Isaiah 40: 21-31
NPMC
Psalm 147 5
Epiphany
1 Corinthians 9: 16-23
February 8, 2009
Mark 1: 29-39
Speak Now! Your Life Depends on it!
Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus the
Christ. In our moment of silent prayer this morning we remember our friends in
the faith – those who are very ill as we gather this day and Syl Funk who has
died - these two who have uttered words of Christian hope and encouragement in
their lifetime and who will go before us as proclaimers of the faith. Let us
pray that we too are steadfast in our testimony to the good news of Jesus
Christ.... Hear our wordless utterances O God and transform us as we offer them
to you. AMEN
As people of Christian faith we believe that the world is changed in a word.
Creation comes into being at the express desire of a God who seeks relationship.
By the deliberate act of the Creator, in the six utterances of creation and a
seventh interval of silence and rest, what was once a formless void is
transformed into a cosmos filled with life and potential. We know the power of
speech. The transformative power of our story of faith regaled throughout
scripture is always tied closely to the spoken word. The genesis of life and
love and hope come about not as a result of military campaigns or violent
conquest but rather through the word of blessing, of promise and of covenant.
We at Nutana Park know this to be true of our life together too. We are a
community of worship. In the self-studies we have utilized over the last twenty
years the item of top priority for us as a congregation has consistently turned
out to be worship. All other things could fall away – programming, fellowship
groups, even study groups and mentoring - but we would continue to meet to
worship together. Words of praise, prayer and preaching draw us to God and keep
us centred: that is what many of you have said in past evaluations. Our life as
a community depends on gospel speech.
So, what does it mean that our lives depend upon the spoken word of the gospel?
Jesus is quoted in the first chapter of Mark declaring, that proclaiming the
message, the gospel, is what he came out to do. And Paul in the 1 Corinthians
passage says something similar. He describes his preaching or proclamation as an
obligation - a commission - that has been entrusted to him. Paul is compelled to
preach, to win over, to acquire the possession of people’s hearts and minds for
the sake of the gospel. For many of us, the sound of that kind of strong
language evokes somewhat negative memories of loud preachers or pushy Sunday
School teachers. Some of us come out of communities of faith who believed it was
indeed faithful evangelism to scare and browbeat children and youth into
compliance with a particular way of imagining life with God and the
corresponding rescue from hell. Such experience can be harsh and off-putting;
that is not how I interpret the scripture texts that we read this morning.
Quite the opposite, in fact! Paul is fired up about the gospel message because
it changes lives; it frees people from what binds them. Far from being a scary
enterprise, the hearing of the gospel and the resulting transformations that
occur are liberating and life-giving. Look at what Jesus does. He heals Simon’s
mother-in-law: his second act of mercy in his ministry. Remember, this is
chapter 1 of Mark and the story has fast-tracked Jesus’ early days by including
a description of Jesus’ baptism by John, the temptation in the wilderness, the
calling of the disciples and his first act of authority – the casting out of a
demon. Now he heals Simon’s mother-in-law, goes on to cure many who were sick
with various diseases, casts out more demons and finds a secluded spot to pray.
He is re-energized by rest and prayer and goes forth on the next day to
neighbouring towns again proclaiming the message.
What is the nature of this message and how does it free us? Well, the gospel
word is not some kind of guarantee that financial interests will be safeguarded
or that family life will be perfect; it is not a promise that bad things will
never happen to us. Rather the good news, the gospel, is the ultimate
encouragement that death is not the last word, that we are actually free from
the fear of death. This is true liberation and truly good news. You might wonder
why I consider freedom from the fear of death as the central thrust of the
gospel. Why freedom from death? Isn’t the gospel message about living right,
doing good things, loving God in the appropriate and respectful way and serving
others? Well, yes, it is all those things but if you think about it carefully,
what is it that most human beings fear the most? Death, dying or the suffering
that leads to death! How would we live differently if we were not afraid of the
inevitability of our death?
