Trading One Itch for Another 2 Kings 5:1-19, Mark 1:40-45

Trading One Itch for Another
2 Kings 5:1-19
Mark 1:40-45

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
I like being at home
I like being able to find the bathroom at night without turning on a light.
I like chatting with the checkout clerk at the grocery store.
I like being able to speak and be understood, hear and understand.

When I’m in a strange place,
I can’t help but experience a sense of dislocation.
At home I know the routine.
I can move by rote, act out of habit, wear my day like an old shoe.
But in a strange place I have to think through every move,
rely on my wits
and live with a certain amount of vulnerability that makes me uncomfortable.

The story of Naaman and Elisha’s healing of Naaman’s leprosy
is one of my favorite stories in the Bible.
It’s got all the little twists and ironies that make for a good story.
On the surface it looks like nothing much more than a miracle story,
one of several in 2 Kings that points to Elisha’s special powers as God’s prophet.
But there is more to the story than the miracle of healing and the power of Elisha.
Ever since I read an article by my old Bible professor Walter Bruggeman,
the more interesting aspect of this story for me
centers around the issue of “dislocation”, of feeling NOT at home.1

The story raises the question:
Is it possible to be dislocated,
to be away from home and still live in faithful obedience to God?
The story also raises a second question:
What do we do, how do we live,
when the very decision to live in faithful obedience to God
creates in us an inescapable feeling of dislocation,
a feeling of being a stranger in a strange land.

Sometimes the real hero of a story is not the most obvious choice.
Though our story is clearly meant to showcase Elisha’s powers as a prophet,
I think we could make a case that the real hero of the story
is the young servant girl,
the young servant girl who has been taken captive from Israel
and put to work in enemy territory as an attendant for Naaman’s wife.

This young servant girl is dislocated. She’s been taken from her home against her will.
She has been forced to adapt to a new culture, a new language,
and a life of slavery serving the wife of the commander of the very army
who caused her dislocation in the first place.
Yet, even though she is not at home, she knows to whom she belongs.
Though others may see her as a slave, she sees herself as a child of God.
And even though she is disoriented by strangeness,
she has no question about the power of God or of God’s prophet.

In what can only be seen as an act of grace,
this young Israelite girl has compassion on her enemy.
She bears witness to her faith, and she even risks getting into trouble for impertinence
as she lets Naaman know by way of his wife where his salvation really lies.
She only has two lines in the story, but they are two lines packed with meaning:
“If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria!
He would cure him of his leprosy.”
Think of what she’s saying here:
• First, she implies in her testimony
that though they may have physical control over her,
her captors cannot take away the freedom she finds
in her identity as a child of the Covenant.
Her feet may be in Syria, but her heart is firmly planted back home in Samaria.
• Second, by suggesting that Naaman go to a prophet of the God of Israel
for his healing, she implies that the gods of her captors are bankrupt,
They have no power.

I’m guessing that no one here has ever literally been taken captive,
But some of you know what it’s like figuratively to be a stranger,
to be ill at ease and not at home even in your own skin.

I’ve heard the experience of being diagnosed with cancer
described as being like waking up in a strange place
where the road signs are in a foreign language
and familiar landmarks have vanished.
These days people who have known nothing but the familiar territory of a steady job
suddenly find themselves lost in the alien landscape of unemployment.
I was talking recently with a seminary student who has strong gifts for ministry
but despairs of being able to practice those gifts because of her sexual orientation.
It is dislocating to her to love a church
that is willing to forego the blessing of her gifts
and ignore what she believes is God’s calling to serve.

So how do you survive in a foreign land?
In some situations you hold out hope that it will eventually get better –
the chemotherapy will work, the economy will turn around, attitudes will change.
You cling to that vision, to that hope of a return from exile,
remembering the promise of the psalmist,
that “weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Ps. 30)”
In the meantime, you try not to forget God’s promises,
try not to let the captivity eat away at the core of your identity
as a child of the covenant.

And what about when you know the captivity is permanent?
When you know progression of the disease is inevitable
or your beautiful baby’s Downs Syndrome is irreversible.
You grieve the loss of the ideal home,
and once you’ve got the grief to a level you can live with,
you resolve to make yourself as comfortable as you can where you are.
You could look for someone or something to blame for your dislocation,
or, like the young servant girl in our story, you could resolve
that by staying true to your identity as a child of God,
you will do more to define and influence your foreign land
than you will let it define and influence you.

