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Worship
Jesus and his disciples came to the synagogue, the right and best place to
be on the Sabbath. Preparations had been made by the appropriate authorities;
the Facilities Committee had opened up and made sure the heating was on, the
Fellowship folks had made the coffee, the ushers were on hand to welcome
people, the choir was ready to lead the chanting and singing. Even that man
that doesn’t come very often was there, that man with that wild look in his
eyes, the man that all the parents tell their children to keep clear of.
There he was sat in the congregation! And so the
Synagogue services began, following the customary pattern:
prayers, blessings, reading of scripture in the Hebrew, translation of the
passage into the local vernacular, Aramaic,
and then one of the adult males would offer an interpretation of the text.
And
so it was that Jesus moved forward to participate in the service. The
reaction of the people was one of delight, marvel, and wonder.
Jesus hadn’t been born and raised in their little town, Capernaum, but He
had made it his adopted home and the home town folks were pretty pleased to
have Jesus in their midst, because, well, He was just such an interesting
person, so engaging, so wise, so concerned for His neighbors.
That day as he spoke before them, Jesus made a huge impression. What He said
made complete sense. It could be likened to when we are flipping through the
channels and we move from a foreign language station where we don’t really
understand what it is going on and come to a channel which is showing our
favorite show or movie… we instantly know where we are.
It is something we can understand and relate to.
Like switching from the latest Hispanic Soap Opera to the Andy Griffith
Show, the folks in the Synagogue suddenly could understand exactly and
fully what Jesus was saying.
But there was more to it than this.
It wasn’t only what Jesus was saying that affected
the people; Mark didn’t report a single teaching
offered by Jesus that day. What made the people sit up and take note was the
poise, authority, confidence, and power, with which Jesus taught. The manner
in which Jesus taught made a huge impression.
Maybe you recall times when you or other people said things like “So-and-so
preached that one from his heart,” or “So-and-so preached it like it is”;
occasions when the preacher or speaker really impressed you. Above all else,
what struck Jesus’ listeners was that he did not quote or attribute his
pronouncements to anyone else. He did not say as the prophets always said,
“Thus saith the Lord.” He did not quote the insights of other, famous
rabbis. Instead Jesus spoke
for God
as if God
were speaking directly through Him.
Those who watched and listened saw that Jesus’ teaching had a
self-validating power. His movements and gestures, His eye contact and His
physical presence gave witness to the truth that Jesus was enabled,
entitled, empowered to say what was being said.
There was an absolute consistency between the
words spoken and the person speaking. The community was impressed because
they were not used to this kind of integrity and insight and power.
Just then, the man with the wild look in his eyes, who according to Mark was
afflicted by an unclean spirit, a spirit of
despair and division and death, started mumbling
and grumbling and arguing back. This spirit which afflicted him and
diminished him knew where the power of Jesus and the power of Jesus’ words
came from. And like all unclean spirits, its
primary concern was simply for itself. “What have you to do with us? Why
are you bothering us, Jesus? Have you come to destroy us?” At one and
the same moment Jesus’ authority is recognized by the unclean spirit and the
spirit is silenced, by the words and the person and the presence of Jesus,
the spirit is cast out of the man, its power over him is ended, the man is
freed from its grip on his life.
There is a progression going on here.
First, Jesus liberates the word of God, breaking
it out of the ivory tower and bringing it to the people and in so doing,
this Word, the Word from God, the Word of God, liberates not just one man,
but the entire community. All
the worshippers that day were freed from something, all of them received a
message from God, all of them were changed and re-made.
Growing Disciples
This one incident is in fact very typical of Jesus, who, whenever He taught,
always provoked interest and insight, compassion and concern, faith and
following. It didn’t matter to whom Jesus was talking.
To the crowds or the disciples...
to the scribes or the common folk.
What He said and how He said left an impression.
