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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)

The Church lives in two calendars at the same time. 

We live, of course, in the calendar that begins on the 1^st of January each year and concludes on the 31^st of December.  Much, if not all, of our life is governed by this calendar.  It contains the list of our birthdays and anniversaries, the days when children will be in school, our national holidays, when we visit the dentist, and when we will pay our income tax.

But there is another calendar that governs the Church’s life, and this is what we call the Calendar of the Church Year.  The Church Year begins with the 1^st Sunday of Advent (which was the 30^th of November, 2008) and will end (this Church Year) on the Feast of Christ the King (which will be the 22^nd of November 2009) … and then on the 29^th of November 2009 we start all over – that Sunday will be the 1^st Sunday of Advent of the next Church Year and off we go.

Also, we in the Western Church, use a common Lectionary that changes every year and follows a three-year cycle of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke … not in the order in which they were written (because Mark, not Matthew is the earliest Gospel to appear in the 1^st Century) but in the order that they appear in our Christian Scriptures.

So we happen to be in Year B of the three-year cycle, the Year of Mark; and during this year we read through the Gospel of Mark … not all of it, but most of it, and we find passages from Matthew and Luke and John interspersed at various times and for various celebrations.

You may think of these two calendars as one being superimposed over the other, which one it doesn’t matter, but see them in your mind as one laid over the other.  Myself, I like to visualize the Church Calendar superimposed over the Secular Calendar.  Because for me (probably because I’m a Pastor) I always see it that way.  Most clergy usually know which Sunday it is and will be and when Easter will happen this year (April 12^th) and so on.  It’s how we live.  It’s how the Church lives.

It may be the 8^th of February (which indeed it is today!), but for the Church it’s the 5^th Sunday after Epiphany; five Sundays after the 6^th of January when we ended the Season of Christmas by telling the story of the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child as we find it in Matthew’s Gospel.

By the way I have a Presbyterian colleague from Mexico who told me on Monday of this past week that February 2^nd is not Groundhog Day in Mexico, but it is officially when the season of Christmas is over, because in the Church the 2^nd of February is Candlemas (or the Mass for the Candles, the Blessing of the Candles to be used in the Church) … and to give you even more information the day is also known in the church as the feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary and/or the Presentation of Christ in the Temple.

So today is the 5^th Sunday after the Epiphany and we are reading the Gospel of Mark, which we have been doing for most of our Gospel Readings for these Sundays after the Epiphany in this Church Year – in fact we have been reading the 1^st chapter of Mark’s Gospel.  We began several weeks ago at the very first verse of the Gospel – The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. – and we won’t stop until next Sunday when we conclude at verse 45.

And, just so we keep ourselves aware of things, the Sunday after next Sunday is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord and on that Sunday we will jump to the 9^th Chapter of Mark for that story, and then three days after it will be Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Season of Lent.

But as a Church, we have been reading the 1^st Chapter of Mark for the last several weeks, and as we have been reading this earliest Gospel, there seems to come to us a particular understanding, a particular slant on the Story of the Life of Jesus.  Mark wants the reader/the listener/the Church to know something in particular about Jesus from Nazareth.   And we discover this if we read the 1^st chapter of his Gospel continuously.

So, let’s review what it is.  He begins his Gospel with the statement that this is the good news about Jesus Christ, Son of God.

Now we know that this Gospel is written around the year 70 CE during the Jewish Wars with Rome, ending in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans.  Mark is, one can say, a war-time Gospel.  There is a big conflict going on when this author writes about this Jesus whose death and resurrection took place 40 years before the author begins to write (the Crucifixion having taken place around the year 30 CE). 

Here is the author of Mark’s Gospel telling the story … all about who Jesus was, and what he was about, and what his followers believed and all that … here he tells the story for people whose lives are being lived in the oppression of the Roman Empire.

So when Mark begins his narrative and says that Jesus is the Son of God, it is a statement of opposition to the Emperor of Rome whom every Roman citizen knew was the son of god.  No, says, Mark … that one is not the legitimate heir to the throne, this Jesus, this Galilean, is the real one!

Well then Mark goes on to tell about the appearance of John the Baptist and his ritual washing in the River Jordan as a sign of people’s repentance and preparation for the one who is coming, and then the one who is coming actually appears before John and is himself ritually bathed in the river, and when that happens, says Mark, the heavens are opened wide and the voice of the Holy One can be heard announcing that this Jesus is his beloved.

Right after that there are two verse that we do not read in this Church Year, in fact they are never read in the Lectionary … because the next two verses describe the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness, and they’re rather straightforward verses … and we love a good tale and so the story of the Temptation of Jesus is almost always read from Matthew or Luke which have really exciting accounts (the encounter with the Devil … stones into bread, cast yourself down, do not tempt the Lord your God … and all that)!

But moving on after those two verses, what we do have?  We have the calling of the first followers of Jesus, the disciples, and we get their names: Peter and Andrew, James and John, two sets of brothers, all fishermen, and it all takes place along the Sea of Galilee as Jesus walks along the shoreline toward the northern part of the Sea toward a village called Capernaum.

And last Sunday we heard the story of the man who came into the synagogue during Torah Study and with screams and hollers approached Jesus who healed him of his possession.

I told my congregation last Sunday that you can still stand in that synagogue in Capernaum (at least in the ruins) … and I did nearly three summers ago – and you can sit on the stone banco (I did that too) where perhaps the disciples may have sat … and you can hear in your mind (if you have a good imagination) the encounter taking place of the man who was possessed and healed by this Jesus from Nazareth.

And when you come out of the synagogue and turn yourself south … you have a beautiful view of the Sea of Galilee, not that far away, maybe 2 blocks distance.

And the view could be uninterrupted except that there’s a rather new, modern church built in 1990 by the Franciscans, blocking the view?!

For the photos of the Synagogue and Church in Capernaum, click HERE.

Well, if you walk into that church and stand near it’s altar in the middle, you are standing over the house of Peter (or the ruins of the house of Peter) and there seems to be some good evidence that it might indeed have been Peter’s house … this spot where today’s gospel account takes place.

Because in our story today, what happens is that after the incident in the synagogue, Jesus is invited to the home where Peter’s extended family lives because it so happens that his mother-in-law is ill.  And Jesus goes to her, takes her hand, raises her up and she is cured.

And then we are told that the word spreads throughout this fishing village quickly so that lots of people who were physically sick or living with mental illness were brought to Jesus and he healed many of them.

What Mark is telling us is this: Jesus, the legitimate Son of God, ritually washed in the River Jordan by John the Baptizer, tempted in the Wilderness during his time of preparation for his life … calls his followers, and then immediately begins his ministry, and what is that ministry? … healing.  And where does the healing begin? … within the community faith and right in one’s own home.

Yes, the healing spreads from there, but healing begins at home.

That is the good news, that is the story to which the followers of Jesus (that means us) are called … to a life of healing.

It’s as if Mark is saying, “It’s a broken world, there are people in this world who are broken … the world and all who live in it are in need of healing (what in Hebrew is call tikun olam … the healing or repair of the world) … and this is what the kingdom of God looks like, and world where demons are case out, the ill rise from their sick beds, and the community lives in fullness.  And, as followers of Jesus, it is to that ministry, to that healing that we are called and you don’t have to go far to put it into use.

When we care for one another, when we are compassionate, when we find time to listen to the needs of those right around us, and love our neighbors as ourselves then we follow this Jesus whom we claim as our Lord.  That is, we love God, and we love our neighbors as ourselves … and that, my brothers and sisters, simply is the Good News, the Gospel, the life of faith to which you and I are called.

+ Deo Gratia