They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching - with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
(Mark 1:21-39)
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I have heard it said many times, “what a difference a day makes!” And it’s true. 24 hours may not seem like much, but any given 24 hour period can make a huge difference. The world can literally change in 24 hours. But most days are probably pretty ordinary. Let’s face it. When we wake up in the morning, most of us have a pretty good idea of what the day is going to hold. Surprises happen – but life is usually pretty predictable. In today’s Gospel passage, Mark rather casually records this account of what seems to be a pretty ordinary 24 hours in Jesus’ life, and we get the impression that this was indeed a business as usual kind of day for Jesus - which suggests that this is perhaps the very kind of day we should be most interested in. Jesus often says to his disciples “follow me,” and usually he means that in the sense of living the way he lived; of following his example. So there may well be some valuable lessons that we can learn about how to spend our days by looking at how Jesus himself spent a typical day. Although, to be honest, there are things that happen in a typical day in Jesus’ life that probably don’t happen very regularly in our own lives. The poet Aldyna Threesya wrote that “each day you live is a day to make a significant difference in your life, or the life of another.” Jesus lived by that principle and I wanted to reflect briefly on a couple of people Jesus encountered on this ordinary day whose lives were changed by him, and then on how those encounters guide and challenge us today.
Had we gone back just a couple of verses farther we would have discovered that Mark recorded that Jesus “walked along the Sea of Galilee,” or, as one translation puts it, “as he passed by the Sea of Galilee.” The way Mark words it, it’s almost as if Jesus was just passing by – again giving the impression that this was a pretty normal day in his life. Nothing unusual seemed to be happening – as amazing as this ordinary day would turn out to be. And as Jesus “passed by,” he got involved in what was happening around him; he was never oblivious to what was happening around him; he never ignored the needs of those he encountered around him. Maybe that’s our first lesson from this ordinary day: we need to be alert to what we’re passing by; we need to be aware of the needs and the people we see around us; we need to be open to the call of God to serve. Jesus was – and as he walked around and passed by he saw opportunities to serve God by serving others. Mark tells us first that Jesus came across a man who was demon-possessed, and he drove that demon out of the man he encountered with a power that astounded those who witnessed the event, and then from this demon-possessed man, Mark took us to a man’s mother in law – and to be clear I’m drawing no parallels there. After driving out a demon from the man he had encountered, Jesus then encountered Simon’s mother-in-law sick in bed with a fever, and he chose to serve – compassionately and humbly. Unlike the encounter with the demon possessed man, there was no crowd watching, and there weren’t going to be any headlines in the local newspaper. All there would be was relief for Simon’s mother-in-law, and Jesus took the time to make sure that she would be healed and that she would be well.
But whether he publicly exorcised a demon or privately healed a sick woman, Jesus got noticed. It’s true that few of us are likely to find ourselves either exorcising demons or healing fevers, and it’s easy for us to get caught up in the amazement and excitement over what Jesus did. But I rather think that Mark is telling us that for Jesus these things were normal parts of an ordinary day’s activities. Perhaps the lesson for us is to simply remember that “each day [we] live is a day to make a significant difference in [our lives], or the life of another.” We may not exorcise demons or heal the sick. But maybe we’ll make a difference in someone’s life. And maybe that’s the point. In spite of our sometimes grandiose ideas, maybe we’re not really supposed to change the world. Maybe we’re just supposed to make a difference in people’s lives, one by one as we encounter them. Maybe we can welcome a refugee and save him from a war zone. Maybe we can make sure there’s food for someone who doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from. Maybe we can clothe someone in need. Maybe we can stand for human rights by signing letters for Amnesty International. Maybe we can collect supplies for a hospital in Zimbabwe so that people who need medical care can get it. Maybe we can throw our doors open wide to anyone and everyone, loving them without judging them. In all those ways and so many other ways we do what seem to be for God’s people the most ordinary things – and if we just go about doing ordinary things on ordinary days we will get noticed – especially if we’re doing them for God, because in a lot of ways the ordinary things that we do for God and because of our faith are extraordinary to the world.
If you live by the principle of radical and unconditional love for all, then you will get noticed. Just yesterday I read an article in the Washington Post about The Reverend Fred Rogers – who’s probably better known to most of you as Mr. Rogers, from “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” The article talked about the kind of theology Fred Rogers promoted in his children’s TV show, and while it was a show for children the message was an important one for adults as well, and it remains as relevant today as it was in 1962 when “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” first went on the air. As the article said, Fred Rogers
was a pastor on television in the golden era of televangelism, but [while] Christian evangelists were making a name for themselves preaching about the wickedness of mankind, ... Rogers was more interested in his viewers’ inherent value and worth. Evangelists were finding ways the human race didn’t measure up to God’s moral standard. But Rogers said over and over again: ‘You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you. There is no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.’
And if that's how Mr. Rogers wanted us to understand ourselves, that's also how he wanted us to treat others. In a book he wrote called "The World According To Mr. Rogers," he said that "love" is "an active noun ... To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now."
That’s how we make a difference – by loving unconditionally and by serving unselfishly, and by doing both without hesitation. It’s how Jesus made a difference. It’s what both Aldyna Threesya and Fred Rogers were talking about. And it isn’t always easy. Love and service should be among the most ordinary things for God’s people, but when we love unconditionally and when we serve unselfishly and when we do both without hesitation, we’re challenging the normal ways of the world, and there’s a price to be paid for doing ordinary things for God – a price we see reflected on the table this morning. Anyone who thought that loving the way Jesus loved should be welcomed by the world and should be easy and should come without cost should find the Table of the Lord a sobering place indeed.
And yet – we love. And yet – we serve. Unconditionally and unselfishly and without hesitation. These were the most ordinary things for Jesus to do – the things he did in the course of an ordinary day. These should be the most ordinary things that we do in the course of our own ordinary days. And if we love and serve unconditionally and unselfishly and without hesitation, we might be surprised at the difference we can make to people’s lives in the course of just a single ordinary day.
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