sunday 7 february, 2021

Reflection:  "Living in the Freedom of God"

Isaiah 40:21-31

Psalm 147:1-11, 20c   

Mark 1:29-39  

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

What does it feel like to be free?

You feel like you can do anything and not have others criticise you for it.

The Psalmist obviously felt free enough to cry out his love and praise for his God.

The apostle Paul, writing to the fledgling community at Corinth, felt free to let them into his secret for sharing the gospel with non-believers, when saying that he would adopt the persona of whoever he was appealing to.
In doing so, he could speak freely at their level and not appear as an outsider.
He would put himself into their position and try to understand how it would be for them to best understand the gospel news that he had come to tell them.

Have you ever noticed it’s difficult to get a group conversation started, or bring that discussion to a deeper level.

Luckily for us, there’s a game called TableTopics, that’s designed to get conversation started between two people, or a larger group.TableTopics has a clear cube, filled with cards that have one question on each card.
Each person in the group draws a card and reads their question aloud, with all people taking turns to answer it.
The “Spirit” version helps people get into deeper, spiritual, conversations, that help them explore their own personal faith, as well as getting to know their friends better.  
It gives them a chance to be free in their expressions of their faith, knowing that others will be answering the same way, too.

For example, one of the questions leads to a discussion about the difference between being healed and being cured.

Do you think there’s a difference between being cured and being healed?

Can you be cured without being healed?            
Can you be healed without being cured? 

When we’re physically ill, we want a cure to make us feel better.
But even though we may feel better, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are healed.
Our understanding of healing, especially in our gospel stories, means something more:
It means a restoration of wholeness, particularly when it comes to our spiritual lives.
When we’re healed, even if we’re not cured of a physical ailment, we then have the ability to re-join our community in whatever way we are able and we can be at peace on our journey. 
Throughout our lives, we meet people who are burdened with spiritual illnesses.
When we’re ready to be healed, it demands action on our part.
It demands that we are ready to invite Jesus into the place that is wounded and help us. 

In our reading from Mark today, you may have noticed that Jesus doesn’t just seek out people who are sick.
Rather, they come to him, either on their own, or through the disciples.

Simon’s mother-in-law is brought to his attention as soon as they arrived at her house and, as soon as Jesus heals her, she immediately goes about serving him and the others of the house.
She was restored to her community, allowing her to continue serving. 

It’s interesting that the Greek word meaning to “serve” is the same one that Jesus uses to describe himself.
He calls himself the “one who comes to serve”.

This example of serving embodies the ideal of discipleship, as service to others, which was what Jesus was trying to get people to understand.
It was because of the woman’s encounter with Jesus, that she responded with immediate discipleship. 

Although Jesus continues to cure many who were physically sick and casting out demons, he doesn’t allow the demons to speak, because he didn’t want people to that know he was the Messiah.

The fame of Jesus was already spreading from the time when he taught with authority in the synagogue at Capernaum - casting out an unclean spirit there, too. 

But Jesus’ call was always first and foremost to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God;
everything else, including the miracle healings and exorcisms, was secondary. 

As it often happens in human nature, people were getting caught up with the “messenger” and not the “message”.

Sometimes we get caught up in the hype of someone who’s charismatic and the next thing you know, you’re buying something, giving away your savings, donating a kidney, or whatever it is that person has seduced you into.

Jesus didn’t want to be seen as just another miracle-worker, because that was not his mission.

His mission was to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is here, through God’s authority, not human authority, so he felt free to pursue that course of action. 

It’s in the third part of our gospel story today that Jesus teaches us something very important, when he gets up early one morning and goes out to a deserted place to pray.

Observing morning prayers was a regular part of Jewish religious practice, and we know that the desert and the wilderness were places where a person could feel a closer contact with God.

After all that pouring out of himself in the previous days, Jesus needed to feel free and get in touch with God again. 

Being battered with the intense and desperate needs of the world can make things a little foggy.
When the needs of your boss, your spouse, your family, your school, your church, your friends, call on your time, it’s easy to forget what it is that God needs.

The way Jesus dealt with his issues was go out to pray and be reminded of who he is and what his mission is.
If Jesus had come to solve all the aches and pains of people on earth, then we’d be sitting here with a very different gospel and none of us would ever catch the flu, have arthritis, or aches and pains. 
​By getting free of the world’s woes, Jesus is able to get his priorities straight, talk to God and realize that it’s time to move on and to proclaim the gospel somewhere new.
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There will always be more need than one person can deal with, that’s why discipleship is important.

The response to an encounter with Jesus is a converted life – a life in line with manifesting the Kingdom of God in the world, proclaiming the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. 

There’s a whole world out there that hasn’t heard the Good News yet.

Isn’t it time that we committed to following the example and way of Jesus and tell them the Gospel story? 

If we didn’t feel that we had been saved by our love of God, we’d have great difficulty in enthusing ourselves to follow the example of Jesus, taking the gospel message to new areas, where the people were yet to hear it.

It might not necessarily mean travelling to far away mission fields – because the needs are all around you. 

I pray that you feel God’s freedom in your lives and that you take up his challenge to proclaim the gospel.

I’ll leave you with this thought:
“Preach the gospel continually, and when necessary, use words.”   

“May the love of God shine light in places of darkness.
May the presence of Christ bring hope and healing in places of need.
May the transformation of the Spirit bring change to places of struggle.      Amen”

Pastor Rick