The First Presbyterian Church in Springfield - February 5, 2012 Rev. Sarah A. Colwill

“Praying in a Lonely Place” Isaiah 40:21-31 Psalm 147:1-11 Mark 1:29-39

This morning’s passage from Mark is a continuation of the storyline from the last several weeks. In just the first chapter of Mark we already have ’ public ministry up and running, full steam ahead. John the Baptist has proclaimed his coming and baptized him in the river Jordan. Jesus has called his first disciples (Simon, Andrew, James, and

John). And as we heard last week - Jesus is teaching in the synagogue and casting out demons and unclean spirits. This morning’s story is another healing. Jesus and his four disciples are at Simon’s house. Jesus relieves Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever and before you know it, crowds of people - the whole city it says - are gathered at the doorway of the house - crammed - packed in - trying to get this man Jesus to free them from their maladies. News of this healer has spread, and people are coming in masses.

It is so interesting that so much of Jesus’ public ministry, so much of what he was about, throughout this , is healing. If you leaf through the , story after story tells of Jesus healing - casting out demons, curing fevers, cleansing lepers, restoring paralytics, healing withered hands. If we had to rank Jesus’ purpose and the intention of his ministry based on the amount of time his activity takes up in this gospel, healer would be at the top of the list. Below we might list preacher, teacher, storyteller, miracle worker - but the top of the list would have to be healer. And yet it’s curious that 2 the attention we give to this aspect of his ministry is often downplayed. We tend to uplift the - not putting your lamp under a bushel basket, faith the size of a mustard seed.

We tend to uplift his teachings - how to inherit eternal life, the first and second greatest commandments. We contemplate his miracles - the feeding of the multitudes, walking on water.

Why do we tend to downplay Jesus as the healer, instead focusing on Jesus the preacher, Jesus the -teller, Jesus the miracle worker? Maybe it’s because we’ve assigned such scientific and medical maladies to the responsibility of health care professionals. Maybe it’s because we have phony images of televangelists making teary- eyed wheel-chair bound people stand up and walk. Maybe it’s because we’ve chalked health issues up to good luck or bad luck and just a necessary by-product of our human condition, rather than any God-willed ailment.

So what if Jesus’ primary purpose on this earth was to heal? What if Jesus’ primary purpose is to heal us? Today? How does that even happen? How does Jesus heal us?

What are our ailments? Do we really believe that Jesus can heal us?

One of the things that needs to be noted when we ask these questions and reflect upon their answers is that the most painful experiences in life usually have little to do with physical pain. If we were to survey most people to understand their worst moments, their deepest pain, their most difficult times, how many of us would focus on broken bones, fevers, or the like? While physical pain and illness are nothing to dismiss, spiritual or emotional pain is often much more distressing and upsetting. We can even see that 3 physical pain has its worst moments when it leads to the more spiritual maladies of depression, lack of enthusiasm for day to day living, lack of mobility, despair about the future. How many of us, when visiting a sick loved one might say, “well, she’s doing alright, but she was in really good spirits.” Or, “yeah, he’s still in a lot of pain, but he was really in a good mood.” We recognize that physical pain and bodily ailments are not the source of our deepest sense of well-being. Our deepest sense of well-being comes from the health of our spiritual and emotional selves.

When Simon’s mother-in-law is healed from her fever, the next sentence in the scripture passage almost made me choose to ignore this Mark text and preach on a totally different passage altogether. It reads, “Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” What? I thought, hold on a minute; so these five guys come into the house and Jesus decides to cure this woman’s fever so she can go make them a sandwich? The feminist in me had a pretty knee jerk reaction to this verse.

But - on further consideration - maybe something else is going on here. If we can put the social structures and expectations of that time, some 2,000 years ago in their proper place, there is deeper meaning to her serving. Her service is not so much an action of submission to these hungry men, but can we suspend judgment and stretch this action to be a way that she fulfills her calling. This is her responsibility, her privilege, her job.

Suspend judgment just for a time to imagine that her fever was preventing her from doing what she wanted to do; what she felt called to do; what fulfilled her. She needed healing 4 to be able to live into her calling. Her sickness was blocking her from being who she wanted to be. Her sickness was preventing her from being her best self.