The young servant girl tells us that it IS possible to be dislocated, to be not “at home”
and still live in faithful obedience to God.
But what about the other question?
What about when the very decision to live in faithful obedience to God
suddenly make the familiar foreign?
suddenly makes home feel like a strange place?

Commander Naaman is an egotistical blowhard.
If he wasn’t so mortified by the scourge of his disease
he would have never in a million years muddied his boot with Israeli soil.

One of the ironies of this story is how the servants are the wise ones
and the great General can’t find his left elbow with his right hand.
But, to his credit, he finally comes around, his eyes are opened,
he follows Elisha’s directions
and his crusty, stinking, diseased skin becomes smooth as a young boy’s.
So, what does he do?
He turns on his heel, goes home, and picks up where he left off.
No. When Naaman comes up from the Jordan river and back to Elisha’s door,
this great Commander, in front of all his entourage, humbles himself
and gives praise to the God of his enemy.
He still doesn’t understand the full implications of what’s happened, though,
because he tries to pay Elisha for his services,
to which Elisha responds curtly, “Certainly not!”

Further disoriented in a place where his power holds no sway
his wealth is not respected
and greed is not a dominant trait It finally hits Naaman.
The God of Israel, the God above all gods, has claimed him.
The God of his servant girl has not only smoothed his skin
but this great God has also given him a new identity.
Though he will return to Syria, he already knows he will return as a foreigner.
That’s why he asks permission to take two bags of black Israeli soil back with him –
to help ease the feeling of dislocation he knows is coming.
That’s why he seeks Elisha’s pardon
for the awkwardness he knows he’ll feel as he supports the arm of his king
enabling his king to bow down before the Syrian god Rimmon.

In our gospel lesson, Jesus heals a leper and then tells him to keep it quiet;
to just go about his business as though nothing’s happened.
You might as well tell the sun not to shine.
Once the man whose whole existence was centered around his disease is restored
what is there to go back to?
His home was in his disease.
Health and wholeness is a foreign land where his old habits no longer work
and it’s all strange and awkward.
He doesn’t know what to do except give praise.

Our home is in the United States where, for the most part, we value individual rights,
and bow to the gods of enlightened self-interest, capitalism, and patriotism.
Our prevailing myth is that anyone can be what they want to be if they work hard enough and we still consider our faith to be largely a private concern.

But what happens when we hear God’s call, when we say “Yes” to Christ’s claim on us?
I maintain that if you and I give praise to God and look to Christ as our source of hope
and if by doing so we don’t feel strange and awkward and ill at ease in our home
something isn’t right.
We are called as Christians to live in God’s Kingdom and in God’s Kingdom it’s different.
Citizens of God’s kingdom love neighbor as much as self,
and recognize the injustice inherent in any human economic system
and while grateful to God for the gift and responsibility of freedom,
put love of God above love of country no matter what country it is.

We have antibiotics to cure us of our leprosy these days,
but who among us doesn’t still need to be healed, to be restored.
When we find our identity in God and in God’s Kingdom,
God can make us whole, but even then, this side of Paradise,
we’re always going to feel awkward and out of place.
In truth, we just trade one itch for another.
But the promise is that no matter how foreign or strange things get
as we live out our faith,
no matter how much we may stumble or bumble along,
Our core identity is never in doubt as children of God.


1 Bruggeman, Walter, “A Brief Moment for a One-Person Remnant,” Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer, 2001.
Found on the internet at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LAL/is_2_31/ai_94332331/pg_8?tag=content;col1

Trading One Itch for Another 2 Kings 5:1-19, Mark 1:40-45

Trading One Itch for Another
2 Kings 5:1-19
Mark 1:40-45

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
I like being at home
I like being able to find the bathroom at night without turning on a light.
I like chatting with the checkout clerk at the grocery store.
I like being able to speak and be understood, hear and understand.

When I’m in a strange place,
I can’t help but experience a sense of dislocation.
At home I know the routine.
I can move by rote, act out of habit, wear my day like an old shoe.
But in a strange place I have to think through every move,
rely on my wits
and live with a certain amount of vulnerability that makes me uncomfortable.

