Keep in Touch

Keep in Touch
February 8, 2009
Montclair UMC, Denver, CO
Rev. Kerry Greenhill

Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-39

I sent out my annual Christmas letter by email this year.
On January 6th.
Among my friends, I was not the last to do so.
After all, we save paper, save money on stamps,
and reduce the clutter on other people’s counters.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
It used to be that keeping in touch
meant writing letters
with pen and paper
or perhaps a typewriter;
making an occasional long-distance phone call
and lots of visits –
I know many of you remember those days
and don’t understand why no one writes letters any more.
The ways we keep in touch today
don’t have much to do with actual touch:
email, cell phones, text messaging, facebook
virtual communities are springing up all over
and people are communicating their whole lives
to an unseen, unknown audience (or readers)
through blogs (weblogs), vlogs, YouTube,
webcams, Twitter updates and chat rooms.
We seem to be a society
that has overdeveloped the technologies for communication
and risks neglecting real face-to-face relationships.
Yet I think the human instinct for physical connection will prevail.

Touch is something we literally cannot live without.
It is necessary for human life.
It signifies relationship, presence, intimacy.
It can bring healing, wholeness, wellness, health.

Jesus was a great practitioner of touch.
He touched those who were considered
“untouchable” by society,
healing the sick, those troubled by demons,
even those who had experienced disability since birth.
More than the physical cure, though,
the touch of Jesus restored people to wholeness:
he restored them to relationship with others,
to connection with their community.

In today’s story from Mark,
We continue straight on from last week’s reading –
it’s the Sabbath,
Jesus has gone to synagogue in Capernaum,
and cast an unclean spirit out of a man,
provoking awe and wonder among those who are gathered:
he teaches with authority!
Meaning, his ability to put words into action is unmatched.

Jesus then goes home with Simon & Andrew;
it turns into a “working lunch,”
as religious leaders sometimes have with their parishioners.
Learning that Simon’s mother-in-law is ill with a fever,
Jesus touches her, takes her by the hand,
and lifts her up – described in language that calls to mind
both Jesus’ body raised up on the cross
and the Eucharistic bread lifted up for blessing
in the last supper
and our remembrance of it.
And she is healed of her fever,
and gets up and serves them.

Do we bristle that Simon’s mother-in-law, who isn’t even named,
is healed of a potentially life-threatening fever
only to get up and go about the domestic chores
of serving these male guests?
I think we can be pretty confident
that this story about Jesus is not trying to teach us
that women should focus on household chores
rather than taking the time they need to be well.
There are plenty of other stories
about the ways in which Jesus sets women free
from the bondage of gender-restricted domestic roles,
to counteract a possible misinterpretation here.
No, this unnamed woman,
defined by her dependence on her male relations,
is touched by Jesus
and restored to life and service.
This is not about getting on with domestic servitude,
but being freed for servant ministry.
I’ll come back to that in a minute.

Jesus knew how to keep in touch with others.
I mean, we have no records of any letters he may have written;
we don’t know if he did follow-up visits
with those he had healed
to ensure they were making a full recovery.
But he was in touch with the reality of people’s lives.
He knew about the pain and suffering
of those who were unseen and untouched
by most of society.
He came to synagogue and cast out a demon.
He went to Simon and Andrew’s house
and healed Simon’s mother-in-law.
When the Sabbath was over at sundown,
he healed the dozens or hundreds who came to the door
seeking healing, wholeness, restored relationship.

But he also took time apart from the crowds,
while it was still dark,
seeking out a deserted place to pray.
He knew he needed to keep in touch with God.
This is a pattern that is repeated throughout the Gospels:
Jesus teaches, heals, engages people
and then he withdraws to pray.

It’s the disciples who want Jesus
to be more than in touch:
they want him to be constantly available,
defined by the expectations of the crowd,
anxiously trying to please others,
easing their own anxiety.

Sound familiar?
When thinking about our communication technologies today,
what worries me even more than their touchlessness
is that there seems no limit
to our belief in the goodness of reachability,
of perpetual sharing of what was once considered private.
We have lost a sense of boundaries.
Reality TV shows, Blackberrys and iPhones
have us convinced that fulfillment in life
means constant connection with as many people as possible,
or at least availability to all people at all times.
I’m as drawn in as anyone of my generation –
I love the way Facebook allows me to know
what my friends from all stages of my life
and now located all around the world
are doing at any given moment,
and the way they can comment on my own “status updates”
in real time.

More and more, our world is being drawn into the belief
that “community” or “intimacy”
is defined not by depth of communion
or the hard work of living together in love,
but by the surface area of our lives
that is available for public consumption.

There’s a website called LarkNews.com
that offers fake news stories,
satire with a Christian flavor.
Their current edition includes the following article:

LEWISTON, Maine — Recently, several hundred members of Holy Trinity Church watched pastor Jeremy Woods eat breakfast, work on his sermon and make a Starbucks run. Woods had just joined a growing group of pastors who are broadcasting their lives 24/7 on the Internet.
"When I first heard of going live I thought, 'This is the future of pastoring but I'm not sure I like it,'" Woods says. But after a month he says he "totally digs it."
"It's the next step beyond blogging or even live blogging," he says. "It's about sharing life."
The trend is believed to have started in 2004 when Rick Givens of New York's West Side Church decided to make himself "more accountable and accessible" by webcasting every waking moment live. But his pioneering effort has forced other pastors into awkward decisions. Donald Taylor, 37, of Nebraska didn't want to go live, but relented because of pressure from his board. He hated his first week.
"It was like being in prison. You never have a moment to yourself," he says.
But soon he began to enjoy having a constant audience. His wife particularly likes it because "he behaves more," she says. "It's like having God looking over your shoulder. You never know who's watching."

