So Little Time, So Much to Do
Isaiah 40:27-31; Mark 1:29-39
Reverend Anne Benefield
Geneva Presbyterian Church, February 8, 2009
Introduction: We continue with the first chapter of Mark. As always, Mark tells the story well and fast. His favorite word is “immediately.” There is very little time for rest. Jesus is busy, busy, busy. Let’s hear what is happening now.
Mark 1:29-39
As soon as Jesus and His disciples left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and He would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew Him.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, He got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for Him. When they found Him, they said to Him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to 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 casting out demons.
Prayer: Holy One, You make all things possible. Lift us when we are weary. Be our strength, and fill us with hope as we seek to serve you and our neighbor this day. Open our hearts to Your message in this passage. Amen.
I struggled with today’s scripture lesson. Of course, that isn’t anything new, but I struggled more than normal. This passage has so many themes that I couldn’t decide what to choose for the sermon theme.
First is the healing theme: Jesus comes bringing healing. He comes to Simon Peter’s home where his mother-in-law is sick with a fever. Then He stays for all the people who gather at the door.
Then there is the theme of prayer. Jesus goes off to a deserted place to pray. It reminds me of a story:
A pastor used to occasionally go on a personal retreat to pray and seek God’s direction for his ministry. During one retreat, someone called the church office and asked, “May I speak with the pastor?”
The secretary replied, “I’m sorry, he’s gone to be with the Lord.”
There was a long silence on the other end. Then the secretary realized what she had said, “But he’ll be back next week.” [Diana J. Estes, Kent, Washington, Christian Reader, “Lite Fare.”]
The third theme might be that we are called to proclaim the gospel as Jesus did. We’ve talked about that before, too.
You can see that there were more than enough themes to write several sermons. Then I realized that I should start with Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. Surely, we’re more like her than we are like the Lord.
What happened to her and what did she do about it? She was sick—and remember that in those days, sickness was often fatal. Jesus came and healed her. Once He healed her, she began serving people. He responded to her needs; she then respond to the needs of others.
This past week in DC a frightening thing happened. In a bad neighborhood where drunkenness and drugs are wide spread. Three men got into an argument, probably about a bottle of beer. One man was punched. They called it a “sucker punch.” The man fell backwards and hit his head on the concrete curb. No one helped him for a long time. The whole story was captured by a security camera.
By one count 166 people passed him by. Some stopped to look at him; many made a point of walking around him. Finally, a clerk in a nearby store called 911 and an ambulance came quickly. Three days later, the man died in the hospital.
Would we have done better? I pray so. Like Peter’s mother-in-law, we know what it means to be lifted up. These are tough times, but we are more secure and comfortable than many. We have been blessed with love, education, and opportunities. Now we must serve, just like Peter’s mother-in-law. She was the first deacon.
The Greek word used to describe her actions is diaconeo, which means “to serve” and “to minister.” Since she is the first person designated in the New Testament as a deacon, let’s look at what she does. First, she serves because of her gratitude. Second, her restored life has meaning and purpose because of what Christ has done for her. Finally, this is the beginning of a story that would call for real sacrifices, and she was strong enough to keep going.
That first point about her response of gratitude is important. As Protestants we place a lot of importance on the theology of grace. We don’t do good things to earn God’s love. We do good things in gratitude for God’s love.
One way to act in gratitude is to list all the things that we have been given and use that list to find things we can share. A simple example is education. We have been given educational opportunities. Can we share our learning? It could be as simple as volunteering to read to the Day School children once a week. Or we could volunteer to teach reading and writing in English through the Literacy Council. I’m pretty sure that Dianne Whitaker could help you connect through the Wheaton Library where they train tutors and connect them with students.
I’m probably going to embarrass her, but Patsy Wright is famous for being able to take an odd collection of ingredients and create a hardy meal at the Lord’s Table. I’ve been told that Ruth Nunn had the same talent.
Wherever you have talents, look for ways to show your gratitude just as Peter’s mother-in-law did. We’re never told her name. Perhaps that is so we can insert our own names and become deacons, too.
