Let it Go

 

Based on Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

            Last week, we talked about God’s covenant with Noah and all the air-breathing creatures. This is an everlasting covenant, meaning it is still in effect. And it is a one-way covenant in that God is the only one who has any obligations. God’s only obligation is to never destroy the earth again. We as a species may wipe ourselves out but God is not in the annihilation business. We can trust that God is committed to preserving life.

            So, I asked you to consider during this Lenten season how you can partner with God in preserving life. As we make our way through this season, how might the decisions we make and the actions we take support preserving life? How might our use of the three traditional practices of Lent, fasting, praying, serving, all be means to preserve life?

            This week, we consider God’s covenant with Abraham. This covenant and the covenant with Noah have a few similarities. In both, God is the one who initiates the covenant. Neither Noah or Abraham sought out God or wanted God to do anything special for them. God chose to establish these covenants. And both covenants are expansive. Noah’s covenant included his offspring but also all humanity and all air-breathing creatures. Abraham’s covenant includes his offspring but also a multitude of nations. It is not limited to his direct descendants.

            This is the basis for that children’s song you may have been taught growing up, “Father Abraham.”

 

Father Abraham had many sons

Many sons had Father Abraham

I am one of them, and so are you

So, let’s just praise the Lord

 

             This is a cute little song but may have been confusing to the girls. How are they sons? At any rate, a classic Sunday school song.

            One other similarity between Noah’s covenant and Abraham’s covenant is that they are everlasting. They are still in effect and always will be. But there are a few differences between these two covenants. We are going to take a look at those differences and see how they perhaps shed light on our own relationship with God and our experience of life.

            The first is that God begins the covenant speech by telling Abraham to walk with God and be blameless. Where in the Noah covenant, no one has to do anything, only God has a responsibility, in this covenant God right off the bat gives Abraham a responsibility. It is a conditional covenant. This covenant would only go into effect if Abraham walked with God and was blameless. Thankfully, Abraham kept that responsibility because the covenant is currently in effect.

            What does it mean to walk with God and be blameless? First of all, walking requires movement. And unless you are walking on a treadmill, you are moving in a direction. Either way, you are not standing still or sitting down. So, walking with God has something to do with moving through life with God. Walking with God also has something to do with being loyal. If you are walking with God that means you have not ditched God or said to God, “You know what, you go your way and I’ll go mine.” To walk with God means doing life with God in the ups and downs.

            But what about being blameless? This seems impossible. Who is blameless? Nobody. So, blameless can’t mean the same thing as sinless. We all sin. So, what are we talking about here? Maybe to be blameless means to be faithful. We are going to mess up. We are not always going to be our best selves. But our intentions are good. In spite of our flaws, we are not exiting God out of our life. We are trying to remain faithful in spite of our tendencies to sin. And that’s why I think these two obligations God gave Abraham, to walk with God and be blameless, actually fit together. If we walk with God, that is, be loyal to God, then we naturally are blameless, that is, we are being faithful. Loyalty and faithfulness go together.

            This is a helpful word for us. Faithfulness rather than sinlessness is a reasonable obligation. Every year at clergy session, we work through a series of questions that pertain to various relationships with the annual conference. We address questions like: “who is retiring this year?” “Who is on sabbatical or family leave?” “Who is being recommended for provisional membership?” Who is being recommended for full membership and ordination?” The bishop also askes the dean of the cabinet this question, “Are all the clergy under appointment in good standing and blameless in their conduct?” This question always gets a few snickers. The dean then responds with something along the lines of how each of us are on the road to perfection, acknowledge that we are not perfect but are sinners, yet we are blameless. It’s about faithfulness, not perfection or sinlessness.

            In our lives, we can wander off track. We can go down some rough roads, poorly lit alleys and dead ends. That’s part of the journey of life. We don’t always walk the straight and narrow. But there is grace. God is always with us. We may not always acknowledge God’s presence. And often we don’t sense God’s presence. But God is with us. And Lent gives us an opportunity to check which road we are on, to ask ourselves, “Where am I? Which direction am I headed?” We can assess and if necessary commit ourselves to get back on track walking where God is trying to take us.

