5th Week of Ordinary Time

Readings: Job 7:1-4, 6-7; 1 Corinthians  9:16-19, 22-23; Mark 1:29-39

VIDEO

I feel like pretty much every time 
I step up to the ambo to preach these days

I end up saying the same thing: 
“Wow, things sure are tough.”
I may be accused of belaboring the obvious,
but I don’t think I can be accused 
of saying something that is untrue.
In my nearly sixty years I cannot recall a time 
so marked by collective loss:
loss of life-sustaining relationships,
loss of simple daily activities that brought joy,
loss of a certain carefree confidence 
that the future will probably be okay,
that problems will find solutions,
that fairness and justice will prevail,
that divisions will be healed.
I know that people around the world
suffer death and disease, 
discrimination and deprivation,
on a daily basis and on a scale far surpassing
anything I have personally experienced,
but even my own small miseries 
cause today’s reading from the book of Job
to find an echo in my heart:
“I have been assigned months of misery,
and troubled nights have been allotted to me.”
At this point, 
it’s been just about eleven months of misery:
eleven months of disrupted lives,
eleven months of disrupted work and school,
eleven months of disrupted plans and relationships.
Even if we have not ourselves gotten sick
or suffered through the sickness of a loved one,
or been estranged from family or friends
by the divisions that beset our world,
these months of misery have affected all of us.
They have washed out the colors of life’s fabric,
rendered the world a grayer place,
a less joyful place.
And we may be tempted to say with Job,
“My days…come to an end without hope….
I shall not see happiness again.”

But then there is Jesus.
Even as I am tempted to focus once again
on the past months of misery,
there is Jesus in our Gospel for today, 
in the midst of sickness,
in the midst of spiritual and psychological distress,
healing illnesses, rebuking the powers of evil,
bringing solace and consolation to the brokenhearted,
shedding light in a world grown gray with sorrow.
There is Jesus reaching out to grasp 
the hand of Simon’s mother-in-law, 
pulling her free from her joyless world of pain
and pulling her into his world, 
the world of God’s reign, 
where sickness is healed
and the forces of darkness are put to flight.
There is Jesus raising her not simply from her sickbed
but from a life that had grown narrow with suffering,
and drawing her into a new life 
that is as broad and bright as God’s merciful love,
a life in which she is free to rise again
to serve the cause of God’s reign.

There is Jesus, whose human life 
is nothing but this divine mission 
to heal and enlighten:
“For this purpose have I come.”
There is Jesus who comes as the light of God 
in the midst of darkness,
as the joy of God
in the midst of sorrow
as the life of God 
in the midst of death.
There is Jesus who comes to live this mission
even to the point of cross and tomb,
filling the darkness of death with light
and breathing forth his Spirit of life upon his friends.
As the 5th-century bishop Peter Chrysologus wrote,
“Where the Lord of life has entered, 
there is no room for death” (sermon 18).

There is Jesus amidst the people of Galilee.
But what of us here, today,
in the midst of months of misery,
who feel in our hearts
the echo of Job’s words: 
“My days…come to an end without hope….
I shall not see happiness again”?
Does he come for us as well?
Faith in the resurrection of Jesus
and in the sending of his Spirit
is faith that for us, 
no less than for those people in Galilee,
Jesus comes as light and joy and life.
For us, no less than for them,
Jesus grasps our hand to pull us up,
to pull us into the world of God’s reign.
He grasps us through words of encouragement
spoken to us through the Scriptures;
he grasps us through his grace 
made present to us through the sacraments; 
he grasps us through the bonds of love and unity
that his Spirit forges among the members
of his body the Church.
In these, and in countless other ways,
the living Christ, made present through the Spirit,
grasps the hand of each one of us to give us hope,
to restore for each one of us 
the color of a world grown gray,
and he says to each one us, 
“for this purpose I came:
I came for you.”

And what do we say back to him?
How to we respond to so great a love?
We can respond with the words of the psalmist:
“Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.”
We can respond with our lives, 
rising up, like Simon’s mother-in-law, 
to serve the cause of God’s reign.
The one who comes for each one of us 
now frees us to be his light and joy 
and life for the world.

