Monthly Archives: February 2024

Good Lord, Deliver Us: A Sermon for 1LentB, 2024

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February 18, 2024

I love the Great Litany! I know it’s unfamiliar and strange to most of you. We use it only once a year at Grace, on the First Sunday in Lent and I’m guessing some of you, perhaps most of you, didn’t pay close attention to the words as they were chanted by Margaret as she has done every year I’ve been at Grace.

The Great Litany is one of those things that connects us powerfully to the past—to the past of the Anglican tradition, and also to the deeper past of our common humanity. It’s actually the first liturgical text created in English by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, published in 1544 and used throughout the kingdom in the runup to Henry VIII’s military campaigns in Scotland and France. It was then included in the first Book of Common Prayer published in 1549, and republished and altered throughout the centuries.

The version we use has been cleaned up a good bit: there is no mention in the 1979 version of the “detestable enormities of the bishop of Rome” for example. But even our version connects us to the fragility of human life in the pre-modern period; reminders that childbirth was dangerous for both mother and child, that life was hard, short, and subject to the violence of nations and nature.

Twenty years ago, I might have drawn attention to the apparent dissimilarities between the pre-modern world and our own, as science and technology seemed to have protected us from so many of the dangers faced by earlier generations. But now, we are learning how tenuous life on earth and life in community are—we are living through plague and pestilence, earthquakes, fires, drought, and flood, and wars are ravaging.

To be confronted with this ancient text, its roots lie much deeper than 16thcentury England, in fact may feel like someone has poured cold water over our heads, shocking our system, our sensibilities, taking us out of our comfort zone. In that way, the Great Litany is very much like the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. As familiar as that rite may be, to hear, or say “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” strips us bare of all of our defenses, and reminds us profoundly, and utterly, of our humanity and our mortality, and our dependence on God for our lives.

Lent should disrupt us and our lives. Just as the ashes on Ash Wednesday remind us of our humanity, mortality, and the fragility of our existence, so to does the Great Litany remind us of our dependence on God, and the struggles-physical, spiritual, communal that we face day by day. Both of them call us to refocus our lives on the God who created us and on Jesus Christ, through whose death and resurrection we begin to experience our remaking in the image of God.

Each year, our gospel is the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. That’s a little bit of a misleading title, at least for the Gospel of Mark. For in these few verses, we see it all, the transition from baptism, to wilderness, to preaching the reign of God and we’re encouraged to see the connections between these three elements. But even as we do that, we’re probably inclined to overlook the brevity and simplicity of Mark’s version of Jesus in the wilderness, and what he might be trying to teach us.

Here’s Mark’s version: 

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Perhaps the most important thing in Mark’s terse description of these events is the connections between Jesus’ baptism and the wilderness. I have stressed several times already the violent language Mark used in describing the baptism—the heavens were torn apart, ripped apart, and the Holy Spirit came down. Now, we see similar violent language in his description of the Holy Spirit.

What can Mark have meant by telling us that “immediately the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness?” “drove” that’s powerful, almost violent language, and indeed it’s the very same word that Mark uses to describe Jesus’ actions and power when he drives unclean spirits out of possessed people. And we might go further and see a deeper connection—the Holy Spirit entered into Jesus at his baptism, possessed him, we might say. 

There’s something else worth noting. Our translation says Satan “tempted” him, in fact, a better translation would be tested, not tempted. That is to say, rather than be enticed or lured away from his mission, Mark seems to be suggesting that he is being assessed, evaluated—will he be up to the task that is set before him?

All of this takes place in the wilderness, where Jesus was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him. That’s all Mark tells us; that’s all he thinks we need to know. We don’t know the content of the “testing” nor do we know Jesus’ mental or spiritual state as he was undergoing it. All we know is that when he returned from the wilderness and his testing, he began his public ministry, proclaiming the good news of the reign of God. 

The wilderness is a rich image, one with a lengthy history in the biblical tradition, going back to the sojourn of the Hebrews in the wilderness. Whatever else the wilderness might have been, it was wild, as Mark’s mention of the “wild beasts” emphasizes. The wilderness is not civilized; it is not a safe place. 

