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| The Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles on the 5th Sunday After the Epiphany |
©2024 The Rev. Seth Olson
Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.
Last week, I spoke with you about an African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This is my deeply held belief and a truth of the ministry of Christ Jesus among us. God wants us to go far, together! What does this look like though? Asked another way, how do we go far together?
Today, we catch a glimpse of how Jesus went with his disciples. This Gospel lesson lays out a powerful example of how Jesus dealt with competing goods to perpetuate his ministry. Here he models for us how to have boundaries, so to enact God’s Mission on earth. While this story is packed with details, I want to focus upon one aspect—Christ Jesus’ example of setting healthy limits the morning after those late-night healings. First though, let me set the stage because even though this passage is only 11 verses long it possesses enough content to preach more than three sermons!
Our story for today picks up right where we left off last week. Jesus had healed the man with the unclean spirit and impressed all those in the synagogue. After they left the religious service, Jesus, Simon, Andrew, James, and John went to the home of Simon’s mother-in-law. Who knew that Simon was married?! There they found the woman feverous, and bed ridden. Jesus intimately took her by the hand bringing her back to health. Her response? Once freed from illness, she served! What a powerful witness to God’s healing work in her life!
That night once the Sabbath ended “they” brought all who were sick or possessed by demons to be healed. The they in this instance is the whole city of Capernaum. Seeing what they saw in the synagogue the whole town was buzzing with excitement—many who were ill spiritually, mentally, emotionally, or physically came to Jesus, and he did not disappoint—curing the sick unto the wee hours of the morning. The demons wanted to name Jesus—to point out his true identity as the Son of God, but Jesus was focused on the mission, he wanted not a title, but to bring health and salvation. Thus, he would not let the demons speak—even though they would have shared the truth.
After such a long night, one would not blame Jesus for sleeping in the next morning, but he did not. When it was still dark, Jesus headed out to pray—to talk to his Heavenly Father, and more importantly to listen and be with his Heavenly Father. I told you a lot was happening. There’s a sermon here about prayer and listening. There was one back there with Simon’s mother-in-law about being freed from disease and serving God. Even one about how the sickest among us—like those demons—sometimes still tell God’s Truth.
That’s not the focus though. The focus is what happens next. Early in the morning when Jesus was praying, Simon and his companions hunted for Jesus. You heard me, HUNTED—like what we do with deer or turkeys. Friends, I heard some hilarious hunting stories at the vestry retreat this year, but none like this. The disciples were going after Jesus like a hunter stalks his prey. They were on a mission. Why?
I imagine it had to do with others who wanted to be healed by Jesus. Even working late into the night, Jesus did not heal everyone. So, the disciples enlivened by seeing Jesus at work wanted more—so they tracked God’s Son like a hunter after a white-tailed buck. When they found him, they unloaded. “Everyone is searching for you!” What was their hope in relaying this information to Jesus? My belief is they felt the pressure from others who were ill in the community. With this weight mounting on the disciples’ shoulders, they tried to pass along their anxieties to their newfound teacher, healer, and leader.
Here we arrive at Jesus’ exemplary behavior in modeling a healthy application of boundaries. The disciples produced for Jesus a dilemma—sick people from Capernaum remained who were yearning for God’s healing power. Or, in their words, everyone is searching for you! Jesus could have taken on the anxieties of the disciples, the worries of those ones who desired restoration in their lives, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” Wait, what?
We might expect that Jesus would stop everything to heal all those clamoring to be made well, and yet he expressed something completely different! Empowered by his early-morning prayer—guided by what the Father had laid on his heart, Jesus exerted a boundary. As harsh as it may sound upon our ears, Jesus drew a line saying my mission is to proclaim the message—the Good News that God’s Salvation has come for all people.
He would heal others. He would cast out other demons. And yet, here Jesus proclaimed that between these competing goods of healing others and spreading the Good News of God, his mission was the latter. Jesus knew his purpose and he stuck to it, which gets to the implication in our lives.
There is too much hurting in the world—too much! There’s too much hurting in our country, in our state, in our counties, and cities. We, as bold, courageous, and loving as we are, cannot fix all of it. Even Jesus has not yet completed this work!
Thus, we must have a focus. We at Holy Apostles are being called to share in the Ministry of Christ Jesus—to go far together, and we must listen together for what direction God is calling us to go! Now, to figure out where we are going we have to choose between life-giving things. It’s easy to discern between a harmful and a helpful thing, but much harder when we have multiple destructive options or multiple beneficial ones. I pray that one day we will have more bandwidth and I trust that God will do in us more than we can ask or imagine. And yet, right now is a winnowing time, a time in which we must narrow our focus, and time in which we must establish healthy boundaries.
What I just said might sound scary, and that is okay. It’s challenging to say no to good things. However, instead of hearing this and thinking that the grim reaper is coming, I invite you to imagine this as a refining time when God is inviting us to clarify our vision, our values, and our mission—like fire improving a precious metal.
To discern our vision, values, and mission, let’s sit down to together. Over the coming months, I want to be with all of you individually and collectively to discern together what is that direction, what vision is God dreaming with us, what mission is Jesus walking with us. I want to have lunch or coffee with you. I want to break bread together yes at this table but also at other tables. As you might guess there’s a lot of folks wanting to meet with me right now, so it’s going to take months for me to gather with all of you. Slowly though we will.
Now, one final implication in our lives about boundaries from today’s Gospel. The disciples said, “Everyone is searching for you!” The way Jesus inserted a boundary was to change the direction of the conversation by inserting his mission. However, saying “everyone is asking about this,” or “no one likes your sermons” to a clergy person is not just unhelpful, it’s downright harmful to our relationship. It creates distance. If you say these sorts of things to me, I am going to try to redirect by asking, “Who is searching for me, or asking about something?”
The reason I want clarification is pastoral in nature. If people are frustrated with me, I want to know. If people are happy with me, I want to know. The best way we can work together is through open, honest communication. So, please talk with me. If you’re disappointed or hurt, if you’re thrilled or happy, let me know. Shoot me a text, send me an email, give me a call, or stop by my office (maybe make an appointment first).
For us to go far together we need clear lines of communication, we require healthy boundaries. These will help us as we clarify our vision, values, and mission. The Good News is that Jesus models a path for us to walk. So let us continue to discern and be together sharing the truth in love, let us go onward into a deepening relationship with God and each other. Amen.
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