February 1, 2009 Sermon

Considering Community and Commotion
(Deuteronomy 18: 15-20; I Corinthians 8: 1-13; Mark 1: 21-28)

Reverend Sally Harris

Several years ago there was a weekend retreat with about seventy people in attendance. At the start of the retreat all were invited to tell a story about someone who had been Christ for them in their lives. There was one about a friend who stayed present through a long illness and another one about a neighbor who took the place of a father who self-destructed. One after the other, there were stories of comfort, compassion and rescue. The room grew warm with companionship and care. All was right with the world, until this one woman stood up. Standing in the midst of all these warm, fuzzy feelings she blurted out: “Well, the first thing I thought about when I tried to think who had been Christ to me was, ‘Who in my life has told me the truth so clearly that I wanted to kill him for it?’ [story by Barbara Brown Taylor]

The room grew strangely silent… like the synagogue in Capernaum when a person on the margins of society and on the margins of sanity understands who Jesus is better than anyone else in the room. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”

These words spoken so clearly, so acutely, burst the bubble of niceness in the context of a contemporary retreat and in the ancient sanctuary of religious respectability. Troublers of synagogues and peaceful retreats indeed… Disturbers of community comfort and complacency. Voices that burst bubbles of politeness and lay bare the painful truths that keep our illusions intact.

As I reflected on our scriptures this week I saw that this Gospel story connects with the passage in Deuteronomy and with the letter Paul wrote to the community in commotion in Corinth. They all speak of God’s radical and subversive hospitality that has nothing to do with nicety but everything to do with the health and well being of the community. Here Jesus, in contrast to social norms, speaks to the unclean spirit, in fact confronts this behavior and calls the unhealthy to reveal itself. It was this well-spoken challenge that helps the entire community engage in what this confrontation means for their lives. “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching – with authority!

In Corinth Paul calls out those in the community who are evidently playing a kind of spiritual Olympics. There are those in the Corinthian church who feel they have reached a higher platitude of spiritual achievement because they claim they are ‘in the know’ and therefore they seek to superimpose their own vision and ambition on the rest of the community. The entitled ones, the ones with supposed superior spiritual insight argue that idols have no reality behind them so to eat the meat offered to them is fine. But in their spiritual striving they do not consider the health of the whole community. Paul confronts this behavior. Though Paul consciously avoids moral absolutes and ethical legalism, he asserts that Christian ethics is relational in nature. What I do matters, whether in public or in private.

But how does the story in Deuteronomy fit? Here Moses recognizes that people are afraid to be in direct contact with their powerful God. Moses has been the connecting point for them – he has stood in the breach and negotiated between God and the people. Now as Moses speaks his farewell, the people need reassurance. So Moses tells God that the people feel overwhelmed by the fire and thunder that accompany their direct encounters. God agrees to "back off." God enters the commotion of the community with a promise that a new leader will be raised up to be present to the people. God offers a way to be with the people without overwhelming the people - a gracious God who considers community and commotion.

But after all my thinking about these scriptures, after all this considering I am left with a big question: why does a place that claims a God of radical and subversive hospitality, a place that claims a Christ that challenges that which is divisive and brings wholeness to all who reach out to him… why does the church always seem to be in some kind of conflict, commotion and crisis? Why can’t we all just get along…

Certainly our scriptures this morning only confirms that from the very beginning people were afraid and needed reassurance, that church folks often experienced internal strife and that chaos and commotion seemed to follow Jesus wherever he went. Intriguing, isn’t it, that the encounter Jesus has with the unclean spirit takes place in a synagogue? Not on the way to the synagogue, not later after the service when Jesus goes out for coffee with his disciples… no, it takes places in the sacred synagogue space. One author [Jan Richardson], having noted this place of encounter, writes: It underscores what I have seen time and again: that places meant for worship and seeking after God often attract the most chaotic folks. That which is opposed to God is often most drawn to those places devoted to God…. She goes on to write: In my professional ministry and in my personal ecosystem, the years have afforded plenty of occasions to witness the ways in which chaos that exists in the spiritual world can manifest itself in the physical realm. It’s stunning, how a single individual in spiritual disarray can distribute pain and discord among an entire body of people. And the reverse: how the diffuse chaos that often lurks so easily within a system can erupt in acts of harm against particular individuals.

In fact if one looks closely at the history of the church it seems rather normal for Christians to live in a situation of crisis. Such situations continue to call the church to become fully alive to where it needs to be in the world. How it needs to listen to the prophetic voices that God raises up. How it needs to seek healthy responses to the well being of the whole and to step aside from spiritual competitions or arrogance. And how important it is to be aware that there are indeed forces that work against God’s desire for wholeness. The humanity of our faith communities, the commotion of our churches also serve as a reminder that we must each go into the world, accompanied by the hospitality of God, who bids us to rely completely on the presence of God rather than on our own devices. In a word, we need to be faithful in spiritual practices of prayer and contemplation that keep us close to God.

These stories remind us that we are not alone in our struggle for clarity amidst the chaos and confusion that surrounds us. That indeed we cannot find a shrine or a space where time stands still and ultimate truth is always manifest and always the same. We cannot perfect an argument and then stop wondering. But we can trust in God’s radical and subversive hospitality that calls us to this table of communal hope of wholeness amidst the confusing church and world of chaos and conflict. Here in this sacred space: We receive the bread of life. We are in communion. We are raised up! Thanks be to God!

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