I used to have a job working in the Chemistry Department of a university.  My only job was to type articles that the faculty wrote for scientific journals and get them camera ready.  The manuscript might be 60 or 80 pages of handwriting.  I use the term “wrote” loosely because they did use pen and paper, but it wasn't always something one would consider actual writing.  As a matter of fact, I found it easier to read some of the penmanship if I held the paper a little askance. When I was reading my own writing last night, I saw the word “lonely” and read “lovely.”  When I recognized my error and corrected it, I realized that it wasn't actually an error.

I think it is lovely to retreat to lonely places.  However it is not lovely to be lonely.

I think of lonely places as sparse, wide vistas with nothing to inhibit my view, limited colors, and generally with limited external stimulus.  I picture a deserted place, like I picture where Jesus went in this passage.  To some that sounds excruciatingly boring!  It might for me too if it went on too long.

Remember, I think it was the movie E.T., when E.T. kept saying “Need input.  Need input!” so he could learn?  I am the person that says, “Too much input!  Too much input!”  

I think for all of us, there is some point where we would really like to stop the rest of the world from crowding us in, and find a way to stop the input.  Whether it's a simple breather from social media, or a night home alone with a bath or a good book and the phone off the hook (say it isn't so!), we need to stop the noise.

Time we spend away and in retreat from the chaos of the world is something that we all need, whether we enjoy it or not.  I'm thinking of friends who would not enjoy that at all, and for them I think, well, at least there's sleep.  

One commentator likened these early chapters in the gospel of Mark to the coming attractions at a movie theater.  In just this first chapter Jesus has done all these things: he has dealt with Satan in the desert, called his first disciples, caused trouble in a synagogue where he connected teaching with authority as well announced the coming of God's reign, he showed his power over demons, and has healed many, including Simon's mother in law.   The chapter so far has been a whirlwind of great activity.  The speed with which all of this has happened has been likened to a reporter reporting on the busy fast-paced day of a political candidate. “This day in the life of Jesus,” writes commentator Gary W. Charles, ”is not biography, however, but theology.”   This is not a comment about the truth of the story – it is a comment about the purpose of this story in the gospel of Mark.

This early activity in Mark's gospel sets up the pattern for the rest of the gospel. There will be more disruption of synagogues, more teaching with authority, more healing and more displays of power over demons.  Included in that pattern then is going away to a lonely place; resting; praying; being alone with God.  There are great biological and physical health benefits that we gain from stopping the onslaught of input we get from living a life affected by time and space.  In addition to those physical benefits to our bodies, we are in desperate need of escape for the sake of our emotional and spiritual wellness.  If hearing it from our doctors, and gurus, and Zen masters, and psychologists and pop psychology wasn't enough, now we can also note that it is biblically mandated to step away.  Just for a while.

Notice that Jesus doesn't step away and stay away.  Jesus doesn't do God's work for a little while, step away, and return to something other than what he was doing already.  When we're doing what we feel called to do, we still need to step aside maybe for some rest or renewal or a different perspective.  Then we return.

Other scripture lessons tell us of people who encounter God and can never go back to the way they were and their lives are drastically changed.  This scripture lesson though isn't about those deep drastic changes.  This lesson is about losing the thing that was getting in the way.

For Simon's mother-in-law, what was in the way was a fever.  Although we don't know the severity of the fever, it doesn't sound like she was dying.  There are no comments about her fever being the result of a demon; she just didn't feel well.  When Jesus healed her, she got up and began to serve them.

What is most important about including this in the early part of Mark's gospel is that the pattern for all of Christianity can be seen in her response to her interaction with Jesus, the person she will come to understand is the very person of God.

She was healed.  She responded.  She served.

This isn't a dramatic conversion story where something new happens. There will be time for that. Simon's mother-in-law is healed of her fever and she returned to her regular life.  I remember my friend telling me about joining his first church.  He worked at the music store where I worked in my college town.  It was just after he got married and he said he really wanted to mark this new beginning in life by including church in their family in a way he never had before.  Some weeks after joining, he met with the pastor for a conversation.  He told the pastor that he didn't really know what to do now that he had decided to give God his attention. The pastor said, “Well, now you live your life.”  My friend said, “At a music store?!”  “Maybe.” said the pastor.

It didn't seem like enough.  He felt a change in his heart that he'd hoped would be manifest in some outward change right away.  It would have been easy for my friend to tell himself, well, this commitment to church was nice, but it didn't work, whatever “work” means in that context, and then stop, in this case stop going to church.  Like a child who gives up too early, we learn to adjust our expectations.  Learning to manage our expectations is a lifelong process.  We develop strategies.  If something doesn't meet my expectations I have to decide – will it happen later, am I asking too much, am I moving in the wrong direction, am I evaluating based on incorrect assumptions?  All of this requires our imagination.

I have been changing our weekly Story Time with Pastor Deb to “Story Time with….” and inviting guest readers to voice over the books that I film.  One of the books coming up is called The Story Blanket.  In this book, a character named Babba Zarrah always says, “Every question has an answer.  I just have to think of it.”  

The phrase “failure of imagination” has been coming up more and more often for me lately.  Babba Zarrah does not seem to be afflicted with a failure of imagination.  I have read article after article about problems that were not prevented because of a lack of imagination; and advances we don't have yet because we have a collective lack of imagination.  Two of the biggest causes for anxiety are 1) Getting something we don't want, and 2) Not getting something we do want.  All for lack of imagination, say these articles.  We either didn't foresee something and have subsequently been hurt.  Or we label something impossible because we can't imagine it any other way.

The problem with thinking that our problems stem from a lack of imagination, is itself a product of lack of imagination!  Because thinking that it is our imagination that will lead to a solution or the correct and needed new thing, assumes that it is we who are in control.

Scripture constantly tells us that God is doing a new thing.  Mark's gospel is telling us about God doing a new thing by sending us Jesus.  The most difficult thing about all of scripture and keeping the faith is that we can't imagine what can happen.  We are too small for something so big.  Our lives cannot contain all of the possibilities that are coming when God is doing a new thing.  I remember counseling someone who was feeling hopeless.  In my meager attempt to say something about God's involvement and the power of God for all things, still the person said “Not for me.  There's no God for me.”  They couldn't imagine it.  Maybe it was a question of self worth.  Maybe they thought they were too far gone for God's reach.  Maybe I was an inadequate counselor.  God would reach though.  Despite me, despite their beliefs.  God will always remove whatever is in the way.  

Mark's gospel reading for today and the words from Psalm 147 point toward the certainty of God's presence, for us.  For you.  For me.  For them.  And them.  And even them.  God is gracious, builds up, gathers the outcasts, heals the brokenhearted, binds up wounds; is understanding, lifts up the downtrodden, and more.  No fever will not be lifted.  Whatever stops us from hoping, from believing, from expecting more, from living fully, will be lifted, with God.  The good that is coming is more than we can imagine!

Please pray with me,

1 Gary W. Charles, Feasting on the Word, vol. 1, p.337

Imagine

Reverend Debra McGuire

February 7, 2021

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