Sermon: A Token Day in Mark

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

I really want to carry on from where Canon Rosalind Brown left off last week.  If you weren't here, her sermon can be read in the Sermon Archive on the Cathedral web-site, but she very helpfully gave an introduction to St Mark's Gospel drawing out the main themes of Mark and his posing of the questions - Who is this Jesus? Where does his authority come from? ‘What is his relationship with God? - and then illustrating the issues by the healing of the man with an unclean spirit.

And of course behind this is that cardinal verse in Mark chapter 1: ‘Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near'." Good news, the Kingdom of God, or the active reign of God brought to bear in the circumstances of human life. Mark's story is that this is what happens when God reigns, and it's good news.

And today's Gospel reading follows on from the healing of the man with the unclean spirit. And what I think Mark is giving us here are token incidents of the kinds of things that happened when Jesus began his public ministry, announcing that in him, the Kingdom of God had indeed drawn near.

I want to outline Mark's ‘token day' with some gentle commentary before I draw out some further implications for us and our discipleship.

I'm fascinated by Mark's sequence of events, and what they tell us about Jesus and his mission.  Let me remind you of the sequence.

And I'll start with last week's story.  Jesus, at Capernaum, enters the synagogue on the Sabbath Day and at once is confronted by a possessed man who shrieks at him with some violence.  Jesus exorcises him, but not without loud cries and convulsions. As with last week, I don't want to speculate on the nature of demon possession or how we might relate it to issues of contemporary psychology; rather, I want to draw attention to the nature of spiritual conflict.  This story points to the reality of an intense spiritual struggle, where total goodness meets evil, where light encounters darkness, where order confronts disorder. If God is to reign, then this evil must be met head on. Indeed, God cannot reign on earth as in heaven so long as such evil persists.  My point is that this healing is a costly struggle; in itself, it is distressing; it requires energy, it costs Jesus something to restore order. In other words, this no knock-down, disinterested miracle; rather, illustrates that in order to overcome such powers of evil what is required is stamina, faith, energy.  I could imagine that such deliverance for Jesus was exhausting, draining, consuming.

They left the synagogue and went to the house of Peter and Andrew. Peter's mother-in-law was sick with fever. At once Jesus went to her and healed her. This was not so much a spiritual things, as in the synagogue, but a physical ailment. But sickness is not a characteristic of the Kingdom of God, and so Jesus heals her. But this is not a kind of restoration that requires the re-building of strength and stamina; such is the transformative power of healing when God reigns, that mum-in-law immediately goes to the kitchen to prepare the Sabbath Day lunch!!!  The Kingdom of God doesn't just put things right, it puts things right to the uttermost.

And good news spreads fast. And so, at evening, we are told that the whole city came to him and brought to him the sick and the possessed.  I picture Jesus at the door of the house, hemmed in by a great crowd, a wave of human need; I sense the anticipation, the hope, and the joy of seeing what happens when God reigns. But again there is opposition - as good takes on evil. I picture night falling, and Jesus spent, exhausted, being prevailed upon to take some rest. And so darkness falls and at last there is sleep.

But then, in the morning, while it was still very dark, Mark says, Jesus is up and off to a deserted place to pray; perhaps to the hill above Galilee.  Was Jesus an insomniac?  Or was prayer to him as refreshing as sleep?  Certainly, it seems from other references that he habitually sought solitude; time for undisturbed and unhurried communion with God. A chance perhaps to be restored himself in spiritual power and stamina. We discern here a pattern of strenuous engagement in his ministry and deliberate withdrawal. And I sense in that prayer both consolation and struggle; receiving from God yet also wrestling in his presence concerning his vocation, concerning why human beings are so gripped by sickness and disease, by disintegrating powers, and sensing the sheer cost of bring God's rule when it is both welcomed and rejected, acclaimed and reviled.

Eventually, Peter finds him. Is there a sense of Peter's frustration - where on earth did you go to?  And then, not surprisingly, Peter telling Jesus that everyone is hunting for him - no doubt Peter had had to deal with the crowds, hammering on the door, eager for more, bringing to him yet more need. But Jesus is clear - it is time to move on - the in-breaking of be Kingdom must be known in other places - and so his preaching tour went on throughout Galilee.

And so a token day.  Of course, there was a sense of great urgency in Jesus' mission - and Mark's narrative does leave us pretty breathless - precisely because ‘the time is fulfilled' - now was the time to reveal the in-breaking of the Kingdom - and from the energy of Jesus' three years of public ministry has sprung forth 2,000 years of ministry in his name.  But I want to stay with the three underlying aspects of Mark's token day - opposition, prayer, and healing as we consider our ministry today.

First, opposition.  As the good news of the kingdom was resisted and opposed, so opposition continues to be the experience of the Church, from direct and blatant persecution, to ridicule and apathy, but also we see it in the violence, oppression, cruelty, injustice, racism of God's world.  This to me is symptomatic of a deeper spiritual conflict in which we are engaged. Sometimes in my ministry I have felt it intensely.  I fear we give it far too little consideration. Which is why I want to pray with much greater intensity:

            Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and,

            Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil -

where ‘us' is the voice both of the Church and of humanity. And recognise, as with the demoniac, this engagement is costly.

Second, prayer. In was very struck recently when I revisited a slim booklet by Ian Ramsey, former Bishop of Durham, who wrote this

When Jesus was in Gethsemane (Mark 14 and parallels) he prayed "that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him" (v. 35).  In other words, he brought a situation before God in the hope that the direction of his own will might harmonize with that of God.  There could only be on aim - harmonious activity: "Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt" (v 36).  So with our selves, the phrase from Whittier's hymn expresses the intention of all prayer:  "All as God wills ..." Our hope is that in and through our prayers we shall discern a providence of love expressing itself actively through all the events of our lives, and creating a pattern whose character becomes clearer over the passage of the years.  It is this broad providential discernment, nothing more nor less than this, which is the ultimate hope of prayer.  Prayer witnesses to a love, to which we respond in love.  Prayer then will always aim to create a pattern which can be a symbol of, and through which can be expressed, a harmonious, loving co-operation between God and ourselves.

from Our Understanding of Prayer, 1971

Yes, that's what happened through those hours of prayer early in the morning: Jesus expressing such a degree of harmonious, loving co-operation between God and himself that he could be the agent of the Kingdom. But I fear there are no short-cuts, and so I am compelled to my knees.

Third, healing.  One of the things we wish to develop here at the Cathedral is the Church's ministry of prayer. Already of course, we have a strong ministry of intercession, but we need to develop the more regular and sacramental aspects of healing, and indeed, explore more fully some of the complicated theological and pastoral issues around healing.  There will be much more to say, but it would be wonderful if this place was known as a healing community in all the many aspects of that phrase.

The bottom line is that in this way, we witness to the in-breaking of God's reign in Jesus and prepare for that day when at last the Kingdom shall come. It means that we are the heirs of Mark's token day - Jesus' continuing ministry in and through us - not only today, but throughout a consecrated life. May we today, through our worship and our daily prayer, draw strength, stamina, faith, love, conviction, energy, to continue this high calling.