created to run. free to love. healed in serving.
(Free Version)- Year B; Isaiah 40:21-31; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39
The readings for this Sunday can be found here. Looking to go deeper? Check out our extended notes (12-13 pages every week) via paid subscription here.
Our readings this week invite us to reflect on “freedom” and stirs up a variety of questions. What is freedom? From where does it derive? What does freedom look like in practice?
In our Old Testament reading (Isaiah 40:21-31), the prophet proclaims good news to those who have been in exile for so long. God has now proven himself faithful. Even if we do not see it, God is at work. He is the one who created all things, and the one who knows all things. No circumstances are too exhausting for him.
In our New Testament reading (1 Corinthians 9:16-23), Paul shares with the Corinthians why he does not accept payment as a minister of gospel. Up until now, he has been arguing that it makes sense to do so. He has the right to it. But, he is laying that right down. In doing so, he is showing the Christians true freedom, being willing to lay down your rights and privileges for your brother or sister. Also, in doing so, he is embodying the gospel. Unlike the other teachers of the day, who would try to get people to pay them more and more money so that they could give them the real wisdom as they went along, Paul says that the gospel of Jesus is not for the elite. It’s for everyone.
The good news of Christ’s resurrection is liberating, transforming. Love is willing to cross cultural boundaries, to meet people in their cultural ethos and place of conscience in order that those might be liberated and know themselves as part of God’s family.
In our gospel reading (Mark 1:29-39), Jesus’ heals the fever of Simon’s mother-in-law. Fever was considered a disease in the ancient world (not just a symptom, as we know it today). Fever was often associated with “heavenly fire” and could only be healed by God himself. Jesus heals the woman and she is immediately empowered to serve. Her service of the guests is not a sign of submission, but of true freedom.
Jesus then heals those who are sick and those possessed by demons. The demons know him, a consistent theme in the gospels. Demons remain a murky topic in our world today, and Christians have a variety of theories about their origin and identity. Yet, the murkiness surrounding demons communicates something to us: Jesus’ authority extends to that which is murky, which is dark, broken, and seemingly incomprehensible. Many in our congregations face such things today.
After this time of healing and liberation, Jesus returns to the “deserted place,” where he communes with the Father in prayer. Every time we find ourselves caught up in the “action” of the gospels, Jesus shows us that the origin of such signs are the divine life of the Triune God. True freedom is anchored here.
We live in a world that is enslaved and that is longing to be free. Our world is certainly enslaved to power. So many atrocities are done in the pursuit of power or in hanging on to power. We crave it. We long for it. We believe that power runs the world. Many of the convulsions we are seeing today in relation to world events, politics, and cultural tumult have to do with the fear of losing power.
Often, lust and power are tied together. Seen clearly and publicly in the scandals revealed through cultural movements like #Metoo, but also in subtler ways in everyday life, many of us are becoming more aware of what many women have always known—sex becomes a way to control, and our world is bound by it.
Our world is enslaved to money, what the Bible often equates with the ancient God Mammon. With money comes security. Some of us are obsessed with money because it means status. We are tied up with it. Materialism drives our world. The economy is described as “good” (and has been for some time) and yet our wealth disparity is also HUGE. There is more to go around than ever but such a vast difference between the haves and the have-nots. Such realities reveal a worship of money. The best way to be free from money is to give it away, whenever possible. In modeling this, Paul is showing how money is robbed of its power.
We are enslaved to technology. I think everyone gets this. We all know that we spend too much time on the internet and pursuing the latest technology, but we don’t know how to fix it. This leads us to eventually thinking that technology will solve our problems. Technology becomes a god rather than a tool.
We are enslaved to approval. We stay in bad relationships because we are afraid that no one else will accept me but this person. We are afraid of showing who we truly are because we are afraid that, if people see who I really am, they won’t like me. Approval and technology become syncretized as we look for “likes” and “retweets” as ways of validating our inherent goodness, skillfulness, or beauty.
Notice the line that goes through all of these…fear. We are afraid of losing power, not having enough money, afraid of people not approving of us. John says, “Perfect love casts out all fear.” Fr. James Martin once said that the inverse is also true: “perfect fear casts out all love.” When we are bound up in fear, we lose our ability to love in the way that God has called us to love.
The good news of the gospel is that we are free! None of those things have hold over us. As we receive Christ, as we step through the waters of baptism, those things no longer have hold of us. And when we begin to live and proclaim that freedom, all that stuff reveals itself as hollow.
But an important question remains: what does it mean to be free? Experience has shown that freedom is certainly not “I can do what I want.” This is what often passes for freedom today. But, doing “whatever I want” is enslaving as I have nothing more to live by than my urges and whims.
When Christ sets us free from our idols, we are invited to step into something new, and yet who God has created us to be all along. That freedom finds its home in the way of Jesus, the one who shows us what it means to be free. God is free. Christ is free. And we are invited to live in the freedom of God.
When captured by freedom, we do not just shed skin like the snake, we transform. Can we hear he good news? As the prophet says, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?” The good news is liberating. And still, we are not free only to twiddle our thumbs or to lick our wounds. We are certainly are not set free to live the same way that we were living before! We are set free to be something in the world. Free from our selfishness, bondage, idolatry, we are called to live into that freedom: to love others, to proclaim freedom to others.
This is true, regardless of appearances. Yes, God’s liberating words may seem daunting today. Many may feel like they do not have strength. The strength we need is not from within ourselves. For, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak…They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Simon’s mother-in-law had literally no strength. She was possessed by a fire that only God could extinguish. Jesus cured her and healed her for a live of blessing. May we hear the good news…Do not be afraid. You are free. And may we live out that good news in the midst of a world that needs to hear and see it.