            The first thing about this covenant is that Abraham was given the obligation to walk with God and be blameless. As it turned out, Abraham was loyal to God. He was faithful. So, this made it possible for him to be the recipient of the incredible promises of God: a new homeland, a son in his old age, and to become a patriarch of many nations. By being loyal and faithful, Abraham would have a homeland and a lineage. What more do you really need? That is a future with promise.

            This leads to the second point I want to make. Abraham needed that loyalty or trust in God because if we notice, every time God spoke a promise into Abraham’s life, he had to give up something, and not just anything but something core to his identity. Back in Gen. 12, when God first speaks to Abraham, who was still going by the name of Abram, God told him to leave his homeland and his kin and follow God to the land that God will show him. Right off the bat, the very first words out of God’s mouth, is for Abram to let go of his ancestral land and his kinfolk. This is something that only people who were forced off their land or chose to flee from their land to live in exile can resonate with. To leave behind, to let go of your ancestral land and your kinfolk, which is core to your identity, is a big ask. And in today’s reading, God exchanges Abram’s name for a new one. The name his father gave him is to be set aside. He will now be called Abraham. Again, just sit with that. For Abraham to receive these incredible promises from God he had to let go of his ancestral land, his kinfolk, and even his name. This is no little thing. And yet, Abraham was loyal and faithful, trusting that this God of the mountain, El Shaddai, would fulfill the promise of a new homeland and a lineage that encompassed multiple nations and more offspring than the sand on the beach or the stars in the heavens.

            Does this not speak to our own lives? Of course, we do not receive the promise that God made to Abraham. But our lives are an ongoing process of letting go so that we can grow and mature, so that we can become all God intends for us to be. We leave behind our childhood home. We let go of parts of ourselves that served us well when we were young but now don’t serve much purpose. We let go of career ambitions, striving for status, hopes and dreams we once had for our lives. Our life journey is full of letting go and leaving behind what used to be so important, even necessary, to making us who we are. We let all that go so that we can expand who we are, develop our identity. And let’s be honest, it is pretty off putting to witness someone in their 70s trying to act like they are living in their 30s. For us to grow and mature and become who God wants us to become, we have to let some things go.

            Lent can be a time when we reflect on what we need to let go of. I’m talking about something much more significant that letting go of eating meat or chocolate for a few weeks. What do you need to let go of that has helped shape your identity? What do you need to move away from so that you are able to receive what it is God is promising to give you? These are Lent questions.

            Now, we probably don’t have a clear idea on how to answer these questions. Abraham was blessed. He had a few moments in his long, long life where he did get a clear word from God. God made it plain to Abraham what he needed to let go of and what he and the generations after him would gain as a result of that sacrifice. For us, we sometimes get a moment of clarity. That still small voice can speak into us now and then in our lives. But for the most part, like Abraham, we are just walking with God as we navigate the process of maturity. We sort of pick up clues or insights, promptings, that suggest what we need to let go of and what we can potentially become.

            So, my invitation is for you to sit with these questions. What am I being asked to let go of so I can grow in my divine purpose? What is God promising to give me and those who come after me? If there are no clear answers, commit yourself to be willing to let go when you get that clarity and to keep trusting in the goodness and the promised blessings God has for you in the days to come, as you continue to walk with God.

 

Never Again

 Based on Genesis 9:8-17

             It was about a year ago that Covid started to make its way around the world, just as Lent was getting started. Around Mar. 18, 2020 is often cited as when shut downs started to occur and we began the process of getting accustomed to wearing facial coverings, washing our hands, maintaining physical separation, all the things we have become quite familiar with. Mar. 18 was during the third week of Lent. The first virtual worship service I uploaded to YouTube was Mar. 22^nd. Of course, none of us knew how long this would last, or that providing online worship would become a permanent part of our church’s ministry. Eleven months later, here we are. We are back to in person worship. But not all of us are back. It will be some time yet before we can put away our masks, embrace each other, and share a potluck together. This has been an underappreciated sacrifice for us Methodists. No potlucks!

            Lent is a season in the Christian liturgical year when we are invited to re-engage with the way of the cross. These weeks of self-reflection, confession and repentance, and recommitment to discipleship, all build up to Holy Week when we re-live the drama of the last supper, the arrest, the betrayal, the beating, the crucifixion, the burial, and then the resurrection. We navigate through this penitential season often through three traditional methods: fasting or abstinence, prayer, and service or giving alms, providing charity. These methods are intended to call us back to the seriousness of our discipleship, the commitment and sacrifice we are called upon to follow Jesus. It is true that we are saved by grace. The only fitting response of gratitude for our salvation is to commit to the way of discipleship, the narrow and hard road that leads to life. Lent is the season that calls us to that challenging path.

