Mark 1:21-28 "When Jesus Is There" Scott Hoezee

It was the Sabbath and so, naturally, the Jews of Capernaum went to the synagogue. Some of them went sleepily, weary after a busy week of work. Others of them trekked over in a rather irritable mood for who knows why--maybe it had been no more than that they were out of cream cheese back at the house and the bagel at breakfast that morning just wasn't as good without it. In any event, something set them off and so they weren't in the best of moods as they approached synagogue. Still others arrived having bickered with their kids on the way over. "We're going to God's house, for pity sake! Shape up, you kids!"

It was the Sabbath and so, naturally, they went to synagogue. From various paths, emerging from a variety of experiences in the week gone by, awash in a welter of differing emotions and mental states, they came. They came because, among other things, it was frankly their pious habit to do so. For as long as many of them could remember they had gone to synagogue on Sabbath morning. It was the thing to do. It was what was expected of you. You went to the synagogue, moved your way through the fairly staid and predictable liturgy, listened as the scribes read a portion of the Torah, sang a hallel doxology, and then you went home for the feast day meal at noon.

It was the Sabbath and so, naturally, they went to synagogue. They went because it was their habit to do so. They went because they really were people of faith and worshiping with God's people is a key expression of that faith. Mostly, though, they went without any great expectations. They knew what to expect, and that was just fine with most folks. There was something comforting about the routine rhythms of the weekly liturgy. It was like putting on a comfortable old shoe or a nicely worn pair of jeans. They could proceed through the service and go through the motions almost without thinking about it. In any event, amazement, startlement, having a spine-tingling (just possibly life-changing) experience was not on the agenda for very many, if any, of those folks that Sabbath day.

But on that particular morning, Jesus of Nazareth was there, and his presence would create a worship service no one would ever forget. This Jesus stood up as some kind of guest pastor that day. Few, if any, had ever heard of him before and once they looked into the bulletin and saw he was from Nazareth originally, not a few perhaps groaned inwardly. But then he started to teach and although he was no John the Baptist full of theatrics and arm-waving fire-and-brimstone rhetoric, there was something striking in the very way this Jesus spoke. It wasn't just that his ideas and vocabulary were fresh and innovative and it wasn't simply that he was a better orator than they at first guessed. Rather, there was something in the very presence of the man that made you want to sit up straighter. Even the teenagers, who had worked so hard at perfecting a bored-stiff look on their faces, couldn't help perking up, slouching a bit less and listening more closely than they'd care to admit.

This man had authority. He had a moral gravity, a weightiness and substance to him that people found difficult to explain. Somehow they sensed that this man and the message about God's kingdom he was talking about were one and the same thing. This man's impact had nothing to do with any seminary diplomas he had hanging on his wall. It did not stem from his once having been ordained and it wasn't just because he had clearly done his homework, had practiced his sermon, and so was able to preach without distracting stutters. No, this man was the very message he was proclaiming. They couldn't quite put their finger on it, but this man packed a wallop just by virtue of being there at all.

A few folks were starting to whisper their amazement even as others scrawled a furtive "Wow!" on the bulletin and then showed it to the person next to them. They were just starting to realize that something extraordinary was happening when suddenly and from the back pew a shriek went up. "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?! Have you come to wipe us out already!? I know who you are, you are the Holy One of God! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Leave me alone!"

Well now, this didn't happen every week in worship, either! "Be quiet!" Jesus commanded. And everyone there was glad he said it because it was on the tip of their tongues, too. You can't tolerate that kind of thing in church. The only thing for such an interruption is to tell the person to hush and then hope the ushers get over there fast to bring this sadly crazed person to the narthex. Everyone in the synagogue was thinking "Be quiet!" and so they were glad Jesus said it out loud on their mutual behalf.

But then Jesus said something that no one else had had in mind: "Come out of him!" And no sooner were those words out of Jesus' mouth and the man convulsed! "Ah, ugh, ahh, ahhhh, ohhhhhhh" he shook like a leaf in a violent wind before shrieking one last time and then collapsing into a heap. But then the hapless fellow was better. The fire had gone out of his eyes and a look of calm came over him.

At that precise moment, however, he was the only calm-looking one in the whole place! Everyone else was scraping their jaws off the floor! This just didn't happen every week at church! By that late in the service on a typical Sabbath people's thoughts usually began to drift to other vital things, like will they get home on-time enough to keep the pot roast from drying out and is little Martin is behaving himself in worship center. But not today! No one's mind wandered, no one turned his thoughts to the mundane or the typical. They had encountered Jesus, and he was all they could talk about for a long time to come.

