Epiphany 5 February 5, 2006

Today’s gospel might well be titled, “A Day in the Life of Jesus”.  You may have noticed, as we’ve moved through the first chapter of Mark the last few weeks, that Mark wastes no time getting to his main plot line—the ministry of Jesus.  Mark begins the story not with a genealogy, not with a birth story or tales of Jesus’ childhood, but with Jesus’ baptism.  After the baptism, we learn, Jesus is driven into the wilderness, but even there Mark does not let the story linger.  Rather the narrative goes right along to the calling of the first disciples, and the first exorcisms and healings, stories that mark the inauguration of the ministry of Jesus.  Today we follow Jesus in the early part of his ministry as he enacts the mighty works of God in the region of Galilee. 

In contrast to the gospel of Matthew which focuses in detail on the teaching of Jesus, Mark’s gospel focuses in detail on the deeds of Jesus. Like all the gospels the gospel of Mark is written not only to preserve and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, but also to help his audience to understand how Jesus himself brought that Good News.  In focusing on the deeds of Jesus, Mark shows how Jesus lived out the Good News in his ministry, proclaiming the Kingdom of God, enacting this kingdom in “mighty deeds”, and instructing the disciples about the meaning of his life and death.

One of the enigmatic parts of Mark’s gospel for me is the so-called “messianic secret”—the shroud of secrecy that Jesus himself holds over his identity in this gospel.  In Mark’s gospel who is it that first recognizes that Jesus is the Son of God, who is it that recognizes that Jesus has extraordinary powers?  It’s the demons!  And Jesus over and over instructs them not to tell.  When Jesus heals the leper and the blind man, again he cautions them not to tell others what has happened.  What’s more, in Mark’s gospel the disciples are notoriously slow to catch on.  Even though they willingly follow Jesus and participate in his ministry they seem remarkably dimwitted when it comes to grasping the meaning of what is taking place.

One possible reason for this messianic secrecy is that for Mark, accepting Jesus as the Christ should come not just from his miraculous works, but in the context of the cross.  So for Mark, it makes sense for the disciples only to “get it” at the time of the crucifixion.  Why then the emphasis on the mighty deeds in Mark’s gospel? I think it is two fold.  First is that Jesus is providing evidence over and over of his divine identity in his life and works, whether the disciples get it at the time or only later.  The other, though, is that by focusing on the works of Jesus, Mark is also demonstrating how Jesus provided a model for discipleship—not only in his teaching, but in his actions.  This model for discipleship was there for Jesus’ followers at the time, and it’s there for those who’ve come after—even for us today.

In today’s reading we follow Jesus through a day early in his ministry. If you recall from last week, Jesus had just cast out an unclean spirit and those who observed it were astounded with the authority he assumed, and with his teaching.  This week we catch up with Jesus and his followers as they leave the synagogue and go to Simon’s house where Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law. Later that evening he casts out demons and heals the sick in the crowd that has gathered outside the house. The next morning Jesus gets up early and goes out alone to pray. When his disciples find him there to tell him that everyone is searching for them, he answers that they all need to move on to the neighboring towns to spread the word—to preach and teach.

How does this early ministry of Jesus model discipleship for us?  In these passages from Mark, we’ve seen Jesus as a teacher and a preacher, we’ve seen him as an exorcist and a healer, we’ve seen him as an evangelist and as a person of prayer.  All of those are roles that he expected his disciples to assume, and they are important roles in the church today.  But far too often today we assign these roles just to clergy.  While clergy are certainly called to be preachers and teachers, to be persons of prayer, to be healers and reconcilers, these are also roles that ANY of us may be called to, and I would argue that everyone here is called to at least some form of one or another of them.  Because we are all called to be Christ’s Body in the world, we are all called to discipleship and in Jesus’ deeds, we see that discipleship modeled.

At this point some of you may be thinking, what, is she kidding?  I’m not called to cast out demons, I’m not called to heal, or to preach or to teach—and that could be true.  On the other hand, I think many of you are doing these things already, and in some cases may not even be aware of it, and I’m sure that you are all called to ministry of some kind.

Jesus calls us, his disciples, to be preachers and teachers.  These are roles that Steve and I and other clergy take seriously, but they are not exclusively ours as clergy.  This work belongs to all of us—to lay preachers, to church school teachers of course—but let’s not stop there.  We teach (and yes, sometimes even preach) as parents.  We engage in a form of preaching or teaching when we talk about our faith, when we share our beliefs and our experiences with family, with friends, or even with strangers. We share in the ministry of teaching when we read the lessons, when we participate in discussions at adult forums or at the Thursday morning breakfasts or in book groups.

And what about healing and exorcising demons?  Not roles that most of us consider taking on—and in fact, the role of exorcist in the true sense of the word is not one to be taken lightly.  There are, however, persons in this parish who are called to healing ministry—some as health care professionals but others in their participation in the Wednesday healing service, or in the intercessory prayer group.  And just as with teaching, there are many other ways we might engage in healing ministry, perhaps unawares, because healing can take place in many ways.  When we listen to others, when we reach out to those who are sick, or bereaved, or lonely we are engaging in a healing ministry. When we provide a safe place for people to gather, when we feed and show hospitality to the marginalized as we do in our days and nights of hospitality we are engaged in a healing ministry—healing in even a small way some of the hurts that the world can inflict. 

Finally, Jesus calls us to be evangelists and people of prayer.  Evangelism can feel like a bad word these days—we associate it with TV preachers, or with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons who knock on our doors at inconvenient times, or with pushy folks who come on way too strong.  But evangelism—spreading the good news—is something Jesus calls us to, and like other aspects of ministry, it’s something many are doing already—by talking about what a wonderful place St. Mary’s is, by welcoming newcomers, by inviting folks to join you at church. We are all evangelists, and we’re all people of prayer, too—the fact that you are here today testifies to that.  All of us may have different patterns of prayer, many of us may feel that our prayer lives are inadequate and need some revival, but we’re here together today, and we are a people of prayer.  Some of us pray with the words of the prayer book, some pray without words, some pray through music and art, some pray with beads.  And both in solitary prayer and in common prayer, we join our hearts and lift our voices together to pray as people of God.

Mark tells about what Jesus did because Jesus’ mighty acts announce the Kingdom of God that Jesus is ushering in.  But Jesus’ mighty acts also serve as a model of ministry, as a model of discipleship for us.  At St. Mary’s we are a community that is striving to live intentionally as the Body of Christ in the world.  The prayer of St. Teresa of Avila that I used to close last week’s annual meeting says it beautifully:

Christ has no body now on earth but ours;
ours are the only hands with which he can do his work,
ours are the only feet with which he can go about the world,
ours are the only eyes through which his compassion can shine forth upon a trouble world;
Christ has no body on earth now but ours.

Jesus is calling us to discipleship. As much as we already engaging  in these ministries of discipleship, so we are called to be open to new opportunities and new ways of ministry.  In the days and weeks to come may we look for opportunities to serve as disciples and to live as the Body of Christ in the world.

Thanks be to God!