a sermon for the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B
Mark 1:29-39
“The whole city was gathered at the door.”
This the first day of Jesus’ ministry, and already the whole city is at his door. It is an overwhelming turnout. It must be a surprise that so many would respond, and so quickly. He has so far only performed two impromptu miracles, but word travels fast. It’s like they know Jesus will listen and care and maybe, if they get there in time, do something for them.
It’s not too unlike what happened this very week on X, formerly known as Twitter. On Sesame Street’s X page Monday morning, Elmo—yes, that Elmo—just made a simple post: “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” the red furry monster wrote. Immediately, the whole city was at his door, so to speak. Celebrities and people of all walks of life took time to write a response, with many of them baring their souls and sharing their inner pain in a way that is uncommon even for social media.
People, it turned out, are not doing well. The Detroit Free Press, probably referring to the Lions’ loss the previous day, wrote, “We’ve been better, Elmo.” A user named Contrarian was much more heavy, responding, “Every morning, I cannot wait to go back to sleep. Every Monday, I cannot wait for Friday to come. Every single day and every single week for life.” Another account named Woshingo told Elmo, “I’m at my lowest. Thanks for asking.” By Tuesday morning, Elmo’s post had more than 143 million views, 10,000 responses, and 39,000 retweets. The people behind the Sesame Street X account were so overwhelmed, in fact, that they had Elmo post a follow-up message reminding people to take care of their mental health. Despite his simplicity and childlike mannerisms, people find Elmo trustworthy and sincere, and we seek these people out when we’re struggling.
For whatever reason, that is how the people of Capernaum and the surrounding communities come to view Jesus that day, even here at the start of his fame. As he pulls back the door and steps out on the front step of Simon’s house, he sees they are backed up for yards. More people are arriving by the minute, gathering at the edges and shifting forward. They’ve brought food with them, and pillows, in case the wait is longer than they expect. They crane their necks to catch a glimpse. The ones watching this spectacle on the Jumbotron begging that the camera focuses on him for longer than just a few seconds, celebrity that he is.
There in the front, just by the walkway, is a man with stage four cancer. The chemo treatments have been paused because fluid is mysteriously building up in his lungs and it’s become hard to breathe.
Just behind him is the woman who fell last week in her bathroom. She has a fractured hip, and they say it will take weeks to heal, so she’s in a wheelchair.
Next to her is another woman who looks fine, but she felt a lump last week and a follow-up mammogram revealed something that is going to need immediate attention. They’ve caught it early, but she’s got two small kids at home.
There, behind her, is a man whose legs keep swelling for some reason. He doesn’t know if it’s a heart issue or something else, but he’s dragged himself here with a rollator and he can sit for hours if he has to.
He’s chatting with the woman on his right who just had a stroke last year, but her speech is still slurred and now her swallowing is getting worse. Her family has her set up for a move to assisted living, but she’s scared to give up her independence.
She was brought by a friend who seems OK on the surface, but she’s started drinking again and no one knows yet. She’s afraid she’s a failure.
Behind her is a mom and dad with two children, different ages, but one is four years old and still hasn’t said a word, won’t maintain eye contact, and the other one has legs that are contorted with some strange muscle problem and he’s never been able to walk correctly. The mom and dad just don’t know what’s going on, and they are concerned about their children’s future, their education, their lives beyond 18.
Overwhelmed yet? The whole city was gathered at the door. We’re just getting started, but the point is made. These are not just numbers in a Bible story. These are people—people who are much more than their problem, but who still feel so bound by it, and fearful. It’s a whole prayer list—written in 10-point font, single spaced, taking up five pages of the worship bulletin—and they’re all at Jesus’ feet. They want to breathe easier, they want to walk without pain, to wake up and not want to go right back to bed. And they have faith Jesus is the one who will help them.
I heard of a surgeon this week who went to visit a family of a patient he worked on over a year ago. He had performed a complicated delicate procedure That had given the man about 18 extra months. But now he had just died under hospice care in a hospital room. The surgeon walks into the in the hospital room as the family weeps in silence, feeling the heaviness that it’s over. They watch the surgeon himself begin to cry, moved at their grief. Had be become too attached? Hard to say. But the family later told a friend that of all the many doctors their father had seen over the past several years, that was their favorite. That’s the kind of doctor these folks want that morning at the front step: one who will understand, one who will do his best, one who will love.
