One of the things you can count on when reading the Gospel of Mark, is that everything moves rapidly. One moment Jesus is being baptized in the river Jordan; the next, he’s being forced into the wilderness to be tempted to give up on God’s plan and make his own. And before you can take a deep breath or turn a page to the a new chapter, Mark records Jesus’ call for disciples and just as rapidly, gets down to work. His first task is the one we just read…he heals a man with an unclean spirit. All this happens in the first 28 verses. Amazing!

I’ve been reading another book by one of my favorite writers, Anne Tyler. This one, “The Amateur Marriage”[1] seemingly moves at the speed of light. There are chapters but no hint that any real time is passing. One moment there’s a marriage, children, a misplaced kid, a new found grandson, a divorce and remarriage and the next a death, life restored, and a family straining to reconnect. No dates, no sense that the next words will also be the next era, the next 5, 10 years down the road. There’s a passing of time, a lot of time without the sound of a clock ticking or a page in a calendar turning to another day, month or year. I’ve been surprised more than once and yet, not unhappily so. After all, it’s life and life is recorded not by jotting down each precise moment but more often than not by grabbing large chunks of time, huge spaces of things happening and lots of untold, perhaps even uninteresting events clustered into semi-similar categories, which in and of themselves, have little meaning. What we know is that people give life meaning. Human beings with their emotions and needs, their feelings of pleasures and pain, desires and hopes fill the spaces of time in a life lived.

Perhaps that’s why Mark spends most of his gospel recreating images, retelling events, and painting pictures of Jesus doing what Jesus does best…interacting with others…with other human beings. Mark wants to get to the heart and reason for Jesus ministry…to restore God’s people to God’s holy purpose and plan by healing our brokenness and preaching, leading, and loving them. All of them – the good, the bad and yes, as in this passage, even the ugly.

For indeed, this man whom an unclean spirit tormented suffered from an inner demon to such an extent others feared him. He became an outcast, his condition raising up walls of indifference, apathy, prejudice, fear, even hatred. In the eyes of others, he was a voice for evil, a tool of the inner workings of the enemy but under the ugly and challenging words this demon possessed man is forced to utter, Christ sees something worth saving. He reaches out and heals him.

Our own lives may be colored by pale shades of struggle and diminished self-esteem as we wrestle with the demons, which might plague us. Perhaps we are victimized by our lack of resources, our poverty both economic and spiritual. Perhaps we struggle with addictions that rule our existence, alcohol, drugs, a love of money or propensity to want more, and more and more. Perhaps we are battling a hidden secret we dare not share or we have fallen victim to an obsession to make an easy buck by gambling away our assets. Perhaps we feel pinned down by a certainty that the opinions of our parents, brothers, sisters, and friends regarding our worth define how we should live out our lives as worthless. Perhaps we struggle with our short tempers and envious desires to have what others have in the way of goods, looks, money, houses, cars or a position in society. Whatever we might be battling – and we all have such battles whether we admit them or not, the enduring message of Mark’s recording of this event in Jesus’ ministry is very clear. In God’s eyes, by Christ’s love and sacrifice, we are made worthy of healing. No one can take this from us. God has already proclaimed us as worthy, as his own and therefore, as children of God’s divine heart.

And that is who Jesus saw on the edge of the town…not a hideous ogre and fiend but a friend of God, a man of worth, one to whom Christ could and would heal. Once healed the man. Where once the demon possessed man was scorned and rejected now he was freed and made whole, an example of the power of Almighty God and of son, Jesus Christ. This is the God we worship and the One who reclaims us for a divine purpose each and every day of our lives. Amen.

[1] Anne Tyler, “The Amateur Heart” Ballantine Books, NY C. 2006

Each year the Cornerstone Foundation provides 6000 beds of shelter, serves over 40,000 meals, gives away 35,000 items from its Clothing Bank, and provides a safe and secure haven for youths to gather for social, educational and recreational activities.  As a local organization, the Cornerstone Foundation depends on the generosity of its neighbors to keep these very beneficial programs going.

One way that you can support Cornerstone is participating in its annual Soupfest.  The 2014 Soupfest will be held on November 6, 2014 from 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm at St. Bernard’s Church in Rockville with all proceeds benefiting The Cornerstone Foundation.

Music will be performed by Ellington music phenom Rob Thomas from “Off the Clock”.

Featured Restaurants include R House, The Hidden Still, and The Country Butcher.

Admission is Free!

Raffle tickets can be purchased for $20 by contacting David Joy at [email protected]  Raffle prizes include $500, $400, $300, and $200 Visa Gift Cards.

The Cornerstone Foundation provides support in the form of a Soup Kitchen, Shelter and Clothing Bank.  For more information please check out their website.

  When I was in junior high, I remember a girl named Ruth Olsen. Every time I saw Ruth I would think to myself “Boy, that girl is so ugly.” Of course, it was a very unkind thing to think but, in my defense, I was a kid very unsure of my own appearance. I wondered, a lot actually, if anyone was looking my way and thinking the same thing about me. Kids being kids, I shared my opinion of Ruth with all my friends. It gave us something and someone to laugh at and helped us all feel more secure about ourselves. Or, so we thought.