Jesus models for us
the importance of staying in touch
not with the crowds who define social norms and expectations,
but with God,
the Source of Life.

I suspect many of you are more faithful than I am
about making time for God in your lives.
Don’t be shocked!
Ministers often feel that our whole work life revolves around God
and we forget that we need to relate to God
not as an object, the theme of our vocation,
but as the Holy One who actively calls us to this sacred work,
and who wants to remain in relationship with us,
as Someone who might actually have wisdom to share with us
as we travel this journey together.

This keeping in touch with God can happen in different ways.
For some people, reading the Bible brings them close to God
and allows them to hear God’s Word for them in new ways.
For others, prayer is like a conversation,
describing what is happening in their lives
and asking for God’s help and guidance.
Still others know God’s presence most through stillness and silence,
Resting in God’s love without the need for words.
Perhaps you keep in touch with God by walking in the park,
or spending time with your grandchildren,
volunteering to help those in need,
or gardening or cooking or building things or creating art.

Keeping in touch with God is important
not only because God wants to stay in close relationship with us,
but also because it is how we become our best selves.
God loves us unconditionally:
the everlasting, Holy One of Israel,
renewer of strength and unsearchable of understanding,
is the one who redeems us and sustains us
for the work of building the kingdom,
the work for which God created us and to which God calls us.
But as humans with a tendency to turn from God
and to miss the mark of what God desires for us,
if we only keep in touch with ourselves
and with the people around us,
we run the risk of being driven
not by love
but by fear.
We are anxious creatures sometimes.
And when a bunch of anxious people get together,
they like nothing better than to spread the anxiety –
after all, then there are more people to carry the burden, right?
The problem is that anxiety multiplies.
Misery loves company,
not always so it can feel better,
but sometimes so others can feel just as bad.

We see that happening here with Jesus and the disciples.
Jesus has a very successful day on the trail,
having just begun his campaign for the kingdom.
Exorcisms, healings, teaching with authority:
all received well and giving him a big surge in the polls.
And then he disappears.
Now, Simon, Andrew, James and John
have only recently been drafted onto Jesus’ team.
They’ve only seen him in action a little while,
and this is the first time he’s pulled this stunt on them.
It won’t be the last…
but they don’t know that yet.
They get up early in the morning to plan the day,
maybe grab some breakfast before the healing clinic opens again,
and Jesus is nowhere to be found.
He’s vanished.
Panic sets in.
Where did he go?
What is he doing?
What if we can’t find him?
What will the people think?
We’d better find him, and fast!
So they hunt him down,
and find him,
predictably to our ears
but apparently a surprise to all of them,
spending time alone in prayer.

When they meet up with Jesus,
the disciples can’t quite admit
how scared they were
about his absence.
Everyone is searching for you,
they tell him.
We weren’t too worried,
but all those people out there—
those who are sick, the ones with demons—
they didn’t know what to do!
You’d better come back fast
and get to work helping them
before they get too worried.

But Jesus isn’t fazed.
He’s been keeping in touch with the Creator,
waiting upon the Lord,
renewing his strength
through communion with the everlasting God.
He has been refreshed
in his understanding of what his purpose is.
In response to the disciples’ anxious clinging, he says,
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.

Perhaps Jesus knows that if he stays in Capernaum,
people will become focused on his ability to heal
and to cast out demons,
and they will cling to him as a wonder-worker,
not looking to God to renew their strength
and not empowered to serve one another
as Simon’s mother-in-law is.

You see,
what is interesting to me
about the healing of this unnamed woman,
is that her immediate response is not worship,
not words of gratitude,
not wonder or amazement,
but immediate commitment
to self-giving service.
The Greek word translated as “serves” in this verse
is the same word translated in some versions as “ministers”
as the angels ministered to Jesus at the end of his time in the desert.
It is also the word from which we get the English word “Deacon.”
Simon’s mother-in-law is healed from her fever,
and she begins a servant ministry as the first deacon.
She is the first one healed to respond so whole-heartedly.
And though Mark has yet to tell us
that what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God
is that he is willing to serve others,
and even to suffer and die,
here we have a kind of foreshadowing,
an implicit teaching of what it means
to become a disciple,
to be touched by God through Jesus:
not only to leave behind one’s family and livelihood,
but to get up and serve
on a day that permits rest
as a sign of love and kingdom commitment.

We are finite, flawed, and fallen;
We need to stay in touch with God,
for it is “waiting” for God
that will renew our strength
and reveal our purpose, our vocation,
our mission.
We, too, need to learn when it is time to move on
to continue to spread the Gospel
in other places,
whether literally moving in space,
or spiritually moving on to the next phase of our lives.
We cannot linger in the luxury
of the miracle of healing,
nor dwell in the demands of the needy crowd.
Keeping in touch with God
allows us to find our deepest, best selves,
to know how our heart’s deep joy
can rise up to meet
the world’s deep need,
not trying to fix everything
or save everyone,
but bearing witness to God’s healing touch
in whatever small way we can.
May you know God’s touch
and be empowered to serve.
Amen.