The story of Naaman and Elisha’s healing of Naaman’s leprosy
is one of my favorite stories in the Bible.
It’s got all the little twists and ironies that make for a good story.
On the surface it looks like nothing much more than a miracle story,
one of several in 2 Kings that points to Elisha’s special powers as God’s prophet.
But there is more to the story than the miracle of healing and the power of Elisha.
Ever since I read an article by my old Bible professor Walter Bruggeman,
the more interesting aspect of this story for me
centers around the issue of “dislocation”, of feeling NOT at home.1

The story raises the question:
Is it possible to be dislocated,
to be away from home and still live in faithful obedience to God?
The story also raises a second question:
What do we do, how do we live,
when the very decision to live in faithful obedience to God
creates in us an inescapable feeling of dislocation,
a feeling of being a stranger in a strange land.

Sometimes the real hero of a story is not the most obvious choice.
Though our story is clearly meant to showcase Elisha’s powers as a prophet,
I think we could make a case that the real hero of the story
is the young servant girl,
the young servant girl who has been taken captive from Israel
and put to work in enemy territory as an attendant for Naaman’s wife.

This young servant girl is dislocated. She’s been taken from her home against her will.
She has been forced to adapt to a new culture, a new language,
and a life of slavery serving the wife of the commander of the very army
who caused her dislocation in the first place.
Yet, even though she is not at home, she knows to whom she belongs.
Though others may see her as a slave, she sees herself as a child of God.
And even though she is disoriented by strangeness,
she has no question about the power of God or of God’s prophet.

In what can only be seen as an act of grace,
this young Israelite girl has compassion on her enemy.
She bears witness to her faith, and she even risks getting into trouble for impertinence
as she lets Naaman know by way of his wife where his salvation really lies.
She only has two lines in the story, but they are two lines packed with meaning:
“If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria!
He would cure him of his leprosy.”
Think of what she’s saying here:
• First, she implies in her testimony
that though they may have physical control over her,
her captors cannot take away the freedom she finds
in her identity as a child of the Covenant.
Her feet may be in Syria, but her heart is firmly planted back home in Samaria.
• Second, by suggesting that Naaman go to a prophet of the God of Israel
for his healing, she implies that the gods of her captors are bankrupt,
They have no power.

I’m guessing that no one here has ever literally been taken captive,
But some of you know what it’s like figuratively to be a stranger,
to be ill at ease and not at home even in your own skin.

I’ve heard the experience of being diagnosed with cancer
described as being like waking up in a strange place
where the road signs are in a foreign language
and familiar landmarks have vanished.
These days people who have known nothing but the familiar territory of a steady job
suddenly find themselves lost in the alien landscape of unemployment.
I was talking recently with a seminary student who has strong gifts for ministry
but despairs of being able to practice those gifts because of her sexual orientation.
It is dislocating to her to love a church
that is willing to forego the blessing of her gifts
and ignore what she believes is God’s calling to serve.

So how do you survive in a foreign land?
In some situations you hold out hope that it will eventually get better –
the chemotherapy will work, the economy will turn around, attitudes will change.
You cling to that vision, to that hope of a return from exile,
remembering the promise of the psalmist,
that “weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Ps. 30)”
In the meantime, you try not to forget God’s promises,
try not to let the captivity eat away at the core of your identity
as a child of the covenant.

And what about when you know the captivity is permanent?
When you know progression of the disease is inevitable
or your beautiful baby’s Downs Syndrome is irreversible.
You grieve the loss of the ideal home,
and once you’ve got the grief to a level you can live with,
you resolve to make yourself as comfortable as you can where you are.
You could look for someone or something to blame for your dislocation,
or, like the young servant girl in our story, you could resolve
that by staying true to your identity as a child of God,
you will do more to define and influence your foreign land
than you will let it define and influence you.

The young servant girl tells us that it IS possible to be dislocated, to be not “at home”
and still live in faithful obedience to God.
But what about the other question?
What about when the very decision to live in faithful obedience to God
suddenly make the familiar foreign?
suddenly makes home feel like a strange place?

Commander Naaman is an egotistical blowhard.
If he wasn’t so mortified by the scourge of his disease
he would have never in a million years muddied his boot with Israeli soil.

One of the ironies of this story is how the servants are the wise ones
and the great General can’t find his left elbow with his right hand.
But, to his credit, he finally comes around, his eyes are opened,
he follows Elisha’s directions
and his crusty, stinking, diseased skin becomes smooth as a young boy’s.
So, what does he do?
He turns on his heel, goes home, and picks up where he left off.
No. When Naaman comes up from the Jordan river and back to Elisha’s door,
this great Commander, in front of all his entourage, humbles himself
and gives praise to the God of his enemy.
He still doesn’t understand the full implications of what’s happened, though,
because he tries to pay Elisha for his services,
to which Elisha responds curtly, “Certainly not!”

