Preacher: Pastor Nathan Hosler, PhD

Date: February 4, 2024

Scripture: Mark 1:21-39, Isaiah 40:21-31

We gathered at the border. Tall, slated fence at our backs. Beyond that a dirt road flanked by razor wire. In the razor wire, clothing. Pulled from people struggling across. And beyond that, the Rio Grande. We gathered to pray, recount stories, to bear public witness and remembrance. The stories were of people; whose names we didn’t know. People who with children and families risked everything for safety—from violence and collapsed economies. After each story of someone who had died risking it all, the group responded, “Presente!”

A proclamation of lament, of confession, for justice.

Earlier that day, we—the board and staff of the National Farm Worker Ministry—visited a migrant welcome center. The center was in the gymnasium of a Catholic Church just a few blocks from the border crossing in Brownsville, Texas. The setup and work were similar to what we hosted at Washington City Church of the Brethren for about a year.

For the most part, people were assisted in figuring out their next step but not housed there. Though most of the asylum seekers moved on to a shelter nearby, some would stay. Those who were very vulnerable or at risk, might sleep there—a pregnant woman very close to giving birth, a parent with a paralyzed child. Workers caring for people day in and day out for years.

The tangible sign of welcome and concern for humanity, of service.

In our reading from the Gospel of Mark, we have three snapshots of Jesus’ early ministry. Mark is known for its brevity. Short and concise. Action oriented.

In the first pericope (fancy word for literary chunk or bit), we see Jesus enter the synagogue and heal a person. This disruption brought a very practical matter into a sacred space and disrupted.

While at the National Farm Worker Ministry board meetings last weekend, I opened several of the sessions with reflections which included excerpts from the speeches of Cesar Chavez—one of the founders of the farm worker movement. I was struck by his speech concerning the 250-mile march from Delano to Sacramento during the grape boycott.

 He wrote, “[T]he Delano march will…be one of penance—public penance for the sins of the strikers, their own personal sins as well as their yielding perhaps to feelings of hatred and revenge in the strike itself. They hope by the march to set themselves at peace with the Lord, so that the justice of their cause will be purified of all lesser motivation.” (Cesar Chavez: An Organizers Tale: Speeches, “A Penitential Procession,”11)

This emphasis on both practicality and spirituality also resonates with our tradition. The Church of the Brethren’s tagline—Continuing the work of Jesus, peacefully, simply, together. The Washington City Church of the Brethren’s line is “Seeking justice, wholeness, and community through the Gospel of Jesus.”

Mark continues—showing Jesus going about teaching and in active service. This work and ministry of proclamation and practical work must be the ongoing vocation of today’s church.

In the second pericope they entered a house and Jesus healed the mother-in-law of Simon. Again, healing—a form of service—is directly tied to the proclamation. The mother-in-law is unnamed and immediately gets up and “began to serve them.” That she is unnamed and begins to immediately “serve” after rising from her sickness, highlights the patriarchal cultural assumptions that existed then and which we must still work to undo.

However, with these qualifications in mind we can also appreciate and note the thread of mutuality in service to one another.  Jesus serves and is served. She is served and serves.

There is, however, quite a lot of work. And while that may be energizing, it is quite possible that it is overwhelming—perhaps even leading to paralysis. While our scriptures invite us into robust sharing, caring for others, and struggling for justice, this is not simply a mandate to add yet more things to a to-do list. This is no career climbing overscheduling…  I must admit that I struggle with this. I feel an urgency about the very real crises in the world—and even, though it is my job, being overwhelmed and at times stuck. I also often feel insecure—seeing others doing impressive things with prominent organizations. Both of these tendencies mean that I find it difficult to stop and keep wanting to add things.

In the 3^rd pericope in our Mark passage, we catch a glimpse of this need to rest—even for Jesus, it reads,

³⁵ In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. ³⁶ And Simon and his companions hunted for him. ³⁷ When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” (While the text records Jesus jumping back into the fray of ministry without hesitation, I wonder…could it be?, that he sighed a little, that they had found him.)

Jesus, the one who we follow, crept away to rest. He went to a “deserted place.”

As part of the dynamic reading and discernment on scriptures from across the Bible, we are challenged to imitate Jesus and act but also to understand our finitude—our smallness, and God’s provision. God’s provision but also the need to ask the community for help. Our walking by faith is not alone and not merely by our power, cleverness, or resume.  

We will close by reading from the prophet Isaiah. Pay attention for the ways that this reorients us away from the false assumption that we need to “go it alone,” figure it all out, be heroic, be a martyr serving until we are bitter with tiredness. This does not absolve us from legitimate responsibility, but it does remind us of our relationship and place in relation to God. We are not alone. It is not up to us alone. Hear these words:

Isaiah 40:21-31

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²¹ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
    Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
²² It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
    and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
    and spreads them like a tent to live in,
²³ who brings princes to naught
    and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

²⁴ Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
    scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
    and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

²⁵ To whom, then, will you compare me,
    or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high and see:
    Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
    calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
    mighty in power,
    not one is missing.

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,
    and assert, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
    and my right is disregarded by my God”?
²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
    his understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the faint
    and strengthens the powerless.
³⁰ Even youths will faint and be weary,
    and the young will fall exhausted,
³¹ but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.