Why did you come to the house of God today? What kinds of emotions swirled through your mind as you drove here, walked through the door, slid into the pew? Did you have any particular expectations for worship or did you come here feeling very safe, comfortable in the predictable nature of the liturgy? Maybe you came here out of habit, albeit a habit fueled by a genuine faith. Maybe you made extra sure to get here on this particular day because you saw in the newspaper yesterday that we were having the Lord's Supper. Maybe you came because of the other sacrament already celebrated this morning when we baptized little Grace Elizabeth. Or maybe you had to drag yourself here. Maybe you, too, felt inwardly crabby as you pulled into the parking lot. You didn't get near enough sleep last night and the kids did drive you clean up a wall as you tried to get them dressed and out the door on-time. Maybe you came here feeling sad, maybe joyful. Maybe you came bearing a lot of guilt on the inside, maybe you came here without having given much thought one way or the other as to what shape your life has been in lately Maybe you came wondering if you belong here at all, maybe you came just assuming that of course you belong--why wouldn't you?!

But did you come expecting anything? C.S. Lewis once penned some thoughts on worship, particularly in the face of liturgical innovators in England who seemed to think that every worship service needed to be a kind of variety show with each week being different from the week prior. Lewis had no truck with that kind of thinking. Worship, Lewis wrote, should be a bit like dancing. Once you have learned how to dance and have become good at it, you are able to immerse yourself in the dance and just do it almost without thinking about it. But if you must constantly look down at your feet, if you have to think about each movement before you actually make it, then you can't dance yet but are just learning how to dance.

Worship is like that, Lewis thought. A believer should be able to move through the liturgy without having to check his every movement first. An ideal service would be one you hardly notice in the sense of your simply being immersed and caught up in a set of actions and a series of thoughts that are fully a part of you already. Overall, Lewis makes a good point. Still, I would throw in a cautionary note to his analogy: worship may be like a dance that you are so good at you can just do it freely and flowlingly, but we dare never forget who our dance partner is!

The people in Capernaum long ago went to their equivalent of church not expecting much. But then Jesus was there that day, and they left in amazement not only over what he did but just as much over what he said. Jesus was there, and it made all the difference. But isn't Jesus also here? Don't we confess and believe that worship is a living encounter with the living Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit?

Now it's true: we don't typically see a spectacle on a par with the exorcism in the synagogue. That kind of razzle-dazzle is not common, and there's something a little shaky about churches that try to orchestrate such drama at almost each and every service. And it's also true that even the best, most spellbinding preachers around are not themselves the living Lord Jesus and so do not exude the same punch of authority that Jesus alone could do. I am just bearing witness to the truth even as I try to live this truth. Jesus was that truth.

Still, we say that we meet Jesus here. At font and table this day, but no less in prayer, music, and the Word at every service, we believe we are getting caught up in the liturgical dance of life and hope and joy and what's more, we are dancing with no less than the Lord of Life. A few years ago writer Annie Dillard wrote one of those lines that so instantly captured people's imaginations it has been quoted millions of times since. But Dillard noted that we don't dress right for church. Instead of coming in our Sunday finery with our hair all done up just so, we ought to show up for church in hard hats! We are encountering the living God! Anything could happen!

As with C.S. Lewis's dance analogy, Dillard may go a bit too far. God through the Spirit is not so unpredictable as to make us fearful of getting beaned on the head with the spiritual equivalent of an I-beam. Yet the notion of expecting something to result from our meeting up with Jesus himself is right on. We should leave this service amazed at some level; astonished that the gospel is true and that we've once again seen it enacted and embodied this day at font and table.

We should be amazed that we heard a story from Mark 1, a story that is nearly 2,000 years old and yet, by the Spirit, the preacher said that this very story is about you. And amazingly, because the Spirit of God is in you, you know that's not an absurd thing for Rev. Hoezee to claim. At some level in the deep places of your heart, you know that's right. This is a true story and it's your story at that! That's amazing! You should be amazed to take bread and cup in hand shortly and see in it not some arcane and queer ritual to jog your memory about what happened once upon a time on a hill far away but what is happening to you right now, right here, this very moment.

When Jesus visited a synagogue in Capernaum one day, news of his presence soon spread throughout the whole region. When people encounter Jesus in worship, they can't help but be changed by it and so can't help talking about it. May the Lord forgive us if our reaction to worship is no more than just to go home and not think about it all until the alarm goes off again next Sunday morning.

It's Sunday and so, naturally, we have come to church. But if it is Jesus himself whom we meet in this place through Word and sacrament, there's nothing "natural" about that at all. It's a miracle. A miracle! "And all the people were amazed." Rightly so. Amen.