"Why We Can't Wait," a sermon on Luke 13:10-17, preached at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Detroit

 

"Why We Can't Wait"

Luke 13:10-17

The story we just heard goes straight to the heart of Jesus’ mission as proclaimed in Luke’s gospel.  Earlier in the gospel, in chapter 4, Jesus was also in a synagogue on the Sabbath when he first announced his mission, describing it in terms of human liberation and justice and abundance: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19).

In today’s reading, the theme of liberation resonates strongly. When Jesus sees the woman, he calls to her and says, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Later, when Jesus debates the leader of the synagogue and asks, “Should not this woman be set free from her bondage on the sabbath day?”  he is drawing directly from Deuteronomy 5, the version of the commandment that connects Sabbath rest to Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt.

The synagogue leader was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, and said, “There are six days for work. So, come and be healed on those days—not on the Sabbath.”  But Jesus remembers that the Sabbath law commemorates Israel’s liberation, so he interprets it to be a day for enacting liberation in the present.  To those who want the woman to wait, he says, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?  Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham…be set free on the Sabbath day from what has bound her?”

            In his 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr writes about 1963 as a pivotal year in the American Civil Rights movement.  He includes his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which is a call for urgency. 

            Dr. King wrote the letter as a response to eight local white clergymen who had criticized his activities in Birmingham and appealed for a more patient and restrained approach to advocating for civil rights. The "Letter" expresses King's deep disappointment with "the white moderate," who "paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom."

The gospel story we heard today is not just a healing story. Luke doesn’t really include details about the healing itself. I agree with one of my colleagues that, at its core, it's a story about what God intends. It's about the urgency of seeing God's intentions brought to pass without delay.[1]

            The primary argument of Dr. King’s “Letter” still speaks to us today, which is why in 2018 the 223^rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) began a process toward amending the Book of Confessions to potentially include the letter.

The synagogue leader in today’s gospel story objects to healing this woman on the Sabbath.  Her condition isn’t life-threatening. She’s learned to live with it over almost two decades. So he doesn’t see why she couldn’t just wait a little while longer.  The synagogue leader has misunderstood the basic intention of observing the Sabbath.

            But Jesus reveals a deep logic for why the woman should be restored now. According to Deuteronomy, the Sabbath offers a weekly reminder of how much God values freedom and detests injustice:

“Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work -- you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.  Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.”[2]

The original intention of the Sabbath, according to Deuteronomy, is to provide relief, even if only temporary, from any system that would deny a person -- or any part of creation -- a share of rest, peace, wholeness, dignity, and justice.  So, when the synagogue official says, "Wait just one more day." Jesus answers, "No. The Sabbath is a good day for setting people free. In fact, the purpose behind the Sabbath -- the value God places on wholeness – makes it necessary that I do this now. We can't wait."

In Luke 13, Jesus reaffirms what his scriptures have taught him.  As Matt Skinner puts it, “to perpetuate injustice is to defile the holiness of the weekly Sabbath day that God ordained. To deny freedom is to offend the God of the Exodus. It's because of who God is that Jesus can't wait.”

            Now, the white religious leaders whom Dr. King addressed in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” reflected the views of a majority of American society at the time. One survey from 1964 found that 63% of Americans agreed that “civil rights leaders are trying to push too fast” and 58% agreed that the actions of people of color have, “on the whole, hurt their cause.”[3]

            Dr. King criticized white faith leaders and churches that perpetuate injustice by hiding behind theologies that expect God’s blessings to come only in the future.  What’s the old saying, “There’ll be pie in the sky, in the sweet by and by, after you die:

            So, why do some people have a sense of urgency about working for justice, while others just don’t?   Why are some people ready to confess and repent of what the Rev. Jim Wallis calls “America’s original sin,”[4] while others refuse to acknowledge any ways they may benefit from privilege? Why do some react with defensiveness, silence, or argumentativeness when the conversation makes them feel uncomfortable?

            I think much of the resistance comes from fear.  In the church, whether it’s local congregations or presbyteries or denominations, some are afraid of causing conflict…or alienating people, who may leave the church or withhold financial support. Some are afraid of change and becoming a different kind of church that they can’t yet imagine.

