that.” He obviously said it in a more severe way because the Greek word that is used and translated as rebuke is the same Greek word that is used when demons were cast out. When they rebuked the demons. So it must have been a pretty powerful thing that Peter said to Jesus.

Now Jesus doesn’t stay quietly talking to Peter, he turns and looks at the disciples, which means he brings all of the disciples into this conversation, and rebukes Peter and calls him Satan. That’s pretty intense. Satan the one who is going against God’s will. And then to make things even more difficult for Peter in trying to present Jesus, goes and tells the disciples, all these people that are gathered around, “If you want to follow me, take up you cross. If you want to follow me, plan on a horrible death. If you want to follow me, plan on suffering and loss.” Pretty powerful. It certainly wouldn’t sell real well today. Didn’t sell real well back then.

We are forced to admit that we have been told that we have to be willing to die if we are going to be Christ’s disciples. Of course we now know that eleven of the twelve died horrific, violent deaths. And since Jesus hundreds of thousands of Christians have died for their faith. Even today in parts of the world people die because they are Christian. Jesus was being pretty literal when he said that.

But what does that mean for us who are in the United States and very unlikely to die because of our beliefs? What does it mean for us to take up our cross? Well it means that we have to be willing to die to who we think we are. We have to be willing to ask for forgiveness when we’ve made a mistake. We have to be willing to have our egos decimated. We have to be willing to acknowledge that we are not in charge. We have to be willing, if we come to a place where there is a choice between our comfort and doing what we feel God is calling us to do, to chose that which God is calling us to do.

That’s what it means to take up our cross. People wear crosses today. Some people wear crosses or keep one in their pocket. And it is worn for many different reasons. Some people wear a cross because it is a fashion statement. At least a few years ago it was a big fashion statement to wear a cross or a cross in you ear with no belief in Jesus. Some people wear the cross to affirm that they are Christians. Some people wear the cross with a sense that somehow it will protect them. Some people wear a cross to remind them that Christ loves us so much that he died for us. But also, the cross needs to be a reminder that we are called to love Christ so much that we are willing to die for him.

The First Sunday in Lent year B

   What happens to us when we finally give up trying to do things ourselves, our own way, when we admit that we are powerless, and we make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God? Well, the first thing we discover is that we are so much more than we ever imagined, we are beloved children of God, and then we find ourselves struggling with temptation.

1 Lent B

Sermon given on 2/16/97

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St Alban’s Episcopal Church, Brentwood

Mark 1:9-13

            I find the timing of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness very interesting. Here he is, just having been baptized. He, as had many others, had come to this strange person John who was preaching repentance, transformation, and asking people to recommit themselves to God - to turn themselves over to the care of God and symbolically acknowledge that commitment, that new way of life, with baptism.

            Jesus must have in some sense recommitted himself to God. He offered himself to do God’s will and showed that commitment through entering the water with John. What he discovered was that he was so much more than he could have imagined (now I don’t want to theologically argue about how self aware Christ was, none of us will ever know for sure, but let’s assume for this day that his humanness was showing.) What Jesus discovered, when he committed himself to God, was that he was the beloved Son of God, and that God was pleased with him. And immediately he went off into the wilderness and was tempted.

            What happens to us when we finally give up trying to do things ourselves, our own way, when we admit that we are powerless, and we make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God? Well, the first thing we discover is that we are so much more than we ever imagined, we are beloved children of God, and then we find ourselves struggling with temptation.

            It is like a limousine that is being driven by a driver. For years the driver has gone wherever he wanted. He choose which roads to drive, often he found himself at dead ends because he had no particular place to go, or in a ditch, but he continued to make decisions and learned to cope with driving. Then one day, there is a knock on the window between the driver’s seat and the passenger area. The driver discovers that not only is the owner riding in the limousine, but that the owner has woken up and has now decided that he will decide where the car will go. A great battle ensues over who will decide where the car goes and what roads to take, how fast to drive, etc. In this image, the driver is the ego - that sense of ourselves that is the decision maker. We all have an ego, and it serves an important job. It drives the car, it makes practical decisions, and it has learned to survive, to keep us alive, through the chaos of our lives. But it has no destination. It just drives, so often it ends up in dead ends, or off the road. At some point in our lives we wake up. Then our higher self that longs for God wakes up. That part of us that knows what is right and good and wants to return to a state of grace wakes up. Perhaps it has taken an accident, a crisis, or we were awoken by a word from someone. But at some point we decide that this driver, this ego, is out of control, is not leading us to where we really want to go, and we attempt to reassert our authority as the owner of the vehicle.

