Healing and Clarity

Bible Breakdown

Previously on Mark’s Gospel...

This story today follows immediately on the footsteps of last week’s story.

So Jesus and the disciples have just left the synagogue, where Jesus taught with authority, and to prove it cast out a demon from a guy in the middle of the service.

In much the same way that when we gather together you might follow church up with a trip to Eat N’ Park or another favorite brunch spot, this story is what follows immediately after.

Foreshadowing- “Lifted her up.”

When they get there, Jesus discovers that Peter’s mother in law has COVID.

Ok, maybe not that…but she has some sort of terrible ailment.

And in fact this thing is so bad that while they don’t call it a demon, they personify the fever. They talk about it like it’s a person they’re fighting.

Some of you might recognize the moment that comes next.

Some of you like me have stood on the holy ground that exists right next to a dear one’s hospital bed.

Some of you have known the power of simply sitting down next to that loved one, and holding their hand as they work toward healing.

Jesus quietly reaches out and grabs this mother in law’s hand, and the text says “lifts her up.”

Mark is doing something really creative here! He’s giving us a good bit of foreshadowing.

The word used here is the same word Mark will use later to talk about Jesus’ resurrection.

And this totally tracks!

Ask anyone who has been sick…really sick…and discovers healing.

They might even use words like “Man, I was left for dead! But now I’m back to life.”

Resurrection is not something reserved for Easter Sunday.

You and I experience little resurrections each and every day.

Perhaps you have known the resurrection of a friend offering kind words after a crummy day.

Perhaps you have known the resurrection of coming back from being counted out.

Perhaps you have known the resurrection of casting out demons like addiction and consumerism and lust.

Whatever these resurrections are, we see them all the time.

The question is, what will we do with them?

Response one to healing: Service

Mark in this text is actually going to give us two choices for a response to healing.

The text tells us that right after Peter’s mother in law hops up from the bed, she starts to serve Jesus and the disciples.

You might have guessed that certain readings of this text will toxically prescribe that this is the role of women, to serve men.

Nothing could be father from the truth!

To get to this interpretation of this text, you have to ignore almost everything that came before it.

It is not the role of women to serve men.

It is the role of those of us who have experienced healing, who have experienced resurrection, to serve the Lord.

If you have in any way found the healing, resurrection, or acceptance of Jesus Christ, how could you serve?

Obstacles to healing: Sabbath

The story continues at sundown, which is interesting!

Remember that this whole story is happening on a sabbath day.

You were forbidden from working on the sabbath.

So if you needed to get to a healer, if you couldn’t say get out of bed, or walk, or crutch your way there, you would need a friend to carry you.

But that friend would be forbidden from doing so on the sabbath.

Which in Jewish law lasts from Sundown to Sundown.

So what Mark is telling us here is that there is this whole crowd of people who needed healing, who probably could have had it all day long, but waited until the obstacles to healing were cleared away.

Amazing what we choose to care about!

The truth of the matter is we can see this all the time.

On countless Fridays, I have resolved to eat better, only to decided that a weekend really isn’t the best time to start something like that, so I’ll wait until Monday.

How many people have shied away from having a healing conversation because they didn’t want to offend the person who has been wounding them?

How many people have you come across who will lay down a laundry list of reasons that they are incapable of reaching toward the healing they desperately need?

Or perhaps most tragically, how many people in the world have been kept outside the church, the place where healing can and should take place, because of the color of their skin or their sexual orientation or their political or theological beliefs? H

How often do the rules, both the ones that are written down and the ones we hold only in our own heads, get in the way of legitimate healing and resurrection?

Response two to healing: Fame

When I was in college, I was a master of the all-nighter.

When you’ve procrastinated to the point of no return, and you have to just plow through the night on a red-bull fueled writing session.

I convinced myself that I wrote better in these conditions.

My GPA says otherwise.

Jesus, Mark tells us, has been pulling an all nighter.

The folks who needed healing showed up at sundown, and the next thing we get from Mark happens in the morning.

And after a long all nighter, Jesus steps away to get some peace in a deserted place.

Jesus is almost always doing this.

The cycle seems to be private instruction (calling the disciples), public ministry (last week and this), and then isolation and prayer.

Jesus has a rhythm to his life.

Peter however doesn’t get it.

The NRSV’s use of the word “hunted” is just right.

There’s a bit of anger in this word.

We’re not playing hide and seek. We’re incredulous.

Peter has an agenda.

“Everyone is searching for you!”

If you’re a brand new disciple like Peter, you’ve just gotten a taste of something.

This guy has authority!

People listen to this guy.

This guy can heal…everyone!

Think of what we could do with that!

Think of the fame!

Think of the prestige!

Get back to work Jesus!

I love Peter, but while this is the first time that he has the audacity to challenge Jesus, it won’t be the last.

Here’s the second response to healing:

This healing can be itemized.

This healing can be marketed.

This healing can be purchased?

This healing is good for me, because it makes me look good.

It’s a self-centered response to healing.

Peter isn’t interested in serving anyone in this moment.

He isn’t really even interested in serving the one who is doing the healing!

He just wants to cash in.

I don’t want to name names, but you can find this response out there in our world today.

You can find folks who will treat Christianity like a product to be sold.

You can find folks who will sell out stadiums to offer a few folks the promise of healing for a moderate ticket price.

You can find folks with their faces plastered on best selling books about healing in Jesus.

You can find folks who treat Jesus like a commodity.

Finding Clarity in the Stillness

Jesus won’t have any of it.

In fact, Jesus recieved something in the stillness of the night.

Clarity.

Jesus knows what has to happen next.

We have to go to other towns to keep doing this stuff.

Preach with authority.

Heal people.

Because that’s what I’m here to do!

Clarity doesn’t make things easier!

