Are Preppers prudent or just paranoid, practical, or practically nuts? Whatever your opinion of Preppers, give them credit for living in a way that is consistent with their vision. They fear the end of the world as we know it, and they are preparing themselves accordingly. Rather than ridicule Preppers, we are challenged to ask: What do we believe about the future, and are we preparing ourselves accordingly?

Well, Mark’s story of the Transfiguration of Jesus casts light onto such questions. We   recall that, when Jesus led Peter, James and John up a high mountain, the disciples were in a state of confusion and uncertainty. Up until six days before their mountaintop experience, the disciples had been enthusiastic followers of Jesus. They had heard Jesus preach that the Kingdom of God had come near. They had experienced the Kingdom’s breaking into the world as Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, and cast out the unclean spirits. Thus when Jesus asked Peter: “Who do people say that I am?” Peter declared, “You are the Messiah.” You see, the disciples believed that they were preparing for a triumphant moment, when the fortunes of Israel would be restored, the Roman occupier cast out, Jesus exalted, and the disciples themselves assigned to positions of prominence.

But then, Jesus had frightened and confused them by saying that he was going to undergo great suffering, rejection, and death–and that only then would he rise again. He instructed the disciples that they, too, should prepare for hardship and suffering. So on the day the disciples followed Jesus up the mountain, their faith in Jesus had been shaken and the future no longer seemed so hopeful.

But then something surprising, something totally unexpected happened. For a moment, the disciples saw Jesus in a new way. His face and clothes became translucent with heavenly light. Two figures from Israel’s past appeared with Jesus:  Moses the liberator and Elijah the prophet. The disciples were awestruck. Peter wondered if this moment signaled the very climax of history, the end of the world as we know it. Suddenly a cloud encased them. The voice that spoke at Jesus’ baptism thundered yet again: “This is my beloved Son: Listen to him.” Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the cloud lifted and the vision faded away.

So what did this mountaintop experience mean for Jesus’ disciples? What had changed?  In one way, nothing at all had changed. When Jesus and his disciples descended the mountain, the same issues, problems, challenges, and difficulties were waiting for them.  People were still arguing and at odds with one another. The sick were still among them.  Rome still ruled with a heavy hand. The poor still suffered. And in spite of hearing God’s command on the mountain to listen to Jesus, the disciples continued to misunderstand him. No sooner did the disciples descend the mountain than they began to argue about who among them was the greatest. Yes, in many ways nothing had changed.

But in one essential way, everything had changed. Even though the disciples continued to struggle with their faith, and even though they faced various trials, they were now motivated by a vision that Jesus was Lord of history, and thus no matter what happens, love will ultimately prevail. The transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain gave the disciples a momentary glimpse of God’s future, in which all things in heaven and earth will be transformed and made new.

And not only did the transfiguration reveal the identity of Jesus, but also it confirmed that the way of Jesus was God’s way into the future. Yes, Jesus is the beloved Son, the Lord of history, but his lordship will be lived out in compassion, in lowly service and nonviolent resistance to evil. Jesus prepared the world for God’s Kingdom by loving the world and giving himself for others.

Now in light of the Transfiguration story, let’s revisit our modern friends, the Preppers.  Our issue with the Preppers is not that it’s wrong to prepare for the future. Neither can we say for sure that some of what they fear won’t come to pass. But our issue with them is that their preparations are motivated by fear rather than by love. Our issue with them is that they cannot see beyond the darkness they fear to the light that overcomes it. They listen to dire predictions and then spend their lives preparing to survive disaster. It’s their own survival that consumes them.

But how differently we might live if we listen to Jesus. He knew that the future held suffering, rejection and death, but observe how he prepared for it. Jesus didn’t withdraw to the hills in order to secure his own safety. He didn’t stock up on food, arm himself for protection, or make survival his primary goal. No! Jesus prepared for the future–God’s future–by showing compassion, loving his neighbors, enduring suffering, and forgiving his enemies.

So perhaps we, too, are called to be Preppers, but of a very different variety. Instead of stockpiling food, we prepare for the future by feeding the hungry. Instead of an all-out effort to make ourselves safe, we prepare the way for God’s Kingdom by becoming more compassionate, loving and generous. Instead of fearing the worst, we live as those who are preparing for the best. The poet James Russell Lowell put it well:

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though his portion be the scaffold and upon the throne be wrong.
Yet the scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadows keeping watch above his own.

Friends, the cross of Christ sways the future, so for God’s sake, be prepared!

It was hot that day.  I couldn’t have been older than 8 years old when my cub scout troop went camping in the piney woods of East Texas.  That hot, muggy gulf humidity made the air so thick, nothing short of having gills would have made breathing more bearable.  After pitching our tents and setting up the camp kitchen, my fellow scouts and I set out into the woods to explore.  Walking quietly along, my ears perked to the sound of rustling in a nearby holly bush.  Out from the shrub burst the biggest armadillo I had ever seen to this day.  Roughly the size of a small rhinoceros, the pre-historic looking beast scampered toward me– it’s grey scaly armor flashing against the orange pine straw that covered the forest floor.  Suddenly aware of my presence, it stopped a moment – frozen.  If ever I had experienced a more epic stand off between man and beast, I couldn’t tell you.  There we stood, staring at one another, each of us determining how this was about to go down.  Then from behind, I heard my scout leader holler, “Hey look, John found an armadillo!”  Found an armadillo was an understatement – just like saying, hey look, John’s out in the ocean found a group of great white sharks.  Our paths had crossed by chance, and sooner or later, one of us was going to have to make the first move.

I wonder if this was how Jesus felt as he looked into the face of the leper at his feet.  Certainly lepers were common in his day.  In Jesus’ time, when someone contracted a skin disease, they were to go to the temple for examination. Without modern medicine, many skin diseases were labeled as leprosy.  The term leprosy in the Bible is more a generic term for skin disease than the more precise pathology of today.  To have contracted leprosy in ancient times meant disaster for a person.  The prescribed treatment of leprosy was isolation from society – to prevent others from contracting the illness.  The priests, who were to function as healers, were to proclaim the person unclean until their malady had cleared up – if it ever did.  To be unclean was to be shamed, to be ostracized from the family and from the “ritually clean” public.  One would have to announce one’s uncleanliness before others on the street in order to give them time to back away from you.  To be unclean meant you were not welcome in a house of worship – your unclean-ness could be transferred by touch to others.  In fact, anything you touched became unclean.  You could not eat with others, sleep near others, or enter the homes of others.