I didn’t pay much attention to Ruth other than to notice, she didn’t appear to have many friends. She was usually alone, which from my limited and unkind perspective, made sense. Good-looking kids had good-looking friends and a lot of them. In contrast, ugly kids either didn’t have any friends or hung out with other ugly kids and not many of those. In my world, those were the parameters of being a kid. We accepted the spoken and non-spoken rules of growing up and assumed this was just the way things were. So, it made sense not to be seen with ugly kids or weird kids, eggheads or nerds, the kids who dressed funny or acted strange. Close association with these unfortunates might be very unfortunate indeed…at least for those of us who thought we were somehow better than they.

Now, I don’t know how it happened or even, when it happened but one day Ruth and I became friends, good friends and suddenly I stopped thinking of Ruth as ugly. In fact, it wasn’t too long after we became friends I wondered how I could have ever seen her as ugly. She had become my friend and once I took the time to get to know her for who she really was I no longer thought about looks – hers or mine. I just found her to be a really nice person, a person I liked and someone with whom I wanted to be seen.

Now I’m telling you this story, embarrassing as it is, because I never forgot the lesson I learned that day, the day I became Ruth’s friend and she became mine. It was on that day that I recognized the great sin I had committed, the sin of indifference. Prior to really getting to know Ruth, I hadn’t bothered to see her as a person of value, someone who had many good qualities and who was a beloved child of God just like the cheerleaders I envied or the scholars I admired and wanted to be like. Ruth was a person God loved. Who was I to think less of her than I had thought of myself?

Jesus’ parable has a lot to say about indifference. There is no indication that the rich man in the parable is cruel to Lazarus. He is not sending Lazarus away or refusing to let him sit by his gate each day. But on the other hand, the rich man really doesn’t see Lazarus at all. If he did,
than he might be moved to feed him, to tend his wounds, and to send the dogs away so they would quit pestering and harassing Lazarus. He might even invite Lazarus to join him at his table. But the rich man doesn’t do any of these things. His indifference keeps him from recognizing Lazarus’ value as a person and keeping Lazarus at a distance. To the rich man, Lazarus is simply one of the unfortunate ones whose situation has been determined by the fickled hand of fate. Some people get all the breaks, some get none. It never occurs to the rich man that he may be able to change the situation.

Jesus was telling this parable to a Jewish crowd who, much like a pre-teen measuring her worth by how many friends she might have, measured their worth in God’s eyes by counting their earthly wealth. The Jewish hierarchy thought if one was rich, one was blessed, if poor, than cursed. So it was a great surprise to those listening when Jesus turned the tables upside down yet again. In the afterlife, the rich man and the poor man would trade places. He, who was rich, would suffer while the poor man would rest in ease. Then, the question for those listening to Jesus was “who are God’s favored?” Could anyone be assured of their ultimate fate if such a fate did not rest on what one had accumulated in this life?” Jesus was changing the rules in the middle of the game.

Well, Jesus is always changing the rules in the middle of the game or so it seems. More likely, we have yet to learn the rules so we don’t know when or even, if those rules are changed.  That’s part of growing in faith…understanding Christ’s way and not just living our way. It’s been said that this story was the spark that touched off the revolution in Albert Schweitzer’s life. After reading this parable, Schweitzer concluded that Africa was the beggar lying at Europe’s door, and in response, he founded
the Lambarene Hospital. Schweitzer, to his credit, could not be indifferent to Africa’s hurting population. He once wrote: “Only through love can we attain communion with God.”

Love seems to be the key to any interaction we have with God or God has with us…Love. Learning to live out a commitment to love others in Christ’s name and for Christ’s sake is the call on our hearts and brings us closer to a fuller understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. Love initiates our response to stand with rather than not apart from those
God puts in our way. It’s love that breaks down the barriers that make us indifferent and disinterested. It was love that made Schweitzer turn from one understanding of life to another, to recognize the call God had placed on his heart. He heard the call and then he followed making a difference not only in his own life but in the lives of countless others.

Like most of Jesus parables, there are moments in which we are sure we don’t want to know what comes next. This is certainly one such story. Perhaps the most frightening moment is the moment when Abraham speaks these words: “Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” It suggests that there is time on this side of life to make a better choice and embrace discipleship. But at some point the chasm will be fixed and one will not be allowed to make amends or
change their ways. In this life we can hold ourselves accountable and choose another path. We can follow as those touched by a Lord that loved us enough to give everything for us. We are invited to see Christ in the poor, dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the hungry, the homeless, the lost, the frightened, and the needy among us and to do what Christ, in his life on earth, taught us to do. But our response comes now. Once the chasm is fixed; once life on earth ends, the time to take a positive step forward is past.

So, we are invited to give our lives in profound ways – it’s not always easy. We may be called to make sacrifices, giving our lives in ways that fulfill a deep, gratifying sense of purpose and meaning. The sacrifices are real; Dietrich Bonhoeffer called them “the cost of discipleship” – but the rewards are awesome. Pushing aside our natural or even unnatural aversion toward someone who may be a bit awkward or different in some way from us can be most rewarding. Not only may we see people differently, we may just find how much better we come to understand ourselves and Christ.

How Jesus wanted his listener to hear this truth! There is no salvation for those who rely on material goods rather than human interaction. There is no hope for those who leave this life less than it was before they enter it. There is no place to run to, no way to escape for those who make choices, which harm rather than heal. We spend our lives learning how to invest ourselves in one another and our model, our witness, our example and our hope rests in Christ who invested his whole life in us. There is a cost to discipleship but there is also a wealth of blessing. Amen.