"Signs"
Mark Ferns
This morning we join together with that wider body of believers around the world on this First Sunday of Lent. This is the beginning of what should be a quiet time in which we strengthen our faith. The 40 days of Lent are a reflection of the 40 days that Jesus spent alone fasting and praying in the Wilderness before He started on His mission.
In these times many of us have lost touch with what the season of Lent is meant to be, instead competing with one another with “what will you be giving up for Lent.” Viewing Lent as the season of never-really-meant-to-be-kept New Year’s Resolutions. That awkward time that falls between the Super Bowl and the beginning of the baseball season where the sports fan is caught up in college basketball’s March Madness.
In this, the year 2 of the pandemic, we find ourselves with the opportunity for renewal, by focusing on what the season of Lent really means. In this uncertain world we are challenged to take the time to let go of the concerns and fears of the world around us and join Christ in the Wilderness. To take the time to reflect upon scripture and open ourselves to greater understanding. To face our fears, confront the temptations and ask what it is that God calls us to do.
On this first Sunday of Lent we are encouraged to enter the Wilderness where we can spend time in prayer, study and contemplation. Into the Wilderness where we can take the time to let the world go on its way and focus instead on our relationships with God. This can be a time of fasting and prayer, a time for self-examination and repentance. A time to wrestle with our fears and doubts. A time to set aside the things of this world and ponder the mysteries.
How do we today step into a dangerous Wilderness to face our fears? For those who journey into a physical Wilderness like the Eagle Caps we prepare ourselves by bringing a map. A map that points to the signs that guide us in the directions that we think we want to travel. Signs that tell us that we are indeed on the right trail.
Today’s scriptures point to some of the signs. Noah looks to a rainbow and sees a promise. Jesus sees the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. An affirming sign that what He is about to do is what He must do.
Today I would like to share three signs that have recently baffled me. The first sign is the video series “The Chosen”. The Chosen is a fresh re-telling of the Gospels whose first season was just viewed by our adult study group. The process of making the series began several years ago, long before last year’s onset of the pandemic. By some strange coincidence the first season was ready to be shared when it was most needed. It just happened, right, just happened to become available last summer. Although we find ourselves physically separated by the realities of the pandemic we have been freely given the means to reconnect ourselves with God through the re-imagining of the Good News, the sharing of the Gospel as a video series. For our study group I find that The Chosen has been a way in which we could come together in an electronic medium. A true God Send that showed up when most needed.
The second sign? I would like share with you a story told to me earlier this year. As many of you know I have a hobby that involves the use of a metal detector. I like to look for lost things like old coins and gold nuggets. The hobby has brought me some new friends, including one special person who we will call “Mike”. Mike is the best detectorist that I have ever known. Over the years I have had several opportunities to visit with him about all sorts of things. He has not been shy about sharing how he feels about many things, including his doubts about organized religion. I sense that he has been badly hurt over the years. Christmas is especially rough for Mike. He deeply misses his father who would have turned 96 last December. In recent years around Christmas time Mike has been quietly paying for groceries bought by needy families in his home town. Goes down to the local big box store, spies a family in need and goes up to the checker and offers to pay for what the family has brought to the check-out stand. An act of compassion done quietly.
An act of compassion that returned a sign this last year. In the change that the checker returned to Mike was a penny. An old wheat penny, something that you very seldom see today. An old penny that caught Mike’s eye. He turned it over in his hand and read the date. 1924, the year in which his deeply-missed father was born. A sign to Mike that he was being watched over, that what Mike was doing was affirmed. A sign that cannot be explained away in any logical fashion. A story that was told to me by Mike, meant to be shared here today.
The third sign? A personal experience that I cannot explain. Like my dear wife Betsy, I spend quite a bit of time with my nose buried in a book. Books are meant to be read and our good friend Bev had Betsy go through Bev’s basement stash looking for things to read. Betsy found some books by Sharon McCrumb, a mystery author who I enjoy reading. Turns out that McCrumb has written a number of books set in the Appalachians that include parts of the old ballads of the mountain folk.