As my scout master approached the scene, the mighty armadillo, sensing being outnumbered, quickly turned on his stubby hind legs and ran off.  “Good thing you didn’t touch him,” said the scout leader.  “Yeah,” I thought, “as if my first instinct was to offer my hand to the Doberman sized Sherman tank murder monster.”  The scout master continued, “If you had touched him, you could have gotten leprosy.”  I suppose this is a kind of Texas wisdom akin to “make sure you close the cattle gate behind you” and “don’t get too friendly with fire ants.”  Oddly enough, those were two other hard lessons I learned in the boy scouts.  Anyway, I remember thinking back to my scout masters warning – “If you had touched him, you could have gotten leprosy.”  I had heard as a child not to touch things in case they were germy.  But this was touching another living thing – another living thing that had the ability to transfer illness, disease, uncleanliness.  That moment established in my young consciousness a fear of the unclean touch – that there are things, possibly living things, in this world that could defile you if you so much as touched them.

The leper took a deep breath, waiting for yet another rejection from a holy person.  Then the man spoke.  But not in the wrathful tone he was expecting.  His tone was strong, purposeful, intentional.  “I do choose.” He said. “Be made clean.”  Elation filled the man’s heart, “At last, he thought, someone willing to give me another chance at life, someone willing to walk me through the healing process.”  Then the leper froze, a new sensation gripping him.  A sensation he had not felt in years.  Someone was touching him.  He looked to his shoulder. The man was grasping his arm.  Not just a glancing touch, but a fully conscious hold.  The leper looked up and as he did, the man reached out with his other hand and touched his face.  His leprous, scaly, diseased… wait! No! The touch of the man’s hand did not burn.  It did not cause pain.  The man’s hand met no lesions or scars.  His face was smooth, clean.  He looked at his arms, once covered in the shameful red marks of leprosy, now restored flesh, good as new.  Standing to face this miracle worker, this holy healer, he was immediately caught off guard by the man’s words.  “Look, I know this must be a big moment for you, but see that you say nothing to anyone about this to anyone.  I want you to do something bigger, something bolder.  I want you to re-enter the city, march into the temple, into the holy place, right into the face of the priests, and offer yourself for cleansing.  I want you to show them what the Kingdom of God looks like, face to face.”

As we read on in the text, we are startled by Jesus’ words to the healed leper.  I know that if I had just miraculously healed someone of a crippling disease, I would want the world to know.  But Jesus knew that something bigger than healing was at work here.  Our text says that when Jesus encountered the leper, he was “moved to pity.”  I want to take a second look at that word “pity.”  The Greek for that word is “splanchnizomai.”  Let’s all say that together – I’m just kidding.  To translate this word as pity doesn’t do it justice.  In fact, there is not a truly good English translation of this word.  To get close to it, we have to understand splanchnizomai as Brian Blount writes, as a “profoundly intense response that viscerally propels one feeling compassion into action on behalf of others.”  So instead of pity, let’s try to understand Jesus’ feeling toward the leper as a kind of holy and righteous anger.  It is anger on a mission.

Why does Jesus get angry here?  Is it at the leper? Certainly not.  A clue to this can be found in Jesus’ instruction to the leper after he is healed.  In his book, Binding the Strong Man, Ched Myers explains the source of Jesus’ anger: “Jesus’ instructions that the leper go back to the priests and undergo ritual cleansing only make sense if the man had already been to the priests and been rejected, who had for some reason rejected his petition.  Jesus makes clear that the cleansed leper’s task is not to publicize a miracle but to help confront an ideological system… He is to make the offering for the purpose of witnessing against them.”  The phrase, “witnessing against them” is a technical phrase found in the Gospel.  It is the same phrase used in the gospels for testifying before a hostile audience.

Church, we live in a society crowded with lepers walking in the midst of hostile audiences.  Think for a moment of those our society deems untouchable, on the fringes, not welcome among us.  Need some help?  Jon Walton, Presbyterian Pastor of First Presbyterian in New York city tells the story of a friend who, after leaving the doctors office upon hearing his positive diagnosis for HIV, walked down Madison Avenue in a daze; the only word he could think of was “unclean.”  Jon comments that “It was bad enough to know he was ill, but quite another to feel the social ostracism he might suffer, not only from people who didn’t understand his illness, but also from his friends who he believed would now look down on him.”  Every year, the youth and others of this church participate in the Austin AIDS Walk, last year, one of our teenagers approached me during the walk and asked, “Hey, I see a lot of companies and charities here, why are there not more churches walking?”

Let’s expand the circle a little bit.  What other types of unclean folks walk among our hostile audiences?  Who else is at the fringes of our society?  Last week, I noticed a post begin to trend on Facebook.  The “Drop the I Word campaign” began sweeping across the internet.  As I looked closer at this movement, I was trying to think to myself – What I word were they talking about?  Then I saw it.  This was a campaign to ask people to stop using the term “illegals” to describe people.  You and I both know the people group we are talking about.  People our society deems as illegals – as if that word constituted their identity.  Use of that word sets up two distinct people groups – the legals and illegals, more Biblically speaking, the clean and unclean.  I remember another campaign asking people to drop the R-Word, proclaiming that one’s ability to learn was not a label of identity, just as one’s immigration status was not a label of their identity.  The more we widen the circle, the more words, the more labels, the more people groups we are forced to reckon with.  To Jesus Christ, a person who had leprosy was not a leper, but a human.  To Jesus Christ, someone from another country was not an illegal, but a child of God.  To Jesus Christ, someone living on the streets was not a hobo, but a brother or a sister.  We live in a society crowded with lepers walking in the midst of hostile audiences.

And who exactly are these hostile audiences?  In Jesus’ time, it was the religious institution.  Now let me clarify.  These were good, well-intentioned people that were being faithful to their covenant, their instruction.  They are not the enemy.  Nor are the institutions of our day, our government, our churches, and our causes.  These institutions seek to be faithful to their founding principles, their beliefs, and their identities.  The hostile audience that Jesus told the cleansed leper to testify against was not a religious one.  Jesus very well could have said “Sir, march yourself down to the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and present yourself.”  The hostile audience that Jesus testifies against is greater than any one religion, government, or cause.  The hostile audience is us.  The hostile audience is you and me – our very human nature.  This deep conviction that it is possible for other living things to defile you if you so much as touched them.  It is this human nature that draws lines, sets up barriers, builds walls between us and them, legal and illegal, healthy and sick, smart and slow, gay and straight, clean and unclean.  Jesus is testifying against the nature of sin, against the very death of the perfect creation that God set into motion.  Jesus reaches out and touches, seizes the walls built by our fear and sends them crashing down.  Jesus, by touching the leper, literally becomes himself unclean – one who has taken on and identified with the marginalized of the world.  Dropping words is not enough.  Jesus commands us to touch, to identify, to become one with those on the fringes of society.

