Remembering

Remembering  9-9-18 

 

Jesus took bread and wine, gave them to his friends, and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” So this morning we receive bread and wine, remembering Jesus and giving thanks for his current presence in our lives and his spiritual nourishment in the new life we share with him.

The church where St. Mark wrote his gospel began with a small group of Jewish men and women. Over time others came to join, strangers, people who did not grow up in the Jewish community. And then the larger Jewish community divided,  leaving the Jews who knew the new life in Jesus separated from their family members who could not accept Jesus’ death and resurrection.

 

The new church community knew Jesus’ healing. They knew the spiritual freedom from forgiven sins. They knew the truth and the power of the Holy Spirit. They knew the spiritual food of Christ’s spiritual body received by faith in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine.

 But they missed their friends, and these new people were different. Their food was different; they brought non-kosher food to the parish suppers. They ate barbeque.  In a time of public baths, all could see the new Christian men were not circumcised. It was not easy to establish fellowship of Jews and Gentiles in the church community. Christian fellowship is not easy, but God can do it when we want him to. 

But Mark’s gospel told how Jesus had gone to Gentile territory and told how Jesus healed Gentiles.  Mark’s gospel told about the woman from the Lebanon coast whose daughter Jesus had healed of the demon and about healing the deaf man in the Greek speaking city on the far side of the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus had moved around. He spoke in synagogues. He spoke to groups of people wherever they were. Sometimes he needed time by himself, away from people, some quiet time with the Father.  Jesus went for quiet time to the mountains and went for quiet time at the beach.

Jesus had become a public figure. He was known. He was known as a teacher, and he was particularly known as a healer. People were amazed at his power over the demons. We don’t talk about demons.  We sing the third verse of “A Mighty Fortress” about this world with devils filled, but that language is 500 years old. We don’t use it.  We talk about mental illness. We name as epilepsy the convulsions the ancient world associated with demonic possession. We prescribe phenobarbital.   Many of us know something from our own experience and from raising adolescent children about obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior. For most of us supportive families and friends help us develop systems and strategies to keep our thinking and behavior within moderate and socially acceptable limits. But all of us who serve or have served as parents know something of the anxiety that our children’s obsessions can cause – whether it is rock music, sports, cars, boys, girls – single-minded enthusiasm can be hard to take. The woman who came to disturb Jesus’ time of rest and reflection was suffering from an extreme and debilitating ca1se of a not-uncommon experience.

And Jesus listens to her. “Almighty God from whom no secrets are hid.” The God who made us knows us, and loves us, and hears us when we pray, even when we can’t articulate our need. He helps by his indwelling spirit of truth to know what we need and want, and he helps us by his indwelling spirit of power to ask for what we need.

Jesus’ first response looks like rejection. I think it is testing. God does test us in prayer. He wants us to be clear in our minds, wills, and spirits about what we need, do we can recognize God’s answer when he gives it.  Jesus‘ dialogue about the dogs may have been heard by the early church as a reminder that Jesus’ ministry was to first to the Jews, to the people God had preparing through their history to receive his Messiah. The church is reminded that Jesus is a Jew, that the apostles were Jews, that the early church began as part of the Jewish community. We honor the Jews, and we thank God for offering salvation in Jesus Christ to all people, Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, men and women, native born and immigrants. The Gentile woman’s response shows she is ready to receive her daughter’s healing, and Jesus cast out the demon. He casts out our demons when we ask him to.

The deaf man miles away in the Decapolis needed more than the word the woman heard. Jesus took him aside and communicated to him what was going to happen. He opened his mouth and felt Jesus’ finger and heard Jesus’ word, “Be opened.”

We come to the rail and open our hands, remembering Jesus at the Last Supper, remembering with thanksgiving those who brought us here to receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation, our spiritual nourishment, as we are set free from the burden of sin to live the new life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.