All of us have experienced such wild and dangerous places. All of us have sojourned in the wilderness, whether for forty days or forty years. Some of us may feel ourselves in such a place today. We may be struggling to experience God’s presence in our lives; we may sense that we are beset by wild beasts or other struggles. Our spiritual lives may seem as dry and barren as a desert. We may be lost and discern no way forward.

Certainly, today, this week, we may feel very much like we are in a wilderness, in uncharted territory, beset by dangers. And whether our wilderness is something only we are experiencing—struggles in our families or work, with illness, or doubt, or it is because of larger events in our community, nation or world, it can very much seem like we are lost and alone. 

It’s important to remember that Jesus experienced his period of testing after his baptism, after receiving the powerful affirmation of who he was. He had heard the voice from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved.” That affirmation went with him into the wilderness, into his period of testing and it went with him when he emerged and began his public ministry.

It is an affirmation we too have heard, that we are God’s beloved children. Like Jesus, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us to do God’s work in the world. We might even see ourselves like Jesus, driven into the wilderness, driven by the Holy Spirit into the world, to do that work. 

Lent is a time when we are inclined to focus on internal work—on prayer, reflection, other spiritual disciplines. In the face of the horrible tragedies that we witness, and all of the problems that are swirling around in our culture and news, it often seems both like prayer is all that we can do, and that prayer is much too little, ineffectual. Praying the Great Litany, as powerful as its language is, may seem like little more than play-acting in the face of the world’s problems. But even as we are pleading with God to intervene, to save and protect us, the words of the litany are also working on and in us, as prayer always should. Those powerful and ancient words are shaping us, remaking us, helping us to see ourselves with new eyes and opening our hearts to God’s presence and redemptive work.

Jesus came back from the wilderness having claimed his call, found his voice. He returned from the wilderness and began his public ministry, healing the sick, casting out demons, proclaiming God’s reign. Remembering our baptisms, empowered by the Holy Spirit, may this Lent be not only a time of testing and reflection, but a time when we find our voices and call, and proclaim with renewed hope and courage, the good news of the coming of God’s reign.

Waiting, Serving, Healing: A Sermon for Epiphany 5B, 2024

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February 4, 2024

Last Sunday we sang one of my favorite hymns; the great Charles Wesley, “O for a thousand tongues to sing.” It’s one of the hymns I know practically by heart, one that I’ve sung dozens of times. As familiar as it is, like many hymns, its words can strike differently in different contexts. Take verse 6, for example:

Hear him, ye Deaf; ye voiceless ones,
Your loosen’d Tongues employ;
Ye Blind behold your Saviour’s come,
And leap, ye Lame for Joy. 

On the surface, unremarkable, perhaps but it points to something significant, and challenging in our times. We hear and say a lot about welcoming people, embracing people of different ethnicities and sexualities, of accommodating people with physical or mental challenges but especially in the latter cases—there are often unspoken assumptions that may raise barriers to full acceptance or engagement in the community. We often don’t realize how our hymns, and our scriptures can be such barriers. 

When we come to Jesus’ healing miracles, we may, unconsciously or subconsciously compare them to our own common life—looking to fix or heal other people rather than seeing them as challenging us to grow, and change, and learn. Some of you may recall a sermon a year or so ago in which I referenced the book: My Body is not your prayer request in which the author, Amy Kenny advocates for disability justice in the church.

There are physical barriers that have been constructed, and there are psychological, and even religious barriers that we erect that make full inclusion difficult, if not impossible.

In this little story, in these few verses, Mark has once again packed a world of ideas. First of all, think about the difference in settings between the healing that occurs in today’s story, and the story last week. Last Sunday, a possessed man was rid of an unclean spirit in a public space, in the midst of the synagogue. Today’s story takes place in private, in a home, in domestic space. 

There is a difference as well in the healing and in its aftermath. The unclean spirit, recognizes and identifies Jesus—You are the Holy One of God, but wants nothing to do with Jesus, and we don’t know what happens to him after the exorcism. In a way, the possessed man and Simon’s mother-in-law are in the same situation. They are both debilitated by their maladies, and by definition, they are robbed of whatever status and role they might have had. The possessed man can only disrupt synagogue services, and Simon’s mother-in-law is bed-ridden. Jesus’ act of healing, in both cases, restores them to their roles. 

