Epiphany 6, Year B

Sixth Sunday After Epiphany Year B Mark 1:40-45 February 15, 2009 The Rev. Benton Quest

I think we have a theme going on in our gospel readings of late. Pretty simple: Jesus goes someplace; heals someone; word gets out that there is healing going on; people come to get healed; and Jesus runs away. It’s kind of nice when you first look at it. Jesus is healing people and that seems like a nice thing. But then Jesus high-tails it off to the wilderness just when others show up for help. It is at this point that I get a little angry. It is kind of like those Christmas “Door Buster” sales: The stores promise you a great deal, but by the time you get there, the deal is gone! That is SO frustrating! And I am sure the people who were coming out to find Jesus for healing were feeling pretty frustrated also.

Why didn’t Jesus just hang around and heal the people? Wouldn’t that be a good way to attract followers? It would be kind of like giving them a free coupon or something. Heal them and then they stick around! Makes great marketing sense to me! So if it is such a good idea, why doesn’t Jesus do it?

When I think about this whole situation, I remember what a piano teacher once said to me. I love the Bach Two-Part Inventions and really wanted to learn how to play them. My teacher kept telling me that I needed to practice! He said that the only way to truly own the pieces was by practicing. He then said that even if he had pill that would allow me to play the Two-Part Inventions, he would not give it to me. The commitment to practice and the discipline of practice would give the music its fullness and richness that would never be there if it were just bestowed. I think we can hear that is some synthesized music. It is perfect in timing and intonation but it sounds flat; it is lacking depth and nuance. It is lacking life.

Now I cannot prove this, but I think Jesus’ method of “Hit-and-Run” healings is an attempt to not just bestow some kind of synthesized faith on the people. Jesus did not want his followers to have a flat, dead, faith; he wanted them to have a rich, full, living faith. I believe Jesus could have had the people form two lines and just run down the middle, high-fiving them all and curing them all. Or if that were too strenuous, then he could have just waved his hand or something and cured them. But what would that have given them? They would have been cured, but would they have a deep and enduring faith?

From Biblical times until today, people haven’t changed much. We still want an instant cure to whatever ails us. All we have to do is turn on the television and find all kinds of devices and gadgets to give us what we want instantly. We can get instant weight loss. Instant credit. Instantly wonderful children. Instant language acquisition. Instant relief of pain. Find instant love. No, we really haven’t changed. Whatever we want, there is someone on TV telling us how to get it instantly. The problem with all of these “instant” methods is that they give us what we want, but usually we are not emotionally ready to properly use the gift.

I am sure we are all aware of people who have used fad diets to lose a ton of weight, just to gain it all back. We have all also heard stories of people who have won the lottery, just to spend it all foolishly and end up poorer than before they started. And there is a reason why drivers’ licenses are withheld until kid are 16 years old. A gift that is given when the person is not ready to receive it can be dangerous.

I think Jesus did a “drive-by” healing but then left when the crowds would show up was that those who were streaming in to be healed were not yet ready to be healed. Jesus presented the people with a goal, to be healed, but the people were not yet ready to receive it. Kind of like promising a kid a new car when had gotten his license and has show that he is responsible to drive. The gift of the car is still a free gift; it is just that the gift would be dangerous if the child were not ready for it. And a good parent is going to not give the gift until the child is ready.

Now, I know I am moving out into the land of thin ice, here. Too often we interchange the meanings of “being ready” and “earning.” What I am talking about here is not earning. We do not earn the loving gifts of God. If we had to earn God’s gifts, then they would not be gifts at all, they would be payment. The paycheck I get for making coffee is not a gift, I did something and I am getting paid for it. I earned that paycheck. However, the love we find in our lives, that is a gift. As we mature, we recognize more and more that we are surrounded by love. We gain the maturity to treat that love with respect and care. We gain the maturity to not abuse that gift we have been given. In my own life, it seemed that love would never find me, but as I matured, I found that love was there. It was not something that I earned, it was something that I grew to understand.

We don’t know why Jesus chose to heal the people he healed and to avoid those he avoided. Our faith leads us to believe that Jesus would do what is in the best interest of us all. I am sure that if it were for the best interest of the crowds following Jesus, he would have healed them all. He could have healed them all. That Jesus chose to not heal the people must lead us to believe that it was not in the best interest of the people to be healed at that time. Here is where it can get confusing. I am not saying that the people who were healed were any better, or the people who were not healed were any worse. What we must assume is that it was not the proper time for this to happen.

I think this may be one of the hardest things for us to learn. We need to keep looking for Jesus and following Jesus, but if we are not finding the miraculous, that does not mean we have been abandoned or that we are bad. It means that in the infinite wisdom of our Savior, the time is not right. We need to trust that the one who gave his life for us looking out for our best interest. We need to trust that the gift has not been withdrawn, but is being held until the time is right.

As people, we want the easy way. I know I really wanted to pill to allow me to play the two-part inventions. But if you think about it, there is really only one time in our lives where our every need is anticipated and everything is given to us. That would be when we are babies. If we were to be given everything we wanted when we wanted, we would never grow and mature. We would never mature to understand the fullness and depth of life. If every time we asked for something in prayer and it would just appear, we would develop a flat, lifeless, Santa Clause kind of faith. I would hope we can see that there are times when God withholding what we ask for in prayer is, in fact, a gift.

We have a loving and concerned Savior. We have a “hands on” kind of God. We have a loving parent that may not give us everything we want, but will definitely give us what we need to grow to our fullest faith potential. Our task is to continue to seek our Lord, and to trust that we will be given what we need for the journey.