On February 5th, I preached at Falls Church Presbyterian Church. Following that worship service, the congregation voted to call me as their next pastor, and I will begin there on April 10, 2012. Below is the text of the sermon.
Mark 1:29-39
Called To Serve
James Sledge February 5, 2012
Twenty years ago, I lived in Charlotte, NC, working as a corporate pilot. Shawn and I had two young girls and had been thinking about selling our starter home and upgrading to something bigger and nicer. But, at the same time, I had become more and more active at our church and had begun to experience the first stirrings of a call to become a pastor.
I flew to Atlanta a lot, and one day I took the opportunity to visit Columbia Seminary and discuss my developing sense call I with the folks there. They suggested that I attend a weekend event that was coming up soon, an event tailor made for folks like me, an event designed to help people explore a call to attend seminary.
That sounded perfect; so I signed up. Then it dawned on me that I should probably say something to Shawn before a big packet of materials emblazoned with the Columbia Theological Seminary’s logo arrived in the mail. I had not yet mentioned anything to her about a call or seminary, and so I started to look for a good opportunity to bring it up. As luck would have it, we had planned a trip to the homecoming football game at Clemson, Shawn’s alma mater, and the two of us would be alone in the car for drive down.
Now you don’t just blindside your wife with, “Hey I’m thinking about going to seminary.” So I decided to steer the conversation onto the general topic of religion and call. And I actually managed to pull it off. We were headed down Interstate 85, having a nice conversation about call, and I was feeling quite proud of myself.
In the course of this conversation, Shawn shared a story of someone from her hometown of Gaffney, SC, a man widely admired for the work he had done as educator and head of the school system there. Shawn told me how he had originally planned to become a pastor, but his fiancée had been so opposed to the idea—threatening not to marry him—that he ended up discovering a true calling in education as a teacher, a principal, and a school superintendent.
The conversation wasn’t going exactly as I had hoped, but it was still okay. At least it was until Shawn finished her story by saying, “And I understand how his fiancée felt. I know I could never be a minister’s wife.”
All that work, and that’s what I got. At that point I saw no option other than to blurt it out. “I’m thinking about going to seminary.” Let’s just say it was a long weekend.
Now in fact, Shawn has been a wonderful partner in my work as a pastor, but it is easy to appreciate her not wanting to be a pastor’s wife. Old notions of the pastor’s wife have changed a great deal thanks to the ordination of women and the large number of women in the workforce. But many of us still remember those old role expectations, and they’ve not completely disappeared. I had a seminary classmate who interviewed with a small congregation in western Virginia. When the nominating committee showed him and his wife around the sanctuary, one of them pointed to the piano, looked straight at his wife and said, “And this is where you’ll play.” She didn’t play the piano.
The persistence of stereotyped gender roles, such as “the pastor’s wife,” bothers me. I think that is why I cringed just a bit when I first read the gospel lesson for today. Perhaps you heard it, too. Jesus goes to Simon and Andrew’s house where Simon’s mother-in-law is sick in bed. (Jesus) came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. So, the men show up, but Mom’s under the weather. No worry. Jesus cures her so she can wait on the guys.
After reading this, I almost preached on the Isaiah passage. But I have discovered over the years that my first reaction often misleads me. And while at first glance Simon’s mother-in-law may seem to have been slotted into menial women’s work, on closer examination I think she may just be the one person in the story who “gets it.”
Not counting the crowds that flock to Jesus for healing, the main characters in our reading are Jesus of course, then Simon, Andrew, James, and John, and finally Simon’s mother-in-law. We’re told that she serves them. But we also hear what the four disciples do. When they realize that Jesus has gone off somewhere early the next morning, they hunted for him. That may sound like they just went looking for him, but that’s not what the Greek word means. It means to pursue, usually with hostile intent. It’s what your army does to the opposing forces. So it’s a bit strange that Mark describes the disciples pursuing Jesus in this manner.
It may help to remember that in Mark’s gospel, the disciples don’t come off all that well. They are repeatedly described as having “no faith,” and their failure to comprehend will later be epitomized by James and John’s audacious request to sit at Jesus’ side in his glory, a request that prompts Jesus to say, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant… For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” To serve; like Simon’s mother-in-law did. And when Jesus does give his life on the cross, Mark tells us that all the disciples flee. But there are a few women there when he’s crucified, women who used to follow him and serve him when he was in Galilee. Serve; there it is again.
I read a piece in Huffington Post the other day entitled, “Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus.” The author admitted that the title is more provocative than true. In fact, he says, evangelicals love Jesus a great deal for what he does for them, namely saving them from hell. But, he says, they aren’t very interested in the manner of life he recommends. Neither, it seems, are Jesus’ disciples. They pursue Jesus when he isn’t at the store handing out miracles. They want him to come back and set up shop. They have a template they expect Jesus to fit into. But Jesus moves on, headed to the next town.
On some level, I think many of us relate to Jesus in a manner similar to evangelicals who “hate” Jesus. We like Jesus just fine, but we’re less thrilled about what he tells us to do: loving enemies, forgiving folks over and over and over, losing ourselves for the sake of the gospel, becoming a servant to all. A lot of us had much rather be served than serve.
But when Jesus reaches out and touches Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, she begins to serve. She seems to get it. Now perhaps I’m making too much of something that looks pretty mundane, even menial. But then again, serving is often mundane and menial. Ministry is often mundane and menial. By ministry, I’m not really talking about pastors. I’m talking about the ministry of loving others, caring for others, doing small things that no one else may notice but that bring God’s love, acceptance, and touch to someone who needs it.
Andrew, a University of Chicago Divinity School student, was spending a summer in Bosnia, studying religion and reconciliation in the Balkans. While there he was invited by a Sarajevo based interfaith choir made up of Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, and atheists to travel with them to the Serbian capital and witness firsthand the reconciling potential of religious music. One of the places they sang was for Mass at a Catholic church. The choir filled the sanctuary with beautiful harmonies, singing Orthodox chants and Catholic hymns. But for Andrew, the unity from the music was quickly shattered as the singing stopped and the Eucharist began. As people began to go forward for communion, the sanctuary was divided between Catholics, who could receive communion, and others.
Andrew twisted in the pew to let Catholic worshippers go forward as he bowed for what he called “a little prayer of Protestant protest.” But, Andrew writes, “When I lifted my eyes, I saw a portly man in a white robe scurrying down the side aisle. His eyes sought me out with a quizzical look, like a little boy searching for his parents in a crowd. His glasses bobbled down his short, round nose as he raced down the aisle – too quickly for a priest, too quickly for a 60-year-old man.
“The whole scene was awkward. With 20 or so people still in line to receive the Eucharist, this Bosnian Franciscan took a handful of the host and sought me out of the crowd. Nearly out of breath, he lifted the small plate toward me. I stood up from my pew.”
“Will you have communion?” the priest asked.
“Yes I will,” muttered Andrew.
“Christ’s body, broken for you,” the priest said as he placed the bread in Andrew’s hand. Catholic priests generally don’t run down church aisles during Mass, and they certainly don’t do so to serve communion to non-Catholics. But this one did, looking quite foolish, as well as breaking Catholic rules in the process. I can only imagine that he had experienced Christ’s healing, transforming touch, and he felt compelled to serve, no matter how it looked.
You and I have experienced Christ’s touch, too, haven’t we? So where are you called to serve? Where are we called to serve together?
