All Things Considered
Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39

February 5, 2006


It was supposed to be a normal day, a special day since it was the Sabbath, but that day a man possessed tried to hijack and capture the world of the Capernaum synagogue, his demons screaming insults at Jesus until Jesus told them to shut up and get out. Evil was defeated and vanquished, the congregants had their minds blown away, and the word of what Jesus had done was spreading at least as fast as wild fire.

Mark loves the word “immediately,” so he tells of Jesus wasting no time going back to Simon and Andrew’s house. James and John Zebedee came too, and did you notice that they are all Capernaummers? This group of disciples was no all star team from all over Galilee or Palestine, but people from right here who were worthy enough. The implications for the local church are unbelievable since it means that right here we can recruit and develop twelve disciples the equal of Jesus’ dozen. You are good enough.

Simon’s mother-in-law is ill with a fever, and there’s no time to fool around with one of those. It could have been life-threatening, but we don’t hear that. Jesus did nothing special, simply going up to her bed, taking her hand and lifting her up, and the fever broke. You and I can do that. Did he really heal her? Feminists bristle, but immediately upon getting up she served them. We might want her to rest some more, but her running around was a sign that she had fully regained her health, that she was healed of the ravages of a dangerous illness - this was no half-way measure. “I am really ecstatic that I am whole enough I can wait on you!” Jesus did not utter a word.

Next thing we are told, the wild fire has arrived at his front door. People overwhelm the house, beginning at sunset, for remember, this is the end of the Sabbath. You aren’t supposed to work during the Sabbath, so now they really put Jesus to work. All sorts of diseases are healed and more people possessed with demons were released from their inner bondage. The whole city was at his door, a deafening noise of people freed at last. Jesus, however, forbade the demons to speak “because they knew him.”

This seems a little odd, no free speech here. When there is an antagonist in a church who continually incites conflict and dissatisfaction, don’t give him a voice. No good will come out of being fair and democratic, for giving this one a voice empowers him.

The next morning, even before it is light, Jesus gets up and goes out to a deserted, lonely place and there he prays. It sounds like Jesus is exhausted, needs to clear his head and get away from people. But why does Jesus have to pray? He is the Second Person of the Trinity. He is God incarnate, so is he praying to himself? Couldn’t he have prayed just as well in the exhausted dark of that house? I suppose, but Jesus made the choice, the human choice to pray. You too have a choice regarding prayer. You don’t have to pray either.

It took one day of ministry to make clear that the need of human beings was going to be relentless. Simon and friends frantically looked all over for him and when they found him complained, “Everyone is looking for you.” That is precisely the problem: Jesus knew already that simply serving people’s needs temporarily was an endless task that ultimately did not change the world. If he could help people see how they could help themselves, then his Word could keep on creating and recreating health and wholeness, life and power.

So he decides to get out of Capernaum and go among the other villages, preaching the Gospel there, what he had really come to do. He started circulating in all the synagogues, preaching like one with authority, but the demons always seem to find him, so he handled them as necessary.

Jesus, we know, was fond of Second Isaiah, and it is probable he preached from today’s Old Testament reading. “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?” Isaiah knows that this is “all things considered”: God is the foundation of all existence and of everything we do and are. Self-centered arrogance convinces you and me that we run the show. When things don’t go our special way, we whine that God has forgotten and lost track of us, that God is losing his stuff. Even young people in their prime can stumble, Isaiah reminds, but God can make the worst of us “spread their wings and soar like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

All things considered, what do we know as the Gospel today? That disciples are made, not born: you are elected by God no matter where you are to be one of the twelve. That you can heal some people, just like Jesus could. That when God touches you, you are glad to serve others! That there is a proper time to work and to rest. That the best way to enable evil is to let evil speak as if it had something worthwhile to say. If Jesus wants to pray, the one who has no need, should not we need to pray? If Jesus is tired and exhausted, aren’t we allowed as well?

That all things considered, it is better to teach a skill, to open up an insight to heal themselves and others. You and I are here not because Jesus physically touched us, but we are in that long line of apostolic succession by which we have received the touch of someone who has been touched by another who was touched by still another - all touched by the power of people possessed by a Gospel that makes one free, soar like an eagle, run and not be weary, walk and not faint.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan