Fish Story (5th Sunday after Epiphany, 9th February 2025)

5th Sunday after Epiphany - February 9th, 2025

Fish Story

Wolf Kirchmeir

Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13); Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

O Holy Spirit, assist us we contemplate your word, that we may be enlightened by your truth. Amen.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today’s Gospel is about fishing.

It feels like everybody has a fish story.

Even people who don’t fish have fish stories.

Now, I don’t know whether Luke ever fished. The tradition is that he was a physician, and a physician’s apprentice was unlikely to be told to go fish. Maybe Luke fished when he was a boy.

Here we have a fish story told by Luke. I think it resonates, as we say these days. It resonates with me in many ways. I grew up next to a lake.

I watched the fishers morning and evening going out in their flat-bottomed boat haul and set their nets. They were a couple. She was short and round, and he was tall and thin. They pumped square shovel-shaped oars to move the boat.

They hung the nets to dry on frames made of spruce poles. The nets bleached in the sun, and waved in the wind. When the fishers mended the nets, they used a flat piece of wood to carry the line back and forth, and over and under to make the knots. I never could figure out how that worked.

I still can’t figure it out.

The fishers stuck the smaller fish on pine splints which they ranged in the smoke house. The smoked fish was a delicious snack, sweet and salty and smoky. Sometimes the fishers gave us children one or two to share between us.

In England, I saw fresh fish laid out on marble slabs at the fishmonger’s. They were bedded in crushed ice, which glistened even when there was no sun.

Fish was on the menu at least once a week. Granny had a limited kitchen repertoire, but what she cooked tasted good. I still think that fish should have as little added flavour as possible. Except for kippers, which should taste sweet and salty and smoky.

Fishing was and is important business all round the Mediterranean, and also on the inland Sea of Galilee. So I don’t think it’s much of a surprise to read that Jesus met up with fishers. He asked Simon to put the boat out from shore a little ways so that he could teach the people who came to hear him. Good choice. Sound carries over water, as anyone who lives on a lake knows very well.

Afterwards, Jesus asked Simon to set his nets again.

Simon wasn’t sure what to do. “We’ve been out all night, and caught nothing,” he said. “But since you say so, we’ll do it.”

Then, when the catch was almost too much for Simon and his partners to land on shore, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

And Jesus answers, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”

I suspect that when we hear this story, it’s the miraculous catch that first attracts our attention. And when Jesus says that from now on Simon and his partners will be fishers of men, that seems to be the point of the story. Well, it is, and we’ll come back to it.

But first, I want to consider the exchange between Jesus and Simon.

When Jesus said, Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch, Simon answered,  Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.

Not exactly an enthusiastic agreement, is it. I mean, I recall when my mum asked me to do something I didn’t think was worth doing, or didn’t really want to do. But I did it anyway, because, well, because she was my mum. “Well, okaaay ....”

That’s Simon’s attitude.

Let’s pause a moment and think about that.

How often do we grudgingly agree to do something just because of who’s asking? Or because refusing would cause a problem? Or because, well, it’s just easier to agree? Or because we have this awkward sense of duty?

Too often, I think. But we sigh, and do what we’re asked to do, and we think that, well, we did it, so we should get some credit for doing it, and we should get some extra credit because we did it even though we didn’t really want to do it, which is a sacrifice, really, and sacrifice is good, really, isn’t it? So more points for us.

I’m not at all sure that this line of reasoning is, well, let’s say God-approved.

And what happens when we aren’t exactly enthusiastic about what we’re doing? I think we all know the answer to that question. Mistakes, and shoddy workmanship, and more.

Not good.

So Simon and his partner row out some distance, and set their nets, and then haul them in. And the catch is so large that their nets begin to break. When their partners on the shore put out to help them haul in the catch, the catch is so heavy that the boats ride low in the water and are almost swamped.

Simon’s reaction is I think a bit strange. You’d think he would be pleased at such a huge catch. A very profitable one, probably a week’s worth of fish. What’s not to like?

You might expect Simon to say something like, Well, that worked out better than I thought it would. Thank you very much! 

But Simon says Go away from me. And he adds, I am a sinful man.

When I first came to this point in today’s Gospel, I was puzzled. It was not obvious to me why Simon would say Go away from me. Admitting he was a sinful man, well, that seems easy. It amounts to saying something like I don’t deserve this bounty. 

But Go away from me?

Then, as so often happens, I was thinking about something else entirely, when a little voice in the back of my head said “Simon is ashamed.”

Shame is an unpleasant emotion. One of its effects is wanting to be invisible. To have nobody see you. To disappear. That’s why Simon wants Jesus to go away. It’s so Jesus can’t see him any more.

Shame is unpleasant, but it does have its uses. One use is to keep us in line. We are ashamed when we violate what the comment sections call “community standards.” The fear of shame, of being exposed, usually makes us behave better. 

At the least, shame prevents us from annoying other people, and it may prevent something worse.  You can see, I think, that a sense of shame is good for all of us.

But there’s also a more personal side to shame. I think that’s what is eating at Simon. I think he’s deeply ashamed by his ungracious acceptance of Jesus’s advice to set his nets again. I think it makes him feel that he has betrayed his sense of himself. He has not acted as he wishes he had acted.

That, I think, is why he says I am a sinful man. Or, I am not who I want to be.

I think we can empathise with Simon. We may grudgingly do our duty, but we don’t expect a good outcome. In fact, we may even hope for a less than perfect result, just to prove that we were right to have doubts. And when good things happen, we may look for the flaw that proves we were right. Instead of being grateful that things went well, we may carp and niggle and nitpick.

That’s ingratitude. It’s wrong.

Did Simon react that way? If so, he realized he was wrong. I am a sinful man, he says. I think we may read that as his awareness of the sin of ingratitude.  If we see Simon’s words from this angle, we can understand his anguish. Like Simon, we may feel the same shame when we realise that we’ve acted reluctantly, unwillingly, grudgingly. Because we felt we had to, not because we wanted to.

 But I hope we can also accept the grace that Simon received. For Jesus says, Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.

That is what this story leads up to, and there’s a lot to unpack.

Jesus says Do not be afraid. Afraid of what? What does Simon fear? I think he fears Jesus’s anger. But instead of imposing punishment, Jesus offers Simon forgiveness, and more than that, he offers the grace of working with him to redeem humankind. You will be fishers of men, Jesus says to Simon and his partners. And they leave their boats and follow him.

Jesus offers us the same grace. I came not to judge but to save sinners, Jesus says in another place. And he means it. Do not be afraid, he says to us. Do not fear punishment, but follow me. Do the work that I have given you to do.

Well, what is the work that Jesus has given us to do?  It is to proclaim the Good News. It is to catch men. It is to gather in the lost and the strayed, so that they too may be citizens of the Kingdom. It is to welcome the prodigal children, so that they too may be members of the family. That is what Simon and John and James went on to do when they left their boats and followed Jesus.

Today’s Gospel is one of several that tell how Jesus assembled the Twelve and gathered many others round him. There are two common threads in these stories. One is that Jesus didn’t seek out the respectable or influential people. True, some respectable and influential people sought him out, and some became his followers. But they had no special status.

