Mark 1:29-39

Georgetown Presbyterian Church

Rev. Stephen H. Wilkins

February 5, 2006

Several years ago there was a movement to help young girls gain exposure to the working world. So there was a special day set aside, in which girls were encouraged to miss school and spend the day at work with their father or mother, if the mother worked outside the home. The idea was to broaden the girls’ conception of work beyond homemaking.

I’ve heard career counselors say that if a person wants to know what a particular career is like, then that person should contact someone in that career field and ask to shadow him or her for a day, or maybe even a week. That way the person interested in the career can get a good idea of what the career is like. I find it interesting that I don’t have a bunch of people knocking down my door to spend a day shadowing a pastor!

As people who have decided to follow Jesus, wouldn’t it be nice if we had an idea of what all is involved in that calling? This morning’s gospel lesson will take us through a typical day in the life of Jesus. I invite you to join with me for the next few minutes, as we spend twenty-four hours with the Savior. Hear now the word of God as it comes to us from the Gospel According to Mark, the first chapter, beginning to read in the 29^th verse...

The verses I just read are relatively non-descript. Unlike other passages we will deal with in other parts of the gospel, this passage doesn’t contain great detail about some dramatic event. Instead, Mark simply gives us a brief account of what Jesus did after he left the synagogue. It’s a typical day in the life of the Savior--intentional in his ministry, a day full of activity, but nothing spectacular.

It was an ordinary day for Jesus. And as people who want to be disciples after the pattern of our Lord, it’s good for us to spend an ordinary day with Jesus, since most of our days are pretty ordinary, as well. It’s also appropriate that right now we find ourselves in the season of the church year that we call "Ordinary Time." I know that some feel uncomfortable calling it ordinary time--shouldn’t our worship always be more than simply "ordinary"? Yet, ordinary time can become holy time when we model our Christian life after the daily life of Jesus. Maybe ordinary time doesn’t have to be so ordinary after all!

I learned a few things when I spent a day with the Savior through my study of this passage from Mark’s gospel. I didn’t learn how to heal the sick; that’s a skill that takes more than a day. I didn’t learn how to exorcise demons; that, too, is a specialized skill that you can’t pick up in just a day. So when I spent a day with the Savior, I didn’t pick up specific skills. I did, though, pick up a basic pattern of ministry activity that should inform the way we look at ministry. And I did observe a simple but critical rhythm of worship and devotion for our spiritual sustenance as we seek to minister after the example of Jesus.

There’s a simple pattern to Jesus’ ministry. It starts as soon as he leaves the synagogue. In other words, ministry begins when we leave worship. One of my colleagues in Midland used to be fond of saying, "The worship has ended, let our service now begin." That saying really wasn’t original to my colleague--it is firmly rooted in the pattern of ministry that we find in a typical day in the life of Jesus.

If you observe Jesus in his ministry in our text this morning, you might notice that the text is broken down into three scenes, each scene representing a series of widening concentric circles that define the scope of ministry. The first circle of ministry corresponds with the account of the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. As I spent a day with the Savior, I learned that an important part of our discipleship entails ministry to friends and family. I see this as mandate for us to make sure that we’re caring for one another in the church. In his letter to the Galatians, the apostle Paul exhorts us to "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ...Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."

Providing care for one another in the church is something that has occupied a good deal of my thought lately. My focus of studies in the program at Austin Seminary is to find ways to equip a congregation to be faithful to this mandate, to provide meaningful pastoral care for one another. Just the other day, the Congregational Care committee met to discuss goals for ministry for this year. And the top priority that came out of our discussion was to develop a visitation ministry that will help the church stay in touch and care for people who are sick, lonely, or homebound. And so starting in March you will have opportunities to receive training and to become a part of that ministry. Look for announcements to appear in future bulletins and in the Columns. If we want to minister after the model of Jesus, then we’ll be intentional about caring for one another in our family of faith and our circle of friends.

But you know and I know that it doesn’t stop here, with us. You know and I know that the ministry of Jesus is not meant for us to hoard for ourselves. I hope that none of you believes that your faith is there only to help yourself. Ministry after the example of Jesus means more than taking care of our own--it means opening our eyes and addressing needs in our community, as well. That’s what Jesus did after he healed Peter’s mother-in-law, he spent the rest of the day caring for the masses of people who came to him in need of healing.

