"Season of Epiphany" - Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Epiphany 2015

For a small home service here are today's prayer and readings and this mornings sermon.

Today's Prayer of the Day: Compassionate God, you gather the whole universe into your radiant presence and continually reveal your Son as our Savior. Bring wholeness to all that is broken and speak truth to us in our confusion, that all creation will see and know your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Today's Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15–20, Psalm 111, 1 Corinthians 8:1–13, Mark 1:21–28


Opening Hymn: Borning Cry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYnmtQI50ic
Hymn of the Day: Rise, Shine, You People https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6ePEOX5k2c
Sending Hymn: Go My Children with My Blessing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjM18fEzD60 

Sermon:

Text: Mark 1:21-28

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who makes himself known in restoring our relationship with God.

            Mark moves fast, even though it may not feel like it since it’s been three weeks since we started the Season of Epiphany with reading of Jesus’ baptism by John. We are still in the first chapter of the book, and where Matthew would be just finishing his long list of Jesus’ ancestors from Adam to Joseph, and Luke would be introducing us to Mary, Joseph, Martha, and John the Baptist as a baby, here we find Jesus already calling four disciples, Peter, Andrew, James and John, which we read last week.

            Today we find not an infancy narrative of Jesus’ birth, but Jesus already teaching, preaching, and casting out demons. There are two main things that I draw out of this text, the first has to do with the season of the church year we find ourselves in, and the second flows out of that into showing us who Jesus is.

            There isn't really a season of Epiphany, the church refers to it as the season after Epiphany, but I’ve never really liked that distinction and prefer talking of the season of Epiphany and the same with the season after Pentecost referring to it as the season of Pentecost. Now, Epiphany, as we talked about a few weeks ago, refers to the time when the wise men found Jesus as a young child and he was revealed to them, and to all of us. Epiphany itself means revealing, awareness, manifestation, sudden realization. Examples include Archimedes sitting in a tub and figuring out how he could determine the density of objects in a similar method of seeing how much water they displaced and shouted out loud, Eureka! Another is the epiphany that Isaac Newton had upon witnessing an apple fall from the tree and realizing that this force of gravity would also be acting upon the moon.

            In Christianity it is the realization by the Magi that Jesus is the Son of God. The awakening and manifestation of God as fully God, and fully human in the child Jesus.

            But, since as I said I feel it’s important to think of this time as the season of Epiphany, it’s here in these weeks after that we ourselves are made more and more aware of who Jesus is. Each week we find a greater awareness of what it means that Jesus was born to us as Son of God.

            Two weeks ago we were made aware that Jesus is one who sees people as they are and still welcomes and invites them in, when he sees Nathanael sitting under his fig tree. Jesus is one who doesn’t hold grudges, or ban people based on who they are, all are welcome.

            Last week, we saw that call of the disciples, Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Who are fishermen, not the highest of high, or the mightiest of mighty, but in fact rather low on the societal ladder. And we are made aware that Jesus is one who comes not for those in power, but in fact comes to flip everything the right-way up, standing up for the poor, hungry, and downtrodden who have no one to stand for them.

            This week we have again a story of Jesus meeting someone for the first time, and we learn some more about who Jesus is. And when we look at the text it seems rather straightforward. What is the epiphany we find here? What do we learn new about who Jesus is? Well, it seems like the text just comes out and says it. Jesus is one who teaches with authority, and he is the Holy One of God as the man says, and Jesus casts out unclean spirits.

            But, there is something different here than just someone declaring that they know who Jesus is, it’s who it is that is declaring this that's interesting. In Mark this is Jesus’ first interaction with anyone outside of the new disciples and John the Baptist. And it’s not some pure, clean, deeply religious person like we find in Matthew with the Wise Men, who give Jesus Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, or with Simeon at the temple in Luke, who declares that he can now go in peace since he has seen the savior of the world, a light of revelation and glory for the peoples. Here in Mark it’s an unnamed man in the synagogue who has an unclean spirit. The person who declares to the world who Jesus is in Mark is one who everyone else inside the synagogue would attempt to throw out not just out of the synagogue, but out of society itself. They wouldn’t even touch him for fear of becoming unclean.

            And what does Jesus do? Does he cast him aside? Throw him out himself. No, he removes the unclean spirit, he allows the man to rejoin the his society, rejoin his community, no longer must he be an outcast because of this unclean spirit, but now he is restored.

            That's who this text tells us Jesus is going to be. That’s the Epiphany, that Jesus is one who doesn’t push out, but one who brings all back into relationship with God.

            That’s the first thing that I draw out of this text, another Epiphany of who Jesus is, the Son of God, the Holy One, the Messiah, the Restorer of Relationship.

            The second thing comes from where it falls in Mark. This is the first action Jesus takes after his baptism and calling the first disciples. His first work involves not fraternizing with the rich and powerful, but interacting and helping those on the very bottom of society, and by placing this as the first actions of Jesus in his Gospel, Mark is declaring that this is what the Good News of Jesus Christ means. That Jesus plans to give power and restore not those in authority, but those who have nothing, and in Mark that is so accented in Jesus going to his death that he almost seems to rush there.

            And for us? It means that our Epiphany is that Jesus calls us not to be with the rich and powerful, but calls us to be with those in need in this world. Giving our time and money to places like the food pantry, the national honor society Soup-er Bowl, Light in Africa, Hope Ministries, Lutheran World Relief, and not to people who sit on TV on massive gold thrones.  Our epiphany is that Jesus seeks to restore us and all those around us to the God who cares for the least.

            And so this week, as we continue through the season of Epiphany let us work to see where God calls us, see that Jesus is with us, and that Jesus is working to restore us and all others into relationship with God.

Amen.