Further disoriented in a place where his power holds no sway
his wealth is not respected
and greed is not a dominant trait It finally hits Naaman.
The God of Israel, the God above all gods, has claimed him.
The God of his servant girl has not only smoothed his skin
but this great God has also given him a new identity.
Though he will return to Syria, he already knows he will return as a foreigner.
That’s why he asks permission to take two bags of black Israeli soil back with him –
to help ease the feeling of dislocation he knows is coming.
That’s why he seeks Elisha’s pardon
for the awkwardness he knows he’ll feel as he supports the arm of his king
enabling his king to bow down before the Syrian god Rimmon.

In our gospel lesson, Jesus heals a leper and then tells him to keep it quiet;
to just go about his business as though nothing’s happened.
You might as well tell the sun not to shine.
Once the man whose whole existence was centered around his disease is restored
what is there to go back to?
His home was in his disease.
Health and wholeness is a foreign land where his old habits no longer work
and it’s all strange and awkward.
He doesn’t know what to do except give praise.

Our home is in the United States where, for the most part, we value individual rights,
and bow to the gods of enlightened self-interest, capitalism, and patriotism.
Our prevailing myth is that anyone can be what they want to be if they work hard enough and we still consider our faith to be largely a private concern.

But what happens when we hear God’s call, when we say “Yes” to Christ’s claim on us?
I maintain that if you and I give praise to God and look to Christ as our source of hope
and if by doing so we don’t feel strange and awkward and ill at ease in our home
something isn’t right.
We are called as Christians to live in God’s Kingdom and in God’s Kingdom it’s different.
Citizens of God’s kingdom love neighbor as much as self,
and recognize the injustice inherent in any human economic system
and while grateful to God for the gift and responsibility of freedom,
put love of God above love of country no matter what country it is.

We have antibiotics to cure us of our leprosy these days,
but who among us doesn’t still need to be healed, to be restored.
When we find our identity in God and in God’s Kingdom,
God can make us whole, but even then, this side of Paradise,
we’re always going to feel awkward and out of place.
In truth, we just trade one itch for another.
But the promise is that no matter how foreign or strange things get
as we live out our faith,
no matter how much we may stumble or bumble along,
Our core identity is never in doubt as children of God.


1 Bruggeman, Walter, “A Brief Moment for a One-Person Remnant,” Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer, 2001.
Found on the internet at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LAL/is_2_31/ai_94332331/pg_8?tag=content;col1

Invitation by Design Isaiah 40:27-31, Mark 1:29-39, 1 Corinthians 9:16, 19-23

Not long ago my wife Kathryn decided to refinish the headboard
to the twin-sized bed she slept in as a child.
You’ve probably tackled a similar project at some point.
I’m not saying that the headboard is OLD,
but over the years it had been painted a number of times,
one coat of paint on top of the last.
So stripping it down to the bare wood was quite a job.

There was blue paint on top of yellow paint on top of white paint on top of green paint.
With each coat, the carved design on the headboard
had become less and less visible
as the paint filled in and leveled out the pattern.
The layers of paint obscured the plain craftsmanship of the headboard.
They gummed up the simple elegance of the design.
It wasn’t easy to get through all those layers,
but it was time.
It was time to take it back to the original woodwork,
back to the intended design of the builder.

Our gospel lesson this morning has me thinking about that headboard project.
Jesus has entered the picture in Mark’s gospel
and from the beginning he’s created quite a stir.
The opening scene of his ministry is in Capernaum,
a small fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.

On the Sabbath Jesus goes to the local synagogue there
and teaches about the Kingdom of God with a kind of direct, first hand authority
that the teachings of the local rabbis can’t touch.
He casts out a demon, he heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law,
and then spends all that evening healing those who are sick and demon possessed.

The next morning, Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John wake with the sun.
They stretch and groan, scratching and snorting.
Simon Peter’s mother-in-law rises from her bed,
giving thanks that she has been restored to health
and she quickly stirs the previous night’s embers into a breakfast fire.
The coffee has hardly had time to perk before they get the sense they’re not alone.
Andrew pulls the door flap aside and calls for the others to look.
There, outside the door, surrounding the courtyard and backing up into the street
is a crowd, pressing in, some leaning on crutches,
some carrying stretchers, some wrapped in bandages.
They are silent for the most part, except for the occasional moan
but there is an urgency in their silence, an electric kind of expectancy.