Friends, hear the good news of the Gospel: we are all re-claimed lepers.  We have all felt the sting at some point in our lives of being outcasts, of feeling different, of being shamed.  But we have all been touched by the grace of Jesus Christ that breaks through the barriers dividing us from one another, even down to the barriers of sin and death that separate us from the love of God.  We are called by Christ not just to revel in our new found freedom and acceptance, but to boldly stand up to a hostile world and present a new story, a new reality, new skin – washed by the healing touch of Jesus Christ.  Just as San last Sunday, preached that after being healed, Simon’s mother-in-law became the first deacon, we see this week that the re-claimed leper became the first of the evangelists.  Our text says that the leper went out and began to proclaim this good news freely.  This is our call this morning – that although we walk amongst hostile audiences, we are reclaimed lepers, shouting the good news of the Kingdom of God out into the world.  We are breaking in the new reality of Jesus Christ, a reality that exclaims that none are left out, none are excluded from the table, and none are banned from society or the church.  It is this very Kingdom of God where lions and lambs rest together, where friend and foe sit at table with one another, and yes, even where boy scouts and armadillos give each other a hug.  Amen.

There are two types of people in the world: People who need help and people who need to give help…people who need care, and people who need a calling…people who need a hand, and people who need to extend a hand…people who need assistance and people who are able to assist.

So my question this morning is, where are you today?  Do you need help, or do you need to offer help?  Do you need care, or do you need a calling?

As you think about that question, let’s go with Jesus and the disciples to the home of Simon. Our reading today has any number of preaching possibilities, but I’m zeroed in on the one verse that tells about Jesus and Simon’s mother-in-law.  As soon as Jesus and the disciples return from the synagogue and enter Simon’s house, Jesus encounters Simon’s mother-in-law who is in bed with a fever. In other words, she is a person who needs help.  Recall that in the ancient world a fever was not a minor medical condition, but often a symptom that could lead to death.  Not only did her fever threaten her life, but also it took away her work, her calling, her ability to be a contributing member of her community. So right here in the first chapter of Mark, Jesus comes in contact with yet another person in serious need of help.

Look how Jesus responds:  Without delay “Jesus came, took her by the hand and lifted her up.”  Earlier Jesus had announced his mission to proclaim the Kingdom of God that has come near. Now we see a specific instance of God’s Kingdom breaking in.  Time and again, Jesus demonstrates that God comes to us in order to restore, to heal, to help, to bring new life.  God does not come to scold or destroy or punish, but to take us by the hand and lift us up.  That term “lifted up” is the same term Mark later uses to describe Jesus’ own resurrection.  It suggests that God’s purpose is to bring new strength, new life, new beginnings.  Mark has given us a tender, vivid demonstration of God’s compassion breaking into the world:  “Jesus came, and took her by the hand, and lifted her up.”

“Then,” Mark says, “the fever left her and she began to serve.”  Her service should not be understood as a woman’s menial work under the domination of lazy males. Simon’s mother-in-law is not an un-liberated woman, whose role in life is to serve the men of her house.   Rather, she is the first character in Mark’s Gospel who “gets it.” She is an example of a true disciple.  Mark presents her as the church’s first deacon who joins with Jesus in the same kind of servant ministry that defines his life. Having been helped, Simon’s mother-in-law starts to help others. Having experienced the compassion of God, she extends compassion to those around her. Having been touched by Jesus, she begins to live like Jesus—helping others!

You didn’t see an obituary for David Arthur, who died last Saturday.  But if you’ve ever volunteered at Micah 6, you probably know who David is.  Homeless and hungry, he came to Micah 6 for help several years ago.  He received more than food.  Through the caring folks who staff Micah 6, David was helped to get his life back together.  He was so grateful for having been helped that he became a regular volunteer. He died this week of complication from diabetes before the age of fifty, but not before he had experienced the blessing of God’s Kingdom in his life.  Pick up the pink card in your pew rack and you can read a poignant story by our own Frank Adkins, who received help and is now himself a helpful, contributing member of our community.

So there you have it:  two kinds of people in the world. People in need of care, and people who need a calling. At any given moment, we can be either of these two people, and sometimes we may be both.  But I’m curious: Where are you this morning? You have a blank card inserted in your bulletin.  Do you need help? Write it down and put it in the offering plate.  Maybe you need someone to pray for you…help you with transportation…bring you a meal or pay you a visit.  On the other hand, you may be waiting for an invitation to serve in some meaningful way.  If so, write it down.  Are you looking for a volunteer opportunity? Can you help with IHN, UPlift or Micah 6? Can you become a mentor to our children or youth?  Can you pray for others, deliver meals, or serve on a committee?  Perhaps you feel a calling to lead us in some justice or peace-related initiative. Of course, you don’t have to put your name on the card, but if you do, maybe we can match some of you who need help with those ready and willing to lend a hand.

So friends, this is what it means to be a Christian community in action—a community caring for each other and turning toward the world in love.

Mark paints a very different picture. In Mark’s telling, we see a synagogue full of astounded, confused people. An unclean spirit accosting Jesus and convulsing his human host. Loud cries, anxious questions. Chaos. Cacophony.

And in their midst is Jesus – speaking with clarity. Healing with certainty. Teaching with authority.

Can we relate to such a story? Can we imagine ourselves alongside the people of Capernaum in all their amazement? Can we perhaps empathize with the troubled man?

I think we probably can. Some of us may have come into church this morning carrying old doubts and new anxieties. Some of us may feel that chaos and cacophony are constant, if unwelcome, companions. We may have arisen this morning in situations where quiet contemplation and respectful attention are distant, unlikely goals. Some of us may be amazed that we have managed to get here this morning at all as we struggle with one form or many of illness, obligation, distraction or fear.

