Scripture: Isaiah 40:21-31 and Mark 1:29-39
Sermon: Rise and shine! Daylight in the swamp!
Rise
and shine! Daylight in the swamp!
As
kids these words rose up to our bedrooms every Saturday morning in our father’s
voice if we were not up and out of bed and ready to join the day by 8:00.
It wasn’t
any grand plan he was asking us to get up for. It was just normal stuff of weekly chores,
keeping up with things in the house and yard, and then whatever play and fun
things might come after that. Our dad wasn't into major home make-overs; he just cared -- but cared deeply, about things being maintained, and things working the way they are meant to work. And given
our dad’s refugee childhood, and his several experiences of displacement and
dispossession over his life, to him it was the best thing in the world to have
a home of your own to wake up in, and a house and a yard of your own to take
care of. And he did a good job of it for
his sake and even more for ours. He helped
make and keep the part of the world where he was, good.
Looking
back on this now, I admire him for his faithfulness, persistence and creativity. I also appreciate his invitation and desire for
us to join him in caring for what we had and were given. I remember how good it felt on the Saturdays when
I actually managed to get out of bed quick enough to be able to join him at the
kitchen table for breakfast before starting what needed to be done that day,
rather than come down late, eat breakfast by myself and then have to catch up
to him. I miss that, and I miss his
Saturday morning call.
"Rise
and shine! Daylight in the swamp!"
These
words – and the same desire to join in the work of making and keeping the world
good come to us from God as well. Right
from the start, God has never intended to take care of the world alone. All the way through God invites us get up, rise
up from the ooze, and be part of the good work.
And our salvation is, at least in part, our being set free from whatever
keeps us down or holds us back from joining God in the work.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus is beginning
his work of unveiling the kingdom of God on Earth, and in a few brief encounters
he sets the tone for the rest. After
being baptized in the Jordan, spending 40 days in the wilderness sorting things
out and then starting to gather disciples, he goes to Capernaum where one
sabbath day he teaches in the synagogue and heals a man there of an unclean
spirit. Teaching and setting-free are the
way, and from the synagogue he goes to the home of two of his disciples where,
in the words of the Gospel,
Simon’s mother-in-law was in
bed with a fever … [so Jesus] came
and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her,
and she began to
serve them.
Now on one hand we may say how typically
patriarchal this is: that no sooner is the poor fevered woman healed than she
gets up from her sick bed to serve her guests.
Is that why Jesus healed her, and what he healed her for?
And the answer is
– in a larger sense, yes. In this story Simon’s
mother-in-law is a model of what we all are called to. All of us suffer a variety of limitations,
inhibitions, weaknesses, sin, selfishness, secular attachments, fear and
sicknesses that keep us from really participating in the work of making and
keeping the world good – from joining God in the daily delight and eternal joy
of taking care of Earth’s goodness. And
it’s to help deliver us from all these things that Jesus comes – that the Word
of God is spoken to us and en-fleshed for us.
“Rise and shine! Daylight in the
swamp!” is what Jesus is about, and our salvation, at least in part, is about our
being set free from whatever keeps us from joining God in the good work to be done.
Sometimes,
though, it’s not just our own diseases and demons and distractions that keep us
in bed and out of the picture. Sometimes
it’s the way the world works, and the way things are structured – the powers of
the day, that seem to be in the way of living out God’s reign on Earth.
The people
of Israel were in that situation in the time of Isaiah 40. At the time of this prophecy the people have
been in exile a long time. Because of
their unfaithfulness to God’s way enemy armies over-ran their kingdom, foreign
powers took them captive, and they have lived for some time in the belly of
somebody else’s empire.
Like
my father several times in his life, they have been displaced and dispossessed. The world is in the hands of others who do
not want their input or their interruption in the way things are made to go. They are pawns in someone else’s game, and
they fear they will never again have a hand or a say or a role to play – just
as we feel and as we fear today. Also,
the gods of the rulers of the day do not have the same concern for the goodness
of Earth as God has, and the people fear for the goodness of life on Earth –
just as fear as well.
Which makes what the prophet says all the more relevant to us as much as to them,
when he says, “Rise and
shine! Daylight in the swamp!"
The powers that be,
he says, are not nearly so fixed or unending as the people fear they will
be. It is God who created the heavens
and Earth who is eternal, and the powers of this world all come and go. Empires, kingdoms and nations all rise and
fall – no exceptions. Princes, kings and
rulers of all kinds have their day and all at some point also come to their end
of their rope – no exceptions. In the
words of the prophet, in relation to God who sees and ultimately oversees all,
we all – from prince to pauper, from power-broker to pawn, are all mere
grasshoppers.
And the good news
– the wake-up call, the invitation and encouragement to rise-and-shine is that it’s
the grasshoppers who know this about themselves and about God, who don’t put all
their eggs in their own little power basket, who wait for the Lord instead, who
wait to know and to commit to God’s way of making and keeping the world good, who
will be the ones to rise up and lead the way for the rest.
It takes faith, as
well as openness of heart and mind and life, to live that way. It means being set free of whatever inside us
and out in the world holds us back or keeps us out of the picture.
But have you
noticed what happens for those who are set free, and who do claim a role in the
work? For those who get up in time to
join God at the table, and start together with God on the new day’s work of
making and keeping the world good? For those who give themselves time to hear the
call of God to the work of the day every day of their lives?
Does it seem to
you that they more than others, in the words of the prophet, really do
…renew their strength,
…mount up with
wings like eagles,
…run and not be weary,
…walk and not faint?
It seems to me this is not so much
promise as observation, not just optimism and hope but the lived experience of
those who do take the time to listen for God’s invitation each day to Rise and
Shine, because in doing that they let themselves be reminded that there really
is daylight in the swamp, and they are happily called to be part of it.
It’s these people who more often than
not get up not with the all-too-common groan, “Oh God, it’s morning already…”
but with a gratitude that says, “Thank you, God, that it’s morning again!” And not because they’re better people. I can only believe it’s because they take the
time to listen for the voice that calls up the stairs to them.
So So I wonder, which is more true of us?
The groan that says, “Oh God, morning again…”? Or the gratitude that says, “Oh God, thank
you. Morning again!"
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