Ordinary Time: 5th Sunday After Epiphany, February 8, 2015

Collect for the Day

Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Reflections: According to the collect, what binds us is sin. In a way, we already know that. On the other hand, it’s easy to blame circumstances rather than to look into ourselves. Sometimes it is the situation that binds us, and that’s often because of systemic sin—sin that is embedded in the way our society and institutions work.

Just as often, however, it is our own sin that binds us—remembering that the definition of sin is some sort of break in our relationship with God. Anger, regret, or fear, for example, can be so absorbing that our hearts around ourselves. They may prove an impediment to our own liberation, or an impediment to changing our circumstances.

First Lesson: Isaiah 40:21-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?
     Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
     scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
     they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Reflections: The Bible—as Christian tradition—maintains a tension between a “transcendent,” distant God, and a radically present, “immanent” God. We tend to place God in one basket or the other. We may picture the “transcendent” God as a judge who glowers at us from heaven. On the other hand, we might see God in the gentle image of a Jesus with soulful eyes, with a lamb slung over his shoulders. So which is it? Is God the transcendent ruler, or the Emmanuel who breathes into us his peace?

     The wonderful passage assigned for the day from the Prophet Isaiah addresses precisely this expectation that God is either/or. To imagine God as majestic and distant leaves us blind to the immediacy of the divine. “How,” one might ask, can a God who “sits above the circle of the earth,” and to whom “its inhabitants are like grasshoppers” take an interest in human life—let alone my life?

     One of the best kept secrets among Christians is that the God of the Hebrew bible is the God who is near. As Jesus knew, we didn’t have to wait for him to find that out. It’s all over the scriptures—Deuteronomy 30:14, I Kings 19:12, Psalm 139, and the Isaiah passage above, to cite some of the most obvious examples.

     This God of the wild universe, whose face we see in Jesus, is with us—and in us—through the mysterious presence of the Spirit. The perennial human error is to think that God is like us, bound by the laws and desires to which we are subject. For this reason, we continually make God in our own image; the irony is that it is God who seeks to remake us in the image of the Divine.

Psalm 147:1-12, 21c  Laudate Dominum

Hallelujah!
How good it is to sing praises to our God! * how pleasant it is to honor him with praise!
The LORD rebuilds Jerusalem; * he gathers the exiles of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted * and binds up their wounds.
He counts the number of the stars * and calls them all by their names.
Great is our LORD and mighty in power; * there is no limit to his wisdom.
The LORD lifts up the lowly, * but casts the wicked to the ground.
Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; * make music to our God upon the harp.
He covers the heavens with clouds * and prepares rain for the earth;
He makes grass to grow upon the mountains * and green plants to serve mankind.
He provides food for flocks and herds * and for the young ravens when they cry.
He is not impressed by the might of a horse; * he has no pleasure in the strength of a man;
But the LORD has pleasure in those who fear him, * in those who await his gracious favor.
Hallelujah!

Reflection: The theme of majestic transcendence and radical intimacy also echoes in this psalm. Though on a first-name basis with the stars, God grieves at the suffering of the weak.

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23

If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.
          For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

Reflections: St. Paul tells us that his purpose in life is to make the Gospel freely available. His goal is not to save for retirement, to bequeath property to his children, or to build a reputation. The reward of sharing the gospel is sharing the gospel.

          Most of us are afraid of giving ourselves completely—to another person, a talent, an interest, a mission. And rightly so. It is costly, and the price is our lives. If St. Paul had had a wife and children, I wonder if he would have been called to live out his service in a different way.

Gospel: Mark 1:29-39

Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
          That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
          In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Reflections: Now, any feminist would be likely to point out that the poor woman had to be on her deathbed in order to get out of doing the housework. As soon as she felt a little better, she was expected to wait on everybody. I wonder if that would be a realistic depiction of the times. Regardless of the answer, I also wonder whether that questions is not just plain irrelevant.

          What does it mean to be healed? Does it mean a return to normal, a re-establishment of the status quo? Not when Jesus does the healing. I suspect that to be healed by Christ is to be healed from whatever binds us and prevents us from becoming who God intends us to be. And the first expression of that “who” is the open heart, symbolized by hospitality.
          May we be healed—again and again, more and more deeply.