            This is equivalent to when we decide to turn our will over to God. We decide that we will follow where God leads. BUT!!!

            It is not that simple. Often there is a feeling of relief and release as we offer ourselves to God. We discover that we are loved by God and we yearn to follow God’s will, BUT!!

            Our egos are in the habit of deciding where we go and what we do. In fact our egos are just full of habits. And habits do not dissolve easily. We find ourselves wrestling with ourselves. The better part of ourselves continues to turn our will over to God; our habitual patterns keep popping up. The ego realizes that if this newly awake owner really takes control, the ego’s control is over. The ego feels like it will have to die. And one thing that our egos are good at, in fact their purpose in life, is to stay alive.

            Jesus turned his life over to God at his baptism and then had to struggle with the temptation to listen to his ego instead of to God’s will. And what a temptation it must have been. To know on the one hand that you are all-powerful and could rule the earth with the flick of your finger and on the other hand to know that to follow God’s will would mean walking steadily to the cross.

            A commentator on this scripture wrote: “Temptation is made up of the illusion that happiness can be found in anything less than God, and for something less than paying the full price, which is ourselves.”

            Christ was tempted to take the easy way. Christ was tempted to follow something other than God’s will, yet out of love, out of love for us, he choose his own death.

            We are tempted over and over again to follow our old patterns, our old habits. We are continually tempted to think that we can find happiness someplace other than with God. We are tempted to look for happiness in things (one more purchase and I’ll really be happy) in relationships (when I find the right man/woman then I’ll be happy) in addictions (just one more drink won’t hurt) in work (with the next promotion I’ll be content) or in so many other ways. Yet none will bring us the peace and joy we are truly seeking. That is only found in God. But it is found at the cost of our own egos.

            We are tempted to think we can do it on our own, but we cannot be made whole without first giving ourselves wholly to God.

            I am so glad that the story of Christ’s temptation is a part of our scriptures, for it is so reassuring to know that I am not alone in facing the inner struggle between the part of me that yearns for God, that yearns to give myself wholly to God, and the part of myself that still insists on being “in control.” And it is reassuring to know, that with God’s help, I can conquer those temptations one at a time.

Ash Wednesday

"NOW is the acceptable time," writes Paul. Ash Wednesday is a yearly reminder of our mortality and that all we have is right now. It begins the season of Lent in which we are offered an opportunity to get things right and be reconciled to God. 

Ash Wednesday

February 22, 2012

Transcribed from a sermon given by

Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

2 Corinthians 5:20b - 6:10

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Paul writes, “Now is the acceptable time.” Now! And Joel, the prophet, who like all the prophets said that God is unhappy with the way the Israelites are living, tells them that even now if you turn around, even now, if right now you change, repent, things could be different. NOW! Now is such a strong word, especially for those of us who are procrastinators.

It is a reminder that is now is the time. The paper you have been putting off writing is due now. The job you haven’t finished is due now. The phone call you have been meaning to make needs to be done NOW. There is no time. It is right now.

Because the truth is, that is all we have. All we have is now. It is Ash Wednesday. After my sermon I will bless ashes and put them on each person’s forehead. Each time I put them on I will say, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return. I will do that with those who are older, with those who are in mid life and with the children who come forward. It is a reminder that this body in the not too distant future will be dust.

On Ash Wednesday I sometimes think about the people I have come to love at St. Barnabas who are now dust in the memorial garden. Remember that you are dust, like the flowers in the field that are here today and dust tomorrow. It is sobering. It reminds us of our mortality.

The church every year has this service so that no one forgets and everyone remembers that all we really have is now. Some of us here now may live 50, 60 even 70 more years. Some may die in a year, some in a month, and maybe some won’t make it through the night. None of us know. All we have is now.

And what are we to do now? What Paul tells us we are to do now is to be reconciled to God. To be reconciled, what does that mean? Reconciliation means being in right relationship and that is really what sin is about. Sin is about not living in a right relationship. Not living in a right relationship with God, not living in a right relationship with other people, or not living in a right relationship with yourself.

