Text: Mark 1:29-39
My first real encounter with “mission work” was when I was seven years old. My family and I were on a six-month vacation in Paraguay, visiting numerous family members in the Chaco. We lived in my uncle and aunt’s house at the end of main street, on the east end of town, about a ten minute drive from where my dad grew up. It was summer; so I spent most of my time chasing around after birds with my slingshot, and finding shade to stay cool.
My aunt and uncle, the owners of the house we stayed at, were ‘mission workers’. They spent most of their time at Yalve Sanga. Yalve Sanga is a place where a large indigenous community had settled and thrived. The Mennonites of the Chaco had developed significant relationships with the people there, and many of the indigenous people had accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, and were worshipping him together in community.
In transitioning from a hunter-gatherer society to an agrarian and labor-based lifestyle, these indigenous folks had invited some help from their Mennonite neighbors with farming practices and administration. My uncle, a wealthy cattle farmer from the Mennonite colony, was invited to help, and my aunt was asked to help with education. They both agreed. They moved to Yalve Sanga and that’s why we were able to stay at their place and house-sit for them for 6 months.
One weekend, when they were home for a visit, they invited me to come with them to the mission field for a few days. I was excited. My parents agreed to it and so, the next day, my uncle and aunt took me along with them. I don’t recall too much from that experience, but I do remember playing soccer with the children in the village, going swimming in the waterhole, and worshipping with the community in church. While I was having all this fun, my uncle and aunt were busy doing mission work. He was helping to organize the community’s finances and business practices, while my aunt helped out at the school. This was my first taste of mission work. And whenever I hear the word ‘mission’, it’s this experience that comes to mind most often.
A few weeks ago I read through your responses to the congregational review. I was excited to read that many of you are eager to be more engaged in mission both locally and around the world. The reviews also noted some apprehension about sharing faith with others. We want to be engaging in God’s mission in our neighborhoods, but actually doing it takes us way out of our comfort zones. We’d rather someone else do it. Perhaps, in your school, you’d like to share your faith with someone, but you’re afraid of what your fellow students might think. Our hunger to engage in mission is tempered by our anxiety over talking to a stranger, or the worries associated with opening ourselves to the work that God might have in store for us.
As I studied the passage from Mark, I was reminded of these comments from the review. Is there something we can learn about missions, from this story about Jesus and Peter’s mother-in-law? What does Jesus teach us about partnering in God’s mission here in southern Manitoba and in our world? In fact, I think this story gives us some clear direction on how to become more engaged in God’s mission all around us.
This short story about Jesus’ ministry in this house includes many of the themes that surround the rest of Jesus mission. They’re all highlighted here for us in these ten verses. I’ve narrowed them into four main categories. In our desire to become more engaged in God’s mission, Jesus shows us how to open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit’s leading. Jesus leads us in this by living a life of worship, a life of friendship, a life of devotion, and a life of proclamation. Worship, friendship, devotion, proclamation – these are four essential parts to partnering with God in His mission in this world, including here in Gretna.
The first thing we encounter, with Jesus in this story, is that he lived a life of worship. One of the earliest stories of his life is when we read about Jesus going to the temple with his parents. On the way home, mom can’t find him because Jesus stayed back at the synagogue to study and discuss with the other Rabbis. Jesus was a man who loved to be in his Father’s house – he loved to worship. It’s when we join together in worship that we learn about God’s love. We learn about who God is, God’s character, and God’s plan. To be engaged in God’s mission requires that we spend time in God’s presence, basking in worship, giving our praise and thanks to Him. And it’s there that we catch sight of God’s vision for us.
In verse twenty nine, we read that Jesus had spent his Sabbath day in the synagogue. The service at the synagogue was usually finished around the sixth hour, which would be around twelve o’clock noon. So what happens to you after a long day of worship, and its noon? What do you do? Well, that’s exactly what Jesus and his disciples had in mind. In verse twenty nine we read that, “As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.” It’s lunch time and they come to Peter’s wife’s house and there’s a problem. Peter’s mother-in-law is in critical condition with a fever.
Before we dig into the miracle stuff, I want us to notice something. Jesus had friends. Sure, they were his disciples, but they were also his pals, his buddies. You’re in your early thirties, you’re at church with who? That’s right, you’re at church with some of your friends. For young adults, its probably the top priority you have in mind when you’re looking for a place to worship: do they have people there my age? Well, Jesus and his friends are in the synagogue for worship and then they go out for lunch – in this case to Peter’s place. This is often what friends do. What’s crucial, I think, for us to see here is that Jesus was like us in so many ways. He needed friends.
You and I are not created to be lonely. In fact, if you read your Genesis creation story carefully, you’ll notice that loneliness is the first thing that’s wrong with the Garden. We often think that the first problem is Adam and Eve eating the fruit – and that’s right on one level. But let me read to you Genesis 2:18-20:
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." 19 So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.
Did you catch that? “It is not good that the man should be alone.” What’s another way of saying ‘not good’? Bad, right? Does this mean that God created something bad? A lonely man? Now, of course, God wasn’t finished yet, and the point I’m making here is not to get into an argument about the origins of evil. What I am saying is that the creation account makes it crystal clear that humans were not created for loneliness. Loneliness is not part of God’s plan for any of us.
