First Presbyterian Church
The Message Is Healing
Sermon for February 5, 2006
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Children's Time: “When you hurt yourself, what makes it feel better?” I was expecting to hear hugs, kisses, talking about it, or something like that, but one little boy said ‘cake' and everyone else agreed that cake was the answer. I passed out band-aids to the children, then said “In my sermon, I'm going to talk about how a little boy made his mother feel better. I'm also going to talk about how Jesus made people feel better.”

Our reading from Isaiah is part of a long speech made on behalf of God, reminding Israel who Yahweh is, so that the people of God remember who they are, and whose they are. All of the second person pronouns, the ‘you's in this scripture are plural, what we say for ‘you guys' and in the south they say ‘y'all.' You may follow along on page 668, but we are reading from my translation, so some of the words will be different. Yahweh is the Hebrew name for God; your pew Bibles translate that as the Lord in all capitals. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Isaiah 40:18-31.

18 And whom will you liken to God, or what likeness will you compare God to? An idol? An artisan casts it and refines it with gold and hammers it with chains of silver. The poor one chooses an offering of wood that won't rot; an artisan skilled in it will set up an idol that won't tip.

21 Haven't you known? Haven't you heard? Hasn't it been made obvious to you from the beginning? Haven't you understood the foundations of the earth?

22 It is the one sitting up above the vaulted roof of the earth (its inhabitants 1 are like grasshoppers), the one stretching out the heavens like a thin curtain, and spreading them like a tent to live in;

23 the one who brought rulers to nothing, and makes the judges of the earth like chaos.

24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when that one blows upon them, and they dry up, and the storm wind carries them off like stubble.

25 “To whom then will you compare me, or who shall I be like?” says the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? The one who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because that one is great in strength, mighty in power, not one was missing.

27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and declare, O Israel , "My way is hidden from Yahweh, and my privilege is overlooked by my Lord"?

28 Haven't you known? Haven't you heard? The God of eternity is Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth. God does not fatigue nor grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

29 God gives energy to the fatigued, and strengthens the powerless.

30 Even youths will fatigue and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

31 but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run 2 and not be weary, they shall walk and not grow fatigued.

This ends our reading from Isaiah. God's people can rely on God's strength, and wait for God to act, rather than give in to despair, despite their exile in Babylon. God has not been beaten by the idols of Babylon , God is quite alive and well, ready to bring the chosen people home.

Jesus demonstrates God's power in our gospel reading from the first chapter of the book of Mark. Quite a lot has happened in the first 28 verses of that book: John has baptized Jesus when the spirit descended upon him then took Jesus to the wilderness where Satan tempted him; John was arrested; Jesus called Simon, Andrew, James and John away from their fishing; they followed him, as students typically followed their teachers and went to Capernaum, where Jesus taught in the synagogue on the Sabbath and threw out an unclean spirit, and after all this, reports of Jesus' work spread throughout Galilee. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Mark 1:29-39.

And having left the synagogue immediately, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. And Simon's mother-in-law was bedridden with a fever, and they told him about her immediately. He came and, holding her hand, raised her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

At twilight, when the sun had set, they were bringing all those who were suffering or had demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured and threw out many demons; but he would not allow the demons to speak, because they knew him.

Early in the morning, while it was still very dark, having risen, he went away into an abandoned place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those with him hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”

He answered, “Let's go into the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee , proclaiming the message in their synagogues and throwing out demons.

This ends our reading of the gospel.

Where did Jesus get the strength to do all this? The holy spirit recognized Jesus as God's beloved, and Jesus prayed. Let's listen to the choir sing about prayer.

Anthem

Synagogues were places of prayer, where God's faithful people would go to hear the Hebrew Bible read and where they would pray together. What were all those demons doing in the synagogues? Synagogues were supposed to be clean places.

What were the demons? That's the question for us. Jesus came with a message. His message healed and was healing. Healing was the content of his message. Throwing out demons was part of his healing work. Getting rid of evil in the holy places was part of the history in the Torah.

Prophetic preaching reveals social evils and calls the authorities to account. In Isaiah, our text said that God brings rulers to nothing. All the power they glory in will be brought to nothing. Isaiah said God makes the judges of the earth like chaos or emptiness. The very people charged with bringing order and justice do not bring it, and so God makes them empty, powerless. Biblical rulers were expected to enact justice, to care for the widows and orphans.

In Jesus' day, the Jews, God's faithful people, were under Roman occupation. The Romans built amphitheaters, roads, and palaces. They made and enforced laws about worship and work. They levied heavy taxes and conscripted laborers.

With such a hostile government, it is easy to see how peasants would turn on one another. It is easy for persecuted peoples to believe they are being punished, or that God intends their lives to be this way. It's even easier for people in power to believe that God has blessed them, endowed them with their power, and that the way they use their power is the way God wants it.

It's hard to protest that sort of God-endowed power. It is crazy-making. Theologian Walter Wink suggests it's that sort of craziness that Jesus got rid of when he threw demons out of the synagogue. That makes sense to me. Places of worship should allow people to recognize oppression, injustice and idolatry. We do not have to accept government corruption as the way things are. Every person in power is not necessarily blessed by God to have that power. Every person in trouble is not being punished by God.