As I read the lines to one of these old ballads a melody came into my head. For some reason, I knew the music. The words are “I wonder as I wander, out under the sky; Why poor baby Jesus was sent forth to die, for poor ornery sinners like you and like I; I wonder as I wander, out under the sky.” I spent some time looking on the internet and finally found the song. The melody was what I remembered. The ballad was from the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Unfortunately only the first verse of original ballad had survived. Newer versions have been recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford among others.
But I do not remember hearing it on the radio. I do dimly remember hearing it from my grandmother who had watched over me as an infant. My grandmother who had been born and raised in those Great Smokey Mountains of far eastern Tennessee. The grandmother who I suspect was responsible for my accent. It is perhaps a memory of a ballad gently sung to me as a young child. A ballad which, unlike the recorded versions ends in my memory with the affirming words of “and raised from the Tomb.”
Three signs, none of which can be easily explained away. These are three signs that confound my wisdom. An ongoing video series that reimagines the Gospel in a fresh, new way. A series that reaches out to that vast multitude who have never really heard the story. A series that appears when it is most needed.
An old coin given back in change from a freely-given gift of compassion. A coin that bears the numbers that strengthens a heart and brings peace to the soul. Numbers that may not mean anything to most but a number that means a great deal to the one who received it.
And a tune that echoes from the ancestral mountains. A ballad that brings to the surface old memories. A ballad which ends with a memory of the words “and raised from the Tomb.”
“Settlers and Pioneers”
Pastor Randy Butler
I love this scene in the gospel of Mark. Jesus and a few of his disciples have been in the local synagogue. It has been an eventful morning as Jesus, this new preacher and teacher, has spoken with notable authority, unlike anyone the people have ever heard. And not only that, he cast out demons from a man who was present that morning. Of course the Jewish Sabbath is on a Saturday, but to make it relevant to us as we said last week, not your average Sunday morning service. After the service Jesus goes home with Simon and Andrew to their house. James and John go with them. It’s like Sunday brunch after the service. When they arrive, they are expecting the aroma of a nice warm meal cooking, but nothing. And that’s because Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with a fever.
It’s a beautiful inside look at the family life of Simon and Andrew. Though very brief, it is one of the most intimate little scenes in the New Testament. When I was a boy growing up in Sacramento, we had a general practitioner named Dr. English. I say a general practitioner, maybe a pediatrician. And she made house calls, like they did in those days. She came to our home when I was sick or my sister was sick. And I remember her very well as an older woman, kind and caring, even gentle, with a warm smile. It was OK when she felt my glands and used that tongue depressor, and checked my breathing with the stethoscope. I trusted Dr. English.
I wonder if that is how Simon’s mother-in-law felt when Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up. Mark is quite detailed actually. We can picture it – as she is lying there, Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her. And she served them the meal they had so looked forward to.
The great divine physician was making a house call. Jesus gently healed her in the quiet of the family home. When Jesus enters the house, health is restored. When Jesus comes into our house, health is restored. He brings wholeness and healing.
Well word gets out that Simon’s mother-in-law was healed. And the crowds start showing up at the door. The whole city, says Mark, was gathered at the threshold. And Jesus responded with care. He healed the sick and cast out demons as they came to him. And it sort of begins to look like Simon’s home is becoming a community health clinic, or emergency room. People waiting in the front to see the doctor, hoping to get an appointment; lining up to receive their vaccination.
I once heard someone compare the church to a M.A.S.H. unit. You know, a Mobile Army Surgical Unit. A moveable, mobile, adaptable, emergency center right out there on the front lines of the action. Ready to serve and help those who are hurt in the battle. A great image and symbol of the church. Not lost on the current Catholic Pope Francis who a few years ago called upon the church to serve as a field hospital for the wounded. In the many decades of ministry at this location in Baker City I think we have been a kind field hospital for those wounded in action – the battle that life can sometimes be. Even today we are a staging ground for feeding children in the community. On Thursday morning UPS delivered eight large boxes of healthy packaged foods from Costco, for our Backpacks ministry. Over 200 children are provided with packs filled with food every week. Before COVID, we fed students from Baker Middle School across the street three mornings a week. On Sunday mornings we are a sanctuary for those trying to stay healthy spiritually and emotionally and socially. A very big challenge during a pandemic. But we are indeed a kind of field hospital or MASH unit, responding to physical, spiritual, social and emotional needs in Baker, as best we can.