So many obstacles stand between us and the freedom of whole-hearted, whole-spirited worship. You might be sitting here today preoccupied by pending medical test results. The person next to you in the pew may be dealing with the pain of a family estrangement.  I am mortified to remember the many Sunday mornings when getting my four children ready for Sunday School was more battle than blessing and we all finally tumbled out of the car in the church parking lot desperately in need of a calm and healing word. Each of us chooses and strives to be here despite challenges and circumstances which would keep us away. We are not strangers to chaos and cacophony even as we gather in the worshipping community.

And in our midst is Jesus – ready to act for us as he acted for the man in Capernaum.

We, like the people in the synagogue want to know more about this Jesus, to understand more fully who he is and what his healing presence means in our lives.

Our passage today — the first detailed account of Jesus’ public ministry in Mark’s Gospel — presents Jesus as a teacher. In 1^st century Israel, the synagogue was the center of learning, and learning was the centerpiece of Sabbath observance. Those who lived and worshiped in Israel learned early in life that one may do no work on the Sabbath, because the Sabbath is holy to the Lord. On this day, the people put aside their own pursuits and interests to devote themselves to hearing the Law and the prophets read and explained.

And so when Jesus frees the man from an unclean spirit on the Sabbath, Mark presents this not as work, but as teaching. A new teaching – with authority.  And this healing is the only content of Jesus’ teaching that Mark includes. Nothing of what he might have said about the Law and the Prophets. Only his exchange with and triumph over an unclean spirit. Jesus teaches through a particular, astounding action that illuminates and manifests the Kingdom of God which he has proclaimed. Karl Barth writes that “although [Jesus] did not always heal on the Sabbath, he did so deliberately and gladly because … healing was the specific Word of God that He had come to accomplish” (IV.2, 2. 226).

Jesus heals a man, and the people hail this as a new teaching. They may have come to the synagogue expecting that the morning’s speaker would expound on the Law or explicate a passage of Scripture. Instead, they witness teaching in action, they experience the Gospel as a message of liberation. Jesus restores a bedeviled man to wholeness and thereby “introduces a new understanding of Sabbath priorities [in which] the Sabbath represents more than a day of rest; it is also the promised day of God’s domination”(Wilhelm, p. 25) over those forces which would deny us the fullness of life.

It’s not surprising that the people in the synagogue were amazed. We can speak of miracles, we can believe in miracles, but to be present at a miracle is indeed an amazing experience. Jesus carries healing and wholeness within himself and offers it to those he meets. Because healing and wholeness are so often elusive in our lives, it’s not surprising that the people around Jesus, including his close companions, are consistently amazed, bewildered, astounded. Again and again they ask, What is this? Who can this be?

But the spirits – the spirits – they know who this is. In our story, a man possessed by an unclean spirit comes face to face in the synagogue with the man possessed by the Spirit of God, and there is instant recognition. “I know who you are – the Holy One of God.” It’s the same each time Jesus encounters forces which have set themselves in opposition to the Holy. These forces know him; they know that his coming means their end.  Their confession of his identity will not protect them from his power.

We live in a time which largely denies the idea of an active spirit realm existing alongside our material world, and we have many perfectly reasoned and perfectly reasonable explanations for why people’s lives go awry. But the deep truth is that whatever vocabulary we use – unclean spirits, addictions, bad habits, sin – there are forces in the world and impulses in our own lives which oppose and fear the holy. And I think those forces and impulses still recognize Jesus, and know that he has indeed come to return them to nothingness. Jesus will free us from their domination. The unclean spirits continue to know and confess Jesus, even while we, faithful disciples that we are, still sometimes find ourselves amazed and bewildered.

And in the midst of our amazement and bewilderment is Jesus – teaching with authority, leading us to wholeness.

As an educator, I am intrigued by this depiction of teaching through action, through connection. I am drawn to the idea that teaching with authority means touching people’s lives in real and healing ways. There are a great many facts and formulas filed in my mental storage cabinet. Yet none of them has impacted my life as fully or as forcefully as the human connections I’ve enjoyed and the blessings I’ve received from teachers who shared more than information.

I’m sure I learned all sorts of useful things in 4^th and 5^th grade, but what I remember is that my teacher for those 2 years, Mrs. Smith, would stand patiently in the classroom doorway every afternoon while I insisted on telling her a joke before I left for home. She even laughed, although I think they were probably weren’t very funny jokes.

One of my greatest teachers was an interim pastor serving my congregation in Houston. A few members found her immediately unacceptable and began efforts to remove her. She responded to their hostility with love, answered their aggression with prayer. I wanted to be her champion, to fight those who were making her life and work difficult. She, with wisdom and grace, forgave them, and in forgiving them, healed my anger and anxiety as well.

We could all tell similar stories of teachers who have touched our lives with authority born of compassionate relationship.

As a Christian, I am intrigued by this Bible passage which invites us to understand Sabbath not through what is prohibited but through what is possible. Jesus teaches of Sabbath as a time to turn away from serving the world to serve instead the Kingdom of God. Jesus presents the Kingdom in which we can flourish because we are freed from that which binds us. Jesus opens the Kingdom in which acting to bring health and wholeness to another embodies Sabbath observance, the Kingdom where such teaching sanctifies the Sabbath and keeps it holy.

A new teaching with authority through a healing encounter.

Among the crowd gathered in the synagogue in Capernaum is a particular man with a particular need. There is an unclean spirit within him, a spirit which disrupts his life and denies him inclusion in holy worship. Jesus frees this man from his fragmented existence, from the spirit which puts him in opposition to himself. Jesus frees him to engage in whole-hearted, whole-spirited worship. By freeing this one man, Jesus teaches the entire gathered community that the Kingdom of God is the kingdom of healing and salvation.

The people in the synagogue exclaim, “What is this? A new teaching – with authority!” It is a teaching of wholeness, of inclusion in the worshiping community, of freedom from that which constrains our lives.

Jesus teaches by doing. By curing. By caring. And the authority of his teaching comes not from established religious structures or prestigious theological credentials but from the impact of his teaching on people’s lives. Jesus offers a Sabbath teaching that releases each of us from the fears, shames, sins, demons and distractions that keep us from full Sabbath celebration. Jesus meets us in the synagogue and fits us for full participation in the worship of God and the work of God’s kingdom.

And Jesus calls us to become Sabbath teachers ourselves, reaching out to others in ways that illuminate and embody the Kingdom of God.

