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Mark 1:29=39 > Rei Wahl: 32-37

rebruary Ty 1971
John li, Buchanan

cE were common people: fishermen, herdsmen, carpenters, husbands and
wives, the very old and the very young. Just average people whose every
energy was devoted to the provision of food, clothing and shelter.| Shey,
cesteiniy-were-not-phttosephers—er—theotogtens. [ they were not even particu-
larly religious. | They-had-neithen-the—timefor WoF”the—InCTINattontowars
If-asked;— they -probabiy could
not—have done-a-very-credible—job-of-articutating—their-own-needs-— beyond
the-physioet-necessi tices or Tite. (mey had one thing in common. They had
heard the news about Jesus of Nazareth and had come looking for him. |

th

Since the first of the year we have been following the lect

through the first chapter of Mark's Gospel. ‘The intent this exercise

has been to acquire a "feel" for the immense mmediate impact Jesus had
on the people around him, The sequence events is fairly simplee In
Mark's Gospel it begins with his»Baptism experience at the Jordan rivers

It proceeds with the call of four fisherman to follow him: moving into
Peter's house at Capernum: teaching in the Synagog there: confronting the
power of the Sedat, Mark notes that "the news ennoad axicly, and he was
soon spoken of all over the district of Galilee." *

[ the scene se@ay is evening, after sundown, the sabbath was over. /nd
apparently the whole town of Capernum gathered in front of Peter's house:
people brought their sick relatives and friends: the emotionally disturbed.
He talked with them; healed them. Early the next morning he took a walk =
to be alone for a few minutes. But Peter and the others found him and told
him that the crowd had come back. People were looking for him,

I see in this series of pictures, the profile of a man who struck a

responsive chord in the lives of a lot of peonie,l Whertevertherr—owm—seneo

irey were moved by what they had heard to get up

°

wim —
early in the morning and go out looking for the man.

All men are looking for something. I+ seems to be an inherent part of
the human spirit - thes search - this quest for something real, aoiething

authentic, something more than life appears to offer on the surface of

ine y

(But today, I would suggest, man's relentless "looking for something" is

punctuated by a new impatience — a new restlessness.

+ ee eee ee ee

neobvkror-preture= 2 recertty sere The elder son of an old~line Italian family
is getting a divorce, and his parents are terribly upset. When~the~son-comes

toiry_to.mucrss—the-course-of-everrts. In the process of a long and heated

discussion they drag out every cliche, every time honored defense of marriage.
Finally, sensing the futility of the project, his father asks; “Richie -
what do you want?" Richic answers with one word: "Happiness." To which

his mother responds "\hy do you want happiness? It will only make you
iigerable.". Later, at the-weceptiony Papa trics te- use—the-epinid—of—ihe
atteie to pursue the subject further: He takes his son aside and says:

"Richie, what's happiness anyway? Your mama and I - we're not happy — but

we're content."
the-exciting-womerr-he~nimest-—manpied—and-dia't. Richie understands, but
aa the part about sacrificing happiness. Contentment isn't enough, 4

marriage ign't worth saving if all it offers is the comfort of a well worn
shoe. And the conversation ends having ~ I believe - clearly defined that

added impatience which is an important part of man's search today. |

That's what I-think people-mean-when they talk about the "now genera-

-3-
waiting for something great to happen some day in the Titures—The-search is

on — With impatience this time ardtind.”ind the path is Iittere@ wrth the

broken-fragmorts~of "a 16t of time = hallo j ions.
Consiter—two.Think about the instititiomof_marriage. Divorce rates

reveal that an increasing number of people are no longer willing to go
through the motions of marriage for the sake of preserving an institution.
ind the law of the State of Indiana is about to be changed to reflect
new impatience, \If the bill under consideration makes it — and it oks as
if it will = a marriage nay be disolved on the basis of "ietPevocable differ—
ences". That is to say, thore will no longer-bé a defendant - just an
agreement botween two people that it.i8 best to throw in the towel. Now,
that can be both good and bad = although I personally feel that it will make
a painful human expericnce a great deal less painful. But the point is -— it
reflects our growing impatience — and our unwillingness to relinquish our
scarch for whatever it is we're looking for.