Let us pray that, through God’s grace, 
those who have endured months of misery
and have been allotted troubled nights—
whose days end without hope
and who fear they shall not see happiness again—
may hear from us a word of divine consolation,
may feel in the touch of our hand the grasp of Jesus,
many see in our lives a reflection of the Spirit’s flame.
And may the God who comes for us 
have mercy on us all.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Job 7:1-4, 6-7; 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23; Mark 1:29-39

Maybe I’m just projecting,
but I get a sense of weariness from Jesus
in today’s Gospel.
After saying (with perhaps a touch of hyperbole)
that “the whole town was gathered at the door”
Mark tells us that Jesus
“cured many who were sick”
and “drove out many demons,”
and then, the next day,
“rising very early before dawn,
he left; and went off to a deserted place,
where he prayed.”
Waking to find Jesus gone,
the disciples are said
not simply to go looking for him,
but to “pursue” him,
as if he were fleeing from them;
and maybe he was.
To touch so much human pain
must be draining, wearying, exhausting.
Yet when they find him and tell him
(again, with maybe a bit of hyperbole)
“everyone is looking for you,”
he does not plead weariness or exhaustion,
but steps back into the fray,
saying “Let us go on to the nearby villages
that I may preach there also.
For this purpose have I come.”

For this purpose have I come…
this is who I am…
this is the meaning of my existence:
to spend myself and hold nothing back
for the sake of the Good News.
In Jesus, the saving power of God
does not work at a distance,
pressing a button on the cosmic remote control,
but rather steps into the midst of our suffering,
into the mess that is the human condition,
becoming one with us
in every situation of human pain:
those whose lives are wracked with sickness,
those who struggle with dark spiritual forces,
those who are rejected and outcast,
those whose lives seems hopeless and without meaning.
For this purpose have I come…
to touch your place of pain,
to heal and transform and console,
to cast out your demons
and fill you with my Spirit,
to step into your darkness
and be your light.
This is who I am,
God’s saving Word made flesh.

And we who have felt this touch
are in turn called to join him in his ministry
of stepping into the dark places of human suffering.
St. Paul knew this,
writing to the Corinthians,
“I have become all things to all, to save at least some.”
As a follower of Jesus,
there is nothing that any human being suffers
that I can push away from me,
saying this has nothing to do with me.
If I truly claim Jesus as Lord,
then I, like Paul, must become all things to all,
because Jesus became one like us in all things but sin.

And in becoming one with us,
Jesus does not distinguish between
the deserving and the undeserving.
As Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans,
“God proves his love for us in that
while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
Jesus does not ask
whether we are responsible for our own suffering,
whether we are worthy of his healing and forgiveness,
whether we are one of the deserving poor
or the good, hard-working kind of foreigner
before he enters into our suffering.

And neither should we ask,
if we wish to be his followers
and share in his ministry of reconciliation.
As God in Christ became one with us in our suffering,
regardless of whether or not we were deserving,
so too are we called to join in solidarity
with all those who suffer around us,
regardless of their deserving or not deserving:
with the lovable, but also with the unlovable;
with the blameless, but also with the blameworthy;
with the victim, but also with the criminal.

We cannot, of course, suspend all moral judgment—
we should not cease distinguishing right from wrong
or recognizing injustice where it is present.
But we should not, cannot, let such judgement
put anyone beyond the scope of our compassion
or prevent us from seeing in them
a beloved child of God.
It is for this purpose
that Jesus came
and it is for this purpose
that he has called us to be his followers,
to “become all things to all, to save at least some.”

