08-feb-09

Driven The Rev. Joseph Winston February 8, 2009

Sermon Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.1 Have you ever known a person that kept a detailed list of the goals that they planned to achieve in the upcoming weeks, months, and years? Do you ever remember meeting anyone who started their first business before they were twelve and then sold the company for a tidy sum? Can you recall the one individual voted during your senior year of High School as the most likely so success? If you can answer yes to anyone of these questions, then you have met someone who was driven. While it might be stretching the truth just a tiny bit, probably at some time or another every one of us has run into a person that knew what they wanted from life. Elected officials certainly fall into the category of driven people. In order 1

Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians 1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3

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to win votes, you have to have a plan. Normally, this starts out with one simple idea such as wanting to serve others or seeing a need for change. This noble goal will go nowhere if you keep it all to yourself. You must file for election and run a campaign. After the votes are tallied, you will see if others agree with your platform. If you loose, you need to go back to the drawing board and see what went wrong. You will then have to decide if you want to try one more time. Winning is not any easier. Once elected, you have to advance your ideas by convincing others of their worth and compromising at other times. Succeeding in education requires being driven. When you are young, someone, normally your parents, makes sure you get up and arrive at school on time. They also are the ones who remind you to do your homework and study for your tests. Bad grades come with punishments and good grades with rewards. This arrangement of someone pushing you through school will not last forever. One day, the student must make up their own mind if they will take over all this responsibility. Once this happens, then everything is in your hands. You have to make the decision of going to class or staying in bed. You have to set aside the time to study for the test or to go out with your friends. Naturally, elected officeholders and students just scratch the surface of those driven people that we can find all around us. If you hold a job and want to do your best, then you are driven. If you serve in the military and want to advance to the next rank then you are driven. If you want to do your best in taking care of others, then you are driven. All the previous examples of driven people show us that some sort of force propels them through the world. Perhaps for the person who would like to be 2

elected, a desire for justice moves them through the process of deciding to run and then holding office. Maybe the force that animates a student is the hope to be the first one in their family with a college degree. Possibly, you work because you like it. All throughout the Gospel according to St. Mark, the narrator presents Jesus as a driven person. The first chapter provides us with several different illustrations of this basic fact.2 At His baptism, Jesus did not wait around in the water of the Jordan. Instead, He immediately left the river and right then saw the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove (Mark 1:10). Next, God the Father spoke that He was pleased with His Son and instantaneously the same Spirit drove Jesus to the desert (Mark 1:11). After calling Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John, Jesus quickly entered the synagogue on Saturday and taught (Mark 1:21). Promptly following worship, Jesus entered the house of Simeon Peter and Andrew (Mark 1:29). Without any delay, someone brings Jesus the news that Simeon Peter’s mother-in-law is sick (Mark 1:30). Then and there, Jesus touches her and she is healed (Mark 1:31). During the evening meal, we have a short break in the action. All that changes at sunset. The entire city of Capernaum shows up at the home of Simon Peter and Andrew (Mark 1:33). The men and women, the boys and the girls, the young and the old are all there for one reason. They have brought the sick to Jesus and they want Him to cure them (Mark 1:32). We are not told how long Jesus stayed up 2

The author of Mark uses καὶ εὐθὺς (and immediately) throughout the book to move the narration along. This Greek phrase is used eight times in the first chapter (Mark 1:10, 12, 18, 20, 21, 23, 29, 30) and it gives a “sense of urgency.” John R. Donahue, S.J. and Daniel J. Harrington, S.J.; S.J. Daniel J. Harrington, editor, The Gospel of Mark, Volume 2, Sacra Pagina Series, (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), p. 81.

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that night with that massive crowd. All we know is that He healed many of those people (Mark 1:34). Sometime before Sunrise on Sunday, Jesus leaves the house and finds a quiet place to pray (Mark 1:35).3 The narrator now presents to us the other type of driven person in today’s Gospel lesson. It is morning in the house. Someone notices that Jesus is gone. They quickly organizes a search party and the men tear through the countryside looking for Jesus (Mark 1:36). Finally, they find Jesus and as one they all blurt out, “Everyone is searching for you (Mark 1:37).” Now, why would Simon Peter and the others be out so early in the morning? Why are the men hunting for Jesus while it us still dark? Why do they so desperately want to find Him before the word gets us that Jesus has left? Everything becomes plain as day when you look once again at the first words out of their mouths, “Everyone is searching for you.” These men are all driven by one idea. They all want Jesus to come back to town. Would not you want the same thing? Would you not want to relive time and time again everything that happened the previous Saturday? Think about it. The synagogue welcomed your master and teacher. The assembled men agreed that Jesus taught with authority and not like their normal leaders (Mark 1:22). He even could control an unclean spirit (Mark 1:23). At home, the good news continued. An illness had struck your mother-in-law. It seemed that nothing could make her better. Jesus changed that with a touch (Mark 1:31). Then there was the crowd outside of your door. Everyone in your town wanted Jesus to heal their loved 3

It was common for Jews to pray in the morning. Donahue and Harrington, Mark, p. 87.