In fact, they make them harder!

If there are people still in line to be healed, Jesus has to turn his back on someone.

Jesus has to leave behind some real people, with real needs, in a real way.

He does it because while it might be good to stay, while he might be able to do good work, there is better work ahead, and he knows it.

It is remarkable what comes to us from God when we sit in moments of stillness, praying, and asking for clarity.

That doesn’t mean that our mission will be at all easy.

But sometimes just knowing the direction, and having clarity of mission, is essential.

Application

How do you need to be healed?

One of my other favorite stories with Jesus is when he comes across a blind man on the road.

Jesus’ question is a simple one: What do you want me to do for you?

Isn’t this obvious!?

But there is something about naming how we need to be healed that is important if we are actually to have any healing at all.

Physical healing.

Lots of us are looking for Physical healing.

Some of us are carrying ailments in our bodies both big and small.

Some of us may have heard news that we couldn’t possibly have imagined.

Some of us just simply lack the basic baseline of health required to enjoy life.

And some of us are just plain old exhausted.

Emotional Healing.

Some of us are just worn the heck out at the sheer length of this pandemic.

Rates of depression, anxiety, isolation, and even suicide are sky rocketing.

Incidentally, if you struggle with any of those issues, please know that there is a community of faith here that will always stand with you and work to get you the help you need.

Some of these emotional issues are large, diagnosable problems, and some of them are the death by paper cuts that can come from this season of incredible disruption.

Either way, we can seek healing for our emotional health.

Spiritual Healing.

Some of us maybe have felt strain on our relationship with God.

Some of us haven’t felt the effectiveness of prayer lately.

Some of us have noticed that being cut off from our church community has in fact cut us off from our savior.

Christianity is a relationship far more than it is a religion, so what’s the health of that relationship right now? Do you need healing there?

What obstacles are in your way toward healing?

Outside Forces

Some folks face the obstacle of having a hard time getting access to affordable health care to get the physical healing they need.

Some folks don’t live close enough to the medical providers that they need to be made well.

Oh by the way, there’s an unseen enemy in the way of a pandemic, that forces all kinds of obstacles on us like masks and distancing and makes it impossible to hold the hand of those we love as they struggle to be healed.

The bad news about outside forces is that there’s usually not much that we can do about them from day to day.

Though, stay tuned for a few thoughts on that...

The good news is that Jesus is bigger than any of them, and is calling us toward healing anyway.

I have seen Jesus overcome some pretty big outside forces to heal friends and family, and I am confident he will continue to work to do just that for us.

But for as bad as outside forces are, it’s the obstacles we create ourselves that are the most tragic.

Inner obstacles

Some of us (let’s be honest, it’s most often men) let our ailments wait and linger until they are bigger problems than they needed to be.

Some of us carry a stigma around mental health issues, preferring instead to tell ourselves to buck up and fight through it.

And some of us continue to downplay the reality of the pandemic, to invent our own reality around it, to pretend it’s not really there.

All of this seems to me about as silly as waiting until sundown to go see Jesus.

He was there the whole time to heal folks!

When we decided to address our healing, when we can name how we need to be healed, and when we can seek out help that God has given us by way of doctors and medical professionals and therapists, we can know healing.

How will you respond?

But what about us that have been healed in one way or another? What can we do these days?

Peter’s mother-in-law hops up in a posture of service, and I think there are some great ways that we can do the same.

Serving the church

It takes a lot of work to make a faith community like this come together.

It takes a lot of teachers and educators to work with our young people.

It takes a lot of volunteers to put together a sustainable worship service week after week.

It takes a dedicated staff who make a profession out of operating a church.

And yes, it does indeed take some financial resources to keep us moving forward.

And I want to be clear, we don’t serve the church for the sake of the church.

We serve the church because we’ve been called to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in the world.

We don’t serve the church to keep the doors open. We serve the church to open the doors of the kingdom.

Serving the community

As previously mentioned, there are a lot of folks who are struggling with some obstacles that are outside of their control.

You could easily say that the call of justice is the call to remove those obstacles.

Justice is everyone having access to high quality medical care.

Justice is everyone afforded the same opportunity to heal.

Justice is removing the obstacles to mental health and restoration.

So to those of us who are healed and whole, what does it look like to serve the community we live in by removing the obstacles?

Can we be a place where people find healing?

Can we be a place where anyone who needs help can find it?

Can we be a blessing to the community of Pancake such that we become famous for it?

Serving the world

Pancake isn’t the only community in the world.

We can be a light shinning in the darkness.

We can serve the world by advocating for access to clean water for everyone.

We can serve the world by fighting for every single child everywhere to have the nutrition they need to survive.

And we can serve the world by making sure that everyone, everywhere, hears the message of grace and redemption and acceptance and healing in Jesus Christ.

Leverage the stillness while you’ve got it.

My spiritual director the other day asked me what might seem like a rather odd question:

What will you miss about the pandemic when it’s gone?

The truth is, as we make plans to reopen and children return to school and life starts to point in the direction of something looking more like normal, I wonder what clarity we might come out of this (albeit forced) stillness?

Will we have clarity around the ways that we need to be healed?

Will we have clarity around our relationship with the Lord, and how we night to deepen it?

Will we have a clarity of mission, knowing where we are set to go next, and what we are meant to do?

Will we have clarity around the way we see our brothers and sisters in Christ, noting that in isolation that we are far more dependent on each other than we ever imagined?

My challenge to us today is to find some time this week, just like Jesus.

Find yourself a deserted place, even if you have to settle for a few minutes of quiet in your car after work.

Pray, and by that I mean simply sit in the presence of the Lord.

Listen, and see what clarity might come from that.

Because as we’ll see next week, we’re going to need that clairty. Jesus is calling us to some pretty big things!