We don’t even have to look very far for opportunities. Right here at UPC, we can be Sabbath teachers through using our time to volunteer at Micah 6 or at Up-Lift, offering kindness along with financial or food assistance.

We can be Sabbath teachers through using our talent to share a Bible story with our youngest children in Bridge to Worship, honoring them as full members of our community while inviting them to grow in wisdom.

We can be Sabbath teachers through using our treasure to support the work of Shane and Sarah Webb in South America, where they serve as mission workers; or by contributing funds, clothing or school supplies to Manos de Cristo here in Austin.

There are countless ways to be Sabbath teachers, to share with the world Jesus’ message of healing and wholeness, to touch the world with Jesus’ love and compassion.

The people of Capernaum were amazed and kept asking one another, “What is this?” They answered their own question for they recognized it as “A new teaching – with authority!”

They knew they were witnessing the authority of God within a Sabbath teaching of healing love.

May God bless each of us with a Sabbath teaching to carry into the world.

Amen.

Okay, you may be thinking, but that’s not how we moderns make our decisions. In fact, we may be a bit troubled by the immediacy of the disciples’ response. Their hasty, unreflective decision strikes us as unrealistic, even inadvisable.  Before they tossed everything aside and totally changed their lives, shouldn’t they have asked to see Jesus’s resume, posed a few probing questions, or at least given themselves time to think about the decision?  But Mark says they did none of these things.  Jesus called, and immediately they dropped the life they knew and followed him.

What do you suppose made these Galilean fishermen act so decisively, and without hesitation? Were they simply weary of the day-in-day-out routine of fishing—tired of nursing fingers blistered from mending fishing nets, and tired of getting up at 5:00 a.m. to launch their boats. If so, maybe they jumped at the chance just to do something different.  Or it’s been suggested that Simon and company may have had previous encounters with Jesus.  Maybe they had already heard him teach and had been considering joining him. Certainly that would make the immediacy of their response more understandable to us.  But Mark doesn’t tell us any of that.  All we know is that there was something so compelling about Jesus and his message that as soon as Jesus invited these men to join him, their lives changed dramatically.

Now, their response raises a question for us today:  Why is congregational life in the U.S. today often so lacking in the kind of urgency and transformative power that we see in these first disciples?  I recently received an e-mail from a disheartened pastor, who wrote:  “My congregation will go into 2012 with the smallest budget since 2005.  We identify 281 family units and get pledges from fewer than half.  Worship attendance has fallen.  Children’s Sunday School classes are often attended by only one or two children.  Our nominating committee cannot gather a slate of individuals who are willing to serve in leadership.”  What’s ailing much of the church today?

Of course, all sorts of reasons have been brought forth to explain a waning interest in church. Some note that we’ve moved from the age of duty (where people do things because they know they’re supposed to) to the age of discretion (where people sort through the many choices for how to spend their time and choose what seems most desirable). Others suggest that many people today have a hard time connecting what happens on Sunday to the rest of their week and life.  And still others admit that they haven’t found the Christian narrative a particularly helpful lens through which to view, and make sense of, their lives. Whatever the reasons—and there are many—what would be compelling enough to capture our attention and re-direct our entire way of life the way meeting Jesus did for the likes of Simon, Andrew, James and John?

Well, I’m not aware of any formula that will cure an ailing church. But we can know from whom the cure comes, and it surely begins with a re-hearing of the very first words out of Jesus’s mouth in Mark’s Gospel:  “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  Jesus hooked Simon and the others at the very moment he proclaimed to them the good news that the creation is being infused with God’s peace and justice. All at once they found themselves caught up in the new life of God’s Kingdom.  They couldn’t believe that they were being invited to take part in its promise, share in its coming and bring others into its realm.

And not only these first disciples, but disciples through the ages have totally re-oriented their lives because Jesus’ the vision of God’s Kingdom compelled them to do so.  Again, take Albert Schweitzer. He declared, “Only a Christianity which is animated and ruled by the idea and the intent of the Kingdom of God is genuine.  Only such a Christianity can give to the world what it desperately needs…A world in which God’s will would be ‘done on earth, as it is in heaven,’ a world in which compassion, kindness, and love are the rule.”  Schweitzer’s life, like that of the first disciples, was changed and redirected by Jesus’ call to join with him in embracing the new life of God’s Rule.

But make no mistake, such a life will not be easy. In fact, it will often encounter opposition, rejection and even defeat. It’s telling that Mark sets the announcement of the Kingdom of God and the calling of the disciples “after the arrest of John.”  John’s arrest foreshadows Jesus’ own suffering, arrest and death. Mark lets us know at the outset that the reality of God’s Kingdom is going to be found where we least expect it, in suffering and rejection, in the obscure and unfamiliar places, among the powerless, the poor and the oppressed. Mark signals to all would-be disciples that discipleship involves risk, vulnerability, selflessness and nonviolent resistance to evil. You may have heard the quote that “Becoming a faithful Christian disciple takes both a moment and a lifetime?”  Our new life begins the moment we say “yes” to Christ’s call, but it requires a lifetime of fits and starts before we enter fully into the life of God’s reign.

Friends, imagine a church with a worship so compelling that people would hate to miss it… A church so animated and ruled by Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God that love, justice and mercy seep into every aspect of our life together…A church where the excitement about God’s Kingdom is so palpable that others get caught up in its energy… A church reaching out to the downtrodden, the sick, the oppressed and the poor…A church where every member is being drawn into a new way of being and a new way of relating to others.

When does such a compelling life of discipleship begin?  Right now. At once. Immediately.

The little boy’s question may be the very one that comes to your mind when you hear a story like the calling of Samuel.  Does God speak to you? To me?  The one place in the story that very likely resonates with our own experience comes in the story’s first verse:  “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”   Well, isn’t it true that the word of the Lord is rare in our day, and visions are not widespread?  Ironically, we live in a time when there are more words than ever streaming into our lives. Words proliferate on the internet, come to us in the form of e-mails, cell phone calls, text messages and tweets.  We get our visions from YouTube, cable networks and so on.  An unprecedented cascade of words and visions continually flow into our lives, but has anybody heard a word from on high? Or seen a clear vision of God’s purpose in our lives and world?