            Lent is often a time when we are asked to abstain or fast from certain foods we enjoy or habits or vices that distract us in our faithful living. People often choose to abstain from alcohol, meat, or chocolate. Some choose to stay off social media or limit their news intake or their favorite political opinion shows on MSNBC or Fox. We abstain from these things so that we can strip away distractions, give ourselves more time for prayer and reflection, be more available to serve the needs of others, and maybe to confront our own mortality. Our time on earth is limited. One day we will return to the dust. What do we need to let go of so that we can be free and live with more intentionality? What habits that numb us from the suffering we are enduring do we need to set aside so we can come to terms with our suffering and what the Spirit is trying to teach us in the suffering we endure? These are Lent questions.

            On that point, it seems that we have been enduring Lent since last February. I don’t mean we have been fasting or abstaining from certain foods or habits all this time. In fact, maybe some of us have picked up some habits over the past several months that are not the healthiest. But we haven’t had to abstain or fast to become aware of our mortality. We have been awash in death due to the pandemic. Every time we put on our masks we are reminded of our mortality. We have lost so much during the pandemic, and not just the loss of potlucks. We have lost shaking hands and giving hugs. We have lost going to concerts. We have had to endure challenges to our discipleship. We had to be resilient in our faith without in person worship or Bible study or simply fellowshipping together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Even Easter and Christmas had a subdued, Lenten feel to it. Yes, in some ways we have been in the season of Lent since last February.

            Prolonged seasons like we are experiencing, this Lenten pandemic season, is grueling. It saps our energy. We sometimes have feelings of overwhelm. We sometimes wonder if it is all worth it. By that I mean is it worth it to stay connected to the church or stay true to our faith. Although it must be said that sometimes life itself is exhausting and we wonder what there is that keeps us going on. In this extended season of Lent, where we have lost so much, suffered a lot, and confronted our mortality, we could use a little hope. It is hope that keeps us engaged with life. It is hope that propels us to stay faithful to God and to the church, to this way of life that we call Christian discipleship. We need some resurrection hope in this season of struggle.

            We find some hope in today’s passage from Genesis. The hope we receive from this passage is that no matter how bad it gets, God is committed to preserving life. The sun will keep rising. Winter will turn into spring. Mothers will continue to give birth. Seeds planted into the soil will produce a harvest. No matter how bad it gets, we can trust that God will see to it that life perseveres.

            In this passage, we hear of a covenant that God establishes. A covenant is an agreement entered in to by two parties. Each side of the covenant commit to various things to preserve the covenant. For example, in a marriage covenant, the couple commit to certain things in the vows they make. These things are often aspirational. And when the couple falls short in keeping their vows, it is their love for each other that prompts them to talk it through, seek and offer forgiveness, and recommit to the vows. A covenant is based on a commitment to be in relationship and has much room for grace.

            But in this covenant we hear about in Genesis 9, it is really a one-way covenant. God initiates the covenant. God is the only one who speaks. The terms of the agreement of this covenant apply only to God. In other words, God is the only one who vows anything. The other party to the covenant doesn’t have to do anything. The responsibility for maintaining this covenant rests completely on God.

            God enters into this covenant with Noah and his descendants, but also with every living creature that had been with Noah on the ark. In other words, God is making a covenant with all living creatures who don’t live in water. God is making a covenant with all creatures that breathe air. It’s not limited to Noah or his family. It is not limited to one ethnic group. It is not limited to human beings. It is a covenant that includes much of creation itself.

            The basic covenant is this: God will never wipe out the earth and start over again. As we recall, the reason God sent the great flood was because there was so much wickedness in the world. Everything had gone off the rails. Noah was the only righteous person left. So, God decided to wipe the slate clean and start over. We have all probably been there. We were working on some kind of project and everything was falling apart and we decide to start over. Most of us who have tinkered with gardening know what it’s like to set up a plot and plant stuff, but the soil wasn’t good, or we didn’t tend the garden well and it was overrun with weeds, or the plants got some kind of disease, so we just rip it all up and start over next spring. But what God did was on a massive scale. God wanted to start over with Noah and all the air breathing creatures. A relaunch of life if you will.

