Fifth Sunday after the Epipany, Year B, February 4, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of our liberation, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

One of the many things I love about the Gospel of Mark is his economy of words – both the amount of information packed into a few verses, and the enormous amount of room for the reader or hearer’s imagination, because the details and definitions are not all specified. Of course, this was viewed as a deficiency by later evangelists (Matthew in particular), but I appreciate the spare and breathless prose. Our reading today picks up after just 28 previous verses in which Mark has proclaimed that the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ was that John the Baptist was calling for the heart’s transformation, citing the prophet Isaiah as his authority, John the Baptist was calling for immersion in forgiveness and amendment of life. A whole lot of people answered this call, including Jesus from Nazareth. The experience was a complete life changer for Jesus, who emerged from the Jordan River with dawning understanding that the Spirit from the heavens (the Ruach, the breath of the Holy One) was delighted in him. Without more time than a heartbeat, that same spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness for a quarantine (40 days of separation) where he was being tempted by the Accuser and divine messengers ministered to him. (All that is in just the first 13 verses.)

Then right away, hearing that John had been arrested, Jesus returned to the Galilee, and took up that same call for immersion in forgiveness and amendment of life. He collected four friends, went to the synagogue to do some teaching, sent a polluted spirit out of a man, and headed to Simon and Andrew’s house where he learned that Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever. Now before we get to the next part, I want to pause and ask a question. Have you ever wondered about Simon Peter having a mother-in-law who lived with him? Others lived there too – because the story goes that “they” told Jesus about her when he arrived. What was her name?

I could see some of you shaking your heads about the irony of a story of a woman being healed so that she could spring up from her sickbed and get dinner on the table for the guys. I share your chagrin. But there’s another way to read this. The word that gets translated as serve here is the same word for deacon in the church, which gets translated elsewhere as minister. At the very least, it is a story of how she ministered to them. It is the same word that gets used just a few sentences before when Mark tells about the angels caring for Jesus in the wilderness. The angels ministered to him. Simon’s mother-in-law ministered to Simon, Andrew, James, John, and Jesus. When the very same word gets translated into English as ‘minister’ when angels are doing it, ‘deacon’ when men are doing it, but ‘serve’ when a woman is doing it, it has an effect of downplaying her actions doesn’t it? But Mark used the same word and we can understand that he equated Peter’s mother-in-law’s service to that of the angels with regard to treatment of Jesus. [1]

Simon’s mother-in-law and the angels were all doing the same thing in that first chapter of Mark. I want to call Simon’s mother-in-law Dee, because she was one of the first deacons according to the Gospel. The archaeological and anthropological evidence suggests that the house in Capernaum (Village of Compassion) where Dee lived, became a base of operation where Jesus and his followers came often to rest and talk and study. The idea is that Dee’s home became a house-church that continued to function after Jesus’ death and this is a story about how it got started. [2] This is a story about immersion in forgiveness and amendment of life.

It seems to me that Mark wants his hearers to know that Jesus was immediately recognized as a healer, although Jesus didn’t seem to feel that that was his calling. Jesus asserted that his job is to spread the message of call to right relationship with the Holy One. The word spread about his ability to cast out demons and heal those who were sick, and immediately there were crowds – indeed the whole village was gathered around the door. Jesus snuck out while it was still very dark and found a deserted place to pray. In my imagination, he needed to go to a deserted place to pray because his prayer was going to be loud! In my imagination it was like a bumper sticker I once had that read, “It’s been lovely, but I have to scream now!” I imagine he needed to scream.

In my imagination, Jesus needed some time alone, but his friends hunted him down in the dark and were able to find him because they could hear his voice. They told him that everyone was looking for him. Jesus’ response was not, “okay – I’ll come back, just give me a few minutes.” Rather, Jesus said, “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.” But the need for healing continued to present itself again and again. It reminds me of something that John Lennon once said: “life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” In this case, ministry is what happened while Jesus was making other plans. I bet you have your own stories about ministry that happened while you were making other plans – this place (Emmanuel) is full of such stories, all stories about healing – about immersion in forgiveness and amendment of life.