Nor did Jesus look for moral and ethical qualifications. The Disciples, including the inner Twelve, were ordinary people. Simon and his fellow fishers made a decent living catching and selling fish. They knew their trade, and that was about as far as any qualifications went.

Several of Jesus’s followers were people on the margins of society, and some were despised. The respectable folk repeatedly wondered that this prophet, this truth-speaker, this insightful teacher of the law and the prophets, that this Jesus hung out with disreputable people.

But his followers did have something in common, and that’s the other thread. They knew they were sinners. Go away from me, for I am a sinful man, says Simon.

That self-knowledge, that confession, is what Jesus looks for.

For Jesus does not impose his redemption. He offers it. It’s up to us to accept it. And when, like Simon and James and John, we do accept it, we like them will become fishers of men.

We will do the work that God has given us, each according to our gifts.

And by so by word and deed, we will witness to the love that seeks out sinners, not to judge them, but to save them.

And that witness, by God’s grace, will draw people to that love.

Let us pray.

Creator God, grant us the grace so to follow Simon’s example that we may be faithful followers of our Lord, and like Simon be fishers of men, by our witness drawing people closer to your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Eiphany (2nd Sunday of Epiphany, 18th Januay 2009)

2nd Sunday of Epiphany (18 January 2009)

Wolf Kirchmeir 

Epiphany

[1 Samuel 3:1-20; Psalm 39:1-16; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51]

May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be ever acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Dear Friends in Christ,

The season of Epiphany celebrates the revelation of the boy and the man Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth, as the Messiah. Today’s readings deal with the Epiphany as an encounter with God. Samuel hears God speak to him. The Psalmist recognises God as the source of his being. Paul understands the human body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Nathaniel meets Jesus, and says, Thou art the Son of God.

I like etymology, the history of words. Most English dictionaries give you that information. Epiphany comes to us from the Greek, and it has two parts. The first is epi-, which means “outer, outward.” You may know that the outermost layer of your skin is called the epidermis, which just means “outer skin”. A lot of medical terminology is merely a translation from English into Greek or Latin. It makes the doctor sound learned, which is a great comfort to patients. Tucholsky, an Austrian humorist, said that more patients are cured by words than by medicine. There may be some truth to that.

The other part of the word, -phany, comes from a Greek word meaning “to appear, to be visible.” It’s related to the word phenomenon, which in English means “That which is visible.”

The Latin equivalent of “epiphany” is “revelation”. The English word for it is “uncovering.” So you see that in these three language there are three different takes on the process. The Greek word implies that the hidden thing shows itself. The English word suggests that we, the onlooker, move aside the veil. The Latin word encompasses both ideas.

So much for etymology. Interesting, but it doesn’t explain what’s going on in the readings appointed for today. I want to think of epiphany from another angle. Think of it as an encounter. From this angle, the season of Epiphany focusses on and celebrates the first encounters between Jesus the Messiah and the world he had come to redeem. 

The Gospel story is part of the history of the Apostles, whom Jesus called to follow him, and who saw in him the Messiah. “Thou art the Son of God,” says Nathaniel, when Jesus invites him to come along. Pretty simple story: the Apostles all one way or another say what Nathaniel said, and that’s why they were the Apostles, I think. Many people met Jesus, heard him speak, encountered him as preacher and healer and prophet. Many of them became his followers. A few saw in him the fulfilment of the promise, that God would send his Anointed One to redeem his people. And fewer still saw in that Messiah as the Son of the living God. A dozen of these few were chosen to accompany Jesus on his mission journeys.

So we may read this Gospel passage as testimony: these men and women testified, they spoke about what they encountered when they met Jesus.

We can’t prove that Jesus is what they claimed he was. “Thou art the Son of God” is not a logical conclusion. It can’t be proven by reasonable deduction from first principles. Nor is it by itself evidence in the legal sense. To be legal evidence, personal testimony must be objective, it must describe what any reasonable person could have known if he or she had been in the same situation. It’s about what you saw or heard or tasted or smelled, it’s about what you did or saw others do. It’s not about what you believe, it’s not about what you think, it’s not even about what you, being a sensible person, conclude. Conclusions are not evidence, since a few additional facts or data could change the conclusion. It helps if there is some material evidence, that supports the testimony. And so on.

In other words, what the Apostles tell of their experience, and what they came to believe because of it, wouldn’t stand up in a court of law. But of course it wasn’t and isn’t meant to be presented in court. Nor would their testimony pass the test of scientific analysis or experiment. But of course it wasn’t and isn’t meant to pass that test. As for common sense, that much misunderstood capacity to navigate this rather confusing world we live in –  what does talk about a man-god or god-man have to do with that? Nothing.

In the end, we are left with people’s accounts of what they experienced, what they encountered, what they believe is the truth. When Nathaniel says Thou art the Son of God, we confront a mystery. He’s either babbling nonsense, or he’s trying to say something that can’t be said in merely human language.

We may claim to share that belief. That is, we may say the same or similar words. We may believe that by doing so we mean exactly what Nathaniel meant. But of course that’s not so. We don’t exactly know what Nathaniel experienced. We don’t exactly know what we experience when we encounter God, for that matter. Saying it, talking about it, describing it, that is an attempt to make clear to ourselves what it was we experienced.

Nathaniel encountered a mystery. His response was a statement that on the surface is sheer nonsense. We too encounter a mystery. We may use the same language that Nathaniel uses. That’s one reason I believe it’s the same mystery. But that’s about all we can know for sure, if we can know it at all: that Nathaniel and we encountered the same mystery. For there is something about Jesus that defies human logic and understanding, and extends beyond human experience. We read the stories in the Bible, we read the life stories of the mystics and saints, we study theology, we testify and discuss and argue, and we talk and talk and talk.

Like I’m doing now, trying to explain why I think I can’t explain anything.

That phrase “the Son of God” will have as many meanings as the people who utter it, as many meanings as the times it’s uttered. Trying to communicate to someone else just what it means to you is like trying to point at something you see out of the corner of your eye. By the time you turn to look at it, it’s moved. There it is, just at the fringe of your vision, and if only it stood still, you could look at it, and see it clear.

But it won’t stand still.

So you’re left with this whatever-it-is that you express by saying that Jesus is the Lord, the Messiah, the Anointed of God, the Son of the Father, the Redeemer. Being able to say that, being able to say those words with some sense of their truth, being able to say them as an expression of something you’ve experienced, that’s what it means to have received the epiphany, the revelation of Jesus as God and Man.

Well, perhaps I’ve gone a little further than is good for me and you. Let’s leave this part of the meditation with this thought: that if you can echo Nathaniel’s “You are the Son of God”, then you’ve arrived at the starting point.

Because, you see, we still have to respond. The Epiphany, wherein God reveals himself to a human being, is not the end of the story. The other readings appointed for today each tell of a response to an encounter with God. Each shows us one of the ways we respond to God’s revelation of himself.

There’s the story of Samuel, whom God called in the night, and who thought at first it was his master Eli calling. Eventually Samuel was able to say, “Speak; for thy servant heareth.”

The Psalmist reflects on how God knows him intimately, has known him in the past, even before his birth, and will know him in the future. His response is praise: I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

The excerpt from Paul is one of his many attacks on bodily lusts and passions, and another reminder that there is more to us than our bodies. 

