Sermon for February 1: 4th Sunday of Epiphany
The reading:
Mark 1: They went to Capernaum;
and when the sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. They were
astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not
as the scribes. Just then there was in
their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "What have
you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who
you are, the Holy One of God." But
Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and
crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept
on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching--with authority! He
commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." At once his fame began to spread throughout
the surrounding region of Galilee.
The message
Over the past few weeks, Woodside has been in the news (for
a change it is not about the great food).
After many years of constant and often unrecognized work, our friends
and neighbors in the community have been recognized for their efforts by
different newspapers, radio and tv stations. Recently NY 1, the NY Post, Abc
news, 1010 wins, the Queens Courier, DNA info and others have all done stories
about individuals or groups in Woodside that have been shoveling snow for
neighbors, painting over graffiti, restoring fire alarm boxes, cleaning up the streets
and overpasses, reporting dumping, planting trees, caring for gardens and helping with other quality of life issues.
The stories of their work have been told to help inspire others and share
examples of what can be done when people support each other and work together
towards something good.
The streets that most of you walked on to get here this morning have all benefitted from these efforts.
When I first arrived here about 5 years ago, 43rd and
Woodside Avenues were all covered with old graffiti and chipped paint. There was always a nasty pile of stuff dumped
on 43rd and even our own
church needed a touch up here and there (still does really). Over time, things started to get cleaned up.
Trash was removed and walls were painted and repainted. Today, 311 gets called
about dumping immediately and the sanitation department (who probably recognize
jen’s voice by now) picks up within a day or so. Jen also patrols the area and straightens
out. There is really no more graffiti either.
If it goes up, we usually try to paint over it within a few hours. (That’s what all those random pails of paint
you see around the church are for).
Of course, I was not doing any of this during my first
year or two here. I would walk by,
complain, comment and move on with my day. It was just a part of life, it seemed
inevitable that there would be graffiti and dumping on a virtually empty street
with almost no residents on it. That
changed when I walked into Dave and a group of people actually painting 43rd
avenue. I worked with them for the day and learned that they had painted
virtually all of the public walls in Woodside (we are basically the last block
in Woodside) along with lots of other projects.
The group and the people who work with them are driven by some very
simple ideas, 1: it is our problem and our responsibility and 2- we can do
something to fix it. It is a group of
people claiming their authority as people of faith, members of the community,
concerned citizens or all 3 and then doing something with it.
We can easily use these events in our community and the
ideas behind them to help understand Today’s gospel reading from Mark. As Jesus teaches in the synagogue and then
casts out the unclean spirit we see Jesus claiming his authority as God with us
and then doing something with it. This story of Jesus’ encounter with the crowds
in the synagogue, the man with the unclean spirit and the unclean spirit itself
happens at the very start of Jesus ministry.
So far, in Mark’s Gospel all that has happened is Jesus baptism by John,
Jesus temptation by Satan in the desert, and Jesus calls to his first disciples
to come and follow. This morning’s
lesson, conversation and casting out are literally the first thing that the
disciples see and hear Jesus do after they accepted the invitation to follow
him.
In Mark, this story serves two purposes. First in continuing
with the meaning of Epiphany, we have
another example of the world figuring out what happened on Christmas, of people
starting to see, hear, and understand who exactly this child born out in a barn
really is. Here people realize that
Jesus is one who teaches with a sort of authority they have never heard before
and acts with a sort of authority they have never seen before. People would usually teach by summarizing or
looking at comments from other scholars or teachers and adding an opinion or
different perspective. Jesus was more
clear and certain in his words, declaring that God’s kingdom had come and even teaching
things that went against the religious authorities and traditions. In the same way, many people in Jesus time
would try to cast out unclean spirits with tricks, offerings, invoking some sort of magic
prayer, power or object, or performing a ritual. In this case, Jesus simply
tells the unclean spirit to “be silent and come out” and it listens. Jesus does not need tricks or anything else,
he knows that God has the ultimate authority and this unclean spirit can do
nothing about it.
The second purpose of this story is an invitation from Jesus
to the disciples and us to claim our authority as children of God, to live as
people forgiven, loved and welcomed, as people who know that God has the
ultimate authority over the world, evil, sin and death. Jesus knows that his followers from that day
almost 2000 years ago when Peter, Andrew and the first ones joined him until
today will face doubts, criticism, attack, fear, great powers and intense
suffering. From the first day he wants to make sure they realize that God is
the one with the power. For us today,
that means acting boldly, confident in God’s promises and power to change
things. It means claiming our identity
and authority as a child of God and knowing that we can create change, we can
serve our neighbors and work in our community, we can raise awareness and share
the comfort and joy of our faith, we can even stand up to long standing racism,
institutional injustice, bad governments, brutal wars, deceitful media, life
crushing businesses and broken systems, we can stand up for the poor, hungry,
tired, sick and exploited.
During our work in the neighborhood, most of us have heard, “why bother, it’s just going to come back, there
is just going to be more garbage or graffiti tomorrow.” Most of us have talked to people about
petitions, protests, donations, marches, or others ways of doing something
about a global wrong only to hear “what
can I do”, “What difference will it make”, “the problem is too big”, “it’s been
broken for so long”, or “whose going to listen to us”. This morning, as we hear the stories of what
has happened in our own neighborhood and see a glimpse of how Great is our God
in the start of Mark’s gospel, we are reminded to not sell ourselves short, to
not think our faith is meaningless, to not feel powerless against evil, to
remember that, as it actually says right up there, in the center of the place
we gather to worship and celebrate God’s love, (pointing at a sign in the sanctuary)
“with God, all things are
possible”.
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