So tonight, at the beginning of Lent, we are reminded that NOW is the time to get things right. Now is the time to reflect upon our relationships and see what needs to change. Who needs to be contacted? Do you have a brother or sister you haven’t spoken with that needs a call? Or a neighbor that you had a fight with and you need to make up with? Or perhaps you are not in right relationship with yourself. I’ve noticed that most of the time when people say that they are going to give something up for Lent the thing they are giving up for lent is something they really should give up for the rest of their lives. (Except of course chocolate.)

What I mean is that when someone says, “I’m going give up smoking for Lent” I think,  “Good start,” but I hope you never smoke again. You are not in right relationship with yourself if you are hurting yourself. And now is the time to look at whether you are treating yourself the way you would want to treat others. If you are working too much, now is the time to reconsider. If you are finding yourself sitting around too much, now is the time to start walking. If you are ignoring feelings, now is the time to understand them and express them. If you find yourself in a situation that is not healthy for you, now is the time to love yourself and be in right relationship with you.

Now is the time for reconciliation with God. The wonderful thing about reconciliation is that God longs for that relationship even more than you do. Remember the story of the prodigal son who takes half of his father’s estate and throws it all away and turns around and comes back. All he has to do is take a few steps toward home and his father is running toward him. All we have to do is turn around a little bit toward God, make a first step, a first effort to be reconciled with God, and God runs to meet us because of God’s mercy. It is that mercy that is talked about in the psalm we just read and in Joel, where it says that God is a merciful God slow to anger and quick to forgive.

I started out by talking about our mortality. This service begins with the Ashes and the reminder that we are mortal, at least that our bodies are mortal, But the service ends with the Eucharist, with the Holy Communion, in which we remember that Christ died for us so that we will never die. So there is some part of us that lives, that is beyond the dust the makes us up. Through God’s mercy and in God’s love we are promised not just forgiveness, but everlasting life. And NOW, right now is the right time to be reconciled to God and your neighbor and yourself.

Transfiguration - The Last Sunday of Epiphany

This coming Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday. I didn't have a sermon based on the year B reading in Mark, so I am sharing a sermon I gave based on the story of the Transfiguration in Luke. There are a few references to something in Luke that is not in Mark, but the important points could apply to either.
I look at the nature of peak experiences and what we are called to be and do afterward. I hope you find something useful here.

Transfiguration

Last Sunday in Epiphany

Transcribed from a sermon given

By Rev. Valerie Hart on

February 12, 2013

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

How many of you have had a peak experience, a mountaintop experience, in your life? I won’t make you raise your hands, but I see some people nodding. Peak experience is a term that was coined by Abraham Maslow back in the 60’s. He is a psychologist who was studying psychological health in individuals rather than pathology. He found that many people describe an experience in which for some period of time, usually for a matter of minutes or less, they had a sense of oneness, and wholeness, a sense of perfection where everything was just right. They described a deep sense of peace and joy. Often with this experience comes a sense of unity, sometimes purpose and sometimes a sense of being loved, but definitely a sense that that moment, that peak experience moment was just perfect. Sometimes people have this in nature.  It could happen when you are off in the mountains and it is just a beautiful day. I remember a time I was in Yosemite and I was hiking by myself up the trail that leads to Yosemite falls. I was about 1/3 of the way up. The temperature was perfect - it wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t too cold. I had been exercising so all those endorphins were going. I looked out and was looking down at the trees and there was a hawk flying down below where I was standing. It was just perfect. Nothing needed to be changed. It was a wonderful moment.

Sometimes people have a peak experience with a sunset or at the ocean. Sometimes people have this experience with some kind of artistic endeavor like hearing great music. I remember once feeling like that hearing Beethoven’s ninth symphony played live. It could be through a painting or dance.

Sometimes people have such an experience with another person, someone they love, someone they care about like a child or a grandchild. And of course some people experience it in church, or on a retreat, or at Cursillo or after they have been praying. It doesn’t matter.