I’ll focus on the story of Samuel. It shows us what happens when we first encounter God. We’re puzzled, we’re not sure what’s going on, we don’t immediately recognise it. Three times Samuel thought Eli had called him, three times Eli told him no. Then Eli told him to listen again. What Samuel heard was not good news for Eli, but Eli accepted it. We know that Samuel became one of the great prophets, a great truth-speaker.

I think there are at least three lessons to be drawn from this story. First, when we encounter God, we don’t always realise that’s what is happening. Second, that it sometimes takes another person to help us make sense of that encounter. And third, that the encounter may or may not be a pleasant one.

So how do we recognise an encounter with God? How do you know that the voice you hear in the night is God’s voice? Samuel didn’t know – but it sounded a lot like Eli’s voice. Like the voice of an older, more experienced person. It was Eli who told him to listen, and find out what the voice would say to him.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t hear voices in the night, leastways none that I don’t recognise or can’t identify. But God speaks to us in many ways. He speaks to us in the very nature of this world we are part of, in the bodies we inhabit, in the mind with which we think on these things. That’s what the Psalmist has experienced, and that’s what he testifies to.

But of course, just because two people look at the same object doesn’t mean they will see the same thing. Even to recognise that one is fearfully and wonderfully made is an insight that takes us a good way beyond the everyday taking for granted of the exquisite machine that is us. To see in that intricacy the mind and hand of God goes several steps beyond that. And to see that thereby our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit takes us another few steps.

Now it’s easy to say these things, but is it easy to understand what they imply? Paul sees that this means we must honour God in our bodies. I add to this that we must honour God in each other’s bodies – that we must not let bodily harm and degradation and pain be visited upon the bodies of other people, neither by our action nor by our inaction.

So Paul’s insight is not only a call to discipline ourselves, but also a call to protect and support each other. That’s some of the theology behind what we call charity, which is the giving of time, service, and treasure to the healing of the sick, the comforting of the lonely, the rescue of those in peril, the feeding and clothing of the poor. We may do these things directly and personally by helping those we know, or indirectly by charitable giving or paying taxes. In other parts of his letters, Paul goes into this and related questions surrounding our living together in mutual love in many ways, and you have heard many sermons exploring his insights.

However, Samuel needed Eli’s advice in order to learn how to listen to God. Just so, we need other people’s advice. We know it, too, which is why we so often ask other people for advice. But how often do we want advice on what to do, and how often do we want approval for what we’ve already decided to do?

Samuel thought he knew what was wanted, but he was mistaken. Just so we may also be mistaken. After all, how do we know what God wants from us? Because it feels right, right? But sometimes what we want to do also feels right. We need another opinion, an Eli to direct us to listen again, to help us distinguish between what feels good and what feels right. Because what’s the right thing to do is sometimes the difficult thing to do, as I’m sure we all know only too well.

Then when Samuel listened, he heard something he didn’t really want to share. He was told that things would go badly for Eli. He didn’t want to tell, but Eli insisted. And when Eli has heard God’s message, he accepts it. God will do what is right, says Eli. He submits. And the story of Eli ends there, with his submission to the will of God. So also we should submit to the will of God, we should accept his message. Even when we don’t like it. And I’ll end there, for to consider what it means to understand and accept the will of God is another sermon, and this one has gone on long enough.

Let us end with a prayer.

Lord God, give us the grace to recognise you in each other, in the world around us, in the promptings of our reason and faith. And having recognised you, give us grace to accept your will, that your Kingdom may be established here and in the world to come, according to your word. We pray in the name of that Word, in whom and through whom you reveal yourself to the Apostles, to the saints, and to us. That Word redeems us your creatures, and your Spirit sustains us. May it be so now and forever. Amen.

Endings & Beginnings (1st of Advent, 3 December 2023)

 1st Sunday of Advent, 3rd December 2023

Wolf Kirchmeir    Endings & Beginnings

[Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; 1st Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13: 24-37]

O Holy Spirit, assist us we contemplate your word, that we may be enlightened by your truth. Amen.

Dear Friends in Christ,

[Mk 13:34] It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. [35] “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back — whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the cock crows, or at dawn. [36] If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. [37] What I say to you, I say to everyone: `Watch!’“

Today we begin the season of Advent. When I was a child in Austria, we put up the Advent Calendar. It showed a castle-like mansion with many windows. Every window revealed a surprise, a toy, and animal, a flower. Then on Christmas Eve we opened the double front doors and discovered the Christchild and his family. Advent was a season of expectations, of looking forward to something wonderful.

It still is. We look forward to something wonderful, the coming of God into his creation. We look forward to God living a human life as one of us.

Expectations of the future are also reminders of the past. As today changes into yesterday, and tomorrow becomes today, something ends, and something begins.

So we may think of Advent as a time when old things end and new things begin. Endings and beginnings, that’s one of the themes of the Gospel appointed for today.

But expectations are not always wonderful. As we grow older and learn something of how the world really works, our expectations become darker. We realise that the future holds as much evil as good, perhaps more.

Today’s gospel is one of several that deal with the end times. Jesus sometimes spoke of the ending of the old world and the beginning of the new one. Here, Jesus talks about the end of the universe. That is the end of the world as we know it. In other words, he’s prophesying. And most of the time, his prophecies are ignored. Or else they are misunderstood.

We look around the old world, decaying, running down, a time of wars and conflict, of selfishness and greed, of irresponsibility, self-indulgence, and carelessness. As the Irish poet W. B. Yeats wrote, we feel that Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...  The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

But this ugly old world will give way to a beautiful new one, the Kingdom of Heaven.

That’s what we say we believe.

Our actions suggest a different attitude. We are constantly planning for the future as if there will be no end. Planning for the future lets us imagine that our lives will go on. And if and when we do think about the end, we make a will, so that our plans will continue to be fulfilled past our endings.

But here is Jesus telling us we can’t know when the end will come. Not for ourselves, not for our civilisation, not for the Earth, not for the universe.

Of that day and of that hour knoweth no man. [Mk 13:32]

When he talks about the stars falling from the sky and the moon losing its light, Jesus is quoting Isaiah. Even so, I don’t think Jesus is really concerned with explaining how the universe will end. He’s setting up a contrast between the end of time and the here and now. What really concerns him is how we live our lives here and now, in this generation, as he says.

He knows perfectly well that the world as we know it is always ending, because the world as we know it is always changing into something else. He knows, too, that for each of us our own personal world will end. The only world that is real for us is the one we live in now, not the one that came before us, and not the one that will come after us.

That’s why I think Jesus ends his discussion of the end times with a parable:

It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

He ends with a one-word command: Watch! [Mk13:37]

Because something huge will happen.

Something wonderful. Something so amazing that we rarely pay attention to what the words tell: God will enter his creation in exactly the same way as each of us come into being. He will be born as a baby.

This Advent season reminds us once again of that event. At this time, the beginning of the Church Year, we commemorate the long wait for the Messiah, the Chosen One of God, who would be born to lead his people into the Kingdom.

Many of the first followers of Jesus believed that the kingdom would be a political one, that Jesus would drive out the hated Romans and establish an independent Israel.

