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Sunday
spoken eucharist - 8 am
bible study - 9 am
sung eucharist - 10 am

Wednesday

services begin at 7 pm

healing service (1st, 3rd)

evening prayer (2nd,4th)

eucharist (5th)

We now enter into the remaining weeks of the Sundays after Epiphany.  These Sundays will conclude on the last Sunday of this month when we celebrate the Transfiguration of Our Lord just three days before the beginning of the Season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, the 25^th of February this year.

Let’s review the story we have been hearing thus far in the first part of this calendar year, mostly from the Gospel According to Mark, which is – of the 4 gospels we find in our Christian Scriptures – the earliest Gospel to be recorded, somewhere about the year 70, and some 40 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We are reading the Gospel According to Mark, because we – along with most of the Western Church – hold to a three-year Lectionary which follows the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke … in the order in which they are found in our Bibles.  This Church Year, which began on the last Sunday in November of 2008, as the First Sunday in Advent … we are reading through the Gospel of Mark, right up through the 22^nd of November of this year when this Church Year will end and we will turn then to the next Gospel, the Gospel of Luke on the 29^th of November, which will be (of course) the First Sunday in Advent of the next Church Year.

So, we are in the Gospel of Mark for the most part, with some expeditions into the other Gospels at various times and for various occasions.   And thus far in the beginning weeks of this calendar year, we have been reading stories in the 1^st chapter of this early Gospel. 

How has it gone?  What is Mark’s agenda in telling Jesus’ story?  What would Mark like us to know?  Well so far it is this:

Jesus from Nazareth is given the title Son of God by the Gospel Writer Mark and in the very first verse of his story.  Contextually, it’s a bit daring to do this, given that Mark’s work comes into being during the Jewish War with Rome that resulted in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70.  It’s a bit daring, because there was, according to the Romans, only one son of god, and that was the Emperor.  So, in the very beginning of his Story, Mark makes not only a theological point, but a political point.  The one who is over there sitting on one of the 7 hills of that powerful city is not the true ‘son of god’ … this one, who comes from the hills of Galilee … this one, is the true bearer of that Title.

Then, as we have read through the last several Sundays, Mark tells us about the appearance of John the Baptizer and the subsequent ritual washing in the River Jordan by John the Baptizer of this Jesus from Nazareth.  And in the Story, Mark makes sure we know this is a holy event, because he has God’s voice speak from the torn apart heavens announcing that Jesus is his Beloved, and with this Beloved one, God is pleased.

The torn apart heavens, by the way, will have a counterpart in the torn apart world into which this Jesus and his followers walk.

Because what happens right after the Baptism of Jesus is that he spends 40 days in the wilderness, like a true prophet, fasting and preparing himself for what lies ahead … but that we did not read this year, and in fact it’s rarely read in Mark’s gospel-telling, because there is a much fuller and more exciting account in Matthew and Luke … the story we all know well, complete with the Devil and all that.

But in this early Gospel, the earlier audience (earlier than the audiences of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, gospels written toward the end of the 1^st Century) to whom this work is addressed would of course know about the ‘Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness’ and would not need any further details to be added.

We like a good story and especially we like that one and so it’s almost always read from the other two Gospels.

But anyway, right after that, after his Baptism and his Testing, Jesus walks down along the seaside of the Sea of Galilee and starts to collect his followers.  And we find our their names – at least the early ones: Peter,
Andrew, James, and John … all fishermen, to whom – Jesus announces – he will give a new vocation … that of fishing for people.

What this means, of course, the disciples do not yet understand, but they go along and do indeed follow Jesus.

It’s a happy story to this point.  Here comes Jesus, looks like a holy man, the fishing business is getting a bit weary, sure … why not, let’s go … and off they walk.

They come to the seaside town of Capernaum and as it was Shabbat, they walk into the synagogue in that town.

You can still walk into that synagogue, at least into the ruins of that synagogue, and it’s a good thing to do.  I’ve done it, and I know that some of you have as well.  The roof is gone, but some of the walls and pillars are still there, as well as the stone seats on which perhaps these early followers of Jesus sat.

When I was in the ruins of that synagogue I sat done on one of those stones and began to listen.  I could hear, in my imagination, the world being torn apart.  It was the mad cry of someone possessed, hollering out, screaming, interrupting the reading of the Torah.  I could see him coming from the back of the room where he had been hiding and where other people had been hiding him.  He runs over to Jesus as Jesus is speaking, making comments on the reading for that week. 

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” the madman shouts … us … more than one inside this person, schizophrenia it would seem.

“Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are, you’re the Holy One of God!”

And the world is torn apart again when Jesus turns and looks at the man possessed  … he’s not going to destroy the man, just what’s inside him.

“Be quiet and come out of him!” speaks the one who teaches with authority, and the thing for it cannot have a name, the unclean thing, the disruptive thing, the mad thing leaves the man and for the first time in many years, maybe for the first time in his life, the man is free … he no long has to live with the thing inside him, he is liberated.

And there, says Mark, the gospel teller is what this Jesus is really all about, he is teaching us to heal others, bring compassion to others who are possessed.

Interesting first healing.  If I were Jesus I would have started off with something smaller, maybe a scar or a scratch or perhaps an upset stomach … but no, this Gospel, this Good News is you see the tearing of things that should not be so that they may be healed and the world might become what it is supposed to be.  And so Jesus takes on the really big thing right away, this man once possessed by a demonic thing is healed of it.

Do you ever wonder what happened next?  Yes, I know Mark tells us that everyone was amazed as this Jesus and his teaching.  And the next story that follows this one in Mark’s Gospel is another healing and we will read all about that next Sunday.

But, I mean for the man who was healed … what happened next?  Was he helped in any way?  Did anyone talk with him?  Did they take him out for brunch?  Was he welcomed into the community, now fully … and maybe given a place of honour for at least a while as someone healed?  And did he tell his story to anyone else, and did they tell anyone?  (I think so, actually, or we might not have this story of the healing of this man.)

But these are good questions as we take into our hearts and into our lives the Gospel.  Because what the gospel tells us is that to follow Jesus is to work, and it’s not just one bang-up experience after another, it’s hard work … that continues.

Just like the church.  We gather on Sunday morning, we worship God, we celebrate and then … there’s next Sunday … but in between things there is the work, the life, the living of the community of faith.  There are people to be fed, conversations to be had, healing to be done, visiting to take place … by all of us, by each one of us.

I step back into that synagogue and see Peter, Andrew, James and John watching all this take place … and I see Peter looking out at the Sea of Galilee just beyond the walls of that synagogue, look there longingly and wondering if maybe he should have stayed a fisherman.

And then I see him turn again and walk along with his new Teacher and invite him to come into his family home where he and Andrew were born and raised.

And what happened there we will find out next week.

+ Deo Gratia