Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-12, 21c
Mark 1:29-39
Year B
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
When I was a kid, dreaming at night could be quite an adventure. There were dreams about encounters with school bullies, where I got the upper hand. There the weird ones where people from church got mixed up with people at school that got mixed up with family members. One time, I dreamt I was getting into a school bus behind my sister, who turned around and said, "what are you doing in my dream?"! I blurted out to her, "What are you doing in my dream?"!
But the most glorious dreams were when I got to fly. Not in an airplane, but free and unencumbered, going down the basement and gliding over stairs, jumping off the ground and taking flight up, over everything, and feeling giddy and lighter than air and free. It was like Peter Pan inviting Wendy, Michael, and John to think happy thoughts while Tinkerbell sprinkled fairy dust. And then I would wake up and want to close my eyes and get right back up in the air. I haven't had a good flying dream in years!
Did you ever wish you could get away from it all? Did you ever wish you could rise above the fray that is your life, and move onward and upward? Do you ever dream about flying, away? Don't you love ad campaigns like those for Southwest, who with the allure of low fares and wanderlust, say, "feel free to move about the country?"
Here's your chance. Here's your ticket. And it's not a dream, though it might seem dreamy enough.
The holy, awesome, and mighty God offers freedom, blessing, salvation, and a way out and a way up and over wherever we are stuck and worn, and off our game.
This new way with God happens as you are dipped in the waters of baptism. It happens as you make a statement of faith such as at confirmation, and continue flying. It happens as you make a decision to speak to others out of faith. It happens as you make a decision to stop an activity that instead of a dream, is becoming a nightmare.
Ancient Israel dreamed about a way of exile, no longer eking out subsistence. Every day they were tempted to align themselves with gods that seem to favor those in power, and bow down to statuettes forged from gold or silver. Every day they wondered whether God might have forgotten them, forgotten the promises made to Abraham, forgotten the release given over the Egyptians, forgotten the covenant through Moses made on Sinai. For Israel, the dream was to get home safely, to get back to Canaan, to live at peace and to be restored to God's peace.
To the dreamers, to those who wonder whether God remembers anything, to those stuck in exile or facing walls that seems immovable, God speaks:
getting a way out and up and over is mine to grant. My power is over those who grab and abuse it, over presidents and dictators, over pastors and bishops, over terrorists and CEO's, over all who inhabit the earth who are like grasshoppers.
(see Isaiah 40:21-30)
God does not tire, God knows more than you could imagine, and God's advocates for those like Rosa Parks who, when told to move to the back of the bus because she had brown skin, said "no, not today, for my feet are tired." God's advocates for those like Coretta Scott King who did not want simply to be a legend but an active pursuer of her husband's dream that people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, and that one day, in the words of the spiritual, we really know that we are free at last, free at last, Thank God almighty, we are free at last.
An editorial cartoon published just a few days ago shows figures of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King above the earth (could I say flying?) and holding hands.
Isaiah's prophecy rings out for all those who wait for a change for good, who wait for healing and wholeness, who wait for freedom and justice:
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 be faint.
(Isaiah 40:31)
People of God at Christ the King, what are you waiting for? What are you dreaming about? Where are you tired? Where are you stuck?
God has a word for you, too. It is a call to freedom in the gospel, freedom from sin and dis-ease, freedom to live in the light of Christ. If you have been baptized, you get to live in that freedom. If you are struck by the notion that it is God's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, you get to bask in glory. If Christ touches you through the Word and the Sacraments, the means of grace, then you can rise from the dead.
That call for many people gets confused with a "to do list." Our experience of church becomes a burden because there is always too much to do. Our experience of the gospel is quickly followed by "shoulds," and we become tired, overwhelmed, or stuck.
Jesus came into the home of his disciples, Simon and Andrew, and discovered Simon's mother-in-law tired, stuck, and with a fever. Her place was like Israel in exile, in danger of never being at home again, no longer able to be a part of her family. For that woman, she could no longer do anything that made her feel a part of the social fabric that was woven into her community.
Jesus takes her by the hand and lifts her up. He raises her, as it were, from the dead! He gets into her stuckness, and provides a way out and a way back. And from no longer being able, she has been restored to an able being. She jumps into all that things that she can do, all the things she gets to do, she serves Jesus and his friends.
Oh, people of God who are called to freedom in the gospel! There is so much we can get to do. The freedom we live by is the freedom to serve others. We are free to bask in God's grace, and to be lifted up by Jesus' own example of service, of giving himself over to others, of getting into our lives and inviting us follow the path he marks for us through the cross and the empty tomb.
Here's a list, which you can call a "get to do list." Meet those who are joining Christ the King next Sunday, and invite them to something that fills you with energy. Find out about our new Health and Wellness Ministry who have prepared a survey, and come to a healing service on Sunday evening, February 26. Plan to attend the Global Mission Event this July 27-30, so that you can bask in the freedom with others who serve Jesus throughout the world and who advocate for those most in need. Make as your primary ministry those in your family, and map out your own "get to do" list based on your own baptism and the call to serve others. Invite a friend to come with you to a church activity or worship service. Plan to come to a Cottage Meeting to tell God's story at Christ the King, and dream about where we might be flying to in God's future. Pray for Palestinian Lutherans who dream about a world without violence and walls that separate, and for other lands torn apart that we might breathe peace. Befriend youth in this congregation. Visit the elderly and the sick of this congregation. Receive bread and wine with joy, knowing that Christ is here lifting us up, restoring us to new life, and sing your heart out.
Do all for the sake of the gospel, so that we may share in its blessings, and dream about flying, with God.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