For us, the Kingdom is a spiritual one, it’s the Kingdom of Heaven.

And that’s a puzzle. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus says two things: one, that the Kingdom is coming; and two, that the Kingdom is at hand. It is both something to look forward to, and something that is here already. How can that be?

Well, there is no single definite answer. The are many possible answers, and what matters is how these answers affect the way we live. I want to explore one of these many possible answers.

Have you noticed that whenever Jesus talks about the end of the world, he talks about the beginning of a new one? He does that here too. Watch, he says. The master has left on a far journey. He has left you in charge. He will return. But you don’t know when. So make yourselves ready for him. Watch!

He has left us in charge. He has made us stewards of his creation. He will return. He will demand an accounting of how we spent our time while waiting for him.

That’s why I think that we should not ask How will the world end? but How shall we live in this world?

How then are we to spend our time while we wait for God’s chosen one?

We already know what we should do. But we need reminders. So let us remind ourselves of what we have done and of what we have left undone.

Today’s Gospel gives us some clues: each servant has their assigned tasks.

Last Sunday, we heard the parable of the sheep and the goats. That’s another clue.

When I think about what Jesus wants from me, I think of Zacchaeus the tax collector. I think of the widow who gave far more of her little wealth than the Pharisee gave of his surplus. I think of the many Psalms that ask God to protect the poor and the weak from the greedy and the strong. I think of the prayer we recite every Sunday: Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

I think of the summary of the Law and the Prophets: Love God, and love your neighbour.

These are all clues to how we are to live this life. They are all direct and indirect guides to the tasks set before us.

We each have work to do, according to our talents. St Paul lists some of them:  teaching, healing, giving wise advice. What’s your talent? How do you use it in the service of God?

We have our daily round of tasks that keep our world functioning. St Benedict said Laborare est orare, to work is to pray. That’s a reminder that we should do our work mindfully, as best we can. We offer our daily work as a service to each other, and by so doing, we offer it to God.

We have treasure in abundance to share with those who have little or nothing. Like the Pharisee, most of us have more than we need. Sharing what we have is what Jesus wants us to do. And while sharing what we don’t need is good, the sacrificial sharing that Jesus admired in the widow’s offering is better.

Think of time. None of us has more time than we need. Time is most precious gift we can give. Spend time with someone who’s lonely. Chat with someone who has few friends. Visit someone who’s shut in. Call someone whom you haven’t seen in a while. Send a card or an email for someone’s birthday. All these things take time, time shared, time given as a gift.

What you did to the least of these brethren you did to me, says the Son of Man when he divides the sheep from the goats. That means that in God’s eyes the least of these our brethren is at least as valuable as we are. Each is a vessel of the Holy Spirit, a child of God. To serve them is to serve God.

In another place, we are told of the rich young man who heard the Good News. What must I do to be saved? he asked Jesus. Sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, is Jesus’s answer. That’s a hard lesson for us, for like the rich young man we love our things, and we want to keep them.

God demands justice and offers mercy. We pray that he may forgive our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. That’s a tough petition. It’s saying we desire the same forgiveness from God as we offer to others. What if we hold a grudge? What if we won’t forgive? I think it’s clear: we are to forgive each other, as we hope and pray God will forgive us. 

Love God, and love your neighbour.

To love God is to love his creation. Exploiting its riches without repairing whatever damage we cause is wrong. Sustaining the abundance of life that God has created is right. If these tasks cost us some wealth and comfort, well that’s the price we have to pay.

We pray for our daily bread, for what we need. God will supply our needs. Giving up some whims and desires in order to sustain God’s creation so that it can supply our needs, well, that looks like fair exchange to me.

Love is what we do, not how we feel. Sure, a feeling of affection makes it easier to do what we have to do, but it’s the doing that’s the love. Love is an active verb. Love one another, as I have loved you, Jesus tells us. I don’t think he means Have nice feelings about each other. He means Do what I’ve done.

And what has Jesus done? He’s given his life for us.

We will soon celebrate the Incarnation, the coming of God into his own creation. In the meantime, in the season of Advent, we will watch for him. We will do the work he has left for us to do, each with our assigned task.

Let us pray.

Lord, you made us to love and serve you by loving and serving each other. By the power of your Spirit strengthen our trust in your promises, so that as we watch and wait for your kingdom we may live as you desire us to live. We pray that we may each know our assigned task and perform it faithfully. We pray in the name of that Love that will return in glory, who lives and reigns with you and the Spirit, now and forever. Amen

Sacrifice (25th after Pentecost, 10 November 2024)

25th Sunday of Pentecost  - Remembrance Sunday

Sacrifice

10th November, 2024 - Wolf Kirchmeir

[Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17; Psalm 127; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44 ]

O Holy Spirit, assist us we contemplate your word, that we may be enlightened by your truth. Amen.

Dear Friends in Christ,

We all know the story of the widow’s mite, and Jesus’ praise of her offering to the Temple treasury. Jesus said, For [the rich] did cast in of their abundance; but she of her need did cast in all that she had, even all her living. (Mark12:44) There are many lessons in this single sentence, and we have no doubt heard most of them.

Today, I want to focus on an aspect of this story that is not named as such. This aspect underlies Jesus’ remark. It underlies all the most common discussions of the widow’s mite. For example, exhortations to give until it hurts make no sense without this concept. It’s the concept of sacrifice. ... but she of her need did cast in all that she had, even all her living.

The widow gave everything she had. She gave her life.

Tomorrow we will remember those whom we sent into war on our behalf, and who gave everything they had. They gave their lives. I want to think about that sacrifice, and what our remembering should inspire us to do.

For it does no good to feel sad about those who died in war if our remembrance ends with those feelings. Our duty is not only to remember what the fallen soldiers have done for us, but also to act so that their deaths will have meaning.

I am old enough to remember the last years of the war and its aftermath. When someone of my age refers to the war, it means the Second World War, the one that started on the German-Polish border in September 1939 and ended in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August 1945. Just how many people died in that war will never be known for sure. The best estimates average out at about 23 million soldiers and 45 million civilians. That’s about twice today’s population of Canada.

But those are mere statistics. If you want to know what war is like, talk with those who lived through it.

Soldiers who saw combat very rarely talk about it. But you can see how their memories affect them when you watch their faces as they stand at attention at the Cenotaph during the Remembrance Day ceremonies.

My father talked about it once only, when he thought the time was right for his grandchildren to learn something of what to them was only history in books.

Those who didn’t see combat are more likely to tell stories, but they too avoid talking about the fighting that they knew indirectly, through the death and wounding of their friends. The civilians who endured bombing, flight from the front, refugee camps, starvation, invasion and counter invasion, the oppression of occupation and foreign rule, they sometimes talk about it. But they leave out a lot.

I don’t remember much. We lived in a small town by a lake, far from the battle fronts. Bombers flew over on their way to bomb the cities and the railway yards. The sun glinted on them, they were like little silver fish high up in the blue air. The sound of their engines came from everywhere, from one side of the sky to the other. When the bombs fell on the railway yards ten kilometers away, we felt it in our bellies and the soles of our feet. A few times I saw black mushrooms grow on the horizon. Most of the time, the air-raid sirens chased us into the cellar, where we were dressed in several layers of clothing. It was a guarantee that we would have something to wear if the house was destroyed. The woolly underwear itched. There was a candle lit, and others ready to be lit if the power went out. When the bombs fell, we heard a dull thump, very far away, and dust trickled down from the ceiling. We crowded close to Mummy, and felt safe.