Of course, it is an overwhelming task
to enter into the pain and suffering of the world,
particularly when it is the pain and suffering
of those who seem to us
unworthy of our compassion.
We, like Jesus,
may wish to sneak out before the sun is up
just to escape the incessant, exhausting demands
of those who suffer.
But the love of God
that has taken flesh in Jesus
is never exhausted.
In Jesus, the power of God to save and heal
is present without measure:
present to us in Word and Sacrament,
in prayer and community.
If we can sink our roots down deep
into the saving love of Jesus
then the torrent of the world’s pain
will not sweep us away.
If we let ourselves receive his healing touch
then we too will have strength
to stretch out our own hand
to touch the world’s pain.
It is for this purpose that he came,
and it is for this purpose that he has called us.
May God grant us this day
the grace to know his healing touch
and to extend that touch to all we meet.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Job 7:1-4, 6-7; 1 Corinthians 9: 16-19, 22-23; Mark 1:29-39

In our first reading, Job sounds pretty unhappy –

and with good reason.

He is a righteous man 

who has lost his wealth and his family

because, unknown to him, 

God has allowed Satan to test him.

He has no explanation for his misery

but he will not accept the conventional wisdom 

offered by his friends

that prosperity in this life is a reward for goodness

and that suffering is a punishment for evil,

since he is suffering and yet knows he has done no evil.

The only conclusion he can draw 

is that human life on this earth

is simply a life of drudgery,

that he is like a slave who can expect 

no justice from his master,

that his life is like the wind

and that his days will end 

without hope or happiness.

In other words, having rejected the idea 

that the misfortunes that we suffer

are a just punishment for our wrongdoings,

he seems to have come to the conclusion

that there is no reason why some prosper and others suffer.

And yet Job refuses to break off his dialogue with God,

hoping against hope that God will provide an explanation.

The book of Job manages in the end 

to give Job something like a happy ending,

with his property restored,

without falling back into the idea 

that prosperity in this life is a reward for goodness

and that suffering is a punishment for evil.

When God finally speaks with Job 

this is only to strengthen Job’s conviction

that the reason why there is so much suffering in this life

is ultimately a mystery to us.

And  we have not gotten very far in the centuries since

in dispelling that mystery.

Even those people of great faith 

who can sincerely say

in the face of their own tragedy and suffering

that everything happens for a reason,

that everything is a part of God’s plan,

cannot claim to know how specific tragic events fit into that plan.

The passage of the centuries has not really increased our ability

to find reasons for our suffering or the suffering of others.

Knowing that worldly attainment is temporary 

and wealth tenuous

does not take away the difficulty 

of losing a job or a home.

Knowing that relationships are fragile 

and hearts are fickle

does not lessen the pain 

of a broken marriage.

Knowing that death is the common lot 

of all human beings

does not eliminate the fear and grief that grips us

when faced with the death of someone we love.

I suspect all of us here have, at some time,

found ourselves in a darkness like Job’s.

I suspect that all of us have, at some time,

found all of the proffered explanation of the world’s pain

as unsatisfactory as the arguments made by Job’s friends.

And while we might someday be able to say

that everything happens for a reason,

that everything is a part of God’s plan,

this is really more a statement of faith and hope

than it is an explanation of tragedy, pain and suffering.

And in our Gospel today,

we find Jesus smack dab in the middle 

of our tragedy, pain and suffering.

He enters into Simon’s house 

and heals his mother in law:

“He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.”

As word of this healing spreads, Mark tells us,

“they brought to him all 

who were ill or possessed by demons”

and “the whole town was gathered at the door.”

The whole town. . .

the pain and suffering of an entire community 

brought to Jesus,

so that he could heal them of their illnesses,

so that he could free them of their demons.

He doesn’t offer them any explanation for their pain,

but plunges into the midst of that pain

to heal what is wounded and to drive out what is evil.

He is there with them not to explain 

but to grasp their hands and help them up.

God’s answer to the question of human suffering

is the healing presence of Jesus.

But it remains a mysterious answer.

Tragedy, pain and suffering remain with us

as long as we are on our pilgrimage toward God’s kingdom.

The presence of Jesus with us on that journey

is no guarantee of immunity from pain and suffering.

Indeed, Jesus himself drinks deeply 

from the cup of suffering on the cross;

God incarnate shares the lot of Job and of all who suffer,

definitively refuting the idea 

that prosperity in this life is a reward for goodness

and that suffering is a punishment for evil.

Jesus speaks to God on behalf of generations of humanity

when he cries out, 

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

But he also speaks to those same generations on behalf of God;

in his resurrection he speaks a word of comfort and a call to faith.