            Twenty years ago, when I was fairly new to the presbytery, I was part of the Presbytery’s Anti-Racism Team, which was commissioned and went through a lot of intensive training, to try to deal with structural racism in the presbytery, in response to some events of the time. Over the years, there was pushback, and eventually we no longer had a Presbytery Anti-Racism Team.   Our Presbytery is struggling again…still with racism.  It’s time to do the work that leads to liberation and healing. We can’t wait.

           

            This past week, The New York Times published “The 1619 Project” to re-examine the legacy of slavery in the United States and timed for the 400^th anniversary of the arrival in America of the first enslaved people from West Africa.[5]  The project’s essays trace links from America’s slave-owning history through the Jim Crow era and into persistent racial inequalities today. The project is an attempt to correct America’s historical ignorance about the causes of contemporary injustice, to place “the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story Americans tell ourselves about who we are.”[6]

            Predictably, there has been a backlash from some people who hold onto a particular vision of patriotism that centers on the ideal of white innocence, who are angry and uncomfortable with the reporting and insist that structural racism is a myth.[7]

             

            Look around our region and our nation.  Just this week a candidate for City Council in Marysville, Michigan made national headlines with her statements about her conviction that their city needed to remain a mostly white city, and that interracial couples are breaking God’s law. Does she think she’s a racist?

            Our national government has policies and practices that dehumanize immigrants and those who seek asylum. We have elected officials who promote hatred and division for political gain. 

            Young people and others around our nation tell us they’re afraid because of gun violence…and they want to feel safe.  The list could go on and on…

Talking about injustice and racism are hard, but necessary.  We can’t wait.

We need to learn how to talk respectfully and constructively with one another.  We need to learn to listen to one another to build true understanding and empathy.

A lot of white people don’t like to think that we’ve benefitted from white privilege, or that we do or say racist things without even being conscious of it. And yet, some of us have committed ourselves to gather to discuss books like Waking Up White[8] or White Fragility[9] and have felt challenged and encouraged to continue to grow as anti-racists. We have a number of other excellent resources available that could be the basis of these conversations, like Ibram Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning and Ijeomo Oluo’s So You Want to Talk about Race.

We need to learn how to be together, to be honest and respectful and kind with one another, and find ways for the healing we need to begin, so we can all be set free from whatever has bound us.  We need to work together and live further into Beloved Community together.

We live in such a broken, hurting world. We look around our cities and the world, and it can feel overwhelming.  But we follow Jesus, in his Way of love and justice. We are called to carry out his mission of healing and liberation.

Part of the good news is that we are not alone.  We have been baptized into God’s family and are blessed to be part of congregations where we can be nurtured and encouraged and challenged to grow in love and faith. And we have resources in the presbytery. For those who are seeking learning opportunities, you might check out Table Setters groups in our presbytery or the group that’s forming under the Rev. Kevin Johnson’s leadership.

            As a diverse, multicultural congregation, Westminster Church has some unique opportunities to practice living into Beloved Community and to embody God’s love and justice in and for the world.  

            We can’t wait.  In the words of our Presbyterian “Brief Statement of Faith,” the good news is that, “in a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.…

            “With believers in every time and place, we can rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[10]

            Praise be to God!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Guest Preacher

Westminster Presbyterian Church, Detroit

August 25, 2019

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[1] Matthew L. Skinner, “Why We Can’t Wait,” from ON Scripture. http://day1.org/7456-on_scripture_why_we_cant_wait_luke_131017_by_matthew_l_skinner

[2] Deuteronomy 5:12-15

[3] https://twitter.com/NathanKalmoe/status/753250522476392448

[4] Jim Wallis, America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Brazos Press, 2016.

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

[6] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/20/20813842/1619-project-new-york-times-conservatives-slavery

[7] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/25/1879981/-The-1619-Project-The-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-racist-responses

[8] Debby Irving, Waking Up White.  Elephant Room Press, 2014. This book was commended to the Presbyterian Church (USA) by our previous Co-Moderators of the General Assembly.