Now it is a pivotal moment for Jesus. His ministry is growing very rapidly. And it might seem very attractive for him to establish a sort of local practice, settle down in Capernaum, build a new synagogue, begin healing ministries, and preach to thousands each day. This could be a home base for the new church, maybe it will even be a successful megachurch. We snicker, but it was a very real temptation for Jesus. Mark doesn’t elaborate too much on what happened out there in that forty day wilderness wrestling match with Satan, just says Jesus was tested. Matthew in his gospel fills the picture in. And in the third temptation Satan takes Jesus to a high mountain, shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and their splendor, and says seductively, “All this can be yours if you will just fall down and worship me.” A very real possibility and a very real temptation for Jesus, trying to stay clear on just what he is here for.
And that is why Mark tells us that in the midst of all this activity and acclaim and all this need, Jesus, in the morning, while it was still very dark, got up and went out to a deserted place, where he prayed. It is in the dark of early dawn, in a quiet place, where he gets his head and his heart straight on what he is all about and who he is. He is renewing his sense of vocation and purpose. Mark tells us in one short verse, placed right in the middle of an action packed chapter. I love what writer Henri Nouwen says about Jesus’ prayer in solitude. He writes, “In the center of breathless activities we hear a restful breathing. Surrounded by hours of moving we find a moment of quiet stillness. In the heart of much involvement there are words of withdrawal. In the midst of action there is contemplation. And after much togetherness there is solitude.” Nouwen adds this: “The more I read this nearly silent sentence locked in between the loud words of action, the more I have the sense that the secret of Jesus’ ministry is hidden in that lonely place where he went to pray, early in the morning, long before dawn.”
It’s like Jesus’ whole life and ministry, and ours too depends on this single quiet verse in the middle of all the action and noise. Do you have a quiet place, a place of solitude? If you return there again and again it will be the place where your own sense of purpose is refined and renewed, bringing health and wholeness to yourself, your home, our church and our community.
So where is Jesus, wonder these new followers of his. “Where is he? This is the making of something great, all these healings, all these people coming – the crowds are huge?” So they go searching for him, and when they find him, they tell him – “Everybody is searching for you.” As if to say, “They need you back in Capernaum, we need you. This could really be a success. Let’s go back and pick up where we left off yesterday. What are you doing out here in the desert anyway so early in the morning?” But Jesus has sorted this out in his heart and mind, and he answers simply, “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” He knows what he wants. And that is what they did – they went on to the next town.
Many have asked about the nature and calling of the church. And they have asked the question. Are we settlers or are we pioneers? Should the church be a settling down or moving out? It’s a good question, and it reflects the tension and balance between establishing permanent kingdom outposts, permanent churches on the one hand, and more mobile outreach on the other hand. Jesus seems to be inclined to the latter. Granted he has a specific ministry and a limited amount of time to get it done. But he does not want to be confined to one place or situation. He didn’t stay and build a successful operation in Capernaum. He went to sow seeds in the next place. He was not a settler. He was very much a pioneer. The book of Hebrews even calls him the pioneer and perfector of our faith, and encourages us to look to him as he blazes the trail for us.
First Presbyterian Church Baker City has been here since 1884, so I guess you could say we are pretty well settled. But the Oregon Trail is just outside here and we want to keep our pioneer spirit alive as well. Our ministry is right out there on the trail. And as we look forward to the future of our congregation we will want to continue to clarify just why God sent us here and what our purpose is. That is the prayer part. That is the early morning in the deserted place part. We keep doing that. But we look beyond the threshold of the doorway as well. Into the community, and I would suggest, into Eastern Oregon. We are a very well-resourced congregation and our ministry may very well be all up and down the trail. Are we settlers? There is a time for that. But what about our pioneer spirit? Let’s keep that alive too. Amen.