The mystery of human suffering remains,

but in Jesus that mystery has been taken up into God

so that it may be healed,

so that he might draw near to us, 

grasp our hands, 

and help us up,

so that we might continue with him 

on the journey to God’s kingdom.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Job, who is perhaps history’s most famously unhappy person,
says in our first reading,
"the night drags on;
I am filled with restlessness until the dawn."
The image conjures for us those nights
in which we toss and turn
and wonder if the dawn will ever arrive.

Restlessness.
Not just the restlessness of sleepless nights,
though Job undoubtedly had many of those,
but a restlessness that is at the very core of our being.
The restlessness of creatures whose "life is like the wind,"
who long for union with their creator,
who long to see clearly that which they now perceive only dimly,
who long to find a love that will never disappoint,
a cause that will not fail.
This is the restlessness
of which St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions:
"O God, you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

For the first thirty years of his life,
Augustine knew this restlessness
in the young person’s desire to have life mean something,
the desire not to settle from just some job
or just some relationship
or just some life,
the desire to live intensely
and to find that thing into which you can pour your love,
invest your life, and which will not fail you
by becoming boring or routine or trite.
This restlessness yearning for meaning led Augustine
through a succession of religions and philosophies,
friendships, jobs, and lovers.
If I may be permitted to associate him with another author
with whom he is not usually associated,
the young Augustine reminds me of Jack Kerouac,
who wrote in his book On the Road:
"the only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,
desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing,
but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles
exploding like spiders across the stars
and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop
and everybody goes ‘Awww!’"

Restlessness.
Even those of us who are no longer young
can perhaps recall that feeling,
that thirst to have life mean something more,
that burning to be something more.
Maybe, beneath the rhythm of life’s routine,
we feel it still,
a kind of syncopation that calls to us:
"your life can mean more;
your life can be more."

Augustine eventually found
that his infinite thirst for life could only be quenched
by the God who is the infinite source of life.
And yet, even in finding God,
in falling deeply in love
with the one who had loved him into existence,
Augustine did not lose his restlessness;
his life as a Christian remained a life of always seeking more,
always seeking to know God better
and to love God more deeply,
to know as we are known
and to love as we are loved.
Our life on earth, he came to realize,
remains, even for the Christian,
a restless pilgrimage though time,
and it is only at the end of this pilgrimage
that our restless hearts will find their rest in God.

Restlessness.
It does not end when we realize
that we will only find our rest in God.
But it does change;
it does take on a new direction and purpose,
and in finding its direction it becomes somehow different.
The restlessness of aimless wandering,
the vague feeling that there is. . .
that there must be. . .
something more,
gives way to the restlessness of the pilgrim
who knows that he or she has a destination,
even if it lies unseen over the horizon,
and who hastens toward it.
We have a goal, we have a purpose,
and we are restless until we reach it.

Like Jesus in today’s Gospel, we cannot rest where we are,
whatever successes we might have had in that place,
but are called always onward into new labors in new places.
When asked by his disciples to return to Capernaum
and continue his successful ministry there
Jesus instead tells them that he must go
and preach in new towns and new villages.
It is for this purpose that Christ has come
and it is for this same purpose that God
has called us to be his disciples.
Because God’s love for the world infinitely surpasses
what we can even begin to imagine,
the task of bringing that love to the world
is always a task of restlessly hastening onward,
a restless task of becoming all things to all,
so that all might be won for Christ.

Restlessness.
But not the restlessness of those who lie restless on their beds,
hoping against hope for a dawn that will show them
that their lives can mean more, can be more.
Rather, the restlessness of pilgrims
who long to always be moving forward
into the mystery of God’s love
because their lives
have already begun to mean more, to be more.
And within that restless pilgrimage there is a peace
that allows us to journey without fear
because the goal of our journeying
does not lie hidden and unknown
but has come to meet us in Jesus Christ.
Indeed, the one who is our destination
has come to join us as a fellow pilgrim
and our restless hearts
are already enfolded within the heart of Christ.