You see Maslow was not trying to be religious he was trying to be scientific so he didn’t talk about it in religious terms, but what he described is the same thing that mystics describe as a mountaintop experience. In all the spiritual traditions of the world, mountains are often seen as a special place. Mountaintops represent being close to God. The temple is described as being on the holy mountain even though there are higher mountains around where the temple of Jerusalem is. That was the holy mountain. The idea is that somehow being on a mountain brings us closer to God. Moses went up the mountain to converse with God. And we hear today about the Transfiguration where Jesus went up a mountain.

We always read the transfiguration on this Sunday, which is the last Sunday before the beginning of Lent - the last Sunday in Epiphany. It is a transitional time. It is a time where the focus of our readings goes from Jesus’ ministry to his journey to Jerusalem and to the cross. At this time of transition he goes up on the mountain; he has a mountaintop experience. I thought it would be helpful to take that experience apart.

It begins with Jesus inviting Peter, John and James to join him up on the mountain. It is an invitation; it is a gift. So they go up on the mountain with him and it is interesting that when they get to the mountain it is said that they were weighed down with sleep but they stayed awake. I think that is an important part of peak experiences. On this the mountaintop the disciples stayed awake, but later, at Gethsemane, as Jesus was praying and he had asked them to stay awake then they fell asleep and they missed something important. So, to have a mountaintop experience you need to be awake. Sometimes spiritual writers describe everyday life as being a kind of asleep. Did you ever have a morning when you’ve gotten up and it gets to be noon and you are not quite sure what happened during the morning because you weren’t really there?  Or you were driving along and you know you went through that light but you don’t remember whether it was green. You are kind of on automatic and you are not really awake. You are not really paying attention to what is going on. Peak experiences always happen when one is paying attention. You don’t have a peak experience watching a sunset if you don’t stop to watch the sunset. Have you ever been out where there are other people, maybe at the beach or somewhere, and there is this gorgeous sunset going on and you stop and are amazed at how beautiful it is. Then you look around you and everybody else is just walking around. Nobody notices. There is this incredible beauty around them and nobody notices. But then again I can think of more than one time when I have been driving up 101 and seen a sunset over Shell Beach and just kept driving. I didn’t pull over and stop. We have to be awake and pay attention. Pay attention to what’s going on.

Then we have the description of Jesus. He is standing with Moses and Elijah. And the interpretation is that Moses and Elijah represent the two strands of Jewish spirituality - the two ways in which Jewish people grow closer to God. One was the law that Moses brought down from the mountain and the other was the prophets who spoke out for social justice. They represent two ways to serve God. The first was to follow the rules. To do your best to follow all the Law, the rules. And the other was social justice, to do your best to enhance everyone’s life and concern for the needy. In the middle stands Jesus. Jesus represents love and mercy, because you see trying to find God through the law without mercy doesn’t work because none of us can follow all the rules perfectly all the time. If we really want to find God through the law there has to be a sense of mercy. And if we are trying to find God through social justice, social justice is hollow if there isn’t love and compassion, if it isn’t coming from your heart. The conclusion, the summation of the Law and the prophets, is represented by Christ and his love and his mercy.  At least that is one of the ways it has been interpreted.

Then Jesus becomes bright, shining, glowing. His clothes are glowing. His body is glowing. He is profoundly beautiful. We heard in the first reading how when Moses came down from the mountain after being with God he glowed. He glowed so much that it terrified the people and he had to put a veil over his face. Here we have Jesus glowing.

It is called transfiguration as if Jesus changed, but I’ve always believed that Jesus never changed. It was the disciples who changed because if Jesus really was who we say he is than he glowed all the time. But he put a veil over himself. He disguised himself because he couldn’t walk around the streets as a human and interact with people if he had glowed like that all the time. In some of the Eastern traditions they talk about God and the universe as being covered by a thousand veils and when we have an experience of God it means that one of the veils has been pulled back. We see a little more clearly. I think the transfiguration was like that. Up on that mountain Christ pulled back one of the veils. The disciples could see just a hint of who he really was. I think that is what peak experiences are too. When for a moment the veil is pulled back from our eyes and we get a hint, we get a momentary glimpse of what the universe really is. We see that the universe really is perfect and beautiful and filled with love and joy.

Now of course what Peter does, and I love Peter, is that he says lets build some little booths, lets build some structures so we can stay here. If any of you have had those mountaintop experiences you want to stay there. The peak experience feels really good. You don’t want to come down from that. You go off on retreat, you go to Cursillo, you go to a men’s retreat, you go to something like that and it is so wonderful that the last thing you want to do is go home. You want to stay there. But unfortunately you can’t live on the mountaintop. We are not allowed to live there.