            In this covenant that God establishes with all the air breathing creatures, God makes it clear that God will never do that again. God will never wipe everything out and start over. God is committed to preserving life. Something of God’s character expands in this covenant. Having established this covenant, God who is the creator of life more fully becomes the preserver of life.

            This is all an act of pure grace on God’s part. Noah didn’t initiate this covenant. God did. And in fact Noah says nothing. Noah does not respond, nor does his wife and kids. The air breathing creatures do not respond. This commitment God makes to preserve life is made regardless of the response. God just does it. God asks nothing from us. We don’t have to do anything or even acknowledge what God has done. It is a simple given that God is committed to preserving life, period.

             The tendency toward creating the situation that prompted God to wipe out the earth with the flood hasn’t changed. I am confident that the world today is as wicked as it was when God wiped out the earth with a flood. This only underscores the profound grace of God. When God determined from that point on not to wipe out the earth again, God did not first demand that all air-breathing creatures change their ways. No change, no repentance, no apology, was demanded. God knew that the shiny new world wiped clean by the flood waters would soon enough become spoiled again. God probably recognized that God’s anger and disappointment would flare up again. So, God determines to be reminded of this covenant every time God sees the rainbow. Even though the conditions that led to God flooding the earth has not changed, God still commits never to do that again. Grace.

            Here is the big takeaway. God is committed to preserving life. We can count on God never destroying the earth. Three times in this passage God says, “Never again.” We sometimes say “never again” when we are called to account for our moral failures. We mess up and hurt someone we love. They confront us with what we have done. And we say something like, “I will never do that again, I promise.” Sometimes we are good on that promise. But often we fail to follow through on that promise. We are human. We make mistakes. We fall short of what we aspire to or what we promise. We are not always reliable. But we can count on God to follow through. We can trust that if God has determined never to wipe out the earth, no matter how messy it gets, we can count on that. We can be assured that God will preserve life. We as a species might wipe ourselves out by our own actions, i.e. nuclear annihilation. But we can be confident that God is not in the annihilation business.

            As we move forward in this prolonged season of Lent, when we are reminded of our mortality, when we are experiencing all kinds of loss, when we are confronted with the challenge of being faithful disciples of Jesus in times of great upheaval and uncertainty, we can at least rely on this hope that God is committed to preserving life, that the creative processes of life will continue. Death does not have the final word. Life prevails.

            Maybe this commitment God has made to preserve life can serve as a guide for us as we navigate our lives through this season of Lent. How might we partner with God in the preservation of life? How might commitment to preserve life influence the decisions we make and the actions we take in our day to day living? I invite you to reflect on how commitment to preserving life can influence the choices you make about fasting or abstinence, prayer, and service.

 

Listen!

 

Based on Mark 9:2-9

    The experience, I don’t know what else to call it, that we hear today in the gospel of Mark is called the Transfiguration. It is an experience some of the disciples had with Jesus that is hard for us to fully comprehend. Jesus, Peter, James, and John go up a mountain. At the top of the mountain, Jesus was transfigured before them. By transfiguration is meant that Jesus’ form shifted. He morphed. The Greek word translated as transfiguration is the same word in which we get the term “metamorphosis.” The best way Mark could describe this transfiguration was that Jesus’ clothes became dazzling white. Why did this happen? Was Jesus giving the disciples a glimpse of who he really is? A pulling back of the veil if you will? And then, Moses and Elijah appear and strike up a conversation with Jesus. How did the disciples know who they were? Were they wearing name tags? Did Jesus say, “Hello, Moses. Hello, Elijah.”? Wasn’t Moses and Elijah dead? Well, it’s not clear. We know of the famous story when the fiery chariot came down and swept up Elijah, taking him directly to heaven. And there was a common belief in the days of Jesus that Moses also was spirited up to heaven and never actually died. At any rate, here they are having a conversation. Then comes a thick cloud that obscures everything. And they hear a voice, the very voice of God saying that this is his son, the beloved, and they are to listen to him. Then, it’s all over. Jesus looks like he did when they went up the mountain. And as they go down the mountain, he tells them not to tell anybody what they just experienced. Who would believe them, anyway? Imagine what Peter, James and John were like when they all gathered around the dinner table that evening. They would be looking at each other and thinking to themselves, “What just happened? Who is Jesus anyway?” It is just a crazy experience on top of that mountain.

