Meeting Jesus

Sermon 1-28-18, Mark 1:21-28

Grace and peace to you from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Who here likes meetings? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? I know, silly question. I’m pretty sure just about everyone here has never had the thought, “You know what I could use more of in my life?... Meetings!

Unfortunately, meetings are how we roll. We have monthly council meetings to do the business of the church. We have annual meetings once a year to see where we’ve been and figure out where we’re going. The pastors in the Lower Bucks Lutheran conference meets monthly. The council of our synod, the Southeastern Pennsylvania synod, has a meeting every couple of months… and then every year in May we get together as a synod for our Synod Assembly. Every THREE years representatives from across the entire ELCA get together too… Whew…. We Lutherans have a LOT of meetings!!

There were a LOT of
amendments..

Imagine, though, if your annual meeting happened every seven YEARS, can meet anywhere in the world, with almost a hundred countries represented and more than that many languages spoken …. With translator headphones and points of order and amendments to amendments … I am of course talking about the Lutheran World Federation worldwide assembly, which I got to witness up close and personal last year…

THAT puts OUR annual meeting in a little perspective, doesn’t it?

Meetings are very necessary to keep us organized, to get the bills paid and keep the heat on, to focus our energy and attention on important issues, tasks, and preparing for the future… but we should never forget that it is the meetings beyond the meetings where the real work of God’s kingdom gets done.

At the start of Jesus’s ministry in Mark, Jesus gets right to tossing out the old agenda and surprising everyone with an agenda of his own – that the time has been fulfilled, the Kingdom of God has arrived here on earth, and big things are about to happen.

Jesus knows that he can’t go it alone, so last week Jesus started his movement by forming his discipleship committee. He nominated Simon, Andrew, James, and John from the floor – or rather from the wharf, and they accepted the positions for one three-year term with an eternal opportunity to re-up. It’s all right here in the minutes (holds up Bible).

The first item on Jesus’ agenda? To show the powers of evil in the world that he means business, and that he’s not going to put up with anything that comes between us and God’s abundant life promised to us as baptized and beloved children of God.

Two weeks ago, we heard the story of Jesus’ baptism and walked through the baptismal liturgy. If you recall, there is a remnant of an old rite of exorcism buried right there in our baptismal service. After the presentation of the person to be baptized, the parents, sponsors, and everyone gathered are asked, “Do you renounced the devil, all the forces that defy God… the powers of the world that rebel against God… and the ways of sin that draw you from God?” …To which the desired response is, of course: “I renounce them…. I renounce them… I renounce them.” We are to respond three times. That’s probably significant, because the next thing we do after these renunciations is to confess our faith in our Triune God in the words of the Apostle’s Creed.

There are forces in this world we cannot explain or control. There are forces at work around us that seek to draw us away from the abundant life that God has in store for us, powers that we are helpless against. And Jesus comes face to face with a kind of manifestation of that evil in the form of the unclean spirit who has decided to interrupt Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue that day.

Which brings us to the question: What do we do about this unclean spirit? Do demons exist? I think I’m with Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber on this one. She is a pastor in Colorado, is a self-described wrestler of the demon of her depression and is the pastor of a Lutheran congregation, who has written books and speaks at a lot of Lutheran event. What are demons? she wonders. Who knows? What she does know is that demons are that which Jesus does not want for us, in whatever form they may take. She says, “Our demons what nothing to do with the love of God in Christ Jesus because it threatens to obliterate them, and so they try to isolate us and tell us that we are not worthy to be called children of God. And those are the lies that Jesus cannot abide.” (from her book Accidental Saints)

Whatever we may feel or believe about unclean spirits, demons, or manifestations of the power of evil, we have something and common with the man with the unclean spirit. There are things that seize us, bind us, and make us powerless. They whisper in your ear in the dark at 2 AM and remind you of every dumb thing you’ve ever done or said… tells you that you are worthless because you didn’t get that raise or that promotion… says you are a failure because your child can’t break free from their addiction…. Convinces you that you are not strong enough, or young enough, or smart enough, or beautiful enough, or successful enough to be worth of love.

To ALL THAT Jesus says, “STUFF IT, SATAN. Enough with your LIES. Shut your trap and GET OUT.”

The unclean spirit in this man was rightly terrified. It knew this was only the beginning of what Jesus had in store for them – an all-out assault on everything that holds humanity captive – sin, brokenness, fear, ever “ism” under the sun, hate…. Even death itself would not escape this battle unscathed.

With this exorcism, so begins the final phase in the cosmic battle between God and evil, one that still rages today, with our attempt at participation. And yes, sometimes God even uses meetings to birth the kingdom near. At the Lutheran Federation Assembly last May, Lutherans from all over the world ACTUALLY AGREE on some issues that need to be confronted: violence perpetrated against women in all varieties, the lack of care we have for God’s creation, the end of war and conflict in all it’s forms, human trafficking, rampant consumerism, and extreme nationalism. This meeting set a common agenda for all the member churches in the Lutheran World Federation, including to the ELCA, in how we can all work together in bringing God’s justice for all. Not bad for a Lutheran meeting.

And so the work continues and expands… with the Lutheran World Federation, with ELCA and the Southeastern Pennsylvania synod… and with Family of God. The original committee that Jesus started might originally have had 12 seats, but the mission expanded - we are all on it now, and our terms never expire.

So many things still bind us, though. Plenty of forces keep us from living fully into our lives as God’s beloved children. We are still possessed by so much that holds us back, we are paralyzed by fear of more things than we can even count. Fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of missing out, fear of change, fear of leaving behind the familiar, fear of running out of time.

Right in the middle of being bound by our fears - THIS is where Jesus meets us. And THESE are the meetings that really matter in the end – where we are freed to live as the Family of God, to “Share the embrace of God’s love as a family who welcomes, supports, and nourishes all … as a part of the body of Christ.” Which, by the way, is part of the Family of God mission statement.

As Jesus welcomes, supports, nourishes and makes us whole, we are called to go out and do the same. We begin by meeting Jesus here, in water, bread, and wine, and then by going out to meet Jesus in the faces of our neighbors. That is Jesus’ agenda… and ours too. So let’s get to it! Amen.