The second thing that Jesus’ healing gave to her was new purpose in life. Once we recognize the gifts we have been given, and most especially the gift of a second chance, we’re called to use the time well. My father’s father died at the age of 46. Like many of us, Daddy thought that he himself would die at that age, too. I was 18 that year. I can still remember how anxious he was, but when he turned 47 he found a whole new lease on life. His gratitude at living motivated him to serve in many good causes.
The final thing about Peter’s mother-in-law is that I think she knew that Jesus was going to change her son-in-law’s life. She knew that her daughter’s life was going to be harder when Peter followed Jesus.
We often look for quick solutions and fast success. The work of the Lord isn’t like that. His grace is great, but His work is hard.
I read a marvelous story remembered by Reverend Mary Moore Roberson. She writes:
Some years ago I served on the lay staff of my home parish under the supervision of the priest charged with pastoral care. Barbara took to appearing, first at the door to his office and then to mine. She was a member of a very large, very affluent church. She was neither affluent nor large – short enough to be easily overlooked. She told us that the bank was about to take her childhood home, the house in which she and her 10-year-old son, Jeffrey, lived. The treasurer gave her advice and offered to speak to the mortgage people, who went on and foreclosed anyway. And for a time, we heard, she and the boy lived in her tired blue Chevrolet, eventually moving into the grand sounding Jesse Jackson Townhomes, a public housing project filled with the crack of guns and cocaine, so dangerous that Barbara could not allow her child to go outside to play. The place might as well have had a sign over its entrance: ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ Or perhaps: ‘Having abandoned hope, enter here.’ But she did not abandon hope. Over and over during those long months, I would look up from my desk to find Barbara in the doorway, her short, round body fixed there, often with her taller pasty-faced child looming over her right shoulder.
“Jeffrey needs shoes for school, and I don’t have the money to buy them. Will you help?”
“I don’t have the money for car insurance.”
“I don’t have the money for gas.”
“Jeffrey’s not going to have any Christmas unless you help.”
We gave her just exactly what she asked for, layer after layer of Band-Aids as our own selves became overwhelmed by her persistent need and our impotence in the face of that. We just plain came to dread the sound of our normally cheerful receptionist as she announced tiredly, “Barbara’s here.” Once again on the threshold, until one day a member of the staff came to the pastoral care priest and me and said, “Let’s stop messing around and really help her. It’s going to take a lot of money, and you know as well as I do who is going to say we’re crazy, but we can live through that.”
He brought us up short. He brought us on into the room where the healing touch of our Lord awaited, reminding us by implication of the pledge that we make when we first stand in the doorway, the baptismal vows that we renew from time to time.”
The words we just said, “Matthew is now received into the holy catholic church. Through baptism God has made him a member of the household of God, to share with us in the priesthood of Christ. I charge you, the people of this congregation, to nurture and to love him, and to assist him to be a faithful disciple.”
Reverend Roberson continues:
Those words came back to us, but, now, up close and personal. Barbara enrolled in nursing school, living in a furnished apartment donated for the time it took her to complete her education, driving a car provided by another parishioner, her tuition and day-to-day expenses taken care of.
I don’t have the faintest idea where Barbara and her son, Jeffrey, are these days. I do, however, remember how she said she would tell the story called “God Helps,” the chapters and chapters of mercy that came by way of her conviction that God would see her desperate need, would care about her, would cause her life to be reordered, and in fact, had brought her through the door into the place where God had chosen for that to be done.
A straight-A student and only a step away from receiving her cap, Barbara announced, “I want to come speak to the vestry at its next meeting.” She did come and stood there before the church’s leaders—the rector and the twelve rich business people and the civic movers and shakers. She stood erect in her white uniform, a stethoscope around her neck and told her story of the eking away of her life and the miracle of her new life. And most especially of its purpose. These are the words that every person in that room believed then as we wept together, and remembers now—most especially what she said last: “Thank you for helping me when I could not help myself. Because of you, I am going to help others. I want you to know this. Every single time I touch a person for healing, this parish will touch that person with me. You will be right there.”[The Reverend Mary Moore Roberson, “I Will, With God’s Help,” Mark 1:29-39, February 5, 2006, Day 1.org]
Will we be there? Have we served the Lord in ways that proclaim the Good News? Are we serving as deacons to those in need? We have been lifted up; how let us lift up others in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