            It’s also interesting where this experience takes place in the telling of Mark’s gospel. It is situated at the center of the gospel. That gives this Transfiguration an added boost of significance, like it is some kind of turning point in the telling of the gospel story. It is also the second of three times that Jesus is called the Son of God. The first time is at his baptism, when God says, “You are my Son.” Here, God’s voice speaks again, saying, “This is my Son.” And at the end of the gospel, after Jesus dies on the cross, a centurion says, “Truly this man was God’s son.” So, there is a lot to unpack and ponder in this account of an amazing experience on a mountain top.

            One way we can get a handle on what is happening is to look back at what happened six days earlier. Jesus and his disciples were together. They were heading to the Roman town of Caesarea Philippi. And Jesus asked them what people were saying about him, who they thought Jesus was. The disciples reported back that some people thought Jesus was John the Baptist. Others thought that he was Elijah, who was prophesied to come back before the end times. Or maybe, they thought, he was some other prophet. And then Jesus asked who they thought he was. Peter, no surprise, was the first to open his mouth, saying, “You are the messiah.” Then Jesus started talking about how the son of Man will undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and then come back to life three days later. The disciples, as is often the case, were befuddled about what Jesus was saying. Of course, Peter had something to say. He pulls Jesus aside to rebuke him. Not a gentle, “Jesus, are you sure about that?” but a genuine rebuke. Jesus, who is not meek or mild, yelled right back at Peter, calling him Satan. It was getting pretty hot right there. After that brief, heated exchange, Jesus pulls a crowd together and tells everybody, “If you want to be one of my followers, you are going to have to deny yourself, take up your cross, which is a painful instrument of torture that leads to death, and follow me.” And then, after all that, Jesus says, “Truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

            Sure enough, six days later, some who were standing there with Jesus got to see for themselves the kingdom of God with power. Jesus, transfigured, had a conversation with Moses and Elijah, on the top of a mountain. They got a glimpse of what is really going on. They got to see for themselves a glimpse of what the kingdom of God looks like. The same Jesus they would later see getting beaten up and nailed to a cross, whose body is then taken to a tomb, is actually full of power. There is something about Jesus behind how he appears that is of much greater power than the one they will see when he is crucified. There is more to Jesus as the messiah than what meets the eye. The kingdom of God is with them, a kingdom where Jesus has conversations with Elijah and Moses, and where God’s voice can be heard. But it is all hidden, under wraps.

            But then, there is something else. As the transfiguration experience unfolds, Peter does what he does best. He opens his mouth and says the first thing that comes to his mind. He suggests they build three shrines on this spot. By shrines, maybe he is thinking about what others have done in the past. On those sacred places where the divine is encountered, people would build shrines in honor of the gods or goddesses that were met there. Those shrines marked those sacred spots where people could go to burn incense, offer sacrifices, lift up prayers. They would be places of pilgrimage. Maybe that’s what Peter was thinking. But, whatever his thoughts were, they were met with silence.

            Instead, a heavy cloud settled over all of them. Have you ever been in a fog that was so thick that you had no idea where you were? Maybe you could make out a few feet in front of you and that is it. But you have no idea which way is north. I remember one time attempting to drive through that kind of fog, in which I literally could not see more than ten feet in front of me. As you can imagine, I was not driving very fast. And the whole time I would tentatively glance up at my rear-view mirror and be praying that a semi-truck was not plowing toward me. Being in a thick fog is very disorienting and can be a bit frightening. The disciples were probably terrified. And then, in a space where they didn’t know which way was what, they hear a voice that says, “This is my Son, listen to him!” Now, that’s interesting. In spite of all the mind-blowing, even terrifying sights of this experience, the disciples are told to do only one thing. It was not to look at Jesus. It was not to go tell anyone about Jesus or what they had experienced. They were commanded to listen. Jesus reinforces that message as they descend from the mountain top and join everyone else. They are not to tell anyone about what they experienced until the son of Man has been raised. All they need to do is listen to Jesus.