Or, think about the college situation. It wasn't too long ago that
an eighteen year old went to college in order to get a degree, in order to
get a job, in order to make’a lot of money. If he became unhappy somowhere
along the line, he could get/over the rough spots by recalling again that
the end of the process would make it all worth while. Frou and I were told,
and we tell our children —- as if it were Holy rit - "You have to get an
education." ind tod4y's student asks, eipply, "Why?" — "What if you're not
interested in vaulting into the middle £laas? What if you rejected the
value system of middle America? What if you fail to see the connection
between Econ 501 and becoming a full and honest person? What if you add up
everything you're spending your’ time doing and come up with a big, fat zero?"
Well, if-you and I thought like that, we rapidly repressed it because we were
willing to suffer a littlo meaninglessness for the sake of what we were going

to get later, But that day is gone. Just being in college isn't enough

wr —,
any moro. And our apparent imability to deal with that; to make education
an experience with meaning now — not just later: coupled with our refusal
to listen when our own children bring their impatient search into our living
rooms - has resulted in the distrubing number of drop-outs who simply hang
around, experimenting with drugs, celebrating life, and wat ite for some-
thing significant to happen.

I think we're playing a whole new ball game in this respect, I think
people are looking for something today - with a néw, potentially healthy,
impatience. I think you and I are coming to sense that thero is a whole lot
more to life than we are experiencing. ind I think we are beginning to see
that the overwhelming "imporsonali ty" of our culture, our institutions, our
own life style is somehow ath the heart of it alls

OP Des tied. fale, writing about the rich, young ruler who asked Jesus what
| he had to do to find eternal life, describes, in capsule form, the quest of
modern man. "Something is missing. Joy? Power? Preshness? Excitement?
He knows the rules... he follows \ the proper routine, He has gone to church

all his life. Yet in all his doing he does not find meaning and purpose.

He plays the right notes, but why ia\ the sound of the music sour? +... He
yearns for the real instead of the ph NY+seee He may have tried everything -
but still yearns for the pergonal, the\ human, the affectionate," ['‘The
Protestant Hour, Aug, 16 ~ 1970 #8]

\
ind Simon and Garfunkle struck a responsive chord with "The Sound of

\
\

Silence", \
" People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
4nd no one dare disturb

The sound of silence. .

Dre Paul Tournier, distinguished Swiss physician and psychiatrist wrote

ae. --*

5+
a book under the title "The Meaning of Persons". In the chapter "This
impersonal World", he describes a late night encounter with a man who knocked
on hig door. [p. 28-29] "I have come to you because I am looking for life."
The man iad Saak come from a vory fashionable party in Geneva, with a guest
list that included many figures of international stature, wealth and power.
But it was all a farce: a large game of maneuvering, positioning, small
talk, name dropping, everybody saying the right things - but avoiding
suthentic human contact. "I am looking for life..... I am not living a real
life at all."
Wiell — what is in| Weert~te~reel—lige?| What are you looking for? What
is it that moves you day after day and week after week?

Can we call it happiness? If so, what does that mean? Can we call it
meaning? - a word so overworked that I don't know what it includes. Is 3%
a better life style for your family? Is it more money? Security? What
are you looking toz2_|

I expect that each of us could spend quite a lot of time thinking about
that one. And I'm not at all sure that we could be honest enough with owm
selves to come up with an authentic answer. I'm not sure we know what it

is we are looking for - only that whatever it is - we don't have it.
—

| Tucl Howe -“% 8

Bees
Need-erd-Ged*s=tetien’, suggests that when everything clse is said and done

your greatest need, and mine, is to be loved and to love. He puts it this
way: "Some of our wants are immediate and superficial, some of them are
deeper; but the deepest one of all is the desire to be at one with someone,
to have someone who can be at one with us, and through whom we can find at—
oneness with all.” [p.9]