It’s Simon Peter who firsts notices that Jesus is not with them.
He goes to the corner where Jesus had been sleeping,
but the blankets are neatly folded and there’s no Jesus.
Already the de facto leader of the growing band of disciples,
Simon Peter feels responsible somehow for Jesus’ absence,
feels cross that he can’t give the pitiful crowd what they want – what they NEED.
He tells the others to come on,
and they push through the packed courtyard to go find their absent leader.

There’s no way of knowing how long they looked for him,
but finally they find Jesus in what Mark calls a “deserted place.”
Maybe it’s one of the little rocky outcroppings outside of town,
but I’m guessing it’s more likely down by the shore of the big lake.
It says Jesus had been praying for sometime,
and I picture him standing there praying with his eyes open,
maybe absentmindedly tossing pebbles in the water,
looking up and down the shore,
and imagining all the tiny villages, and all the people, Jew and Gentile,
to whom he has been called.

I don’t know what he prayed.
Maybe he prayed what most of us pray early in the morning
when we know there’s a big day ahead.
“Lord, give me strength. Give me strength.”

The disciples rush up to Jesus and hit him full force with all their pent up anxiety;
all their insecurity and impatience.
“Where have you been?!?!? EVERYONE is searching for you!”
Tugging on his arm they say, “You thought the crowd was big last night!
It must be twice as big this morning!”
“Everyone is searching for you….”
“Everyone…is searching…for YOU!”

How easy it is to be distracted from our purpose;
to get swept up in trends,
carried away with novel ideas,
lose our heads in popularity polls.

The crisis of the moment was the press of the sick, needy crowd.
The disciples felt the peoples’ urgency, reacted to their intense need.
But Jesus said “No.”
They thought he would catch their anxiety,
be moved with irresistible compassion,
respond to sick crowd’s collective crisis and do what the moment dictated.
But Jesus looked them in the eyes and said, “No.”
He said, “Let us go to the neighboring towns,
so that I may proclaim the message there also,
for THAT is what I came out to do.”

“That I may proclaim the message there also….”
Jesus had already delivered his message to the residents of Capernaum.
And there were many more towns just like it
where they had no idea that the Kingdom of God had come near,
no idea that they no longer had to live in fear of the law;
no idea that God’s desire was not to punish them, but forgive them
and offer them the chance to be part of something bigger than themselves,
offer them a chance to begin again.
THAT was his mission, his purpose, his reason for being
and if he did not take his message of God’s redeeming love
to as many as he could, he would be unfaithful to his calling.

“Let us go to the neighboring towns,
so that I may proclaim the message there also,
for that is what I came out to do.”
That is the Creator’s purpose.
That is the original design.

But how easy it is to let other concerns get in the way,
to let the crisis of the moment lead get us off track,
to let insecurities and impulses and fears build up, layer upon layer,
until God’s design for us,
God’s image in loses its distinctiveness and becomes all but obscured.

It would be hard to find any group more easily distracted
than the members of the church in Corinth.
There were theological factions, there were class divisions,
There was some sort of sexual impropriety going on that everybody knew about,
and, in chapters 8 and 9 of Paul’s letter he’s trying to answer their question
of whether it is lawful to eat meat that has been offered to idols.
The Corinthians have apparently written to Paul asking him to sort it all out for them;
to tell them who wins and who loses, who’s right and who’s wrong.
Finally, it is as if Paul has had enough of their petty bickering.

I picture him pacing back an forth in his tiny study,
dictating his words to a scribe as was his habit,
and maybe he stops, looks to heaven and cries in frustration, “ENOUGH!”
“Enough with all these distractions, all this squabbling.”
“Here it is, bottom line….WOE TO ME IF I DO NOT PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL!’

Paul has his calling. It is his one purpose – to tell people about the gift of God’s love,
to spread the word about the new thing God has done through Jesus.
And to any in Corinth who may question his tactics
or get their noses in a knot over who he associates with in the process
he says, “Look. I am not going to let superficial differences get in my way.
My faith has set me free but I willingly become a slave
if that’s what it takes to get the word out.