This beckons the question in our own lives - what ailment blocks us from living into our calling? As baptized disciples of , dedicated to living as faithful witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ - what pain blocks us from living into our calling? What weakness do we carry with us that is in need of Jesus’ healing? What is the stumbling block in our lives that prevents us from being the disciples we are called to be?

After Jesus cures Simon’s mother-in-law, the city jams into the house and Jesus cures all of them, too. The next day in the morning, when it was still very dark, it says,

Jesus got up and went out to a lonely place and prayed. Some translations use the word deserted instead of lonely, but being that there were no physical deserts in the area,

“lonely” seems to be a better translation that gets to the point of what Jesus was doing.

This is an interesting juxtaposition in this story - that there are people with illness and demons and ailments who are coming in droves to be cured…..And then we have Jesus who goes off in the pitch dark of the early morning hours, to a lonely place to pray. We have a tendency to follow Jesus’ lead here, don’t we? Instead of situating ourselves as the role of Simon’s mother-in-law - (sick and in need of healing, or as one of those townspeople who tracks Jesus down and jams in a doorway in order to be healed) - I wonder if we don’t relate better to the role of Jesus - healing others, then going to a lonely place to pray by ourselves. 5

We are often willing to help others, but find ourselves reluctant to search out the help we need for ourselves. We are often willing to share our physical problems of sickness or injury, but find ourselves reluctant to share the lonely places in our souls that are in need of healing. We are pretty good at putting ourselves together and getting through the day. And sometimes for our own sanity and for our own need to function we all have days when we need to do that. But the deeper question we need to ask ourselves is - Are we willing to look at the broken places of our souls and ask for healing? Are we able to identify the hurt places in our lives that prevent us from living into our calling as disciples of Christ?

The contain a formula for Jesus’ healing episodes. There is sort of a recipe or prescription for how these healings take place and how they are recorded. It goes something like this: First, there is a description of the illness. Second, there is a request for healing. Third, there is action by the healer. And fourth, there is evidence that the ailing person has been restored to health. A description, a request, a healing, and evidence of the healing. We often understand our role as children of God to be responders - we respond to God’s call in us; we respond to Christ’s invitation to follow him. Well, here, we have more of an active role to play. If we are going to get to the place of healing, we need to first identify the issue and second ask for healing. We are the initiators. We are the ones defining our ailments. We are the ones actively asking for healing. These first two steps - describing or identifying our pain or weakness, then requesting healing - These are not always the easiest steps to take. 6

We are fast and furiously approaching Lent, a time of inward reflection, repentance, and spiritual renewal. On my worst days I view Lent as a season of shame, guilt, and feeling bad about ourselves. But on my best days, and today is one of them, I view Lent as a chance to take those first two steps in the healing process. Identifying what is blocking us from living into our calling and asking for divine healing.

Sometimes the pain can be overwhelming, the problem can be too complicated, the issue can be too hopeless, the situation makes us too vulnerable, the past is too shameful.

Sometimes all we seem to be able to do is, like Jesus, sneak out in the dark of the morning to pray in a lonely place by ourselves. But if we are to preach the truth of the gospel message, we believe that there is more to life than pain and hurt and emptiness and despair. If we have faith that God sent his son to show us a light that overcomes all darkness and a life that overcomes all death, we need to take that message - not just to those who are sick or dying or grieving; we need to take that message - not just to those living in violence or dealing with addiction, but we need to take that message into our own hearts and we need to take that message to the depth of our own emotional struggles and ailments. The hope and love of Jesus Christ has a healing power that overcomes emptiness and insecurity and regret and those feelings of incompleteness and disappointment that block us from being who we are called to be.

Jesus Christ is a healer. He healed Simon’s mother-in-law; he healed the entire city who showed up at that house; he heals you and he heals me. His ministry is about healing. 7

We have an important role to play, as his , to be a part of that healing for others.

But we also have the accountability to live into what we proclaim and profess to others; to search our own souls and believe that our brokenness and places of plain can be cured by his healing presence. Thanks be to God for sending his son to heal us from our pain and restore us to fullness of life. Amen.