[9] Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press, 2018.  For a 20-minute introduction to DiAngelo’s work, you can watch the video of her work with a Methodist Church group:  http://www.gcorr.org/video/vital-conversations-racism-dr-robin-diangelo/

[10] Presbyterian Church (USA), “Brief Statement of Faith” (1990), in Presbyterian Book of Confessions.

"Healing Faith." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Mark 5:21-43

"Healing Faith"

Mark 5:21-43

Jesus has just returned from the other side of the Sea of Galilee, in Gentile territory, where he performed an exorcism and interfered with the local swine-based economy.

That region was known as the Decapolis-- a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire.  Rome, in an effort to spread its culture and the Imperial cult to the furthest reaches of its territory, had built roads, public buildings and temples throughout the Decapolis. Worship of the emperor was the common bond that linked the ten cities together.

      The story of this exorcism and his interference with the swine-based economy is a metaphor for Roman culture and Imperial rule. Mark depicts it as violent, brutal, unclean, and wracked with fear. The local people had begged Jesus to get out of town.

            After that, Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee, and he’s welcomed by a crowd.  In the crowd, Jesus faces a range of human need. As biblical scholars have pointed out, ninety percent of first century Jews lived in desperate poverty. They lived under the occupation of the Roman Empire, and were also oppressed by a cultural and religious system that valued custom and ritual over justice and mercy.

            Jesus has been proclaiming the good news of God’s love and the spirit and heart of the law, and crowds keep coming to him.

            Today’s gospel lesson is a story of two healings. One of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus comes and falls down at Jesus’ feet and begs him repeatedly to come home with him and heal his young daughter.  “She is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live! 

            Jesus sets off to go with him.  A large crowd follows along and is pressing in on him. 

But then that story gets interrupted.  As Jesus is making his way through the crowd, he senses that power has gone forth from him, and he turns to find out who touched him.

            It wasn’t just the crowd pressing in on him, but a woman—a very specific woman.  This woman had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  She’d gone to doctor after doctor, and had spent all her money on them, trying the treatments they prescribed.  Who knows what she’d tried?    Perhaps drinking tonics made of vile bitter things… rubbing herself with terrible smelling salves.  But none of it had done any good, and she still bled. 

            In addition to the effects on her physical health, her bleeding had other profound effects on her life.   It made her ritually unclean.  She couldn’t go to the Temple to worship.  Anyone who touched her, or lay on a bed in which she had slept, or sat on a chair where she sat would be unclean as well. 

            Imagine the kind of isolation this woman must have experienced over those twelve long years.  Imagine being unable to attend services and rituals in the Temple.  Imagine people shying away from you, being unwilling to touch you for twelve years.  This woman was an outcast.

Unlike Jairus’ daughter, she apparently has no male kinsman to plead her case.       

            But this woman has heard reports of the power at work in Jesus, and that has given birth to hope and faith.  So—in desperation and great faith—she audaciously and courageously works her way through the jostling crowd and approaches Jesus from behind and touches his garments.

            She might have thought, “I don’t need to bother him.  I don’t need to slow him down with a lot of chatter.  All I need to do is touch the edge of his garment.  Then I’ll be healed.”

            But things don’t go exactly as she planned.  No sooner does she touch his clothes than Jesus turns around and says, “Who touched me?” 

            Jesus refuses to let the woman remain invisible.  He insists on personal contact and on drawing the woman into relationship.    And so, the woman falls down before him and tells him the whole truth.

            Jesus says to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’”  The New RSV translates this verb in terms of healing.  But, as some scholars note, this translation of the verb fails to capture the sense in which the physical cure results in a fuller restoration.[1]  It might be a better translation to hear Jesus saying, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.”

            As we reach the conclusion of the inner story, we can discern that the miracle involves far more than physical healing.[2]  It includes entry into a ‘saving’ relationship with Jesus himself.  The woman is no longer alone.  Jesus calls her “Daughter,” claiming her as family, and restoring her to community.  She is told to “go in peace”—shalom, which involves wholeness, salvation—and healed from disease.

            Not only does Jesus not seem to mind that the woman has touched him.  He also doesn’t worry about the ritual purification.  After he sends the woman on her way, healed and whole, he doesn’t stop off at the baths or send the disciples off for a water so he can wash.  It doesn’t seem to matter to him. 