I hate war. I can’t tell you how much I hate it. And yet I know that war will come again and again. And if I were still of combat age, I too would go and fight.

War will come because we fear those who are different, and that gives an opening to those who want to exploit that fear for their own ends.

War will come because those who have power and wealth want to wage war for their own purposes.

War will come because we leave too much up to the politicians that we elect to do the boring business of government for us.

War will come because as long as we have something like a good life, we leave things up to the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts: Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers. (Mark 12:38-40)

It’s not pleasant to think about these things.

It’s not pleasant to think about war, or the poor, or the damage we’re doing to our planet.

It’s not pleasant because it reminds us that we, each of us and all of us together, have a responsibility.

Tomorrow, on Remembrance Day, we will have before us the example of those whom we sent to war.

Those who placed their bodies between us and the enemy.

Those who gave everything they had.

I know and you know that they had many different reasons for putting on the uniform. But whatever their reasons, they went.

And too many of them died.

We owe them.

We have a duty to them.



The last stanza of In Flanders Fields calls us to this duty:

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

   The torch; be yours to hold it high.

   If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

   In Flanders fields.

The foe is not the enemy soldier. He died as our soldiers died, his family grieved as our families grieved. Those who survived suffered the rest of their lives. The memories of war cannot be erased.

No, the foe is us. We are the ones who wage war. The soldier is merely an instrument of war. He’s just another weapon that we, the wagers of war, use to fight our battles.

We must change our attitudes, our feelings, our thoughts. We must replace fear with hope, hate with love, indifference with caring. It sounds like tall order, but it can be done.

If you look at the advice that Jesus gives us, one thing stands out: he doesn’t talk about systems. He doesn’t talk about governments, or politics, or businesses, or enterprises, or organisations. He doesn’t talk about methods or processes or procedures. He doesn’t talk about checklists, or the seven habits of successful people, or how to make every minute count.

He talks about forgiveness.

He talks about faith.

He talks about love.

The rich young man asked, What must I do to be saved? Sell what you have, give the money to the poor, and come and follow me, Jesus answered.

The disciples bickered about who would be first in the Kingdom. Jesus told them, The first in this world shall be last in the next, and the last in this world shall be first.

What must we do to enter into the Kingdom? we ask. He that would save his life must lose it for my sake, says Jesus.

By what rule should we live our lives? Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength; and your neighbour as yourself.

That’s Jesus’s answer.

In short, we must change. We must change the way we think, the way we feel, the way we act. We must think of all humans as being People Like Us. We must feel that every person we meet is a member of our family. We must do whatever we can to make life better for other people, just as we do whatever we can to make life better for ourselves.

A tall order indeed. It means giving up the notion that we are the centre of the universe. It means giving up what makes us comfortable. It means giving up our lives in service. It means sacrifice.

The kind of sacrifice that Jesus saw in the widow’s offering.

The kind of sacrifice that we will remember tomorrow.

The kind of sacrifice that Jesus himself made, when he gave up his life that we might trust in his forgiveness and be free.



Let us pray.

Lord God, you made us, you gave yourself for us, you sustain us. By your grace give us the mind and heart and will and strength to serve you in all that we do, and to offer ourselves in service to others. Make us truly aware of the sacrifice that sets us free to serve you by loving each other as you have loved us. Make us thankful for those who gave their lives in defending us from the enemy, and those whose lives were taken in those wars. Forgive us for making war, and help us to so to change our understanding of ourselves and others that we may see that all human beings are your children, and therefore are our brothers and sisters. Grant us a change of heart, that hate may be replaced by love, fear may be replaced by joy, and indifference may be replaced by caring. Grant us these our petitions for the sake of Jesus Christ you son, who reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Wow Factor (16th after Pentecost, September 8, 2024)

 16th after Pentecost  The Wow Factor

September 8, 2024,  Wolf Kirchmeir

[Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125; James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17; Mark 7:24-37]

Today’s gospel is on of many that tells us of miracles. Just what is a miracle? That’s not as easy to answer as it looks. What looks like a miracle could just be coincidence.

Fact is, the concept is kind of fuzzy. The word originally just meant something to wonder at, something amazing. The German word for miracle is “Wunder”, which also means “wonder” or “marvel”, something amazing in English.

And we do often use the word to emphasize that something is amazing, as in the miracle of modern medicine.

Sometimes miracle just means that we can’t explain some extraordinary event.

Sometimes what looks like a miracle isn’t a miracle at all. Here’s a story about that:

One day while a cowboy was building a barn, he lost his favourite book. A week later, one of his horses came up to him holding the book in its mouth. The cowboy was stunned. He took the book from the horse and said, “It’s a miracle!”

“Not exactly,” said the horse. “Your name is written inside.”

Today we’ve heard about two miracles of healing. In the first, a Greek woman asks Jesus to heal her sick daughter. In the second, friends of a deaf man ask Jesus to heal him. In the first, Jesus at first refuses the woman’s request, and implies that as a Greek she doesn’t deserve his healing power. In the second, Jesus takes the deaf man away from the crowd before he heals him. In the first, Jesus agrees to heal the woman’s daughter after she has argued that, like the dogs under the table, she deserves to have the leftovers. Jesus likes the argument and heals her daughter. In the second, it’s the pleading of the deaf man’s friends that moves Jesus to heal him.

At first glance, these two miracles may look like a couple of random events retold for no reason other than that they happened to be recorded in the manuscripts that Mark used to compile his Gospel. They could just as well have been left out. After all, Jesus ministry lasted three years. Most of what he did during that time has not been recorded. The Gospels are not a day-by-day chronicle.

So I think that we should pay attention to what may seem like unimportant details. Because if they were unimportant, they would not have been included.

In this case, what caught my eye was how Mark introduced these two miracle stories. I think that if we take a look at the opening and closing of this section of Mark’s gospel, we’ll find a clue.

Mark begins by telling us that Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. [Mk7:24] And Mark ends his account with Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” [Mk7:36-37]

This is not the only place that Mark reports that Jesus didn’t want a lot of talk about the miracles. He was happy to heal people. But he didn’t want people to do what Mark tells us they did: they were amazed that He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

The crowds paid a lot of attention to the miracles. Somehow, that attention was misplaced. Jesus didn’t come into the world to work wonders. He didn’t travel around to amaze people. He didn’t want the crowds to come just because he did astonishing things. He didn’t want to be a spectacle.

In modern terms, he didn’t a want to be the subject of a video on Instagram or TikTok. He didn’t want the Wow Factor.

Nowadays, just as back when Jesus walked around healing people, the most common reaction to something extraordinary is Wow! Amazing! LOL!

And when it’s uploaded to TikTok or Instagram, that Wow! reaction spreads. We say it goes viral.

That makes it sound like a disease.

And it is a kind of disease. It’s the disease of wanting distraction. We like novelty. We like surprises. We like being amazed. We crave excitement. We want to be distracted.

