"Meeting Jesus"
A Sermon of
The Rev. Dr. David A. Killian, Rector
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Annual Meeting Sunday
February 5, 2006
Text: Mark 1:29-39
I
A young boy was walking home through the park after attending a Sunday School class. Somehow, he couldn't stop thinking about the lesson for the day on the Scripture where Jesus says, "What you do to others you do to me." As he continued through the park, he noticed an old woman sitting on a bench. She looked lonely and hungry. So he sat down next to her, took from his pocket the package of M & Ms that he had been saving and offered some to her. She accepted with a smile. He liked her smile so much that after she had eaten the M & Ms, he gave her more. This time they exchanged smiles and, for a while, they sat together in silence, just smiling at each other. Finally, the boy got up to leave and, as he began to walk away, he turned, ran back to the bench, and gave the woman a big hug. And she gave him her very best smile. When he arrived home, his mother saw a big smile on his face and asked, "What made you so happy today?" He said, "I shared my M & Ms with Jesus. And she has a great smile."
Meanwhile, the old woman returned to her little apartment where she lived with her sister. "You're all smiles," said the sister, "what made you so happy today?" To which she replied, "I was sitting in the park, eating M & Ms with Jesus. And you know, he looks a lot younger than I expected."
The mystery of life is that you and I will meet Jesus at various, unexpected times -- and he will be younger or older than we expected. This is how we will meet Jesus, not in the fireworks and hoopla that we will see at today's Super Bowl, but in gentle encounters like the boy and the old woman.
II
In today's Gospel, Simon Peter's mother-in-law meets Jesus when she is sick with a fever. Jesus walks over to her sick bed and gently extends his hand, in a gesture of compassion and unconditional love. She takes hold of his hand and he helps her up. It is a courteous gesture. She was down, she was weak. He reaches for her and picks her up. She is well again.
When we first read today's Gospel passage we may not see its radical message. The biblical scholar Mary Ann Tolbert, writing in The Women's Bible Commentary, notes that it is quite unconventional that "Jesus, a male outsider to the family, goes to the sick woman and touches her." The Hebrew family structure of Jesus' time was like Middle Eastern traditional societies today where women are shielded from outside influences and male outsiders are not permitted in the home. Perhaps Jesus was allowed to see her because they considered him part of the family.
Tolbert notes that feminists might not be pleased that the first thing that she does after recovering from her fever is to serve Jesus and the apostles. However, the word used for "serve" is the same word to describe how the angels ministered to Jesus after his temptations in the desert. In other words, the Gospel equates Simon's mother-in-law's service with that of the angels. "What the angels were able to do for Jesus in the wilderness, the woman whose fever has fled, now does for him in her home. In addition, that evening after the Sabbath is over, the door of her house becomes the threshold for healing for all in the city who are sick." The woman is empowered to minister and she makes her home a place of healing for others.
III
Through holy baptism each of us is empowered to meet Christ and to serve people in Christ's name. Here at All Saints Parish in any given week, I meet Christ in the unexpected -- and expected -- people who walk through these doors.
I meet Jesus in people who are in need, such as the man who came to our parish last week who said that after being unemployed for months that he had finally found work in a restaurant -- but he hadn't received his first pay check yet -- and, "could you help me out, pastor, with transportation money so I can get to work this week?"
I meet Jesus in the person whose husband has just died, her life partner of decades, who wants to plan the funeral to celebrate and give thanks for his life.
I meet Jesus in the baby that parents bring to be baptized, the baby that will become part of the Body of Christ and share Christ's royal and priestly dignity as a child of God.
We meet Jesus in the outreach ministries of our parish which support inner-city children getting an education at Epiphany School; ministry to prisoners about to be released after serving their sentences; the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization that is working for affordable health care for all; homeless people who come to the dinners at St. John's Church; and orphans of HIV-AIDS at the Bonda Orphanage in Zimbabwe.
In our parish brochures, you will notice that it says: Ministers: The entire congregation. It's all of you. We are all called to do Christ's work.
You will meet Christ in many ways, most of them outside of church. If you are a teacher or work for an educational institution, you do the work of freeing people from ignorance and feeding their minds. If you are a doctor, nurse, social worker, a researcher looking for a cure for disease, or you work in the health care field, you free people from illness. If you work for a financial institution, or in the law, or in industry or government, you help our society to function. If you work in the transportation sector, you help people to get to work and to make a living. If you are an artist, an actor, or a musician, you feed our souls with beauty and free our spirits to rejoice in God's goodness. We are all inter-connected. We meet Christ when we help another person to live and to thrive.
And we meet Jesus in a little boy who shares his M&Ms with an old woman on a park bench and in that old woman who thought that the boy looks too young.
Amen.