            For Jesus, there is no such thing as an unclean person.  The society he lives in may try to keep certain people outside of their boundaries, but Jesus keeps reaching out to them.  He keeps welcoming people back inside the circle of God’s love and healing and community.  Time and time again, he welcomes people who have been cast out…or he moves outside the boundary himself, to meet them where they are.

            The other story in today’s gospel lesson shows a similar pattern.

            Some people come from Jairus’ house to say, “Your daughter is dead.  Why trouble the teacher any further?” 

            After all, you could hardly ask Jesus to deal with a dead body.  Dead bodies were considered unclean.  Touch a dead body, and you become unclean.

            But Jesus overhears and says to Jairus, “Do not fear-- only believe.’  He takes Peter, James, and John and they go to Jairus’ house where they find a commotion.  Mourning has already started, the customary rituals of loud weeping and lamenting.

             “Why do you make a commotion and weep?” Jesus says.  “The child is not dead, but sleeping.”  When the people laugh at him, Jesus puts them all outside.  He takes the child’s parents and the three disciples and takes the child by the hand and tells her to get up.  The girl begins to walk.  Everybody is amazed!   Jesus gives them orders not to tell anybody about this, and tells them to give the girl something to eat.

            The religious community in Jesus’ day and through much of history has often gotten in the way of healing.  But the gospel story we heard today from Mark tells how God works through Jesus, who is empowered by the Holy Spirit to reach out with a healing touch.

            God’s holiness works through Jesus and his followers to spread the life-giving power of the kingdom--the kin-dom-- into the world wherever people are receptive to it.[3]

            So…when Jesus welcomes the woman who has been hemorrhaging as “daughter”—a term of endearment-- and touches a dead girl, we have what Marcus Borg has summarized as “The politics of purity” being replaced by “a politics of compassion.”[4]

            Jesus deliberately reaches out to the woman, welcoming her back into the human family, back into the community from which she had been isolated.  Instead of avoiding contact with the dead girl, Jesus reaches out and takes her hand and restores her to life. 

            Mark’s story points to the divisions in society between male and female, between the weak and the strong, the clean and the impure, and the rich and the poor.

            Jesus’ disciples marveled that Jesus wants to know who touched him and don’t seem to understand how responsive Jesus is to vulnerability and need.

            Perhaps we who are his disciples today have failed to understand that as well. Or maybe we do. How many of us have felt our hearts broken when we see images of families being separated at our border, and discouraged when we hear some people using their faith to justify those policies. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets around the country yesterday to make a statement that “families belong together.” Last weekend there were thousands in Washington, D.C. for the Poor People’s Campaign. I believe there is a growing movement of people with a growing understanding of how we are all family in God’s kin-dom.

            Just four days before he was struck down by an assassin’s bullet, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King preached a sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington. He invited his listeners to place their struggles and calling in the context of God’s ordering of the universe.  Dr. King suggested that whatever differences we may experience, yet our mutual vulnerability and humanity unites us more deeply.

            “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made. This is the way it is structured.”[5]

            Even when we are tempted to despair, Jesus reaches out in an invitation of pure love…an invitation to bring our own bleeding bodies and spirits to the only One who can offer us true healing…the only One who can welcome us into true community when our ties with that community have been broken.

            Jesus reaches out and invites us to follow-- to look at the suffering ones in our midst, to listen to their stories, to reach out and touch them, and lift them to their feet.  By example, Jesus invites us to call them “Daughter” … “Son” … “Sister” …  “Brother” -- family.

            Just as Jesus called Jairus’ daughter to rise up, he invites us to stand up for love and justice. The Greek words used for the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter and of Jesus is God’s way of telling us to get up and stand up for God’s righteous and justice. By lifting up the lowly and providing for “the least of these,” we will strengthen and revive our communities and our nation, and we will be living more fully into God’s kin-dom.

           

            The good news of the gospel calls us to live out our faith in ways that invite all, not just some, to be touched and healed by God’s love… and all, not just some, can become a real part of the community. 