This, of course, doesn’t mean that we’re all destined for marriage, or that male-female companionship is the only solution to loneliness. Jesus was single, and from what we know, so was the apostle Paul. But what this does mean is that we are not created for loneliness – we are created for friendship. Mission work requires friendship – and one of the greatest challenges of overseas mission work has always been loneliness, cultural isolation, and a lack of friendship. Friendship is also one of the best sharpening tools for our Christian journey. It is in mature Christian friendship that we sharpen one another’s faith. It’s Christian friends that challenge one another to grow deeper and become vulnerable enough to share brokenness, weakness, and the courage to seek accountability.
Jesus leads us into mission by modeling a life of worship and friendship. These are corporate activities. In worship and in friendship, we’re frequently surrounded by people. So much of Jesus’ life was surrounded by people. After the exorcism in the synagogue that we learned about last week, the final verse read that Jesus’ fame spread throughout all of Galilee. He was getting famous. Yet Jesus knew when to draw back from the crowds. He wasn’t interested in the big show. After all the popularity in the synagogue, Jesus went to this house and spent time with Peter’s family and his friends. He performed this small, quiet, and ordinary miracle with Peter’s mother-in-law. No fancy ceremony or strange rituals… he just took her by the hand and helped her up. Jesus wasn’t only focused on the crowds; he took the time for the individual concerns of his closest disciples.
But this withdrawal into a quieter space didn’t last long. The Fame that spread throughout Galilee caught up to Jesus. Before lunch, he was in the synagogue, freeing a man from an unclean spirit; and then, just after sundown, all the people in that area brought their sick and demon possessed to the house, so Jesus could heal them. Within the space of a few hours, Jesus was right back into the full-swing of large crowd ministry. And after a long day, Jesus went to bed and I’m guessing he must have been exhausted.
After all these things, after time in worship, after time with friends, Jesus laid down and slept just like you and I do after a hard day’s work. But he didn’t sleep in. In verse thirty-five we read that, “In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”
Jesus went to a place where there were no people, and that’s where he prayed. If you want to fuel your tank for serving God in your neck of the woods, then pay close attention to this part of Jesus’ ministry. You can’t do it without living a life of devotion. Christian devotion is the practice of solitary time with God in prayer, in silent listening, in focused communication with God.
If Jesus, the living Word of God, needed to pray regularly in solitude, how much more do we? If Jesus, in order to keep focused on God’s mission, again and again withdrew to a lonely place to pray and listen; then how much more do we need this life of devotion? If we wish to engage in God’s mission, at the deepest level, then our life of worship and our life of friendship must be matched by a robust life of devotion – of prayer and listening to God.
What we hear next in this story is that Simon and his friends were hunting around for Jesus. Why? Because everybody was looking for him. When you’re as prepared for God’s mission as Jesus was, the world’s needs will come flooding in. I can tell you one thing, if you get engaged in God’s mission, if you spend time with God in worship, if you sharpen your faith through Christian friendship, and focus your life in prayer and devotion to God – guess what will happen? People will hunt you down too! The needs of the community will become plainly visible. People will open up to you. Your classmates will see you as someone that they can turn to and trust.
You see, God’s mission is to bring redemption, salvation, healing, peace to the people all around you. That’s what God has made plain to us in the life and teachings of Jesus. God’s mission is to reconcile all things to Himself. To bind up the brokenhearted. To give sight to those living in darkness. When you live a life that is open to God’s Spirit, leading you and guiding you… you’re going to find that the Spirit will put you to good use… and people will hunt you down for help. The question is: what will you do with it?
Part of the congregational review pointed at some very real anxieties about engaging in God’s mission in our communities. What fears do you have about partnering with God in his work? What anxieties do you have about joining God’s mission at your place of work? What freaks you out about sharing the good news about Jesus at your school? These are very real anxieties.
There’s also the anxieties about the changes that might happen in our church fellowship if we were radically successful at drawing others to Christ. What if these ‘others’ wouldn’t look like us? Or act like us? What if they’d think about some things very differently than us? This is also a very real anxiety – and mission work always faces resistance on this front. We’re truly haunted by the possibility that God might change things up on us, like when he suddenly sent his Spirit flooding over the Gentiles. The Jewish Christians almost lost their marbles over it.
After Jesus spent a few hours, in the early morning, praying, in silence, communicating with his heavenly Father – what did he do? He jumped at the opportunity of doing it all over again. He didn’t hesitate for a second. When they told him about the people looking for him, he pulled up his socks and headed straight back into the work that His Father had laid out for him. “Jesus 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. In short, a life of worship, of friendship, and a life of devotion all leads to one goal and purpose: a life of proclamation.
This morning, I want to encourage all of you to celebrate your desire to join God in His mission all around us. This is a wonderful desire that God’s Spirit has put into your hearts. Run with it. Open yourself up to the Spirit’s leading. Cheer each other on. And this morning, we’ve paid close attention to the role-model that Jesus was for us in this endeavor. At the end of our passage we read that this ‘proclamation’ was the main purpose Jesus came for. To tell people about God’s Kingdom and to set them free to live as God’s children. “This is what I came out to do.” You have expressed a desire to engage in God’s mission. So join Jesus, join me, and join each other in living a life of worship, lean on each other and sharpen each other through a life of friendship, find your deserted place and spend time with God in a life of devotion. These three practices will open you up to God’s Spirit and the plan he has for you. A life of proclamation – where everything you do and everything you say is a testimony to Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
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