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ones. What would you tell them if Jesus was not coming back? The problem with wanting to Jesus to recreate last Saturday is simply this. Jesus cannot move to the next stage of His life. By staying in Capernaum, Jesus could repeat His successes of teaching and healing. But Jesus cannot go on with everything else that He needs to do. He cannot suffer for us on the cross. He cannot die for all the things that we do wrong. The Father will not vindicate Jesus’ work. None of this will happen if Jesus stays. In some ways, our situation at Light of Christ is completely different from what happened almost two thousand years ago. No one here is out searching for Jesus on an early Sunday morning so that He can come back to repeat yesterday’s successes. In other striking ways, we are just like Simon Peter and the other men. We do not want to change. We are happy doing things the same old way. Just like them, we want to keep Jesus all to ourselves. Look around if you do not believe me. In the last seven weeks that I have served you, we largely have had the same group of people show up every Sunday. Where is the drive to go out and tell others about Jesus who heals us? A well-respected survey tells us that one in six people do not go to any church.4 Look at your own family. Is everyone attending some church service? Ask your friends. Is everyone trying to go to worship? Stop the people at work. Do they have a church home? If we are like the rest of the nation, only four in ten will say that they go to church once a week.5 The same drive that wants to keep Jesus all to ourselves is killing the ELCA. Our weekly attendance 4

Luis Lugo et al., U.S.Religious Landscape Survey, (The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008), p. 20. 5 Ibid., p. 36.

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in this denomination has fallen by more than 190 thousand members in the last twenty years.6 We do not want to go out and tell anyone about Jesus and His benefits. This harsh critique of our lack of drive in reaching out to those people who are not attending church is not new at all. Listen to what a reputable research organization said about us sixteen years ago: The Lutheran Church, like most mainline denominations, works under a broad unwritten assumption that the conversion to personal faith in Jesus Christ has already occurred in people’s lives elsewhere and that church growth merely involves assimilating these “already converted” into the ongoing life of the congregation. Lutheran clergy are trained as nurturers of the faith, rather than as catalysts in any process of spiritual transformation in the lives of individuals. As a denomination, the Lutheran Church is unprepared and ill-equipped to reach out to non-Christians and engage them in a transformational process that leads to an active faith in Jesus Christ.7 The Good News found in today’s Gospel lesson is that we cannot drive Jesus away from His mission. Simon Peter and the other men could not keep Jesus in 6 Kenneth W. Inskeep, Life in the ELCA: The Brutal Facts, (Luther Seminary Board Address, October 2006), p. 30. 7 Roy M. Oswald and Martin Saarinen, Why Some Churches Don’t Grow: Factors that Might Motivate Those Not Interested in Growth, (Alban Institute, 1993), p. 1.

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Capernaum. We cannot hold Jesus here in Light of Christ. There is nothing that we can do that will prevent Jesus from bringing the kingdom of God to the world. That is what the Gospel tells us today. Jesus is driven. He fully enters into every part of the world. In the holy places, you will find Him. Jesus is there. He is telling you that He loves you and He wants you to live with Him forever. In every home in the world, invited or not, Jesus is present. He is the guest at your table. He is in all your conversations. He is with you when you sleep. Jesus is driven to do all these things for one reason only. He wants you to know that no matter what happens, He accepts you. Do not turn Him away and you will be given an amazing gift. Though you die, you will live. Jesus is driven to be in all of the areas of the world that we would rather forget about. He is the prostitute’s companion. He is a friend of the addict. He lives with the homeless. His task in all these horrible places is just the same as what He does in the most sacred areas of life. He loves you and He wants you to live forever. The driven people of the world know exactly what they want out of life and they try their hardest to get it. Sometimes they succeed beyond their wildest dreams and at other times they fail miserably. That is the risk that we all face in this life. We do not know whether we will win or loose. But the chance of success or failure should not paralyze us here at Light of Christ. Jesus has promised to be with us no matter what happens. We have a choice. We can continue what we are doing now. We can try to keep Jesus to ourselves. This is surely the way of death for this congregation. Or we can do something completely different. We can follow Jesus. We can go to the nearby 7

trailer parks, we can enter into the ice-houses, we can visit with our neighbors. We will find Jesus at each of these places. Our job is to simply show all these people that He is already there. Jesus will preach. He has promised that. That is why He has come (Mark 1:38). “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”8

References Donahue, S.J., John R. and Harrington, S.J., Daniel J.; Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., editor, The Gospel of Mark, Volume 2, Sacra Pagina Series, (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002). Inskeep, Kenneth W., Life in the ELCA: The Brutal Facts, (Luther Seminary Board Address, October 2006), Research and Evaluation Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Lugo, Luis et al., U.S.Religious Landscape Survey, (The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008). Oswald, Roy M. and Saarinen, Martin, Why Some Churches Don’t Grow: Factors that Might Motivate Those Not Interested in Growth, (Alban Institute, 1993).

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Philippians 4:7.

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