Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | February 4, 2024

Isaiah 40:21-31 and Mark 1:29-39

If we come to church looking for answers, then a good way to find answers is to figure out what the questions are. One question I think about, and maybe you do too, is how do we experience God in our lives? We have things going on – friends, family, relationships, work, leisure, illness, problems, life in all its fulness, and we want to know, “Lord, where are you in all of this?”

We might pray about our concerns; we might read devotional materials, but most of the life we live is not explicitly religious. Yet God is everywhere, and every moment is a potential God-moment with the possibility of a divine encounter. Something as simple as going through our day with that in mind opens us to the possibility.

I do most of the grocery shopping in our household. I enjoy a trip to the store. I have a method. I always make a list; a list provides focus for the task at hand, and also allows the mind to wander. I read labels. I plan trips to the grocery store so that I’m never hungry or in a hurry. I’m mindful of the people around me, especially those who work in the store. You never know what kind of day someone might be having.

When I am out and about, sometimes to the grocery store, I keep in mind that this is where people live their lives, out and about in the world; going about their business. This is where people act like the people they are, all while having a day on a scale from good to bad. I don’t run errands thinking, “I need to go out and get some sermon stories,” but it often happens.

Recently, I left the grocery store with my shopping in hand. As I walked to my car, there was a car backing out of a parking space. Another driver was waiting to pull into the soon to be vacated space. But not soon enough it seemed. As the first car drove away, the waiting driver pulled into the spot, while loudly yelling and swearing over the inconvenience of having to wait for ten seconds at the most. There are people who go through life in a great hurry to nowhere, and other people are always getting in the way.

The message comes to us as a constant reminder that waiting is a waste of time and precious time at that. Time when we could be doing something; something more worthwhile and productive than waiting. The idea of instant gratification at the push of a button has crept into our culture with the promise of getting what we want, when we want it. Same day delivery, right to your door, only an hour away. Why wait? Call now!

Sometimes in church we struggle with this idea that if we don’t get with the program, we’re going to miss out. We might not be sure what the program is, or what it is we might miss out on, but this sense of urgency can creep into our thinking that we have to do something, or else “this church is going to die!”

There was a time when the session members of the church I was serving were in a, “We need to run the church like a business” way of thinking. A positive notion for busy people running a busy organization. There is some merit to that in terms of being responsible and wise stewards of our resources. So in response to their, What are we paying you for?” anxiety, I kept a record of my work activities and submitted a monthly report so that they could see where their money was going. They liked the idea of the busy pastor; busy must equal productive.

But, in the “we need to run the church like a business” framework, there was never enough time to do what they thought needed to be done. One elder suggested, “You should learn how to multi-task.” “Multi-tasking” was at that moment the newest lingo for an ancient concept. Basically, it means to manage one’s workload with maximum efficiency. But it also requires that one be too busy to accomplish individual single tasks in a thorough manner.

There are some activities that are difficult to chart on a job report. Such as, time spent reading, studying and thinking; such as prayer and meditation. The time needed to add depth and color and soul to the work. In some areas of work, in order to give something of yourself, you have to have a self to give. That means that caring for others begins with caring for one’s self. Not caring for one’s self leads to burn out.

How did Jesus handle the pressures of his life and work, his “job” so to speak?  In reviewing his work ethic, he pretty much did one thing at a time. His focus was on the people around him; he nurtured relationships. He never tried to do more than one thing at a time and if he was interrupted in what he was doing, then that became the task at hand. Even when he was being crucified on a cross, he was able to listen to another person going through the same thing. I guess you could call that a sort of divine multi-tasking. It’s what the opportunity of the moment called for.

Trying to do too much leads to distractions; it leads to feeling rushed; it leads to other people being in the way. In terms of multi-tasking, I could sharpen my pencils while my print job is running, but other than that, no thank you.

Mark’s story of Jesus is written with a sense of urgency. The different episodes are condensed in a “you get the picture” sort of way. In today’s story Jesus and his friends stopped at Simon’s house for a meal, and Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed. Jesus took her by the hand and she was made well. Then she got busy serving dinner. Word went around that healing was to be had and people from all over town showed up at the door. Jesus spent the next hours in a sort of healing the sick marathon. It wasn’t just about curing aches and pains and maladies. The healing that Jesus performed brought people back into relationship with their community, friends and families, and with God.

The next day Jesus didn’t wait for the sun to rise before he left the house and went to what was described as a, “deserted place.” When Jesus wanted time to think, to pray, to meditate, he didn’t go to the busy marketplace, or to the synagogue, or even to the proverbial quiet corner. A deserted place speaks of somewhere that people once were but are no longer there. Not the wilderness as in other stories, but a place abandoned.

Conversations about church today touch on the fact that fewer people are involved in church than in the recent past. If we viewed this through the lens of the business model, then we would see failure. We would frame it as losing our customer base. We would come up with a new business plan. We would alter our message to meet the fast-changing demands of people leading busy lives. But, if we look through the lens of Scripture, then we see the presence of Christ in our midst.

When his followers told Jesus that everyone was looking for him and that he needed to get back and get busy, he said it was time to move on. It would seem that he was on the brink of success; he was attracting large numbers of people. For Jesus, healing people was like a by-product of the truth he brought to bear; the truth that people could have a heart to heart relationship with God.

Driving to and from church, I see eagles fairly often. Sometimes they’re flying around in the air; sometimes they’re by the side of the road eating something. They always seem so impressive close up, so actually big. When eagles fly, because of their size they don’t flap their wings like smaller birds. They seem to rise up gracefully and they catch the wind and they soar. The atmosphere around them holds aloft. From there they see the bigger picture of their world.

The writer of Isaiah reminds us that we live our lives in God’s world and in God’s timeframe. God is God, and God will be God. We don’t need some magic formula to experience God. What’s recommended is that we wait; we wait for God to be God and for God to do what God will do and what that is, is for God to decide. God is the Spirit who renews us; God is the Spirit who lifts us up. We are the eagles who soar. Amen.