And so the second of the concentric circles of ministry is our local community. We can’t escape the biblical injunction to care for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the down-and-out--nor should we try to escape that mandate. The fact is, God has blessed us so that we can be the instrument of God’s blessing in the world around us. As the song we sang earlier so eloquently put it, "people need the Lord," and it’s up to us to be aware of that need, and to take the Lord into our community through acts of kindness and mercy and compassion. It’s why several of our people tutor young Hispanic boys and girls three days a week. It’s why we feel so strongly about the importance of ministries like Helping Hands and Habitat for Humanity and Tara Hall. There is such great need in our community. People need the Lord, and they’re not going to get the Lord unless we take the Lord with us when we leave this sanctuary and go out into the community throughout the week.

Still, the ministry to which we are called doesn’t end at the county line. You’ll notice that at the end of the passage, Jesus tells his disciples, "Let us go somewhere else...so I can preach there also." The third of the ever-widening concentric circles of ministry is the world beyond our local community. There are always other places to take the Gospel. That’s why we believe in the importance of mission trips, and I hope you’ll prayerfully consider going to New Orleans in April. Taking the gospel to other places is why we support missionaries like Jack and Celeste Rae in the Far East. That’s why we support the work of Ministerios de Fe along the border between Texas and Mexico.

Marj Carpenter is an elder from the First Presbyterian Church in Big Spring, Texas. She was also the moderator of the General Assembly of our denomination in 1995. She is passionate about the mission of the Presbyterian Church, especially global mission. Once when she was speaking at a church in Detroit, she was confronted by an elder, a juvenile court judge who works with some of the most difficult cases in a very, very tough city. The elder asked Marj, "Why should we help overseas when we have so much need here?" It’s a good question. Marj’s response was that in the Bible, we’re told to take care of our neighbor, and we’re also told to take the gospel to all nations. Then, she said, "And my Bible doesn’t say you can do one or the other." So we have the heavy responsibility of doing both.

If you spend time with Jesus, you’ll learn that we’re called to care for those near and dear to us, as well as others in our community. And we’re called to take the gospel well beyond where we live, even to the ends of the earth.

And if you spend time with Jesus, you’ll notice something else. There is a rhythm that defines his activity, a rhythm of engaging with the world, and then withdrawing and retreating to his Father. Jesus worshipped regularly with his community of faith, as evidenced by the fact that our passage begins as he leaves the synagogue, and it ends as he goes to synagogues in other places. And Jesus would periodically withdraw to spend time alone with his Father. You’ll notice that Jesus was intentional about going out and finding a quiet place. He didn’t wait for quiet space to open up in his schedule, because he knew he would never find quiet space that way. Jesus very intentionally set aside time to spend with God, in the morning while it was still dark.

It should be the same with you. If all your discipleship is about doing, doing, doing, then you’ll burn out quickly. You have to be nurtured spiritually. You have to renew your spirit so that you can be effective in your discipleship. Regular corporate worship is a critical part of that spiritual renewal. And you also need to find time to be quiet in the presence of the Father. Finding the time to be quiet--and awake at the same time--is incredibly difficult in this day and age of over-scheduling. You have to make the time, because chances are the time is not just suddenly going to appear on your calendar. I suspect that if you were to sit in on Kelly Nash’s FOCUS class on "Being Mary in a Martha World," you might learn a thing or two about how to be intentional about finding time alone with God.

"Keeping the faith on ordinary days. This is where most of us live our days: in the ‘ordinary zone’; and this is where [our Lord] meets us. This is where God met Jesus EVERYDAY, day in…day out, in the quiet, in the busy, in worship, in the Monday rush, alone, in the crowds. God comes to meet us, enabling us to keep the faith on ordinary days also, but God can only do that when we let God be a part of our ordinary days. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles."

When I spent a day with the Savior, I learned that ordinary time can be transformed into holy time, as we open our eyes to opportunities for ministry and compassion, recognizing that our sphere of ministry includes our brothers and sisters and dear friends in the faith, the needy ones in our community, and even those in faraway places.

And I learned that I have to pause every now and then to wait on the Lord, and to let my Lord recharge me and direct my path.

When you spent this day with the Savior, what did you learn?