That is Jesus’ message. That is the good news, the gospel. In the love of God we
find all that we need; the strength to carry on from day to day, the grace of
forgiveness - a new start every day - and the hope that this abundance will
follow us throughout all time. When we live like this, death has no power over
us. We cannot be manipulated by fear of a meaningless end. For the end is never
an end but a continual participation in the presence of God: an encouragement
that never ever fades. In this way of living reconciliation is possible. There
is hope in even the most difficult of situations and we are not motivated by
fear to become hoarders. There is no place for prejudice and no desire for war
or the need to have power over others. Sure, this is an idyllic picture but it
is what we work toward; to be freed from fear, especially the fear of death and
to become peace-filled and wholesome in our life together. That is the promise
of the gospel.
What does this involve? Simply put – risk, courage and resistance! Why? Because
our society is bent on having us believe that we need to hoard, that we need to
protect ourselves and our children by consuming more, making war, if necessary,
on those who threaten our supply and our lifestyle. The word all about us is
that few are to be trusted. It is risky to take a stand in the public sphere and
say that there is enough to go around, that death does not have the final word
and that we must actively work to stop military aggression, wherever it crops
up. The hope of the gospel can be easily be easily scoffed at and dismissed as
unpatriotic, unrealistic and foolish. For many, violence is a way of life, a
means by which security is carved out and the poor kept at bay. In stark
contrast the gospel message proclaims that security is created by a word, that
hope comes through covenant and that freedom in the face of death is given in a
word of promise.
Where does that leave us? What can we do? The answer is clearly set before us in
our stories from scripture today; proclamation! We will speak now for we know
that our lives depend on it. We give testimony to our journeys of faith. Openly
and publicly we announce the good news in our lives; the quality of life we have
come to know because our Lord is a gracious God. Like Jesus, like Paul and like
so many others in the biblical story we speak out and tell others about God’s
love in our lives. We do it publicly – maybe to one person at a time, over
coffee, in a hospital room, in a funeral home or in a park - wherever we meet
someone who needs encouragement, we speak out.
Lillian Daniel, a United Church of Christ pastor in the U.S.A. introduced the
practise of giving testimony during the Sunday morning service and transformed a
struggling demoralized congregation into a much larger vibrant community.
Individuals shared their stories of faith with each other and the Spirit of God
was palpable and active in the midst of the people. The life of a once
struggling congregation was enriched by the words of testimony uttered and
shared. Dorothy Butler Bass, writing about this congregational metamorphosis
comments on how differently she had once viewed the practise of offering
testimony: “Back in the 1960s, both parents and church school teachers taught us
Methodist children that it was impolite, rude even, to talk about religion in
public—even among people you knew. Faith was inward and private, something
between you and God. Like sex, it was something you were not supposed to talk
about. Religion as a whole, and one’s own devotional life specifically, was a
personal matter.” (Dorothy Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us, p. 133)
The practise of giving testimonies has gone by the wayside in many of our
churches over the years for a variety of reasons. In revival meetings and camp
experiences of years gone by it was in vogue to give testimonies. For some of us
that practise felt forced and uncomfortable; not because of lack of commitment
to Christ but rather the format and expectation that went with this testimony.
However, we have been learning new ways of telling our stories of life with God.
In our congregation over the years we have had regular experiences of testimony.
When friends join our congregation either through membership transfer or baptism
we have an opportunity to hear their stories of faith. In the adult education
class there have been many venues in which we share faith stories with each
other. That is testimony! We do speak about our faith; we might not call it
testimony or proclamation or preaching but that is precisely what it is. We
proclaim the good news of Jesus in our lives, speak out and share our experience
of faith, of God in the everyday.
What Paul testifies to is his obligation to speak, not that he is being coerced,
but rather that the force of God is so powerful in his life he can do no other
but to speak of it. And in so doing he is rewarded with the encouragement that
comes back to him from those who hear his testimony. Paul speaks because he
knows his life in Christ depends on it. He speaks and the force of his words
return to him filled with joy because others are liberated from fear and
restriction. Words change the world. Or as Walter Brueggemann reminds us in his
book Texts that Linger, Words that Explode, “The Bible testifies to the claim
that God makes possible what the world takes to be impossible.” (p. xiv)
So Speak Now! Your life depends on it! We need to talk about our faith because
in the words spoken we are strengthened and encouraged, set free from limited
imagination and entrusted with speech that creates new possibilities, for us,
for others. Testimony changes the world because God’s love changes us. Thanks be
to God. AMEN