His words always left a mark – not the mark of Zorro, but the mark of
God’s grace. If we get hung up on the gospel writer’s understanding of
evil spirits, we will miss the point that the
presence and personality and presentation of Jesus always bring change and
new insights,
and new possibilities to all.
Our role as a church is to help create an
open atmosphere of learning and discernment, in which every person, no
matter their age or background, can be encouraged
to receive and discover for themselves, a fresh, direct word from God.
Our vision is to be a church that is ready to hear the questions which
people ask, in their pain and hurt, in their uncertainty and even in their
anger. Our vision is to be a fellowship of people that is ready to offer
friendship and partnership to people, living with them both in the questions
and in the answers as they appear. Such a vision includes our own need to be
challenged and changed by the questions of others, as we seek to offer
answers we too can be better converted to the amazing grace of God.
If we ever get to the place where Jesus no longer bothers us, we will have
reached a very dangerous place.
A place where we are tempted to believe that we understand all there
is to understand. A
place where we see nothing else to learn.
A place where we no longer see God challenging our
values, our attitudes, our thinking.
Our only hope lies in Jesus bothering us.
Jesus should be the one person who causes us the most bother;
not our allegiance to any other person, thing, institution, system, nation
or symbol.
Love / God's Grace
Jesus’ message that day in Capernaum and its effect on all who were there,
especially on that man who was most troubled, demanded change from that
community of faith. Change in their welcome to one
towards whom they had previously been so suspicious. Jesus would still
bother us to ensure that we are ready to fully and warmly and faithfully
embrace those who are different from us, those who may be on the edge, those
whose path to faith followed other paths, those with whom we may have
disagreed, those whom we may have hurt or whom we have hurt. The message
that Jesus still brings is a message of grace, of repentance, of
forgiveness, of reconciliation. This message, the message of and about and
from Jesus is an extremely bothersome message because of what it asks of
us and how it calls us to change.
In his book, “If Grace Is So Amazing, Why
Don’t We Like It? How God’s Radical Love Turns the World Upside Down”,
Donald McCullough quotes the example of a tribe in South Africa who have a
unique approach to forgiveness and reconciliation. In their approach,
they take sin seriously, yet their ultimate goal is to reconcile those who
commit evil acts. What happens is this: within the
tribe when someone sins or acts in an irresponsible manner, that person is
taken to the center of the village. Then all work in the community stops,
and every member of the tribe assembles in a huge circle around the
offender. Instead of hurling rocks or abuse at the person, the tribe members
in the circle take turns naming all the good things that offender has ever
done in his or her life. One at a time they carefully name “all positive
attributes, generous deeds, strengths, and kindnesses.” Often that ritual
will last several days until everyone has had a chance to speak. Finally the
circle is broken and a joyous celebration takes place as the person is
welcomed back into the tribe.
In the tribe that is Northminster Presbyterian Church,
we can learn from such an example.
Our need to forgive and be reconciled must be
taken seriously. We can
never fully share God’s grace and love with others if we are unwilling or
unable to share it with each other. When we hurt another person, we should
be quick to acknowledge this and seek their forgiveness.
When we are hurt, we should forgive and so create
and protect the space within which reconciliation can happen.
In
Jesus, God loves you; in Jesus, God loves all of us; in Jesus, God loves the
world.
This is our faith and it needs to change our
lives. The affirmation “God loves us” must never be separated from the
corresponding command “God calls us to change our living”;
to do God’s will, to do God’s work, to be God’s people. If we
are only ever focusing on God’s love for us while
ignoring what God needs us to do, we will end up
harming ourselves and harming God’s purposes. It would be like what happens
when salt is separated into its component parts of sodium and chloride. When
separated, they are highly unstable and toxic. Yet when properly joined
together, they form a life-giving substance.
Receive God’s grace in Jesus Christ.
Accept God’s call to serve in Jesus Christ.
This is the message Jesus brought that day in
Capernaum,
and this is still God’s Word to all of us today. Amen. |