            So, what can we take from this amazing story? For many of us, we have high points in our lives, “aha moments” in our spiritual development, that we sometimes call “mountain top experiences.” Maybe you were literally on a mountain top, looking out over the glorious expanse, and felt a deep connection with God. Or you were at church camp or a revival meeting and had a powerful experience of the presence of God. These are experiences that stick with us our whole lives. But we don’t stay there. We have to go back down the mountain. We have to leave church camp. We have to get in our cars and go home. We have to go on with our lives. It’s just like when Jesus and the disciples came down the mountain after that transfiguration experience. Peter, James, and John will never forget what they witnessed that day. And it was an experience that they perhaps had difficulty explaining to others. But they couldn’t stay there, reflecting on their experience. Jesus was on the move. He had to continue his mission, and then have happen to him all he said would happen, the arrest, the beating, the trial, the brutal death. The mountain top experience was a real gift. But they had to keep moving. Trials and great suffering awaited them.

            But the invitation I want to offer you today is to focus on what God said in this experience. In spite of all the flash and splendor of this amazing vision, God instructs the disciples to listen. Listen to what Jesus has to say. Pay attention, not only to his teaching but also what he says about the suffering he will endure, and the resurrection that will come. Jesus is the living word of God. His message needs to be heard.

            Easter is about two months away. It’s always a glorious time that we anticipate every year. These barren trees will be budding, our lawns will be green, flowers and the smell of warming earth will scent the air. We will see people wearing their Easter best, children running around hunting Easter eggs, churches filled with lilies and hyacinths. But before we get to the sights and smells of Easter, we have to go through Lent, a time of introspection, of an increased emphasis on spiritual disciplines. Lent is a time when we are invited to listen to what God may be trying to say to us.

            This is my challenge for us as walk through the season of Lent, as we confront our sin and our mortality, perhaps take on greater discipline and abstinence, that we proceed through these next seven weeks keeping the vision of the beauty of Easter and the anticipation of our own resurrection experience, to keep that vision in our minds, just as the disciples never forgot that experience on the mountain top. And as we keep these hopeful visions in our minds, let us pay attention to our lives in the here and now, and listen for what life might be trying to say to us, especially in the suffering and struggle that we will face in the weeks ahead, assured that Jesus is walking with us through it all.

 

Beginning the Day with Prayer

 Based on Mark 1:29-39 

 

Have you ever felt tired? Of course, you have. All of us have. Life is hard work. There are so many demands and responsibilities to deal with on a daily basis. And some days are harder than others. Some weeks, even months are harder than others. All those CPAs and tax preparers are gearing up. Tax season is upon us. Preachers and worship leaders have been getting a little breather the past few weeks now that the Christmas season is behind us. But Lent is coming, and before you know it the whirlwind of Holy Week and the crescendo of Easter. Exciting times, but lots of extra work and preparation. Students in school are well in to their second semester, taking care of their assignments until the end of the semester when there is the big push when projects are due and final exams are given. We all go through those times in life where there is so much to tend to that it can become overwhelming. Those times of heavy stress can really wear us down. If we don’t know how to manage our stress, or don’t utilize the tools we know, then we put ourselves at risk. Too much stress for too long can lead to burn out. We are hearing of many in the health care profession who are reaching that point. They signed up to care for people but they didn’t sign up for a pandemic. Doctors, nurses, and other health care workers are taking early retirement or resigning. It’s too much. Too much stress for too long can cause us to lose our edge and diligence. We make mistakes. The prolonged stress can trigger some bad habits like stress eating or drinking too much. It should be no surprise to us that 2020 saw a record year in the sale of alcohol, by a lot. Too much stress for too long can make us sick. Life loses its joy. I imagine all of us can give testimony about periods in our lives when we felt this way. Some of us may feel like we are in it right now. That would be totally understandable after the past year we have had to endure. 

    You know, Jesus could get worn out too. It is true that Jesus is divine. He is God. But Jesus is also human. Being human, Jesus needed to eat and drink. He needed to exercise. He needed a coat when it was cold. He slept like anyone else. There were times when Jesus needed to get away from it all and simply rest. 