Jesus knew that. He knew it better than we do. He knew it from the inside, like we do. But his knowledge wasn’t obscured or fudged or veiled by our tendency to avoid ‘fessing up to unseemly emotions.

And Wow! Amazing! LOL! is sometimes an unseemly emotion. For example, when we see video about some silly accident. Even accidents in which people are hurt.

LOL!

Laugh Out Loud!

Laugh at what?

Wow! Amazing! LOL! seems like a rather inadequate response when you stop to think about all the harm and trouble that silly accident caused.

But we usually don’t stop to think. Wow! Amazing! LOL! is often where it ends. A brief jolt of excitement, and we turn our attention to something else, hoping for another jolt. Anything to distract us from our daily round of obligations and chores, and another frustrating admission that we can’t have everything what we want.

It’s the Wow Factor at work.

Jesus rejected the Wow Factor. Mark in several places tells us that Jesus was at least somewhat impatient with the crowds who wanted him to perform miracles. He wanted something else from the people who came to wonder at him. He wanted the right kind of attention. He wanted the people to listen to his message.

The miracles should be understood as part of his message. He wanted them to stop and think

He wants us to stop and think, too.

What is there to learn from Jesus’s miracles?

First, they are examples of his compassion. The very first one saved a bridegroom from the embarrassment of not having enough wine for his guests. Jesus goes on to heal the sick and the lame and the blind. He heals lepers. He feeds five thousand people. He raises Lazarus from the dead. He calms the storm that threatens to sink the boat.

We know the stories.

Let’s look at the miracles from another angle. Jesus tells many parables. Suppose we look at a miracle story as a kind of parable, a story included in the Gospel, told to teach a lesson. What lessons can we draw from the two miracles we heard about today?

Begin with the Syrian woman who asks Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus at first refuses her request, saying that the children of the house have the first claim on the food provided. The woman replies that even the dogs are allowed to pick up the crumbs that fall from the table. Jesus is pleased with her answer. Why? What is it in her argument that pleases him?

First, it’s clever. The woman accepts Jesus’s argument, and then extends it to show that it’s not only the children who deserve the food. Even the dogs are allowed to scavenge for the crumbs that fall from the table. Dogs back then were not the adored pets that they are these days. Back then, they ranked just slightly above pigs. The Syrian woman’s point includes the unspoken claim that she ranked higher than the dogs. 

Second, it displays trust. The woman trusts that Jesus will listen to her argument, and reconsider her plea. She trusts him to treat her as a human being with the same legitimate claim on his compassion as anybody else. She believes not only that Jesus can heal her daughter, she also believes that he will do so. Why? Because she has made a good case.

Jesus is pleased with her argument. It appeals to his insight and his compassion. And above all, it demonstrates her absolute conviction that will do what is right. He grants her request.

Now consider the miracle of the deaf man the speech impediment. What impresses the people is that Jesus  makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

We don’t know how bad the deaf man’s hearing was, but the reference to his garbled speech suggests that he could hear well enough to imitate what he did hear, but not well enough to communicate clearly.

What will the deaf man hear now? What will he speak? He will hear the words of his family and friends, the words that make him a part of their community. He will speak the words that connect him to family and friends. We are social creatures, we need social connection. We need each other’s love. Jesus strengthened the bonds of love for the deaf man.

When I set these two miracles beside each other, I wonder what we hear and what we speak.

 Do we hear the cries for justice? Do we speak for those who suffer?

Do we hear the loneliness of the friendless? Do we speak words of friendship?

Do we hear the pleas of the hungry? Do we speak words of invitation to the feast?

Do we, like Jesus, answer when we hear Help me!

Do we accept the trust that we will do the right thing?

Let us pray,

Lord Jesus, grant us the grace not only to hear the cries for justice and peace, but also the will and the ability to answer them as you have done. We ask this trusting that you will answer our prayers as will be best for us. Amen.

Miracles (6th Sunday after Pentecost, 1 July 2018)

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43

May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be ever acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Dear Friends in Christ,
     And he strictly charged them that no one should know this.
     Several times when Jesus heals a sick person, he tells the disciples to tell no one about it. Why does he do this? Because, as he makes clear more than once, he doesn’t like the way people get all excited about signs and wonders. That excitement diverts attention from his message about the Kingdom. Focussing on signs and wonders is likely to make you forget his command to love one another. He’s come to fulfill the law. He has not come to entertain us.
     When we think about the miracles recorded in the Gospels, we should keep all that in mind. It’s not the miracles themselves that matter. It’s what they signify. The question is not “How could this happen?” It’s “Why is this story included?”
     John ends his Gospel with There were also many other things which Jesus did; if every one of them were written, the world could not contain all the books that would be written. The Gospel writers selected only a few things, those things that would be enough to convey the story and meaning of that ministry.
     When I read the stories of Jesus’s miracles, I notice two common threads. One is that most of the miracles are healings. Even the feeding the 5,000 can be thought of as a healing miracle, as anyone who remembers feeling very, very hungry will understand.
     The other thread is that every one is Jesus’s response to a request for help. The very first one, the changing of water into wine at the wedding, set the pattern. He never performs a miracle merely to show that he can do it. In fact, quite a few times, he seems reluctant to perform the miracle. He doesn’t like the publicity.

     So we have three topics for today: Jesus's refusal to be an entertainer.  Jesus the healer. And Jesus the one who responds to pleas for help. I’ll start with asking for help.
     We often ask for help, but sometimes we don’t recognise it. Here’s one of my favourite stories about that:

     There was a bad flood. The water was rising and coming closer to Joe’s house. The police came by and advised him to leave. “Oh, I’m all right”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     Well, the water rose and came up to Joe’s house. A neighbour came by in his SUV and said, “Get in, the water’s still low enough that we can drive out.” “That’s OK”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     The water rose further, and Joe had to go up to the second floor. An emergency crew in a boat came by, and urged him to leave. Joe refused, “The Lord will provide”, he said.
The water kept rising, and Joe climbed up onto the roof. A helicopter came, and offered to take Joe to safety. “I’m all right”, said Joe. “The Lord will provide.”
     Finally, the water reached Joe’s chin as he held onto the chimney. “O Lord,” he prayed, “Save me.” And a voice from on high spoke: “I sent you the police, a neighbour with an SUV, a rescue crew with a boat, and a helicopter. What more do you want me to do?” 

      Joe wanted a bona fide miracle, I guess. He had this idea that God helps by doing something spectacular and wonderful. Maybe he expected God to send an angel to pick him up and carry him to safety.
     Well, he got his angel, but he didn’t have large white feathery wings. He didn’t float silently through the air and pick him up. He was flying a machine with black rotors which made a lot of noise. He lowered a ladder for Joe to climb up on. With his helmet and face mask and all, he looked like some insectoid robot. Not like an angel at all.
     So Joe turned down the offer of rescue. It reminds me of Naaman the leper, who didn’t want to follow Elisha’s simple instructions to wash in the Jordan. He expected Elisha to come out and say magic words over him and wave his hands and such. A bona fide miracle, you see. Not something as ordinary as a wash in a river.
     Question is, how often have we turned down offers of help because they didn’t look like the help we expected? How often have we not seen the miracle that God is performing right before our eyes because we expected something out of this world?
     But this world is itself a miracle. That we live in it is a miracle. That we can do God’s work in it is a miracle.