There’s something else worth noting in Mark’s brief description of the healing. There’s a tenderness, an intimacy in Jesus’ actions. He reaches down to touch her, and “lifts her up”—language evocative of other healing stories in the gospel and of the resurrection.

Cured of her illness, Simon’s mother-in-law served Jesus and the others. But it is interesting. It’s interesting not because it is behavior we might expect of a woman in a traditional culture, or too often, in our own. Our culture, indeed our church continues to be conflicted about such roles. In the context of Mark’s gospel and early Christianity, her serving takes on added significance. For one thing, the term used is the greek word, diakonia, which of course is the word from which our own word, deacon, comes. But there’s more, much more. It’s the same word that appears just a few verses earlier, in Mark’s description of the temptation in the wilderness. V. 13 reads: “He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” The word translated here as “waited” is the same word used in our reading of Peter’s mother-in-law: “she began to serve them.”

 Much later, at the crucifixion, Mark tells us that there were women watching from afar, and Mark writes that these women had followed Jesus and “served him” in Galilee. They were his disciples, and as we shall see, in some ways these women were model disciples, disciples who stayed with him, while the men ran away.

To put it clearly. Jesus’ healing of Simon’s mother-in-law is not just about restoring her to her community and to her role. It is about equipping her to be a disciple. She got up and served them. We might be tempted to see this as her simply returning to the traditional, role of a wife and mother in a patriarchal culture. But for Mark, it’s more than that. She stands as a disciple, one who follows Jesus and ministers to him. She stands as a contrast to the unclean spirit who wanted to have nothing to do with Jesus. She also stands in contrast to those other disciples who came looking for Jesus when he went away for prayer and solitude.

This little gospel reading is challenging in so many ways, not because we have to struggle to make meaning out of it, but because it reflects our own situation, our own relationships with Jesus. Imagine the scene, after these two healings, everyone with a problem comes to Jesus. They’ve heard of his miraculous powers, and they want him to help them. We can imagine the scene. Dozens, hundreds of people waiting in line, pressing at him to get his attention, to feel his healing touch. At the end of it all, Jesus is exhausted, worn out, and he goes away by himself to pray and recover. Mark writes: 

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”

It’s a telling moment in Mark’s gospel, a rare occasion when Jesus is off by himself. After all that excitement and work, he needs to be by himself, recover and rejuvenate, to pray, to be with God

But even then he’s not left alone. His disciples come after him. The text says, “they hunted him down.” And what do they do? Do they ask, “How can we help? How can we serve you?” No, they tell him the obvious, that everyone’s looking for you.

Jesus responds enigmatically, saying, we’re not going back. We’re moving on. I’ve got more work to do. “I have to go elsewhere, to other towns, and proclaim the good news there.” Jesus turns his back on Capernaum, he turns his back on whoever back there he might not have healed, or whoever might have come late and missed their chance, and he moves on proclaiming the good news, of the coming of God’s reign.

In a way it’s a fitting end to this story, and brings us back to the beginning of my sermon. For even Jesus couldn’t do it all; he needed time to regroup, time to be with God, to deepen his relationship with God before embarking on a new mission in new territory. None of us can do it by ourselves. To respond to God’s call, to serve those in need require skill, and energy. But it also requires us to make room for others, to enable others to serve and do their part. 

One of the things I’m learning as I enter this stage of my ministry, is to make room for those others, to give others space and opportunity to use their gifts and skills, to follow their passions, to respond to God’s call in ways that are appropriate to their context, their experience, and their abilities. As a congregation, we would do well to hear that message, to follow Jesus, to equip and make room for everyone to serve the body of Christ, to be the body of Christ.

The words from Isaiah call us to remember the importance of bringing those burdens to God, as Jesus brought his to God in prayer. As we think about the upcoming season of Lent; they may inspire us: 

but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.

Amen.