Is it reasonable, do you think, to conclude that as Jesus’ church
and as heirs to Paul’s mission,
our calling might be so simple? So clear? So focused?
Beneath all the layers of church life and daily life that can build up and obscure,
is it possible that our one most important calling is to tell others of God’s love,
of God’s forgiveness that is available and waiting?
to invite others into the fold, into the care of our Good Shepherd?

Our men’s lunch group was eating together this past Thursday
and one of the group brought up a class he was taking at UVA,
the focus of which is the possibility of life in the universe beyond earth.
We had a good discussion, talking at length about the cosmos,
about the scientific and theological dimensions of life on other planets.
We were the only ones there and our waiter kind of hovered within earshot
taking in our conversation.

At one point our waiter joined in and told us that he had given his son a telescope,
that it was at the boy’s mother’s house but he hoped to get it back to his house
so he could explore the sky with his son.
Then he told us about someone who had confronted a Buddhist friend of his
accusing the friend of worshipping the wrong god.
It was kind of an out of the blue comment and I wasn’t sure why he said it,
but we all agreed that it was an unproductive and even abusive way
to engage someone in conversation about their faith.

It came time to leave and we paid our bill and as we were breaking up
we even congratulated ourselves on having had an intelligent, in-depth conversation.
We pushed back from the table, put on our jackets, left our waiter generous tips.
But it occurred to me only later.
Not one of us…not one of us asked our waiter to come to church.

Invitation by Design Isaiah 40:27-31, Mark 1:29-39, 1 Corinthians 9:16, 19-23

Not long ago my wife Kathryn decided to refinish the headboard
to the twin-sized bed she slept in as a child.
You’ve probably tackled a similar project at some point.
I’m not saying that the headboard is OLD,
but over the years it had been painted a number of times,
one coat of paint on top of the last.
So stripping it down to the bare wood was quite a job.

There was blue paint on top of yellow paint on top of white paint on top of green paint.
With each coat, the carved design on the headboard
had become less and less visible
as the paint filled in and leveled out the pattern.
The layers of paint obscured the plain craftsmanship of the headboard.
They gummed up the simple elegance of the design.
It wasn’t easy to get through all those layers,
but it was time.
It was time to take it back to the original woodwork,
back to the intended design of the builder.

Our gospel lesson this morning has me thinking about that headboard project.
Jesus has entered the picture in Mark’s gospel
and from the beginning he’s created quite a stir.
The opening scene of his ministry is in Capernaum,
a small fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.

On the Sabbath Jesus goes to the local synagogue there
and teaches about the Kingdom of God with a kind of direct, first hand authority
that the teachings of the local rabbis can’t touch.
He casts out a demon, he heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law,
and then spends all that evening healing those who are sick and demon possessed.

The next morning, Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John wake with the sun.
They stretch and groan, scratching and snorting.
Simon Peter’s mother-in-law rises from her bed,
giving thanks that she has been restored to health
and she quickly stirs the previous night’s embers into a breakfast fire.
The coffee has hardly had time to perk before they get the sense they’re not alone.
Andrew pulls the door flap aside and calls for the others to look.
There, outside the door, surrounding the courtyard and backing up into the street
is a crowd, pressing in, some leaning on crutches,
some carrying stretchers, some wrapped in bandages.
They are silent for the most part, except for the occasional moan
but there is an urgency in their silence, an electric kind of expectancy.

It’s Simon Peter who firsts notices that Jesus is not with them.
He goes to the corner where Jesus had been sleeping,
but the blankets are neatly folded and there’s no Jesus.
Already the de facto leader of the growing band of disciples,
Simon Peter feels responsible somehow for Jesus’ absence,
feels cross that he can’t give the pitiful crowd what they want – what they NEED.
He tells the others to come on,
and they push through the packed courtyard to go find their absent leader.

There’s no way of knowing how long they looked for him,
but finally they find Jesus in what Mark calls a “deserted place.”
Maybe it’s one of the little rocky outcroppings outside of town,
but I’m guessing it’s more likely down by the shore of the big lake.
It says Jesus had been praying for sometime,
and I picture him standing there praying with his eyes open,
maybe absentmindedly tossing pebbles in the water,
looking up and down the shore,
and imagining all the tiny villages, and all the people, Jew and Gentile,
to whom he has been called.

I don’t know what he prayed.
Maybe he prayed what most of us pray early in the morning
when we know there’s a big day ahead.
“Lord, give me strength. Give me strength.”