            The good news of the gospel calls us to become a richer, more whole community—a community that in its wholeness truly embodies the shalom that Jesus bids the woman when he says “your faith has made you well…go in peace…”

            And so… may we never be content to rest within our safe walls, but instead, may we move out beyond the boundaries to where ministry with Jesus takes place, where we receive God’s blessings, and where we can be a blessing to those who do not know that God’s love is even for them.

            May our faith make us well and whole. May we walk in the way of peace…shalom…salam.

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

July 1, 2018

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[1] Donald Juel, Mark.  Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Augsburg, 1990),  p. 84.

[2] James L. Bailey and Lyle D. Vander Brock, Literary Forms in the New Testament: A Handbook (Westminster/John Knox, 1992), p. 142.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith (Harper, 1994), p. 58.

[5] “Remaining Awake Through the Great Revolution,” from A Knock at Midnight, can be accessed at the following site:  https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/publications/knock-midnight-inspiration-great-sermons-reverend-martin-luther-king-jr-10

"And There He Prayed." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Mark 1:29-39 on the 5th Sunday after Epiphany.

"And There He Prayed"

Mark 1:29-39

Mark’s Gospel moves at a breathless pace. One scene fades quickly into another and then another.  Over the past few weeks, In the sweep of a few verses, we’ve heard how John the Baptist gathers the crowds, preaches “the forgiveness of sins”, and announces the good news. Jesus arrives and is baptized and the heavens split and a voice announces “You are my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

            Jesus announces that the “good news” of God’s reign has already arrived and calls people to repent and believe the good news. Then Jesus calls people to follow him and fish for people, and immediately they followed him.  Then they go to the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath, where the crowds were astounded at the authority of his teaching and his power to cast out demonic powers.

Jesus’ fame began to spread throughout the region of Galilee. 

            That’s where we pick up the story today. Today’s gospel lesson can be divided up into four scenes, in two settings.

            Scene 1. As soon as they leave the synagogue, they go to the house of Simon Peter and Andrew, with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law is sick in bed with a fever. Jesus heals her, and she’s restored and able to serve.  

            Scene 2.  That evening, they brought all who were sick or possessed with demons to Jesus.  Mark tells us the whole city was gathered around the door.  Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.

            Scene 3. In the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and “there he prayed.”

            Scene 4.  Simon and his companions found Jesus and said, “Everyone is searching for you.” And Jesus answered, “Let’s go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.”   And Jesus went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

            Jesus’ mission is to proclaim the gospel and cast out demons and bring healing, and that’s what he was doing. People who were sick, hopeless, and desperate came to him because he offered a glimmer of hope in a hopeless and dismal world.

            The demanding crowds came because they wanted something...  because Jesus had what they wanted most...   what they couldn’t find anywhere else-- health of mind and body.  Wholeness.  They came for his healing touch.

            The demand of the crowd upon Jesus' life was great.  So much so that "in the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place to pray.

            Jesus realized he couldn't give out to others anymore.  As I was working on this passage, I remembered the instructions you get when you fly, about the oxygen masks that drop down in emergency situations.  If I were flying with a child or an elderly relative or anyone needing assistance, my first instinct would be to take care of them first.  But the flight attendants caution you to put on your own oxygen mask first.  Otherwise, you could pass out before you have a chance to help anybody else.

            The whole city had been pressing in around the door-- people who were sick or possessed with demons.  Jesus must have been exhausted from ministering to those who were so desperate...  so needy.

            So, Jesus went someplace where he could be alone, away from the cries of the needy, the demands of people, the insistence that he do something. It wasn't that he didn't care about the needs of the people who sought him.  Rather it was a matter of staying connected with God, so that he could maintain a clear sense of purpose.

            How easy it is for our lives to be cluttered with the needs and demands of others.  We find ourselves going in several different directions at one time. 

            Pastors and different kinds of caregivers often deal with people who are possessed by grief or fear or terror that will not let them go.  People are struggling with addictions of various kinds, whether to alcohol or drugs or gambling or work or something else.  People are suffering from mental or physical illness.  Others are confused and agonizing over various issues. Some or desperately lonely.  People are poor...  hungry...  homeless or in woefully inadequate housing.  Everywhere we look, there is such pain...  such need. 