At that point a cloud comes over, and the cloud represents the presence of God, as it does in the Old Testament. A cloud appears, God is present, and God says, “This is my son, my chosen, listen to him.” Now it is interesting that in Luke the voice of God says “my chosen” but in this same story in Matthew and Mark God says “my beloved.” In fact in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible there is a little footnote next to the word chosen and it says other texts say beloved. What that means is that other ancient Greek texts that they have found instead of saying chosen say beloved. The people who translated the New Revised Standard Version decided, of the two options, to use chosen because you must remember that these early manuscripts were copied by hand. You can imagine some copyist who has just finished doing Mark and Matthew and knows the scriptures really well is copying this manuscript and it says ‘my chosen’. He may think that that’s not right, it’s ‘my beloved’. You can imagine the person changing my chosen to my beloved. You can’t imagine someone reading beloved and changing it to chosen, so the New Revised Standard Version decided that the chosen must have been the original. This is an example of why we can’t take the Bible literally word by word because we don’t know for sure what the original words when they were written down. We just have a whole bunch of copies that sometimes don’t agree.

But chosen or beloved are very similar in the sense that it says there is a unique relationship with God. To be God’s chosen is similar to being God’s beloved. This is a part of those peak experiences, those mountaintop experiences, because very often in the midst of that experience there is a sense of being loved, of mattering, of being special, special in God’s eyes as a parent, loved in God’s eyes as a parent. And to know and experience that love of God is a transformative thing.

The next thing it is that they said nothing to anyone for a while. The scripture indicates that they didn’t say anything until the resurrection. The came down form this incredible experience and didn’t tell anybody.

It is interesting that in the 60’s when they were doing research on peak experiences they found out that almost 80 percent of people they talked to had had some kind of peak experience but only 20 percent of them had ever told anyone about it. It is hard to tell people about those experiences. They are precious to us. We don’t want someone making fun of us, or saying it didn’t happen, or saying that we are crazy. And it is so hard to put those kinds of experiences into words. When we describe those experiences somehow description doesn’t feel adequate.

So they come down from the mountain and the next day they are back to work. You don’t get to stay on the mountain. The next day it is back to work. There is a crowd, they want things from Jesus and Jesus is healing people. Back to the way it was. That is what happens with peak experiences. That’s what happens when you are on the mountaintop. You’ve tot to come back down to the valley. The mountaintop is a time of refreshment and renewal. It is a promise of what it is like to be with God, a hint, a gift, of an opening or a pulling away of the veil. But ultimately it is about coming back down to the valley and getting back to work. You are left with the question what do you do after you have come down from the mountain?

This Lent I’m using this to focus my Lenten studies and probably my preaching. I would like invite you to consider doing the same. Lent begins on Wednesday by the way. It is kind of early this year. Ash Wednesday is coming up in just a couple of days. Usually during lent we focus on repentance and repentance involve two things, it means acknowledging the was we haven’t been living the way we would like to live and the other half of that is the turning around and living the life that you want to lead, that you know you should be leading.  Usually during Lent we have a lot of emphasis on the “I’m sorry “ and “Please forgive me” part, but this lent I invite you to think about the “Okay, then what?” question. You’ve been forgiven for the stuff from the past and loved by God so now what? Now what do I do with that   How do I respond to this? What is God calling me to do and be now as a forgiven sinner, a beloved child, as one who is chosen?

Also we are having the annual meeting after the service today and it is a wonderful thing for us to gather together and think about what are we called to do and be as a community. How are we to be living our lives here down on the plain after we’ve had those mountaintop experiences? So I invite you all to ask that question and see where it leads you. To explore what it is that God is calling you to do and be today.

5 Epiphany B, Mark1:29-39

She is lying in the back room with a fever when her son-in-law invites a large group of people to the house. Someone walks in, takes her hand, lifts her up and she starts to serve everyone. What are we to make of this?

5 Epiphany B

Transcribed from a sermon given

February 5, 2012

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Mark 1:29-39

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

I used to have a really difficult time with this story of the healing of Simon’s Mother-in-law. The feminist in me couldn’t stand the thought of this woman getting up from a fever and immediately serving everybody. What’s that about?