The disciples rush up to Jesus and hit him full force with all their pent up anxiety;
all their insecurity and impatience.
“Where have you been?!?!? EVERYONE is searching for you!”
Tugging on his arm they say, “You thought the crowd was big last night!
It must be twice as big this morning!”
“Everyone is searching for you….”
“Everyone…is searching…for YOU!”

How easy it is to be distracted from our purpose;
to get swept up in trends,
carried away with novel ideas,
lose our heads in popularity polls.

The crisis of the moment was the press of the sick, needy crowd.
The disciples felt the peoples’ urgency, reacted to their intense need.
But Jesus said “No.”
They thought he would catch their anxiety,
be moved with irresistible compassion,
respond to sick crowd’s collective crisis and do what the moment dictated.
But Jesus looked them in the eyes and said, “No.”
He said, “Let us go to the neighboring towns,
so that I may proclaim the message there also,
for THAT is what I came out to do.”

“That I may proclaim the message there also….”
Jesus had already delivered his message to the residents of Capernaum.
And there were many more towns just like it
where they had no idea that the Kingdom of God had come near,
no idea that they no longer had to live in fear of the law;
no idea that God’s desire was not to punish them, but forgive them
and offer them the chance to be part of something bigger than themselves,
offer them a chance to begin again.
THAT was his mission, his purpose, his reason for being
and if he did not take his message of God’s redeeming love
to as many as he could, he would be unfaithful to his calling.

“Let us go to the neighboring towns,
so that I may proclaim the message there also,
for that is what I came out to do.”
That is the Creator’s purpose.
That is the original design.

But how easy it is to let other concerns get in the way,
to let the crisis of the moment lead get us off track,
to let insecurities and impulses and fears build up, layer upon layer,
until God’s design for us,
God’s image in loses its distinctiveness and becomes all but obscured.

It would be hard to find any group more easily distracted
than the members of the church in Corinth.
There were theological factions, there were class divisions,
There was some sort of sexual impropriety going on that everybody knew about,
and, in chapters 8 and 9 of Paul’s letter he’s trying to answer their question
of whether it is lawful to eat meat that has been offered to idols.
The Corinthians have apparently written to Paul asking him to sort it all out for them;
to tell them who wins and who loses, who’s right and who’s wrong.
Finally, it is as if Paul has had enough of their petty bickering.

I picture him pacing back an forth in his tiny study,
dictating his words to a scribe as was his habit,
and maybe he stops, looks to heaven and cries in frustration, “ENOUGH!”
“Enough with all these distractions, all this squabbling.”
“Here it is, bottom line….WOE TO ME IF I DO NOT PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL!’

Paul has his calling. It is his one purpose – to tell people about the gift of God’s love,
to spread the word about the new thing God has done through Jesus.
And to any in Corinth who may question his tactics
or get their noses in a knot over who he associates with in the process
he says, “Look. I am not going to let superficial differences get in my way.
My faith has set me free but I willingly become a slave
if that’s what it takes to get the word out.
Is it reasonable, do you think, to conclude that as Jesus’ church
and as heirs to Paul’s mission,
our calling might be so simple? So clear? So focused?
Beneath all the layers of church life and daily life that can build up and obscure,
is it possible that our one most important calling is to tell others of God’s love,
of God’s forgiveness that is available and waiting?
to invite others into the fold, into the care of our Good Shepherd?

Our men’s lunch group was eating together this past Thursday
and one of the group brought up a class he was taking at UVA,
the focus of which is the possibility of life in the universe beyond earth.
We had a good discussion, talking at length about the cosmos,
about the scientific and theological dimensions of life on other planets.
We were the only ones there and our waiter kind of hovered within earshot
taking in our conversation.

At one point our waiter joined in and told us that he had given his son a telescope,
that it was at the boy’s mother’s house but he hoped to get it back to his house
so he could explore the sky with his son.
Then he told us about someone who had confronted a Buddhist friend of his
accusing the friend of worshipping the wrong god.
It was kind of an out of the blue comment and I wasn’t sure why he said it,
but we all agreed that it was an unproductive and even abusive way
to engage someone in conversation about their faith.

It came time to leave and we paid our bill and as we were breaking up
we even congratulated ourselves on having had an intelligent, in-depth conversation.
We pushed back from the table, put on our jackets, left our waiter generous tips.
But it occurred to me only later.
Not one of us…not one of us asked our waiter to come to church.