when love comes to town: Raised up... to serve

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Sunday, February 5, 2012. For the next few weeks leading up to Lent, I will be reflecting on different aspects of our mission statement. This week I look at what it means to be a "gathered community."

To live as a person of faith is risky business. Faith asks us to move beyond our comfort zones into mission, it encourages us to place our addictions and
wounds in God’s hands in exchange for grace and it invites us to let go of our small realities so that we might live more fully within the awesome presence of God’s kingdom. “Every day,” writes Eugene Peterson, “I am asked to put faith on the line."

You see, I have never seen God. And in a world where nearly everything can be weighed, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control I am asked to persist in making the center of my life
a God whom no eye hath seen, nor ear heard and whose will no one can probe. That’s risky business…

To some this risky business seems foolish – to others it appears to be a waste of time – to some faith is just embarrassing and for still others it is downright offensive. That’s what St. Paul is saying to us in this morning’s reading from I Corinthians 4.

It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties.

You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don't have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, "God bless you." When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We're treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture's kitchen. And it's not getting any better.

Faith – a life lived in the real world but guided by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – is risky business. And that’s fundamentally why God gave birth to the church – all churches and any church – Roman Catholic or Protestant, Anglican or Orthodox – liberal or fundamentalist, traditional or post-modern.

The church is, as we say in our mission statement, a gathered community: individuals who are bound together with other individuals and God to become a gathered community. And that’s what I want to talk about with you today: what it means to be a gathered community in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Throughout February – in anticipation of Lent – I’ve sensed it would be wise to carefully revisit and review with you just what our mission statement tells us about how God is calling us to live into our faith. Because, you see, there is some confusion about what it means to live together faithfully as God’s gathered community. Our mission statement puts it like this:

In community with God and each other we gather to worship, to reflect on our
Christian faith, to do justice and to share compassion.

And each of those points – gathering together in community, worshipping, reflecting, doing justice and sharing compassion – matters. So I’m going to try to give some shape and form to each of these five commitments over the next few weeks so that we might deepen both our conversation about and commitment to the risky business of being Christ’s gathered community of faith
in our generation, ok?

And there are two key insights I want to emphasize for us today that come from the story of Jesus healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law as it is recorded in the gospel of St. Mark. First, I want to explore what the Lord’s act of healing tells us about being a gathered community. And second I want to consider what this woman’s response to being healed might mean for us, too.

So what’s going on just below the surface of this story about a healing? Well, I think at least the following warrant some consideration:

+ First, it would appear that the “starting point of Jesus’ public ministry begins outside of the synagogue and in the home of a disciple” (Seasons of the Spirit, “Sustaining Ministry,” p. 150) in a place where the faithful have gathered.

+ They have not scattered to get their own fast food, they have not run off to consult their individual Smart Phones, they have not left one another behind to do their own thing: rather the set-up of this story is that the disciples have gathered together in community for a shared meal.

Now think about this out loud with me, ok? When you put on a supper for your friends – when you have guests over for either a feast or even a spontaneous pizza – what are some
of the elements that go into making this meal good? Somebody has to get the food, right? And cook it – or at least pick it up and serve it, yes?

+ What else? Somebody has to set the table – somebody has to pour the drinks – somebody has to clean up? Anything else?

+ Somebody has to enjoy the meal – and give thanks for the gathering – and unless the party is a total bust, people are talking with one another and visiting and listening and a whole lot more.

That’s the first thing that happens in Mark’s gospel – and Mark is the first written gospel, too – so it tells us that the starting point of Christ’s public ministry is a gathered community of faith. In fact, Jesus goes out of his way to gather the disciples together – calling them by name – and then inviting them beyond the synagogue into a home. This is not about a bunch of spiritual tourists – who show up from time to time – or a random collection of strangers: this is about a gathered community.

And interestingly, before the gathered community can be nourished what happens? Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is taken to her sick bed with a fever. Could it be that whenever the faithful gather in community some are in need of healing? Some are wounded? Some are afraid? We don’t know anything about her illness, just that she has been separated from the community and unable to do her work.

And she had work to do, right? She was most likely in charge of getting supper on the table – nourishing the gathered community – or at the very least making certain the food was served. So what does the text tell us Jesus did when confronted by her illness? He takes her hand and “raises her up.”

Hmmmmm… now things are getting interesting: Jesus raises her up. This is the same word – egeiro – that Mark uses at the end of his story when Mary and Salome and Mary Magdalene go to Christ’s tomb after the crucifixion and find that the tomb is empty. Chapter 16 tells us:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could embalm him. Very early on Sunday morning, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb. They worried out loud to each other, "Who will roll back the stone from the tomb for us?" Then they looked up, saw that it had been rolled back—it was a huge stone—and walked right in. They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed all in white. They were completely taken aback, astonished. He said, "Don't be afraid. I know you're looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He's been raised up; he's here no longer. You can see for yourselves that the place is empty. Now—on your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You'll see him there, exactly as he said."

Are you still with me? Do you see what is being shared here about the healing Christ bringour gathered community? A healing that restores a person to their calling in the community – a healing that allows them to share their gifts and work fully – is like unto the Lord’s resurrection. One scholar put it like this: “New strength is imparted to those laid low by illness, unclean spirits, or even death, so that they may again rise up to take their place in the world.” (WorkingPreacher.org, Sarah Henrich)

This is a powerful theme, beloved: time and again Jesus goes out and gathers us together to restore us to our right place in the world. That’s one of the insights for us to embrace about being together as God’s gathered community. And the second comes by observing how Simon Peter’s mother-in-law acts after being raised up.

Mark writes that after her fever left her, immediately she got up and served them. And once again the word Mark uses is instructive: diakeno. Sound familiar? The word deacon comes from this verb – to serve – and Jesus uses it in Mark’s gospel to describe himself when he says:

You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around," he said, "and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage." The one who was laid low is raised up to… serve.

And we are called to serve in community because community is where our rough edges can be worn off. Community is where we bump into our own crankiness and selfishness and learn how to ask for forgiveness – if we’re paying attention. Community is where we are raised up to serve – a totally counter-cultural learning experience – that takes most of our lives to get right. Most of us, on our own, don’t want to become servants. Or if we do, we want to serve on our own terms. But that’s a club – not a church – not a gathered community of faith.

We have been gathered together – bound in community – raised up by the grace of God to serve. Not to get our own way – not to control or demand anything from others – not be a burden to our sisters and brothers or a pain in the butt: we have been raised up and called together to serve. “Jesus came to her bedside and took her by the hand and raised her up – and the fever left her and immediately she began to serve them.”

Let us do likewise for this is the good news for today.