But there is also a personal element to demons. I had a friend who used the word demon to describe the cause of behavior we can't influence or control. We speak of fighting your own demons; that is, trying to do something about irrational and destructive behavior.

I have a relative battling an addiction to methamphetamine. He has made a lot of mistakes in his life, and is learning to take responsibility for them, without letting the weight of them send him into depression. I tell him often, “God loves you. You are worth taking care of. God will help you with those demons. Don't give up. You are valuable.” It's hard to hear that we are valuable when we compare ourselves to people who are smarter, stronger, more capable, more articulate, more holy. But when we recognize that God does value us, even us, it's easy to serve God and serve other people.

Jesus preached that the kingdom, the realm of God, is coming. He demonstrated the good news by getting rid of demons and healing people.

Two thousand years ago, there wasn't a distinction between medical therapy and other kinds of therapy. It was all healing. Illness wasn't just physical, it was social; if you had any sort of visible disease, you weren't fit to be in public without proper precautions being taken. It didn't matter if you felt well enough to go out; the rash or scab or swelling or limp indicated you were afflicted. Sometimes pious people viewed those who were ill as afflicted or punished by God.

But that wasn't the case with Simon's mother-in-law. Jesus healed her. Because this is about God's realm, God's kingdom, it was not the person with power and prestige who was the first to be healed in the gospel of Mark. It was just a woman. An old woman, at that. We know the customs of first century Palestine. Once a woman was married, she went to live in her husband's household; her husband's mother was in charge of the household. But Jesus doesn't heal Simon's mother, he heals his mother-in-law. What was Simon doing, having his sick mother-in-law live with him? What was Jesus doing healing her? This is the kingdom of God.

Once she was cured, she served them. Serving guests was a privilege of the host. And the word ‘serve' is related to the word deacon. Throughout Mark, Jesus speaks of serving one another. The mother-in-law is the first example of that kind of service.

When we love someone, it's easy to serve them. When we don't, its harder.

Years ago, writer Melissa Fay Green and her husband adopted a four-year-old boy from Bulgaria. She and her husband had four children 7,11,14, and 17.

She expected to love her new son Jesse, but she didn't. Jesse followed her everywhere, gave her little privacy and no time alone with her other children. She realized

“we are hardwired to attach to wide-eyed helpless babies; a fit-throwing non-English speaking, snarling Bulgarian four-year-old does not at first glimpse invite adoration…I couldn't figure out where the love was going to come from. I was reeling from the sudden terrible revelation that if you don't love a child, there's no way on earth you can bend to the hundred daily subservient tasks of caring for him. All the little things I'd done thousands of times for my older children were impossible to perform for a child I didn't love. ….

I told my friends I was in bad shape. And they gave me good advice [saying things like] ‘Jesse's never been so mothered in his life…. Just fake it. Your faking it is the greatest, sweetest thing that's ever happened to him.' While faking it, I discovered that my body was okay with mothering him—my lips knew how to kiss him, my hands enjoyed stroking his hair. My brain was frozen with regret, but I tried to lose the panic for a while and just follow the willingness of my body to mother him.

Do you love him yet? Such an awful thing we adoptive parents do to ourselves and our newly adopted children, asking ourselves this question.” [Each time I looked at him, I asked] “‘Do I love him yet?' Well he loved me, and that steady unwavering beacon of love began to lure me.

Under such an onslaught of tenderness, I began to soften. I no longer assumed he was leaving; I assumed he was staying. He no longer assumed I was leaving; he began to trust that I was staying. He began to let me out of his sight for minutes on end….

Then one afternoon, while cutting a bagel that Jesse had pleaded for, I slashed my finger. I ran upstairs to get cotton to stop the bleeding. Jesse followed in a panic. ‘Mama! Oh, Mama Mama!' His eyes were huge and filled with tears. ‘Mama!' he announced, as he patted and patted my shoulder. ‘Mama, nay bagel, Mama, nay bagel.' He was trying to help after the fact by ‘unrequesting' the bagel. Twice that day, Jesse asked that I never use that knife again, ([saying]: ‘Nay, Mama, this.') Later in the day, he brought me a plastic picnic knife he'd found somewhere. He put it in my bandaged hand and said firmly, ‘Mama.'

What was it I felt at that moment, as I laughed and wept and accepted the picnic knife and hugged him? Was it, actually, …could it be? But I was trying hard not to grill myself anymore: Do you love him yet? If this wasn't the beginning of some old fashioned, sweet mother-son relationship, this repentant boy handing me, so earnestly, a plastic knife, I didn't know what was.” 3

After that, Melissa quit asking herself if she loved him.

I read that article, and I realized that that sort of unwavering childish love is like God's unwavering love. Jesse loved his mother into loving him. I expect it works that way with us sometimes. God loves us into loving God.

The little boy's care and love didn't medicate her wound, but healed her heart.

Christ's message heals us. You are worth God's love, not because you are good, but because God is good. That message can help us heal. Amen.

1 Literally sitters

2 like professional messengers who run

3 Greene, Melissa Fay. “A Love like No Other: post-adoption panic,” Redbook, Dec. 2005, p. 142-2.