Category Archives: sermons

Be Open

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Mark 7:31-35 (NIV)
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. [32] There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. [33] After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. [34] He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). [35] At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

The man’s disability was hindering his integration into community. His community responded the way it should (at least in the context of this story). They begged God for help.

Who needs help in your community? Too often our communities silence and marginalize the different, not recognizing we are all different, we all need healing.

We all need a voice.

Many, many people suffer because they have been deprived of a voice.

One summer years ago I took ASL. Part of our class assignment was to go to Union Station and pretend to be deaf and mute. It was a valuable exercise. To see how servers responded to my verbal powerlessness…who was kind? Who was impatient?

Jesus heals the man in a very visceral way–he puts his fingers in his ears, spits and touches the man’s tongue and then sighs deeply as he commands the healing.

Why?

He could raise the dead from a distance, why such raw physicality?

Because Jesus speaks the language of each human heart. His physical actions are a form of sign language the man can understand.

Nobody talks like this guy. He is the Word made flesh.

He sets the captive free.

The second day

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I remember people exclaiming that I had lost weight. When I told them why I had lost weight they would look stricken. It was a striking story.

But the truth was worse than I ever could explain.

I could get past the discomfort of being punched, kicked, and bitten by my adopted daughter. I could mitigate her curses..and her violent imaginary friend.

I could push through the shock and discomfort others felt when I told them our children had been abused by her brother, my adopted son.

I could live beneath the heavy weight of the years my children spent in the company of a child abuser.

But I could never adequately describe the devastation created by our own family and others we had known for years.

Family was the worst. They made excuses. Coddled the perps, lashed out at young, very young victims.

Some were dismissive. Some skeptical. Some cruel.

Even after years and deliberate distance, their reactions still shock me.

I can still describe the diet.

It is simple:

Eat sorrow where once there was bread

Eat loss where there used to be community

Eat anger in the place where the family should stand

In a circle around their littlest victim
Dogs for children.

Dogs. For. Children. Indeed.

The Syrian Woman

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Mark 7:24-26 (NIV)
Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. [25] In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. [26] The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

This mama is one of my favorite people ever.

She was a Canaanite, a Syrian, a descendant of the mysterious Sea Peoples, but more than all that, she was a kick-butt mother.

Why?

She traveled to see Jesus. She took the time to find him and then she…

begged

She had no pride when it came to her beautiful daughter.

She knew what was priceless
And so did he.

People: not so sharp

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Mark 7:14-15,17-20 (NIV)
Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. [15] Nothing outside a man can make him `unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him `unclean.’ ” [17] After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. [18] “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him `unclean’? [19] For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) [20] He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.’

Oh, the Jews were serious about their dietary laws. Asking if they were dull was a bit of a slap. But Jesus has impeccable aim.

I read recently that my own navel is swarming with bacteria. Yuck! But they are my bacteria and I remain surprisingly calm.

The devastating upshot of Jesus’ rebuke focuses on the ease with which we humans can obsess over our navels and bludgeon our neighbors.

Justice is coming. The long arm of the Lord will fall on each of us. At that point our kinship with righteousness will matter far more than our lunch.

Clean is clean
Holy is fierce
And we?
Are dull indeed without him.

Pruning Time

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Whoa! There are a lot of saints in February

How many do you recognize? I looked them up not because of Valentine’s Day. An experienced gardener once told me to prune my roses on a feast day in February. I think the 17th…

Sea’s birthday is the 16th. Time marked by anniversaries. Winter haunts.

Jesus rebukes the hypocrites for useless traditions–

Mark 7:9-10 (NIV)
And he said to them: “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! [10] For Moses said, `Honor your father and your mother,’ and, `Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’

My erstwhile adoptees were cursers. I would point this admonition out to them. I understand that they never “got” the umbilical bond of love. I even “got” why. They were lost from the beginning. They needed to feel love and when it wasn’t there the whole world went dark for them.

The cost of light is consuming.

But I believe in a Rescuing God.. He’ll get them. Because He loves them. Because He paid. Because He sees their faces from when they were babies lost in the world.