I think that is true. I think that makes a lot of sense theologically.
Beginning with the first story in the Bible man is described as cut off from

the very source of his life! alientated from God, estranged. ind tho first

vos oe

-6- ms
by-product is that same separateness from other ma We exist in lonliness.
In the preface to his classic "Look Homeward Angel", Thomas Wolfe put it in
these words:

"Naked and alone we came into exile.... Which of us has not
remained forever prison —bent? Which of us is not forever a stranger
and alone..sseee» Lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great
forgotten language, the lost lane~end into heaven..... an unfound
door. Where? then?"

[_imet are we looking for? Let me suggest - love = a feeling of oneness
with others - a sense of being “at home in the world and among other people.

Let me suggest that beneath our impatient searching - our relentless demand

for life to cough up something more - each of us is trying to reach out for

—

that indescribable miracle called "communion". |

{ict me suggest that we are doing it all the time - mostly indirectly;
mostly without identifying the inner gnawing that is motivating us.| Let
me suggest that wo do it in our frantic joining - and in our overloaded
schedules packed with activity. Let me suggest that we do it sexually -
desperately looking for that someone who will be at one with us, and whose
willingness to give that gift to us is a reminder that there is something
stale and lost and missing.

Let me suggest that young people turn to drugs and the whole drug

_sub-culture, looking for that same communion and at-oneness{f_Let me suggest
that common people, like you and me, reach out to each other all the time,
in simple little gestures that well up out of our own sense of alonenoss. J}
ina when we turn to cach other we discover another totally preoccupied
with his own search, his own problems, without time to listen, without the
&race to mect our deepest need.

( [rceue moved men. The man, Jesus of Nazareth, broke through the silence

somehow and touched individual lives - siok lives, broken lives, lonely,

desperate, alienated lives. That's why the whole towm gathered at Peter's
house. That's why the news spread so repidly throughout Galilce that the
crowd assembled in the early light of morning. They came looking for him -
because they sensed in him — the ability, the power ~ to awaken and to meet
their deepest need.

Jesus touched them where they lived by taking them seriously: fisher—
men, herdsmen, husbands and wives, old and young, tax collectors, prostitutes;
he reached into each life with love and compassion ~ and then a miracle
happened. Through him people found themselves in touch with God. People
sensed that when Jesus of Nazareth dealt with them - they were being dealt
with by God himself. So the carpenter of Nazareth came to be ‘anos among
them as Jesus the Christ. ind the more they were touched by him, the more
they found themselves in touch with each other. I+ was a new experience:

new and liberating and exciting: and it carried with it that sense that

this is what living really means. This is what I've needed and been missing

and been looking for. |
ae
That's what's going on in Mark 1. That's the Good News. We call it
the Gospel - because it is available. It is as close as your neighbor, your
husband, your wife, your friends. The Good News is that in Jesus Christ
God gave himself to us - to be at-one with us - and to put us in touch with
each other.
(2 vory long time ago jugustine, Bishop of Hippo, wrote a prayer.
"Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until
they find their rest in Thee." That's good, But someone has changed that
prayer ~ and the change expresses what I have been trying to say:
"Thou hast made us for Thyself and for one another, and our hearts are
restless until they find rest in Thee in one another, and in one another
in Thee."

That is how it always is. Jesus put men in touch with God. le shall

find God, too, in cach other. dnd in so doing, in caring and listening

and loving — find what it is we've been looking for.

amen.

O God, we know you have made us restless until we find rest in you. *
We know that our search is only an expression of the potential for full
life that you have given us. Help us, our father, to find each other.
Help us over the barriers that seperate us. [For we know that in each
other - in oneness with man — there is rest in you. Through Jesus Christ
our Lord.

Amen.