Ready, set, go! It\u2019s how children\u2019s games often start: hide and seek for example. It\u2019s also how races start. I was a track parent years ago: my older daughter ran sprints and relay races. Being a track parent means you sit in the stands on cold, rainy days, waiting, waiting until someone says, \u201cOh, Amy\u2019s lining up,\u201d and then you stop your conversation, look down and hear \u201cReady, set, go!\u201d And watch for a minute or two while your kid and some others run around a track. It\u2019s a rhythm of wait, wait, get ready and then an explosive start and rush to the finish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This image captures for me the Gospel of Mark. Especially here in this first chapter, Jesus seems to be on a race. Over and over, we hear the word, \u201cImmediately!\u201d. Jesus is baptized: immediately the Spirit throws him into the wilderness. Jesus invites people to become his disciples; immediately they follow him. Jesus preaches at a synagogue, defeats an evil spirit; immediately his fame spreads. It\u2019s one thing after another and sometimes I read these stories and want to say to Mark, \u201cSlow down! Let me ask some questions, like Pastor Sue did a couple weeks ago.\u201d Jesus goes on: encounters a man with leprosy and immediately he was made clean and Jesus is off to other places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The urgency comes from the importance the time. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the urgency of now and said, \u201cThe time is always right to do what is right.\u201d This is the time, Jesus says, right now, right here, the reign of God is happening. \u201cThe time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news.\u201d Everyone hearing this story knows how it ends. \u201cAfter John was arrested\u2026\u201d, Mark begins and we already know the destination is the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus himself. Mark is inviting us in between the arrest of John and the death of Jesus and there\u2019s no time to waste. Immediately: get ready, get set, go.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week we heard the story of Jesus casting out a demonic spirit. He\u2019s been to the synagogue, he\u2019s been to worship, just like we\u2019re gathered here. In the midst of the service, someone possessed by a spirit caused a commotion and Jesus casts the spirit out. Now the service is over and they go out, across the street, to Peter\u2019s house: \u201cImmediately!\u201d Now I suspect you\u2019ve all had a preacher drop in so you know there\u2019s a bit of preparation involved. In our house, it means cleaning and straightening and making sure there\u2019s a bite to eat. If it\u2019s Pastor Sue, it means having tea on. But here, Jesus and a bunch of his friends are coming over and the matriarch is sick; Peter\u2019s mother in law has a fever,. Jesus goes to her and takes her by the hand. It\u2019s easy to rush by this detail but it\u2019s important. Good Jewish men don\u2019t touch women in Jesus\u2019 time. Women are in the background, working but not seen, certainly not touched. Yet when he encounters this woman he touches her, takes her by the hand, just like in the song Joe sang, \u201cPrecious Lord, take my hand\u2026\u201d and lifts her up. The word here for being lifted up is the same one translated elsewhere as \u2018resurrection\u2019. This is the first resurrection, this is the model for our call to grace, that Jesus lifts us up, raises us. Just as Paul says: \u201c\u2026if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.\u201d [Romans 6:8]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve been talking about calling for a few weeks and I want to notice this woman\u2019s call. It doesn\u2019t look like what we\u2019ve often been taught. This woman doesn\u2019t comes to Jesus, he comes to her. The effect of being raised by Jesus is to make her well, to liberate her from the fever, just as the man with the demon was liberated. When God calls us, God makes us ready, gets us set. And finally, there is the \u201cgo!\u201d Jesus raises the woman and she gets up and serves. Mark doesn\u2019t tell us how she serves. Does she prepare a meal? Does she fix him a plate? Does she help him prepare sermons? We don\u2019t know. We simply know she serves. The same word is used by Mark to describe the angels who care for Jesus in the wilderness. When we serve, we become then angels.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The call of service can change the course of lives. Robert Coles is psychiatrist whose life has spanned an amazing group of people. His aunt was Anna Freud, he grew up during the depression and later in life he had the opportunity to interview and talk to a great number of people involved in the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960\u2019s. He became fascinated with people who felt what he called \u201cthe call of service\u201d: privileged college kids who went to poor people to teach children to read. One of those children later said this about the difference one of those teachers had on her own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nHe was a frail-looking Jewish kid with thick glasses, and at first I didn\u2019t know what we\u2019d even talk about. Bt I\u2019ll tell you he saved me, that\u2019s the word, saved. He was kind and thoughtful and he loved reading and he taught me to love reading. He was the one who said to me, \u201cYou can get out of all this, you can\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What that kid with the thick glasses did was simple: he healed her, he freed her, to hear her own call to service. She grew up, went to college and Harvard Law and then gave up hundreds of thousands of dollars so that she in turn could tutor children in Roxbury, a poor area of Boston.<\/p>\nRobert Coles, Call of Service, p. 176.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I hear this call to serve in my own life here with you. For most of the last 48 years, I\u2019ve served as a pastor of a church. Then I retired and moved to Harrisburg and had to do something I\u2019d only done once before in my whole life: find a church not as a prospective pastor but as a member. I wandered in here at Salem, thinking it would be one stop on a tour of local churches and you all said \u201cWelcome! We hope you come back!\u201d And I did. It wasn\u2019t easy: I\u2019ve had to learn a whole new set o skills. I\u2019m used to preaching sermons, not listening to them. My wife likes decorating; she\u2019s a flight attendant and in a different hotel room two or three nights a week. She imagines rearranging them. The same way, I automatically imagine rearranging the liturgy. It wasn\u2019t easy to not be able to do that. It wasn\u2019t easy to sit in a pew. But I knew I needed to find a place to serve and you gave me one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your Own Call<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What about you? What about me? What is your call? How does that call turn into serving? The story in Mark doesn\u2019t stop with raising Peter\u2019s mother-in-law. When the sabbath ends at sundown, people from all over town are brought to Jesus so he can heal them and liberate them from the things that are holding them back. That\u2019s the meaning of healing, isn\u2019t it? We focus on Jesus and the healing but we ought to notice the crowd that brings people: they also serve. This is the real church, this is who we are when we are truly servants of Jesus Christ. When someone asks me about Salem, the temptation is to describe the beautiful building or the wonderful organ. But that\u2019s not Salem; that\u2019s not the church. The real church is you and I serving together. The real church is you and I helping each other find our call, get ready, get set, and then going. It\u2019s not always as immediate as Mark\u2019s gospel would have it yet there is a faithfulness that lasts. When Jesus is on the cross, the disciples are all absent. It\u2019s the women who are there, perhaps this very woman, Peter\u2019s mother-in-law, serving to the end. Jesus raises her and she serves. This is our call as well: to serve with others, bringing those who need healing to Jesus. Ready, set, go: listen for the call, find the way you can serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rev. James Eaton draws on the urgency in the Gospel of Mark, where “Immediately!” punctuates Jesus’ actions, reflecting the crucial nature of the present moment to do good. He connects this theme to service, using the example of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law, who then serves others. Service as a response to Jesus’ call transforms lives, exemplified by both historical and personal stories of those dedicated to helping others. Eaton encourages the congregation to find and embrace their unique call to serve within their community, underscoring the true essence of the church. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,39,146,3,130],"tags":[329,333,332,330,271,331],"class_list":["post-1377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epiphany","category-exegesis","category-mark","category-sermon","category-year-b","tag-call","tag-christian-call","tag-love-others","tag-mark-129-39","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-service"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1379,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377\/revisions\/1379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}