His beautiful lullabies.

Lasting Valentines

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Mark 7:5-7 (NIV)
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with `unclean’ hands?” [6] He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ” `These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [7] They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’

Today is the anniversary of the day that a Roman Christian named Valentinus was tortured and murdered for trying to convert the emperor.

Doesn’t really match overpriced bonbons.

The business of following Jesus is deadly. Isaiah himself was believed to be martyred by Manasseh.

But we all know a talisman of love is cheaper than real love.

God is about real love. His love letters to us are everywhere and He wants our hearts.

Most of us would prefer the hand-washed appearance of solidarity than the cost of true love.

But if we choose the narrow road and follow after True Love, the results are eternal, unmistakable and dear.

Borrowed House

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Years ago I lived in a beautiful old house. It had three stories and a creepy-ish basement, some mice, and a lovely wilderness of a backyard. It was the house I lived in on my wedding day.

I managed it for a friend. Some of my roommates were amazing. Some were annoying, and a couple were nuts. The crazy ones were no fun for anyone. They were paranoid and antisocial and they ended up in the house because I was a softy.

I am a little tougher now.

But mostly I think about Jesus. He tells these elegant, terrifying stories of rampant, evil tenants trashing vineyards and killing messengers.

We humans are stubborn like that. We like to ignore the Landlord.

Jesus is reminding us we live in a borrowed house. We don’t love it like the Owner.

But one day we will or…be shocked to find that this borrowed house was not just shelter.

It was our home

Hypocrite.

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Mark 7:3-8 (NIV)
(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. [4] When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles. ) [5] So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with `unclean’ hands?” [6] He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ” `These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [7] They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ [8] You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

When my children were still very young they knew two big words-psychological and hypocrite. The first was introduced by my adopted daughter’s precipitous mental slide.

The second was my adopted son’s favorite go-to epithet for any of us who opposed him.

I always thought his use of the word ironic. Now I think–more tragic and disfiguring. He was consumed by appearing one way and hiding who he was in secret.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law saw themselves as the good guys.. They were the power players. But they were so consumed by the appearance, the trappings of clean, they abandoned the pursuit of holy.

Holy should freak us all out. Holy is scary.

Until holy becomes a man and that man quotes Isaiah and then that man lives out holy all the way to a Cross. Perhaps then it should scare us more.

Lent is about the unclean hands and heart–lifted in honor of a sacrifice so unbearable that only it, only He can make us clean.

Making hypocrites into honest men? Same thing as resurrection.

Imagine–dead to life again. All things made new.

What only God can do.

Hand Washing

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Mark 7:1-2 (NIV)
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and [2] saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were “unclean,” that is, unwashed.

Hand washing is good. Heck, it is downright healthy. What were the disciples thinking? Philistines.

The mosaic laws involving ritual cleansing were given to ensure public health. God never gave any lengthy biology lectures, He just wrote public health into the spiritual rules. Efficient.

But the Israelites obsessed about the “easy” rules and often ignored the hard ones–pride, lust, violence are hard to confront, but hey! A good twenty minute hand washing ritual makes a dude feel clean.

And Jesus’ disciples were getting freedom from the ritual laws as well as access to the best source for how to love and avoid sin–Jesus.

Jesus knows our hearts and he knows how to clean them. Often the most dangerous people are those who agitate for the picky little ceremonies and utterly ignore their own maggot-infested hearts.

Mad-lib Bible

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Mark 7:1 (NIV)
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and

Isn’t that a great start? Guess what happens next. Do they get him to teach them? Worship? Make him breakfast?

I know that verse breaks in our modern Bibles are arbitrary. The book of Mark was a letter written to a body of people who lived their lives waiting for Jesus to come right back.

John Mark was young when he experienced this story and older when he sat down and recorded it.

And it would be years and years before someone numbered these stories. But God is a smart guy. He uses everything.

So let us pause for a moment and wonder at all the things the Pharisees could have done with Jesus…but didn’t.

What do you do with Jesus?