But this time, as I’ve been working with this particular passage, I have come to a different understanding. I have thought a lot about this woman, this mother-in-law of Simon, who would later be called Peter. This story takes place very early in Jesus’ ministry. People don’t know him very well. Now I’m a mother-in-law and I have a wonderful son-in-law. He is a loving solid person who has a good job and cares about my daughter. I try to imagine how I would feel if some strange wandering spiritual leader came along and said, “Follow me” and my son-in-law left his job and started wandering around with a group of strange people. I wonder how this woman felt about Jesus, especially since she was sick, had a fever and was lying in back room of the house when Simon invited Jesus and all the disciples and all these people who want to be healed into their home.

Now they didn’t have big houses. I was in Capernaum when I was in Israel and they have excavated the town from the first century and you can see the foundations of the houses. They are tiny, tiny by any standards. They are three or four ten by ten rooms, maybe a little courtyard no bigger than that. This was not a house where she was off at the other end could have quiet. This was a tiny place. And yet her son-in-law Simon brings this entire crowd with him. I wonder what she was thinking. I don’t have any idea, but I like to use my imagination and think about how people, how characters, might have been thinking.

But then what happens is very interesting. It is very short, just one little sentence, but Jesus comes to her in her bed and he takes her hand and lifts her up. There is something sweet and tender in that gesture. He doesn’t come into the room proclaiming healing, he doesn’t do any laying on of hands, and he doesn’t make any mud or touch her ears or any of that stuff. He doesn’t demand a demon leave. Instead it is very gentle and very tender. He reaches down and takes her hand and lifts her up. What a wonderful image for healing. Christ taking our hand and lifting us up.

In the readings today we hear from someone else who was healed, and that is from Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. Now, remember that Paul had his issues, he had his demons. When Christianity started he was furious; he was filled with anger. He wanted to destroy them and he supported stoning Christians. He was so obsessed with getting rid of this heretical group that he was traveling all around searching for them. He was on his way to Damascus when Christ came to him. Maybe in not so gentle a way. He got knocked off of his donkey. But Christ came to him and healed him. Not necessarily of a physical illness, but from whatever it was that caused him to be filled with so much rage and resentment and need to control. He was transformed. What he says in his letter today is,  “I am obliged to preach the Gospel.” He has to do it. Nobody is making him do it, but there is an inner compulsion and need for him to serve - to tell others.

I think that is something that happens when we are healed, when we experience the loving, healing touch of Christ. It was thirty years ago when I had brain surgery and I will never forget that after the surgery everything looked different. The sky was a brighter blue; the trees were a deeper green, having faced the potential of my own mortality and coming through it. Even though there would be struggles in the recovery, coming through it I felt this profound thankfulness for being alive. I discovered that I started praying,“How can I serve?” At the time I wasn’t even an active Christian yet for several years I asked,” How can I serve?" There was some way in which the thankfulness for my life and my health meant I needed to give back. It was not contract. There was no sense that God healed me in order for me to give back. There was no sense of debt. It was just what else could I do with the thanksgiving that I had but to serve.

It took a couple of years, and no one was more surprised than I was when the answer was to be ordained. But I like Paul, I have to give back, because when I don’t there is no joy and when I do it is full and complete. And so when I think about this woman whose hand was lifted up by Christ - when it says she served them this wasn’t some woman who was told she should get in the kitchen, this was a person who was healed and needed to serve in whatever way she could.

We all need Christ’s healing. We all have aspects of ourselves that are not whole and complete. We may have physical ailments, we may have psychological struggles, depression, anger, fear, and we all have demons, those things that control us, our addictions, our fears, our resentments, the old hurts that still are percolating around in there. We all have demons we need to be freed from. Each and every one of us needs to be healed.

I’d like to invite you to close your eyes and think about and open up to what needs to be healed in you. Give it a word or a phrase or an image. A physical ailment, a psychological problem, an inner demon, a spiritual questioning, a sense of hopelessness, whatever it is, what needs to be healed? And then invite Christ to take your hand and to lift you up.

(Pause)

And if you feel now or in the future a sense of the healing power of Christ’s love you might find, you just might find, you might find yourself asking, “How can I serve?”