1 Cor. 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28     These Things I Know:     E/DC       Jan. 29/06

1. What do you know for sure?  Another way to ask it is what or who has authority for you?  Who is the authority that underpins the choices you make daily?  Politicians, Dr. Phil, parents, friends, and Bay Street Advertisers would like to be.  Is it the Christ?  Religious right, religious left, religious middle of the road!  What do we know about the Christ if we wanted him to be our authority?
2. Authority was a big issue in our scripture from Mark.  Did you notice how he kept repeating that Jesus taught as one who had authority and not as the Scribes. They were learned and professional.  They should know what they?re talking about!  But this is something different.  Jesus is not just one who studied and interpreted the word of God, but someone who knew God.  One who felt confident about the truth of his message but who had no need to force it on anyone.  Authoritative not authoritarian.  He walked the walk he talked.  Jesus used authority not to accumulate personal power, but to liberate and heal others.

3. What?s the first thing that Jesus did, after teaching with authority?  He meets a man who is considered unclean.  The Greek word here translated as unclean means something like trash - rotten garbage, sewage.  Just then, it says the man came into the synagogue.  He would have been thrown out immediately.  Their law said that anyone physically or mentally ill was unclean in the sense that they polluted the whole community.  They were unfit to eat with, unfit to be with.  Garbage.  Totally cast off from religious community, friends, family.  The man comes with honesty and openness.  ?I know who you are ? the Holy One of God.?  And Jesus confronts this man held captive by a force keeping him from being who he was as God?s child ? healthy, whole, free.  Jesus enables him to let go of that force and be free to be part of the community, and in relationship with God.

4. This is something the religious institution of his day had not been able to do.   Their clear refusal to even try shows they too need renewal and conversion.  They couldn?t bring human wholeness.  This is the beginning in Mark of a major controversy - Jesus confronting religious and political leaders and the kind of structures that they maintain that keep people oppressed.  Does our church here in E/DC oppress or help set free?

5. Are there any we would name as unclean?  Are there any we would suggest we didn?t need to help because we judged them unworthy?  It?s a very human trait to judge, and a very un Christ ? like one.  Our scriptures are full of examples of those judged unclean in Jesus day.  Samaritans ? the Jewish relatives who weren?t quite like them!  They worshipped in the wrong place, in the wrong way.  They would detour on foot for miles so as to not get ?dirty? walking through Samaria.  Lepers, tax collectors, shepherds, anyone bleeding, the poor, prostitutes.  Each time Jesus picked someone seen as unclean to help, he was saying again, ?This person is worth my time.  This person is a child of God.  This person is also in need of healing.  This person is part of your community.

6. Jesus said, ?This person is a child of God.?  He knew deeply the need for relationship with God.  A gift given by God.  So why don?t we know it?  Why don?t we feel it?  This is where our part comes in.  Do we accept it?  Are there things from our past that would block us from this relationship?  If there are, we can deal with those things.  Ministers, counselors, family, or friends may be able to help us.  And we need to spend time with God, of course.  Meditation, fasting, prayer, Bible reading, journaling, music, spending time in nature or spirit fed conversations nurture that relationship.  ?But I?m already so busy I can?t add another thing!?  That?s the current wisdom of the day.  We?re so busy.  We have no choice.  But is that our authority or is Jesus?  The One who withdrew to spend time with God because he knew he couldn?t live his busy life with integrity or compassion unless he did.

7. Jesus said, ?This person is in need of healing.?  He knows God?s will for wholeness.  How can we be part of healing in this community?  As always we need to start with ourselves.  I?ve been acutely aware that there is an incredible amount of pain and grief in this community.  Economic difficulty.  Closures of the services and institutions we need and want.  Great loss and grief when friends move.  Grief upon grief as friends and family members die.  Our whole life seems thrown for a loop.  Perhaps we need to find ways to understand our grief and work intentionally through it.  I?m very willing to work with people individually or in a grief group.  Maybe it needs to be a community project.  At the very least we need a place to talk about each grief.  To name the loss for us.  To find ways in time to let go of the grief and not just rehearse it.  To know we are not alone.  To know what others feel in grief.  Anger ? at the person, at God, at the world in general.  Disorientation, depression, loss of meaning, loss of memory. My dad, in the midst of his great loss, took out some books from the Avel library about grief.  He said, ?It?s so good to know I?m not going crazy.  Others are feeling things just like I am.? 

8. ?Jesus said, this person is part of your community.?  How can we be a positive force in this community?  You are all part of the losses and fears.  When you gather is it to brainstorm the changes that could be made to make the community the way you want it to be?  Is it easy to slip into negativity and ?ain?t it awful??  Do you then go away feeling worse?  Or maybe it?s the larger world that you long to change.  ?But there?s nothing we can do,? claims the world.  But Jesus was very clear; we can always make a difference.  Who will be our authority?

9. Mother Teresa, whose authority clearly was Jesus,  said, "We can do no great things, we can only do small things with great love."  Are there people in our community we can help?  As we start out with a new minority government are there things we might want to change in our province, country or world?  Do we dare to believe we can make a difference?  In the mid 1950s, the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in the Chinese mainland, launched a "Feed Thine Enemy" campaign. Members and friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice for China to the White House with a tag "If thine enemy hunger, feed them." As far as anyone knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure. The President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly; certainly no rice was ever sent to China.
   
   "What nonviolent activists only learned a decade later was that the campaign played a significant, perhaps even determining role in preventing nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was on, President Eisenhower met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider US options in the conflict with China over two islands. The generals twice recommended the use of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower each time turned to his aide and asked how many little bags of rice had come in. When told they numbered in the tens of thousands, Eisenhower told the generals that as long as so many Americans were expressing active interest in having the US feed the Chinese, he certainly wasn't going to consider using nuclear weapons against them."  
   People Power: Applying Nonviolence Theory by David H. Albert, p. 43, New Society, 19.

Do we dare not believe we can make a difference?

10. So who will be your authority?  If we choose the Christ, these things we know:  Jesus taught and lived the incredible importance of relationship to God, about the need for healing ourselves, about our need to be a liberating and not oppressive force in our community.  That no one is garbage or outside of God?s or our love and care.  And we know we can receive the help we need from God to do small things with great love!