You may relate to Rabbi Burt Visotsky’s comment on Bill Moyers’s PBS discussion on Genesis a few years back.  At one point the Rabbi said, “I’m a praying Jew, so I talk to God all the time, but I don’t usually hear answers.  It’s a much more subtle process with me.  God may tell Abraham and Sarah to get up and go and change everything about their lives.  But nobody ever says that to me.  If I hear God at all, it’s somewhere between the lines of a page when I am reading the Torah, and all I ever hear is, ‘Burt, turn the page.’” Is that your experience, too?  If God speaks at all, it’s by way of a subtle message.  Surely we live in a time when God seems mostly silent, and visions are not widespread.

But according to the Bible, God hasn’t always been so tight-lipped.  In fact, the Bible records one “call story” after another. God calls Abraham and Sarah, “Go to a place I will show you…through you will come my blessing to all the nations.”  Moses was tending his herd of goats when God summoned him: “Go down to Egypt and tell the Pharaoh to let my people go.”  All the prophets perceived that God was calling them.  Isaiah, for example, was worshiping in the Temple when he heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  Jesus, you remember, began his ministry when the voice of God called to him out of the water of his baptism.  “You are my beloved.”  And the disciples were each summoned by Jesus, “Come and follow me.”

It’s instructive to recall that our word “church” is translated from the Greek word ekklesia, meaning “to be summoned, called out.”  The Bible is replete with stories about heroes and heroines of the faith whose significance was derived from the fact that they were called by God.  Yes, we hear these inspiring stories, but then find ourselves asking, ‘When is the Lord going to call me?”  Does God still speak to people today the way God supposedly spoke in years past?

This weekend we are celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, and it’s natural to point to a great leader such as Dr. King and say, “There is an example of a person called by God.”  King reluctantly left his pastorate at Dexter Avenue Church in Montgomery, Alabama to lead the Montgomery bus boycott only because he felt called.  “I couldn’t say no,” he declared.  He felt called to proclaim a new vision, of a society in which “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners could sit down together at the table of brotherhood…and the heat of injustice and the heat of oppression would be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

Early on during the Montgomery bus boycott, King received a phone call threatening the lives of his wife and children. Unable to sleep, King sat at the kitchen table and prayed for a way to extricate himself from the struggle.  “At that moment,” King would later write, “I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced it before.  It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying, ‘Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.’. . . Almost at once,” King wrote, “my fears began to go.  My uncertainty disappeared.  I was ready to face anything.”  This weekend we’re honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King who, like the prophets of old, heard the voice of God calling him to take up God’s work of healing, of peace-making, of lifting up the downtrodden and making the world a more just and gracious place for all people.

Yes, we’re grateful for the spiritual giants of every age whom God called and used to further God’s purposes in history.  But I still hear the question of that little boy, “When is God going to call me?” I’m thinking of those many of us who haven’t heard God speaking to us and thus aren’t sure if we have a calling, or what that calling might be.

Listen, friends.  Hear the word of the Lord.  You have been called in your baptism.  Every one of you has been named a child of God and joined to Christ’s ministry of love, peace and justice.  You may be a teacher, a doctor, a laborer, a homemaker, a lawyer, student or retired person.  Through the multiplicity of our vocations, we each have a calling to put our lives in the service of God’s purpose wherever we are, and however we can.  Martin Luther King often preached on the theme that God calls every person of faith.  He put in this way, “We each have…a responsibility to set out to discover what we are called to do.  And after we discover that, we should set out to do it with all of the strength and all of the power that we can muster.”

“When is God going to call me?” asked the little boy.  Well, now we can answer. When?   As soon as you see a wrong and try to set it right…The next time you meet a stranger and welcome him or her with respect…The day you give the hungry something to eat…At the very moment you refuse to return evil for evil.

You probably haven’t heard an audible voice calling your name, but trust me, somebody’s knocking on your door, and that Somebody is calling out to you saying, “Show my love to the next person you meet.”  Somebody’s knocking on your door this morning, summoning you to do whatever it is in your power to do to make the world a better place.  Yes, somebody is knocking on your door, saying, “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”  Isn’t it time to open the door and say to the One who is forever calling you, “Speak God.  I’m ready to listen.”

But that term almost Christian is by no means restricted to today’s teens. Most, maybe all, of us feel vulnerable to the charge of being almost Christian.  Maybe we come to worship on Sunday, but in truth we don’t give a lot of thought to God during the week.  We may pray seldom, or not at all.  You may be among the growing number of church goers who can’t say the Apostles’ Creed without your fingers crossed behind your back. Or when we ponder Jesus’ teaching about such things as loving our enemies, practicing unlimited forgiveness, embracing a compassion that extends even to those whom we dislike or despise–it’s hard not to wonder if maybe all of us fit the description of almost Christian.

Well, this morning we read about some early disciples of Jesus at Ephesus who were almost Christians.  Yes, they had been baptized and they were bona fide members  of the church but, according to Paul, something in them was still lacking, incomplete. These disciples at Ephesus were Christians…well, almost.

So what was missing in these disciples at Ephesus?  The problem can be traced back to  Apollos, a native of Alexandria, who had spent time preaching and teaching in Ephesus. In the verses just preceding the ones we read, Luke tells us that Apollos was a persuasive, eloquent and enthusiastic preacher.  But he was not adequately informed about some matters.  Not surprisingly, it took two women in the congregation, Pricilla and Aquila, to take Apollos aside, and, in Luke’s words, “explain the Way of God to him more accurately.” One of the areas in which Apollos needed instruction was in the whole matter of baptism.  He only knew the baptism of John.

So when Paul visited to the disciples at Ephesus, he quickly realized that they hadn’t learned to distinguish between baptism by John and baptism in the name of Jesus. We read how Paul acted quickly to correct the situation.  He baptized them in the name of Jesus, whereupon they received the Holy Spirit, prophesied and spoke in tongues.

But what, exactly, is the difference between John’s baptism and baptism in the name of Jesus?  One way the difference can be explained is to visualize John standing by the Jordan River and calling people to come to him.  Jesus, on the other hand, rose up from the Jordan and, in the power of God’s Spirit, took God’s love to others, especially those who felt marginalized, unworthy or outside the reach of God’s grace.  Unlike John, Jesus didn’t ask people to come to him.  Rather he went out to them.  Filled with God’s Spirit, he embodied the out-going, inclusive love of God reaching out to everyone.  Jesus was the very incarnation of God’s goodness and justice embracing the whole world.  That was the difference between John and Jesus.