     Mark’s story is a little different, or so it seems. The woman knew what she wanted. Jairus knew what he wanted. Both, in different ways, asked for Jesus’s help, and both got it. But not exactly the way they expected.
     I don’t think the woman expected Jesus to notice that she had touched him. She was very afraid when he turned towards her and said, Who touched me? Perhaps he was going to take away the cure! When she stammered out her explanation, Jesus said Go on your way, your faith has cured you.
     Notice: He didn’t say I have cured you. He said Your faith has cured you.
Then he continued on his way to Jairus’s house. Jairus’s servants came out and said, The girl is dead. There’s no point troubling the Teacher anymore. But Jesus ignored them. Don’t be afraid, have faith, he said. She is not dead; she is asleep. Then he woke her. Again, there is the emphasis on faith. We’ll come back to that.
    The woman got what she wanted, but not the way she expected. Jairus got what he wanted, but not the way he expected. First lesson: When we ask God for help, there may be a surprise. Maybe even a miracle.

     What’s a miracle, anyhow? The word comes from Latin miraculum, “something to be wondered at.” It belongs with the words “mirror” and “admire.” A mirror enables you to admire yourself, to wonder at your good looks. Or wonder where the handsome young person went since the last time you looked. A miracle is something so unusual that we wonder at it.
     However, the word miracle is not used in the Bible. The usual English translation of the Bible’s word is “sign” or “work”. These signs and works are evidence of Divine attention. And when God pays attention, strange things are likely to happen.
     That’s one reason why miracles fascinate us so much. Think about an unexpected recovery from a very serious illness. It’s unexpected because it rarely happens. So of course we wonder at it. We may wonder at it so much that we hardly take time to be grateful. The recovery becomes news and gossip because it’s unusual, not because it makes someone happy. After all, very ordinary events may make someone happy, too.
     We love amazing and unusual events The internet is infested with videos and stories about amazing things. They’re called clickbait. If you’re on Facebook, you know what I mean. Some people make a good living creating clickbait.
     Some of these events are amazingly good, of course, but that’s not why they go viral. They go viral because they are rare. They happen somewhere else, to other people. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be there in person, to actually see it happen! Instead, all we have is a shaky video taken with a cellphone.
     Jesus understood human nature inside and out. He knew perfectly well that his healings and other works would attract attention. He also knew that the attention to his unusual works could and too often would distract people from what really mattered.

     What mattered was the significance of what he’d done. What mattered was that he’d healed someone. What mattered was that he showed that the Kingdom was at hand, that it was right there, that the work of the Kingdom was to heal. Jesus did not want to be an entertainer. If Jesus were among us today, I’m pretty sure he’d tell us our cell phones are a distraction.

     The significance of today’s stories is that they are about healing and trust. The woman trusted that he would heal her. Jairus trusted Jesus to heal his daughter.
     Your faith has cured you, Jesus told the woman. Do not be afraid; have faith, he told Jairus.
     Healing and trust. They go together. They go together so much that we have the placebo effect. In every trial of a new drug, half the patients get the real thing, and half get a dummy. About one third of the people who get the dummy get better. This is such a regular effect that the real thing has to do much better than that.
     What causes the placebo effect? Trust. The patient believes they are getting the real drug, and that somehow makes the body better able to heal itself.
     We also have the opposite effect. How we feel about our illness may affect how fast and how well we heal. If we don’t trust the medications, if we don’t trust the surgeon, if we don’t trust the caregivers, we won’t recover as well as when we do trust them.
     Healing and trust. They go together. Trust is in the mind. Healing is of the body. Mind and body are one.

     Jesus came to heal us. He came to heal us from the sickness that we ourselves have created because we have not cultivated wisdom as much as we have cultivated cleverness. We call that sickness sin, and define it as the refusal to do God’s will.
     We are a very clever species. We can figure out all kinds of things. That’s what has made us the most successful organism on Earth.
     We invented social systems that enabled us to co-operate more than any other species. We invented technologies that enabled us to survive in strange and hostile habitats. With those social systems and technologies we have subdued the Earth to our purposes. The result is indifference to the Earth, and the harm that we do to it.
     We invented money, which enabled an economic system that produces more than we can use. The result is that greed governs our choices.
     We invented politics, which enabled us to work together on an ever larger scale, and create secure spaces for ourselves. The result is war, driven by the fear of those who are different from us.
     What we have not done is to acquire wisdom to match our cleverness.
     We haven’t been able to accept that it’s not enough to be clever. We also need to be wise. Two thousand years ago Jesus showed us the wisdom that we need: Love God and love each other, he said.
     Trust me, said Jesus. I bring you the Good News of the Kingdom, of more abundant life, of purpose and meaning. Ask, and it will be given to you. Knock, and the door will be opened.
     What does it mean to love God and do his will? It means many things. But one of the things it means is to understand the consequence of our cleverness, and be wise enough to make those choices that will preserve God’s creation.
     What does it mean to love each other? It means many things. But one of the things it means is to understand how what we do affects each other’s welfare, health, and happiness, and be wise enough to make those choices that do good and prevent evil.
     What prevents us from acting wisely?
     Fear.
     The fear that we won’t benefit, that we will be in peril, that things won’t go well, that they will not go as we expect or wish them to go.
     Have you noticed how often a messenger from God says Do not be afraid?
     Don’t be afraid, Jesus said to Jairus. Have faith. The woman was afraid, and Jesus calmed her fear.
     Like the woman and Jairus, we must trust that God will work things for our good.

     It’s risky to trust. To trust someone or something means that we don’t know for sure. There’s fear hidden inside trust, the fear that our trust will be betrayed. Safer to not trust anyone or anything, right?
     Well, maybe so. But without trust, the woman would not have been cured. She risked not being cured at all, but that was a risk worth taking. Without trust, Jairus’s daughter would not have been cured. Jairus risked losing his daughter if Jesus couldn’t heal her. That was a risk worth taking.
 
     Can we trust in God’s promises? Yes, but we take a risk. We don’t know how God will work things for our good, and ignorance is a powerful motive for fear. How can we trust God when we haven’t a clue about what will happen next? How can we be confident we’ll get help when God expects us to recognise the help he offers, no matter how different it is from what we expect?
     How can we trust God when he says Love each other? Because he’s asking us to give up the security of our material wealth, of our comfort and convenience. He’s asking us to risk everything on the promise of being healed. He’s asking us to learn the wisdom of doing what we know is right.

Let us pray.