And Jesus does that day. He doesn’t go back inside, but instead steps out into the masses. Mark tells us that he heals many, but that doesn’t mean he heals them all. Nevertheless, he works nonstop, wearing himself out. The first one, in fact, was Peter’s mother-in-law, whom he raises from illness on the bed with a pull of the hand. Without any fuss, she gets up and begins to serve them. Her relief from the fever translates directly into service towards others. Maybe all those people heard that part, that she just went right back to work. Here we get a glimpse of how Jesus’ healing impacts things. It is not release from disease for the sake of release, but release for the sake of the world—healed to fulfill one’s vocation, to continue God’s holy act of bringing people together
Last week in confirmation class the students were given an activity where they were asked to write down what they saw as the meaning of life. It was an exercise to show that as creatures created in God’s image, we are spiritual beings, prone to ponder deep questions and wrestle with matters of the spirit. I have to confess that I wasn’t sure what kinds of responses they might give. I’m scared to think what I would have said at that age. But one of them, a boy in 10th grade, just looked me in the eye and said, with all the confidence of a saint: the meaning of life is to give and receive compassion. Simon’s mother-in-law would likely agree with that young man. That student is wise beyond his years. Somehow he has probably realized at some point that we’re all in that multitude outside the door, and that Jesus restores us with his compassion only so that we can then give compassion to others.
But then, after all of this, a peculiar thing happens. Jesus seems to get worn out, right there on day one. Is he even disinterested? Before the sun rises on the next day, he’s gone. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of sick don’t even get a chance to share their needs. Jesus is up in the wilderness, far away from everyone, spending time with God. He is so distant that his followers have to hunt for him for a while. “Everyone is searching for you,” they tell him, but he doesn’t go back. He moves on to the next place, and he says they need to go on not in order to heal more people, but to proclaim the message and cast out demons. In fact, the healings that Jesus does perform are clustered in the first part of his life. The longer his life goes on, the fewer people he heals.
Scholars note that right here on the front step we already have the first occurrence of the gradual misunderstanding of Jesus’ mission by those closest to him. He becomes known as a healer of physical and maybe mental trauma, but he himself understands his purpose is much larger than that. The people need to know that he’s not just going to heal them. They need to know he is going to suffer for them. The kind of compassion he comes to give will require sacrifice, like he has skin in the game.
Perhaps that’s why that family responded so to that surgeon this week, even as their loved one died. Jesus comes not to stand removed from our pain, above it, like a dynamite faith healer up on stage in a suit with us down below, but to enter our pain fully: to become broken himself. He comes to mirror all of our sorrows, all of our griefs, to hold them in his body. A terrible loneliness looms in his future—his own death when no one will reach out to him, no one will raise a finger to bind up his lacerations, much less heal him. Jesus moves on from this scene with the masses because he must move on to the cross, and from the cross to the tomb, and from the tomb to a new life that will not be cumbered by tears and cancer and addiction and needing to bare our souls to Elmo. He will be able to stand by the bedside and assure us: all will be restored.
As hard as it is to hear sometimes—because we all want miracles—God has sent Jesus to show compassion on more than just me and my individual hardship, or you and yours. Jesus comes to address that deeper illness, that brokenness within each of us that stands in the way of allowing us see each person as our brother or sister. And because of his love that brokenness will be made whole and is being made whole, even if our ailments aren’t immediately He comes to reestablish the vital links that exist between all of us, He comes so assure the man with the cancer, the woman who can’t swallow, the child in hospice that they have been claimed by him forever, just as Bailey has. He comes to establish us as a city unto ourselves…a city of his compassion, compassion that we give and receive with each other as we wait for that new day to come.
And as we do, the world will pause and look at us and see the forces of evil turned back and be overwhelmed. It will be their turn, you see. Overwhelmed. By life and love.
Thanks be to God!
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
Said Another Way 