Control

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
January 31, 2021

 

4 Epiphany B 

          Last Sunday, I told you a little bit about the Learning from London course I took in 2019.  In that class, I spent 8 days experiencing a vast array of church settings in London and learned how each was connecting with its community.  In addition to visiting churches, we spent a morning at the Gregory Centre for Church Multiplication, an arm of the Church of England.  The Gregory Centre for Church Multiplication, or CCX as the organization is called, is tasked with founding 50 new churches over the next 25 years.  They believe that every church is intended to multiply and that the work of the church is to reach new people in new ways.  One of the most startling things I heard that day was that churches are programmed for either control or growth.  I have thought about that comment many times since then as we work to grow Christ Church by reaching new people in new ways.  Are we programmed for control or for growth?

          Last week, we also heard Jesus utter the first words of his ministry.  “The Kingdom of God has arrived.  Repent and believe the Good News.”  With those words, Jesus gives us his mission which is to show people that the Kingdom of God has arrived and invite them to experience that Kingdom through repentance and belief in the Good News.  This morning, Jesus and his freshly minted disciples enter the synagogue at Capernaum to worship on the Sabbath.  The synagogue was no doubt a place of comfort and stability for the worshippers; a place where they experienced the love of God through each other and a place where they learned about the law and the prophets and how to live as God’s faithful people.  Jesus was clearly a gifted teacher, and the people were astounded at what he had to say.  But we are not told what Jesus said because Mark’s gospel tends to be more concerned with what Jesus did than what he said.  And what Jesus did was to cast an unclean spirit out of a man, which astonished the people even more than did Jesus’ teaching.

          This is Jesus’ first action after announcing that the Kingdom of God has arrived, and Jesus uses his actions in Mark’s gospel to show us what the Kingdom of God looks like.  What does this story teach us about the Kingdom of God?

          First, included among those in the synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit.  Whatever we might think that actually means in the 21^st century, it surely meant that the synagogue, and the Kingdom of God, includes all sorts and conditions of people.  There were no barriers around the synagogue to keep the man out, nor are there barriers around the Kingdom of God to keep people out.  If we think of a faith community as only including those who are considered “pure” then we are ignoring what Jesus has to say about the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is open to everyone, no exceptions.

          Secondly, the work of the Kingdom of God is about healing, which is really about liberation.   Jesus healed the man with the unclean spirit, and Jesus will heal the woman with the flow of blood, and raise Jairus’s daughter from the dead, and on and on, liberating people from bondage to all that holds them captive.  Ultimately, the death and resurrection of Jesus will set humankind free from bondage to sin and death.  The Kingdom of God is about liberation.

          Thirdly, the unclean spirit recognized Jesus as the Holy One of God before any of the worshippers did, and before the disciples did for that matter.  The unclean spirit recognized in Jesus the power to destroy unclean spirits, and the unclean spirit was correct.  In the Kingdom of God, the Holy One of God is recognized by the least likely people found in the least likely places.  We do not learn about the Kingdom of God and the power of Jesus only by listening to each other.  We can learn much if we listen to unlikely voices and look in unlikely places. 

Radical inclusion, liberation, and deep listening are all three about letting go of control and letting the Kingdom of God grow in our midst.  All three reflect a willingness to change and do things in new ways, and an openness to seeing the Kingdom of God at work in ways beyond our imagination.  Christ Church can be a place of a place of comfort and stability; a place where we experience the love of God through each other and a place where we learn how to live as God’s faithful people AND be a place where we find new ways to reach new people with the transforming, liberating love of God that we cannot control. 

Mark’s gospel does not tell us how the synagogue or the people in the synagogue that sabbath were changed by the presence of Jesus, other than that they were amazed and astounded.  But how they were changed is not the point.  The point is how we can be changed.  In our reflection on our time at the Centre for Church Multiplication, I wondered aloud if a church that was once programmed for control could be reprogrammed for growth or if the DNA of a church was unchangeable.  The answer was that typically a catastrophic event is required to effect that kind of change in the DNA of a congregation.  Christ Church has weathered catastrophic events in the past, and from what I understand, each time has emerged more programmed for growth.  The pandemic is another such catastrophic event and in the summer or fall, we will begin to rebuild our life together.  In the midst of this current challenge, I believe God calls us to prayerfully consider how we can become ever more a place that lives out the radical inclusion, liberation, and deep listening of the Kingdom of God, living out a love we cannot control.                                                                                   

                                                                  Amen.