Lord God, by your grace enable us to trust in your promises, that we may act wisely, and by doing your works of love may glorify your name. We ask this the name of one who trusted you even to his death on the cross, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

The Leper (6th Sunday after Epiphany, 15th February, 2015, Mark 1:40-45)

 The Leper 

 6th Sunday after Epiphany, 15th February, 2015, Mark 1:40-45

          The Gospel of Mark doesn’t shilly-shally. It’s short and to the point. It starts in the middle of the action, and it moves fast, wasting no words. In the first chapter, just a page and half in a typical bible, this is what we get:
     John the Baptist preaches in the desert;
     John baptises Jesus;
     The Spirit of God descends upon Jesus;
     Jesus announces that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand;
     Jesus calls four disciples to follow him;
     Jesus teaches in the synagogue at Capernaum;
     Jesus casts out an unclean spirit from a sick man;
     Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law;
     Jesus heals many other people;
     Jesus goes into the desert to pray;
     Jesus preaches in other synagogues in Galilee;
     Jesus heals a leper;
     Jesus withdraws into the desert to escape the crowds.

     That’s quite a list. Mark doesn’t give us much in the way of dates and times; he wasn’t writing an essay for a history course. But it’s clear that this first chapter covers a lot of ground and time, many miles, and many days if not weeks.
     Mark also doesn’t give us much in the way of help about how to understand the stories of Jesus’s ministry that he has chosen to tell us. He simply tells us what happened, sometimes saying it was the next day, sometimes not. For example, he mentions in passing that John was put in prison. We are left to infer that some time must have passed between Jesus’s baptism and this event.
     Then there’s Mark’s narrative method. In some places he uses dialogue to move the story along, for example when Jesus tells Simon and Andrew he will make them fishers of men. In other places, he uses dialogue to slow down the story, so that we will dwell on that event a little longer, as in the healing of the leper. And many things are merely mentioned, such as the teaching and preaching in the synagogues. Jesus did that, but Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus said. In many ways, Mark’s Gospel is more of a chronicle than a history. History deals not only with what happened, but with why, with people’s motives and desires and goals, how they achieved their goals, or not. And so on.
   Mark usually just tells us “This happened, then this happened, then that happened.”

     So we have to pick up every hint of meaning that we can. There are two here that I noticed among many. First, in the second half of this chapter, Jesus’s ministry consists of preaching and healing. Second, there are references to his growing fame. People were talking. People were talking a lot. And Jesus wasn’t exactly happy about that.
     What are the lessons can we draw from this first chapter of Mark?

     Let’s start with the leper. Leprosy is a nasty disease. It can be cured with antibiotics these days, but it can still cause disfigurement. In Jesus’s time, its causes weren’t understood, and there was no cure. Lepers were outcasts, they were homeless. They were allowed to beg by the roadside, but they were not allowed to live in town. No one touched them, no one even handed food to them. They had to leave their bowls by the side of the road, then go away while someone came by to bring food.
     Imagine being told you have to leave home because of your illness. Imagine people being afraid of you because of your illness. Imagine people not even looking at you when they give you a coin.
     Jesus heals the leper, and he tells him, “Don’t talk to anybody; but show yourself to the priest, and perform the sacrifices according to the law.”
     So the leper dances off. Well, I think of him as dancing off, I mean wouldn’t you dance if you’d just been healed of a horrible disease that made you an outcast? He dances off, shows himself to the priest, and starts talking to everybody whose ears are close enough about this wonderful thing that’s happened to him, and who did it. So much so, that Jesus was recognised everywhere he went, and had to go to less populated places. Yet still people came to see and hear him.
     By curing him, Jesus gave the leper his life back. He could once again be a part of his family and community. No wonder he told everybody about the wonderful thing Jesus had done. Wouldn’t you?

     Why then did Jesus tell the leper to keep it quiet? Jesus had no qualms about preaching and teaching in the synagogues. He didn’t object when people admired his insights into the Torah and the Commentaries. Mark tells us that he went all over Galilee preaching and casting out devils, and healing people of diverse diseases.
     To understand Jesus’s unwillingness to have the leper talk about his healing we have to look further. Jesus makes the same request of some other people he healed. And most significantly, he complains that people want him to perform signs and wonders.  He doesn’t want people to believe his message just because they see him doing miracles. He wants them to understand his message and apply it to their own lives. Miracles can be a distraction.

     If we consider the miracles that Jesus did, we can see a pattern, a pattern that reinforces Jesus’s message to us. The miracles weren’t merely tricks that demonstrated his power. They weren’t designed to amaze us. They weren’t even proofs that he was the Son of God. The disciples performed miracles, too. So did Elijah. Magicians do things that seem impossible. In both Jesus’s day and ours, most magicians made a living entertaining people, and some made a living deceiving people. Why would Jesus want to compete with them?
     Well, he didn’t. All of Jesus’s miracles helped people. He cured their diseases. He filled their bellies. He calmed their fears. In his very first miracle he turned water into wine at a wedding. He turned what could have been a failed celebration into a better feast than the groom had planned. His miracles all remove pain, the pain of illness, the pangs of hunger, the anguish of fear, the misery of social disgrace.
     In short, Jesus’s miracles made life better for people. That’s the first lesson for today.

     The second lesson comes from an earlier part of this first chapter of Mark: The kingdom of God is at hand, says Jesus. That’s the framework, the context, the purpose of Jesus’s ministry. Repent, and believe the good news, he says. The good news is that he’s come to make our lives better in every way, physically, socially, spiritually. And Mark’s focus throughout his account is on how Jesus does just that. This first chapter sets up two major themes of Mark’s Gospel: That the Kingdom of God is at hand, and that Jesus heals us.

     The healing of the leper touches on both of these themes. It touches on healing directly, and on the presence of the Kingdom of God indirectly. The healing of the leper is the healing of an outcast. We aren’t likely to get leprosy these days, and we no longer have rules and regulations that would make us homeless if we do get it. But there are many ways in which we can be outcasts, or feel like one.
     It’s terrible to feel outcast, to be an outsider because other people don’t want you. In my first draft of this meditation, I had a long passage about mental illness and homelessness, and the helplessness we feel when someone we love suffers from an illness, any illness at all. It was quite a downer, so I’ve decide to focus on how today’s Gospel story reassures us.
     It reassures us that Jesus will heal us, that he will be there when healing is needed. The leper faced a lifetime of slowly increasing pain and ugliness, and of being shunned by his people. His future looked dark, and looked to be getting darker. Jesus changed that. He changed that because the leper asked him for healing. Make me clean, he said, I know you can do it. And Jesus did it.

     When we are so far down that we think there’s no way up, we too can ask Jesus to heal us. And one way or another, Jesus will do that. He may help us change the way we see ourselves and our situation so that we can see a way out. He may help us trust friends and family to support us as the body and the mind heal. He may give us the confidence to hang in there until things get better. He may lead us to a healer, a spirit guide, a doctor, who will use their gifts to bring us out of the darkness. He may grant us a vision of himself that will energise us so that we can move on and up, away from depths that threaten to drown us.
     For you see the story of the leper is also a story about the power of prayer. If you pray with faith, your prayer will be answered. Prayer is not a magic spell. Prayer is a way of connecting with the Spirit, and that Spirit will enable us to recognise what has been there all along, the healing power of faith and trust in the One who embodied love.

     Accept that love when it’s offered.
     Offer that love when it’s needed.

     Let us pray.
     Lord God, who made us, saved us, and keeps us, grant us so to trust you that we will pray for your healing power. Give use the humility to recognise that healing when it is offered, and the confidence to offer that healing when we see the need. We ask this in the name of the One who healed us all by his death on the Cross. Amen.