[Sermon preached on 21 January 2018, 3rd Sunday after Epiphany / 3rd year, ELCF Lectionary]
Do you ever feel busy? Do you ever feel that you have more to do than you manage to get done? Do you ever feel that your day, your week, your month, or your year is too short? — I certainly do.
Or do you ever have the feeling that other people are setting your agenda? Constantly asking you for favors, for your time, for your help? Do you have difficulties to say “no” when people ask for your time and energy—even when you know you should? — I certainly do.
I have noticed that when I ask people “How are you?”, more and more often they will tell me just how busy they are.
It is true: many of us have far more work to do than we could ever achieve in the course of the day. Everybody around us, at home, at school, and at the workplace, have expectations from us and try to make claims on our time. Messages keep on coming in through email, text message and social media, and of course we are expected to answer without delay.
So what can we do? Either we disappoint people, or we run the risk of letting others live our lives. We do have our own goals and priorities in life. And we should let them guide our choices and our management of time and resources. But how?
For many of us the reality seems to be that we have urgent matters to attend to immediately, and important goals to achieve over the course of time. Our natural reaction is to turn to the urgent issues first. Unfortunately, they are seldom the most important. So in the end, we may find ourselves never getting any closer to those important goals in life.
Jesus was facing pretty much the same kind of dilemma as we are. Today’s gospel text gives us some insights there.
It was Saturday morning. Jesus had visited the synagogue of Capernaum and had been teaching Scripture and driving out demons there.
What Jesus did there was not unique in itself. Many others had been teaching the Scripture before him, and Jewish exorcists had been driving out demons before Jesus did. But the way Jesus went about doing those things was radically different. He taught like one having authority. And he drove out demons without the fancy rituals and magic formulae that other exorcists used. Jesus simply spoke a word and the evil spirits obeyed him.
Then, after the meeting was over, he joined Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, as they went home for the Sabbath meal. But when they got to the house: O dear, the hostess had got ill and had fever. And there was no food on the table. Again, Jesus just spoke a word, and the woman was healed instantly. No magic, no rituals. The simple words of Jesus were full of authority and power by themselves.
But the amazing things that Jesus had been doing in Capernaum triggered off a snowball effect. As the news spreads of what Jesus was able to do, people brought their sick and their demon-possessed to him for healing. They came to the house in the evening, immediately when the Sabbath was over, and they were allowed to carry their sick.
Of course, people came to Jesus primarily for selfish reasons. They asked: “What is in it for me?” The same we see in modern evangelism. Evangelists often want to offer their audience some short-term benefits that are substantial enough to awaken their interest. They invite people on the stage who have touching testimonies to share about how their lives changed when they “met” Jesus or received him in their hearts. Broken relations were mended; they were relieved from addictions; they felt a constant sense of peace; their life turned to the better in every respect. Or the preachers put a healing ministry up front, in order to entice people to come and hear the message, either in order to be healed themselves, or to see some spectacular healing with their own eyes.
I am certainly not saying that these people are lying or twisting the truth. The problem is that they raise the wrong expectations. By this way of wrapping up the gospel, evangelists give the impression that these instant positive developments are the natural and inevitable result of receiving Jesus. Turning it the other way round: if you want to save your marriage, get rid of your addictions, get a job, get healed, or just feel good, you must receive Jesus and “all these things will be added unto you.”
But by doing so, by focusing on the short-term benefits, which are not even necessarily going to materialize in their lives, they miss the point. Christ came to save us from the power of sin and death, to offer us life everlasting, to reconcile us with God. Definitely, that may imply instant delivery from addictions, restored relationships and peace in our hearts, but not necessarily. After all, Jesus also said that he came to bring conflict between family members, and persecution, and anxiety, and a lot of other things that nobody wants for themselves.
What does Jesus do when he sees the crowds rush towards the house where he is staying, looking for miracles and short-term benefits? Does he lock the door and say: “Leave me alone”?
No. Humble as he is, and with a heart full of compassion, Jesus uses his power to heal and his authority to drive out demons for the benefit of all those who seek his help. His love for people is so great that he wants to ease their suffering when they turn to him in trust and expectation. He is not ready to give the people a signal that he is not concerned about their problems. But in the back of his mind there is this pressing thought: I must get on with my mission, with what I originally came for.
And here is the tragedy of the situation: The people are so interested to employ Jesus’ authority and power to solve their own problems, that they do not get to asking him the question: “What do you want? Is there something you are trying to say to us? Is there something we can do for you?”
But look at Jesus’ next step. Mark says that very early the next morning, when it is still dark, Jesus escapes from the house and goes to the hillside. Not just to escape the crowds that might appear on his doorstep immediately after breakfast. But also to seek out the one who sent him: his Father in heaven. For Jesus, prayer is the key to re-connecting with his Father and re-connecting with his primary mission. And, of course, it is also his way of re-charging his batteries.
For some of us, prayer can be a huge effort, draining our spiritual batteries. It can be sometimes hard to concentrate on God’s presence when the thoughts of what is waiting to be done are knocking on the door of our brain.