Thus, baptism in the name of Jesus equips us to share in God’s outreach–proclaiming good news to the poor, welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick—all the ways that the Spirit empowers us to take God’s love to others. To put it succinctly, what takes the almost out of Christian is the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift that empowers  us to join with Jesus in his ministry of love, peace and justice.

Now, it’s true that, in the case of the disciples at Ephesus, the gift of the Holy Spirit enabled them to prophesy and speak in tongues. But we should never conclude, as some Christians have, that speaking in tongues is the sole evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit. My own hunch is that one simple act of kindness rings more bells in the kingdom of God than a thousand people speaking in tongues.  Luke’ point, I believe, isn’t to tie baptism to speaking in tongues, but rather to tie it Pentecost. That is, in our baptism something as new and powerful as Pentecost is happening again.  People baptized in the name of Jesus, with water and the Holy Spirit, are called, commissioned, equipped and empowered to be about God’s healing work in the world.

So friends, our challenge today is to claim the Spirit’s presence give at our baptism.  In truth, we are not lacking any spiritual gift.  If many in the churches today seem to be almost Christian, it’s not because God has withheld God’s Spirit, but only because of our reluctance to claim the Spirit that has been fully given.  After our Affirmation Hymn this morning, you’re invited to come forward in an act of baptismal renewal.  The acolytes will bring water from the font and stand on either side of the chancel.  This act of baptismal renewal is an opportunity to claim the Spirit’s presence in our lives and rededicate ourselves to Christ’s ministry of love, peace and justice.

These three magi had come ready to bestow their blessing upon the King of the Jews.  Hmm.  If we could have only seen the look on their faces.

I wonder if they were surprised by the royal family?  Dressed in common clothes, residing in a common home, eating common food.  The child, the future king, wrapped in rags.  I wonder if their gold shown as brightly in the dimly lit home?  I wonder if the scent of the frankincense covered up the smell of the smoky cooking fire?  I wonder if the royal camels had ever been tied up next to a cranky old donkey?  If ever two different worlds had collided, this was that moment.  Rich and poor.  Powerful and powerless.  Nobility and commoners.  I wish we could have seen their faces when they realized the scope of the scene that lay before them.

In this first Sunday after Christmas, our attention turns a bit from the wonder of that holy night to the realization that there is more to this life of Christ than his miraculous birth.  Our minds kick into gear as we begin to grapple with what a world that has felt the footsteps of its maker looks like.  Today we look ahead to the Day of Epiphany, which will be celebrated the world over on this coming Friday. Epiphany is about the manifestation of God on earth, of God becoming one of us.  Epiphany causes us to reorient our understanding of who God is and what God is doing in this world.  We have celebrated the birth of this Emmanuel, this God with us, and now we begin to come to terms with what that means.  In our lessons and carols service, we read the Bible story of Adam and Eve.  We remember our common story of the entering of sin, of failure to depend on God, into the world.  We remember our common story of being cast out of the garden, out of this place of harmony and peace, where humanity was designed to live in relation with a God who provided for all their needs.

We remember our common story of God telling Adam and Eve that they will no longer live in harmony with the world: that they will have to fight for their food and the earth will fight back and that pain will accompany the continuing of the human race.  We remember this story because it reminds us that the earth, which was created to be good, to be holy, to be set apart for God’s presence among the creatures, had been marred by sin.  We remember this story at times of drought, of famine, of natural disasters, of disease – times at which it seems the earth is working against it’s inhabitants.  Yet on Christmas, God entered into the world as a creature, a human born of a human.  By taking on flesh and dwelling within creation, Jesus Christ reorients our relationship with this world.  God was once again walking amongst the people.  God was once again preparing a garden, a holy dwelling for the people.  God revealed to us new understandings of who is included in the human family, in the family of the one who created us.

God opened our eyes to see the earth and it’s resources as holy, as being set apart for the worship of God.  God unhardened our hearts to see our resources as holy, as being set apart for the care of others as well as ourselves.  When God came into the world in the humanity of Jesus Christ, all the earth and it’s creatures were blessed.

I wish we could have seen their faces when they realized the scope of the scene that lay before them.  The look of amazement on their faces when their world turned upside down.  They had come with finest gifts to bless this little child, this King of the Jews, but instead were the ones who had received the blessing.  It was not a blessing of material things, for they had all they needed and more.  It was not a blessing of new power, for they were already powerful men in a powerful country.  It was not a blessing of wisdom, for they were already learned.  No, the blessing they received was one of reorientation, a conversion into a new reality.

In this moment, in this house, at this cradle of the Messiah, they understood what the prophecy had foretold: “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.”  In the presence of this child, the realization had come.  The colliding of two worlds: A world that had fallen and a world that was being redeemed.  A world that had suffered under the weight of sin and a world that was being made new.  This was the in-breaking of something new – a moment when divinity and humanity were colliding, intersecting.  A moment in which the blessing of God had been restored to the world.  God with us, once again.

The blessing of Epiphany.  Blessings are something we often talk about in the church.  We understand blessing as finding favor with God, of God’s presence being with someone, or the infusion of someone or something with the holiness of God.

To bless someone means to recognize God’s presence in them.  Blessings act as repurposing agents.  When we say, “may you have a blessed day,” we are really saying “May your day be committed to God and God be with you.”  In the prayer, Hail Mary, it is said that “blessed art thou (Mary) among women.”  Mary was set apart to bear the physical incarnation of God into the world, the presence of God was with her.  Yet the blessing of God extends to all of us, in fact, to all of creation.  God’s spirit is with us.  God has entered into the world and in doing so, redeemed it and reconciled it back to God.  The blessing of Epiphany is not one we bring to the Christ child, but one the Christ child brings to the world.

A blessing is a way of setting something apart to God’s purposes.  A blessing signals the interaction of God with the common, the ordinary of this world.  It makes everything different.  It infuses things with a holy purpose.  In our communion prayer, we remember that Jesus broke and blessed the bread, setting this common bread aside for a holy purpose, a holy communion.  In our baptismal prayers, we pray a blessing over the water that the Spirit might be upon it, setting these common waters of the font aside for a holy purpose.  Today, as a way of celebrating Epiphany, we will be blessing two common things to this congregation, the lights of our church and our homes.  In blessing our lights and our homes, we set them aside for holy purposes, for God’s purposes.  We, in a sense, are opening wide the doors to our lives and saying, “okay God, do with us what you will.  Interact with us, surprise us.”  In a moment we will have the blessing of the lights of our church.  We will set them apart to serve as symbols of Christ’s presence with us, for the passion that the Holy Spirit brings, and as beacons of hope in this world.  After the service today, you will have the option of picking up one of these cards.  Printed on this card is a blessing that you and your family can speak over your home.