            In our families, our children, even if they're adults, need us.  Elderly parents and other relatives need our care.

            Such need.  Such busy-ness.

            Sometimes I wonder if we think we are the busiest people who ever lived on the face of the earth.  We end up doing a lot of things, but sometimes we wonder why we don’t have more of a sense of fulfillment or accomplishment.  We might feel overwhelmed…or find ourselves on the edge of burnout. 

            As someone pointed out, burnout isn't the result of too much activity.  It's the result of the wrong kind of activity.  Or it can be from how we approach it.  Instead of energizing and building us up, it can wear us down and sap our energy. 

            When I read the gospels, I get the impression that Jesus couldn't have been much busier if he’d had a smart phone.  Yet, in spite of his busyness and the nonstop demands on his time, Jesus knew he needed time to get away and put things in perspective...and to gain a clear understanding of God and God's purpose. 

            When we read through the gospels, we discover that there’s a pattern in Jesus’ life. He worshipped regularly with his community of faith, and he got away regularly for time alone to pray. This is how he stayed centered in God’s love and purpose and found balance in his life.

            If Jesus needed to do this, how much more do we need to do it?

            Yes, we're busy.  So busy.   But when we find ourselves feeling too busy to worship and pray, we need to ask ourselves-- are we busy doing the wrong things?  The images in the gospel story remind us that we need to do what Jesus did-- get away and spend time in prayer...  meditate...  and seek God's will.

            So often, over the years, I’ve heard myself saying, “When things calm down, then I'll have some time alone.  I'll have more time to pray and meditate."  (Although I'm happy to report that I hear myself saying it less than I used to.)

            In recent years, I’ve made it a priority to make a silent retreat. I find a time in my schedule when I can be away for a few days and call the retreat center to see if they can accommodate me. I pack up whatever work and reading I want to take, and food, and drive to Gilchrist. While I’m there, I have to walk over toward the office to get a cell signal. There’s no TV or radio. Just my playlists on my phone so I can listen to music from Taizé or Iona or other meditative music. I structure my day around simple meals, work, long walks, reading, and prayer.  Sometimes I go for several days without talking to anyone.  “And there, I pray.”

            Jesus knew it would never calm down.  He couldn't wait for that to happen.  He set time aside to spend in prayer and meditation, very intentionally. 

            "In the morning while it was still very dark."  This sounds like something I learned when I had a young child:  the only quiet time parents have is after the children go to bed at night   or early in the morning before they wake up.  That's when I got in the habit of staying up late to read and have my quiet time. 

            We need to be intentional in planning our quiet time.  Some folk find quiet time in their cars-- away from telephones and interruptions-- by turning off their radios and cell phones.  One or two of you have shared with me that you pray for others while you're commuting to work.  Others find quiet time when they walk...  or in the garden, as I do.  

            Why is this time apart so important?

            Look what happens here.  Just as we are likely to get interrupted by a child running into the room or the clock striking or the telephone ringing, Jesus' followers who were hunting for him find him and say, "Everyone is looking for you!"

            Some of us are in positions--in work or family life-- where someone always has something more for us to do. If we don’t learn to stop and discern and to occasionally say “No,” we’ll always be piling on more and more things to do.

            Sometimes, if we’re honest with ourselves, we need to admit that it feels good to be so busy and sought after. We might feel a swell of pride rising:  "Look at me!  I'm important!  I'm needed!  They love me."

            We run from sunup to sundown.  Chasing and being chased by responsibilities and expectations.  Sometimes it can feel as if we're possessed by all the responsibilities and by our need to be the important caregiver and achiever.

            This morning we come to the table of our Lord.  The pace is slowed.  It can be for us a moment of withdrawal...   a time to catch your breath.  A moment to reflect upon the bread, the body of Christ...    and the cup, the blood of Christ.  A time for our spirits to be fed!   A time for us to accept Christ's healing touch in our lives.

            God's love for us at this moment becomes so visible...  so personal...  so close...  and so reassuring.  We come to the Table, and God through Christ again offers God’s very self to us.

            This is my body, broken for you...

            This is my blood-- for you...

            Let us taste, and see that the Lord is good!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

February 4, 2018