It is easy to stay focused as long as prayer is about talking to God. I know people who always pray out loud, even when they are all alone. As long as we hear ourselves, our own voice, which we all love, don’t we? — As long as we hear that, we can focus. But, of course, we need to ask: do we focus on God then, or on ourselves? But when it comes to tuning in to God and opening our hearts to what he wants to say to us, praying becomes much more of a challenge.
Well, we don’t know how long Jesus actually had the opportunity to be alone with his Father. Soon his disciples appeared on the scene. They must have had a hunch of where Jesus would go “hiding”. And there they were, ready to remind him that the people of Capernaum are crowding around the house, waiting for Jesus to make his appearance and to continue to heal the sick and drive out demons.
But Jesus dismisses their reminder. He says: "Let us go out to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I have come.”
His time together with his Father has helped him re-focus on the task that he should be taking care of: that of preaching the gospel everywhere. His message is about the victory of God over the power of evil. The kingdom of God is breaking through. And now is the time for people to get ready to be a part of it, to prepare for its coming.
Jesus does not want to disappoint anyone who is coming to him for help. He does not want to turn anyone away. But he is determined to bring his #1 mission to completion. “That is why I have come,” he says. And that is what he is going to focus on.
People came to Jesus for help. Today, they come to the church for help. Because, even though we do not have the same authority and power that Jesus had, we do have the same calling and we should have the same compassion.
So what do we do? Yes, we must offer them whatever help we are able to give on the short term, regardless of whether that is material help, or counseling, or anything else for that matter. But we should realize that we cannot offer the people just good and pleasant things.
Four years ago, the Lutheran Church in Finland had a huge publicity campaign with the theme: “Usko hyvän tekemiseen” — “Believe in doing good” or “Believe in charity”.
The whole idea of the campaign was to let people know that the church is a charity organization, that helps the poor, the lonely, and the people in crisis.
Great. No problem there. That is what the church should be doing, and in Finland it actually does. The church has the vision, the expertise, the organization, and the money to do a lot of good, both in Finland and abroad.
But the calling to which we have been called as Christians, individually and as a church, goes further than that, much further. Charity is good and necessary. Those in the margin of society, the paperless immigrants, the long-term unemployed, the sick, the mentally ill, the victims of school bullying, sexual harassment, racial discrimination, and physical abuse—they need charity because the systems that society has in place, if there are any, are not sufficient to take care of their needs in a sufficient and holistic way. As Christians, we should stand by those people, support them, lift them up.
But Jesus wants much more. What Jesus intended to create when he gave the Great Commission was a community of disciples that would expand exponentially, that would empower all who become a part of it, and that would conquer the world by love for God and compassion for their fellow men and women, and make the world a place of justice and peace.
More than that, Jesus wants us to expand our horizon and look beyond the confines of the material world. There is more to life than the years we spend between the cradle and the coffin. Life goes on, and how we spend our life after the coffin depends on our relationship with God.
Jesus’ greatest priority was to connect—to re-connect people with God. In order to focus on that priority, he decided to escape the crowds that were looking for relief of their physical suffering and for the excitement of witnessing some miracles firsthand.
That is something to remember when we share the Gospel with others. Jesus’ great priority should be our great priority, because we as a community are the body of Christ in a suffering and lost world. But that does not give us an excuse to turn a blind eye on the physical suffering in our society and in the world at large. Jesus attended to both temporal and eternal needs, as far as his time and strength allowed it. But when it came to making choices, he never lost sight of the mission that his Father had given him.
Back to our own lives and our priorities. Let’s face it: there is a huge risk of ending up being lived by others, unless we actively resist. As Christians, we so often feel that we are expected to be “nice” to others, to please others unselfishly, and to give others what they ask from us, and even more. After all, Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to give what others demand from us with a bonus on top. And twice the Bible assures us that “In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
I would say “Yes!” and “No!” — “Yes!” when it comes to living an unselfish life. That is certainly what Jesus expects from his followers. But “No!” when it comes to the question of who sets the agenda for our lives. And that is where prayer comes in.
God has a purpose for our lives—for your life and for mine, for each one of us. Our lives will not be fulfilling, unless we constantly move towards that purpose, that goal. We may not know what that goal is. We may ask God in prayer to show us that purpose and still not get a clear answer. But that need not discourage us.
The Swedish pastor Martin Lönnebo gives an interesting illustration of this. He speaks about moving around in a foreign landscape in the middle of the night, looking for a house. There may be times when we see a light in the distance that gives us a hunch of where we should be heading. But more often, we don’t see the light, and the only way to move forward is to use a flashlight and see where the path is leading us—one step at the time.
It would be so great if God would show us his master plan and purpose for our lives. But more often than not he is ready only to show us what our next step should be. The Psalmist says in Psalm 119: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” When it comes to looking for God’s purposes and priorities for our lives, and when it comes to discovering what step to take next, we can go a long way by opening the Bible and let God speak to us through it.
And that brings us to the heart of prayer. Prayer is not so much about us talking to God, telling him what we want or need. Prayer is first and foremost about us opening our hearts to hear God speaking and revealing his will to us. That is why prayer is most effective with an open Bible.
Jesus’ great priority was to proclaim the good news that God’s kingdom is at hand. When we pray the words that Jesus taught us: “Your kingdom come, your will be done,” that is when we align our priority in life with his great priority.
Let that be our prayer and our desire in the days and weeks and years to come. Amen.