    When Jesus got to Capernaum, to Simon’s house, he was led immediately upstairs, where Simon’s mother-in-law was lying in bed with a fever. Jesus went up to her, reached out his hand and lifted her up from her sick bed. Immediately, the fever left her. And then, she went downstairs and began to serve them. Stick a pin in this. We are going to revisit this healing experience in a few minutes. 

It seems that the rest of the day, the doctor was in. The whole city came to Simon’s house. We don’t know how many lived in Capernaum or if Mark is being a little dramatic, but I think we can assume that literally thousands of people lined up in front of Simon’s house. Many of them were sick. They were physically sick but there were others who were emotionally or psychologically sick, otherwise identified as those with demons that needed casting out. We read that Jesus couldn’t heal everyone who came that day. But he healed many of them. It was a long, long day. And when evening drew near, and people returned to their homes, and Jesus turned in for the evening meal and then to retire to his guest room, surely he was exhausted. 

    Instead of sleeping in the next day, however, Jesus got up early, long before dawn. He went outside to go find a place where he could be left alone. In a place of solitude, Jesus prayed. To recuperate from the previous taxing day, Jesus spent time alone in prayer. What did he pray about? Maybe he didn’t pray about anything. Instead, perhaps Jesus simply rested in the presence of his Heavenly Father, to be reminded of his mission, to be remined of the love his Father had for him. Jesus took time to be in prayer so that he could be restored in spiritual power, and to remain grounded in his relationship with God. 

    There is power in prayer. When we talk about prayer having power, we are often thinking about how prayer can change things. But prayer also can be a way to boost our inner power. Spending quiet time early in the morning, focused on God, resting in God’s presence, has the power of strengthening and refreshing our spirits. This time can also help us re-focus on the purpose of our life, what we are about, what responsibilities lie ahead of us. I think we see evidence of this when some of his disciples found him and told him that everybody was looking for him. Jesus told his disciples it was time to move on. There were more needs to attend to in Capernaum. The people there still had demands on his time. But Jesus was reminded in his time of prayer that his responsibility was greater than caring for the people of Capernaum. He had a much larger area to cover. In his prayer, Jesus was strengthened and also refocused on his purpose. So, he told the disciples not to get comfortable. They needed to move on to the next town. 

    I hope you have developed the habit of spending time every day in prayer. Remember, prayer is a conversation that includes talking to God and listening to God. Of course, we can pray any time we choose. But it has been my experience that beginning the day with prayer is a great habit. It is in the morning that we are our freshest. The day is before us. So, we can begin the day with God, asking for God’s direction as we sift through the responsibilities that lie ahead of us. Spending time with God first thing can also be helpful because hopefully you are less distracted. You aren’t in the middle of a bunch of things when you begin your day with prayer. 

    Praying at the end of the day is a good habit as well. It can be a time to reflect with God over your day. It is an opportunity to release the day to God’s care. And if, while you are laying there in bed praying and you drift off to sleep…nothing wrong with that. 

But what Jesus did was get up early in the morning to pray. If we follow this example, then we are able to start our day connecting with God and allowing God to set the context of our day. Instead of rushing off to do all the things we think we need to do, we instead ask God, “What do you want of me? What do you want me to do today?” 

    Let’s go back again to this opening scene of Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law. There are two actions here to take note. The first is that when Jesus grabs the hand of Simon’s mother-in-law, she is experiencing contact with God. And this connection with God restores her to health. It removes her fever and gets her out of bed. But there is more. She was restored to health for a purpose. She immediately got to work serving them. She was restored not to serve herself. She was restored so that she could continue to serve others. 

    This is why it is good to start our day with prayer, following the example of Jesus. We are able to experience a connection with God. This doesn’t necessarily result in physical healing, of course. But there is a refreshing of our spirit when we experience again our relationship, our connection with God. We are reminded of our relationship with God. We are reminded of God’s love for us. With that connection we are able to refocus on what God wants us to be doing in our life. Strengthened and refocused, we are able to move into our day prepared to serve others. 

    If you already are in the habit of beginning your day in prayer, I encourage you to keep at it. If this is something you don’t do, or you have fallen out of habit, I invite you to begin. There is much to be done in this world. For us to participate with God in the work of healing and restoration, let us be intentional about resting in God’s love and grace, be restored in our spirit, so that we can continue doing the work of serving God by serving others.