You can even display this card in an entranceway if you wish.  For centuries, Christians have blessed the places where they live as a way of being open to God interacting with every part of their life.  Blessing the place where you live invites God into your home, into your everyday life, into your decisions and routines.  But there is no magic in this.  This is not a “live a better life now” scheme.  If you speak this blessing over your home you will not win the lottery and lose 10 pounds of holiday weight.  By participating in a blessing, you are simply recognizing that God dwells out there, in the real world, not just cooped up here at church.  You are realizing that God has come into this world to redeem the world, to bring everything and every part of you back to God.  But of course, you don’t need a card or a blessing to do that.  God is here anyway, walking with us.  This is simply a way to recognize it and participant in it.

So this week before Epiphany – be open to the blessing of God’s presence in this world, in your world.  Be open to the mysteries it will unfold.  Become aware of what God with us looks like.  Notice God with you as you brush your teeth, with you kiss your children before they head off to school, with you as you sit at the dinner table, with you as you struggle, with you as you rejoice.  Speak God’s presence into your homes, for God is already there.  Speak God’s light into the church, for God’s work is to be done.  And speak God’s favor over one another, for God is with us.  Amen.

Granted, Protestants like us typically don’t pay a lot of attention to Mary. Some years ago, a vandal attacked Michelangelo’ Pieta with a hammer, seriously damaging the face and arm of the figure of Mary. Following the incident, a magazine article suggested that the act was a parable of the violence done Mary by the church—by Roman Catholics, who have idolized her and by Protestants, who have ignored her. While Roman Catholic and Protestant views on Mary vary widely, there is a broad consensus on at least one point. Namely, that Luke intends us to view Mary as the first disciple.  As such, Luke holds her up as a role model for all of us, In his definitive work on the birth stories in Matthew and Luke, Roman Catholic scholar Raymond Brown declares, “I have suggested that discipleship is the key to the interpretation of Mary in the New Testament.”   So focusing on Mary as the first disciple, what does her way of being religious have to say, especially to those of us who can’t identify with either the True Believers or the angry atheists.

In the first place, consider why God bestows favor on Mary.  “Greeting, favored one!” declares the angel Gabriel to a startled Mary.  “Do not be afraid, Mary,” the angel says, “for you have found favor with God.”  In poplar piety it is often assumed that God’s favor is earned by good behavior, so we imagine that God favored Mary because she was exceptionally worthy, virtuous, pious and so on.  Yet others have pointed out that there was nothing exceptional about Mary.  In fact, she was notable for her ordinariness.  She was a young girl in a society that valued men and maturity.  She was poor, a village girl with no social standing.  Mary was not a person who would have been noticed or honored according to any human measurement at all.  So if Mary is the model, then we can conclude that God’s favor is not restricted, confined or bestowed only on the worthy and the deserving.

The new way of being religious that Weiner and so many others are looking for today might start with an appreciation for the surprising generosity of God—God who bestows favor on the just and the unjust, the deserving and the undeserving, True Believers and angry atheists alike!

And notice how Mary’s way of being religious doesn’t eliminate questions and doubt. Mary is sometimes depicted as passive, a completely demure vessel in the divine drama, but Luke pictures her otherwise.  In Luke’s story, Mary is greatly troubled, perplexed, afraid, hesitant and full of questions: “How can this be?” she cries.

In his article, Wiener points to one thing that turns many people away from organized religion: it’s the perception that questions are not allowed and doubts are not accepted.  He writes that he longs for “a religious space that celebrates doubt and encourages experimentation.”   Well, Mary offers that space. Like so many of the Biblical characters before her, Mary didn’t shy away from honest engagement with God.  She models for us a way of being religious that allows for dialogue, debate, and even argument.  An honest faith that doesn’t require certainty is precisely the kind of faith—and the kind of church—that so many people today yearn to find.

Or again, Mary models discipleship in that she reminds us that God is active in our lives and world.  She helps us re-imagine God as Emmanuel (God-with-us).  My hunch is that many people, maybe most people, still think of God as a distant deity, far removed from our world and daily lives, but who on occasion will swoop down and intervene in some way, and then go back to wherever God dwells.  But Mary’s experience of God was consistent with the God who from the beginning of creation has sought to draw near–in blessing Abraham and Sarah, in empowering Moses, liberating the oppressed, accompanying the Hebrews in the wilderness, answering the prayers of Hannah, arousing the prophets, coming among us as a baby in a stable.  In short, Mary engaged not with a distant, uninvolved God, but rather a God who is always with us, and who sometimes does the impossible.

Historically, Christians have debated the virgin birth ad nauseam. But today’s seekers, like Weiner, don’t seem interested in abstract debates. They want to know how religion can change lives and better the world. In one of his Christmas sermons, Meister Eckhart, a 13^th-Century Christian theologian and preacher, spoke of the virgin birth as something that happens within us.  That is, it tells of how the life of God is always yearning to be born in us. Unless I’m mistaken, the people whom Weiner represents are longing for a way of being religious that celebrates a near-at-hand God, a divine presence who transforms us from “virgins” into creative agents who, like Mary, are able to bear the life of God in the world.

That means that Mary’s way of being religious is the way of active service.  In the verses that follow today’s reading, Mary sings of her role in God’s kingdom that is turning the world upside down–lifting up the downtrodden, bringing down the mighty, filling the hungry with good things. For all her questions, doubts and hesitations, Mary submits to God’s larger purpose of transforming the world and she agreed to do her part.  “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your Word.” Mary models a way of being religious that gives us a mission in life, claims us for service of God’s kingdom and uses us to further God’s purpose of peace and justice.

Eric Weiner, like many moderns today, is a rationalist.  Yet he longs for a way to transcend a one dimensional life that is devoid of mystery, a life that has no purpose higher than self. Mary shows us a way of being religious that puts our lives in the service of God with whom nothing is impossible.

Friends, Weiner ends his article by suggesting that what Christianity needs today is a Steve Jobs of religion—some creative, innovative, entrepreneurial personality who can show us a new way of being religious. Maybe he’s right. But Luke suggests that we don’t need to wait for a future disciple to show us how to be religious. What we need to do is to emulate the first disciple.