Today is the day of our parish’s Annual Meeting, and it is my tenth annual meeting with you, so with that auspicious anniversary, I’ve been reflecting over more than just the last year, to the ten years that I have served as your priest. I want to highlight four particular ministries that happened while we were making other plans over the last ten years. Some of you will remember, and many of you weren’t here when these ministries began, but you are all – we are all – enjoying the bountiful harvests of these ministries. In each case, Emmanuel was presented with an opportunity that we were not seeking (not explicitly, anyway). We said “yes” in spite of that, in spite of feeling ill-equipped or under-resourced, and that has made all the difference. The “we” who said yes, was never the whole parish, but a small subset of people who engaged on behalf of the whole parish.

The first, back in 2009, we participated in the pilot program called “Life Together.” Life Together is a diocesan service corps program that calls young adults to leadership by engaging the church more deeply in the dream of God, and by serving as agents of social change. Our idea was to bring an intern in to help us with our ministry plans (honestly, I can’t even remember what those plans were). What happened was that that our participation in the program demanded so much more than we had bargained for and took on a life of its own. The requirements of the program pushed us very hard – up to and beyond our capacity in maddening ways. And yet the fruit of our participation continues to enliven Emmanuel – with parishioners, with interns and with staff members who are Life Together alumni, with continued support of our focus of outreach in that pilot year, Betsy Hinkle’s MusiConnects. If you don’t know about the amazing work of MusiConnects, look them up! Just reading their website will inspire and delight you. This is a story about healing – about immersion in forgiveness and amendment of life.

The second: in the spring of 2013, the parish invited faculty from Lesley University’s Expressive Art Therapy program to come and talk about their work. Our plan was to deepen our understanding of the connections between art and spirituality. A short time after that program, the horrific bombing took place at the Boston Marathon finish line. Emmanuel was able to respond immediately with an expressive art therapy program in the Lindsey Chapel, inviting the public into our sacred space to create prayer flags to place at the memorial that was growing in Copley Square. Soon after, Emmanuel became an internship site for ten master’s degree expressive art therapy students who have learned about working with people who are unhoused, who are incarcerated, or who are otherwise at very high risk of depression and despair. This is a story about healing – about immersion in forgiveness and amendment of life.

The third: in the record-setting snowy winter of 2015, Emmanuel began operating the BostonWarm day center for people lacking shelter in the daytime, with the help of more than fifty faith communities and non-profits that came together in the aftermath of the abrupt closing of the Long Island Bridge in October 2014. That abrupt closing left more than 700 people without shelter or addiction recovery services. Our plan was to rely on city and state government. We stepped into the breach caused by a combination of inadequate city and state response, relentless snow, and a then recently declared state of emergency with regard to opiates. In addition to providing immediate hospitality and day shelter, the BostonWarm coalition has continued to put pressure on the city and state to provide adequate, dignified and stable services for people who need shelter and addiction recovery treatment. Many of you now have heard that Mayor Walsh has announced his plans to restore the bridge to Long Island and build an even larger campus for sheltering and treating people who are most vulnerable. This is a story about healing – about deep immersion in forgiveness and amendment of life.

The fourth, in the fall of 2017, Emmanuel joined with four other congregations to launch our first co-housing intentional community. As you can read in the description of our Mission Hub program, as it is called, written up in our annual report, it is a household made up of six lovely people from each of our congregations. And while we are moving ahead with our vision of establishing an “Emmanuel House” in Boston in the next year or so, who knows what ministry will happen while we are making other plans. This, too, is a story about healing – about immersion in forgiveness and amendment of life.

In each of these four initiatives, in the words of our Collect of the Day, we have been set free from the bondage of our sins (which is another way to say our alienation from one another and ourselves) and given liberty of abundant life made known to us in Jesus Christ (which is another way to say restoration and reconciliation with one another and ourselves in wider community). In each of these four initiatives, our plans have been questioned and our prayer has been answered. Thanks be to Love.

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