Called Beyond Ourselves

[This message was shared with the people of Friendship Church during worship on February 4 and 5.]

Mark 1:29-39

I met a remarkable person last week. Her name is Shawna Dunn Lilly. As a teenager, Shawna became pregnant. Unable to provide proper care for her baby boy, she made the courageous decision put him up for adoption.

A few years later, by then married, Shawna became pregnant again and gave birth to a baby girl. Two subsequent pregnancies, however, were ended with abortions, which Shawna’s husband of the time demanded she undergo. Several years after that second abortion, Shawna became pregnant once more. This time though, when her husband demanded that she abort the child, Shawna refused.

This decision ultimately led to the breakup of her marriage. It was during these years of being a single mom with two daughters that Shawna returned to the Church and to a deeper relationship with Christ. One Sunday before worship, she saw an announcement in the church bulletin. A Bible study was being offered to women who had undergone abortions, but had never really processed their feelings about that experience. For the first time, Shawna realized that she was living under a cloud and she needed God’s light.

While Shawna felt forgiven for whatever mistakes she had made, she still felt herself to be under a cloud. She needed hope and healing. Like millions of women who have undergone abortions, she had been subjected to a medical procedure, but had been afforded no help in dealing with all the trauma that can ensue.

So, Shawna went to this Bible study and in the company of caring people with a shared experience and the power of God in His Word, she received hope and healing.

As time went on, Shawna began to volunteer at a place in another county that helped young women who had become pregnant who wanted either to give their children up for adoption or who wanted to learn how to be good parents. Every time she drove home from the place though, she would ask God, “Why don’t we have something like this in Clermont County, Lord?” Each time Shawna asked that question, she sensed God responding with another question, “Why don’t you start it?” Shawna knew she wasn’t qualified to do that, though. She didn’t have the necessary degree or certification. Still, God seemed insistent.

Ultimately, a number of people from her church and in the community all agreed that she needed to take charge of getting such a place off the ground in our community. For ten years, Shawna has been the executive director of A Caring Place. It’s a Christian ministry to young women facing daunting choices in their lives.

Yes, A Caring Place hopes that the women will choose to let the lives that have formed in their wombs come into this world. But it pursues that ministry without heavy-handedness or legalism.

In visiting their offices last week, I found it to truly be a caring place. Whatever our feelings about abortion, it’s good that we have A Caring Place in our community. It’s good that a woman of faith, shaped by difficult experiences but healed by a loving God, was willing to move out beyond her comfort zone to provide such a place for young mothers and fathers in our community.

Jesus’ call to discipleship, to a deeper and more devoted following of Him, includes a frightening call beyond ourselves.

In this, Jesus is not asking us to do anything more for Him than He has already done for us. We see this in today’s Bible lesson. It begins with Jesus visiting the home of His new follower, Simon. Once there, Jesus is informed that the mother-in-law of Simon is burning up with a fever. Jesus walks over to the woman, takes her by the hand and lifts her out of bed. At this, Mark tells us, “Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” It’s important that we not misunderstand this miracle or its aftermath. I used to read it and think, “What a ripoff! Jesus heals the woman and the first thing she has to do is work!”

But Bible scholars point out that when Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, He was doing more than restoring her physical health. In those days, it was seen as the privilege of the oldest woman in a household to run the show when guests arrived. The mother-in-law’s illness had sidelined her, turning her into an afterthought in her own home. She was marginalized. Jesus gave her back her dignity and her place.

Every human being needs dignity, the sense that their life matters. One of my favorite recent movies is Spanglish. Throughout much of the movie, a mother and grandmother played by Cloris Leachman, a one-time jazz singer, is treated with contempt by her daughter, played by Tia Leone. The mother is an alcoholic whose past included a profusion of lovers and multiple marriages. But when the daughter’s own marriage comes to a crisis point, the mother is the one whose good advice and common sense help the daughter save her marriage. Suddenly, the mother had her dignity and her place.

The first thing that Jesus calls you and me to do in moving beyond our comfort zones is to reach out to people who have been shoved into the corner by society. Young people: You can reach out to kids at school whom other kids call names or ignore and help them understand how important they are to God. All of us: We can become involved in programs like the Boys and Girls Club or our outreach to the elderly next month or A Caring Place and lift people up to experience the healing goodness of Jesus. Jesus calls us to reach out to the forgotten.

But that’s not the only way in which Christ calls us to move beyond our comfort zones. After Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law and a bunch of people from Capernaum, He got a good night’s sleep and then, before everybody else had awakened, woke up and found a quiet place where He could talk with God the Father.

That's a good habit for all of us to develop. This past week, at the invitation of President Bush, Bono delivered the main address--a sermon, really--at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Near the end of his speech, Bono said that a remarkable man had taught him an important lesson. Before, Bono said that when he prayed, he'd say things like this to God: "Lord, I have a new song out. Bless it." Or, "God, I have an idea. Bless it." But Bono's wise friend told him to stop it. "Stop asking God to bless what you do. Instead, ask God to help you to do what God blesses." God already blesses it when we love God and when we love our neighbor. God already blesses it when we serve others in Jesus' Name. When Jesus went out to the wilderness to pray, He was asking God the Father to empower Him to do all that is blessed.

A few weeks ago, I sent out an email in which I urged that every group that’s part of Friendship begin its times together with prayer. If Jesus needed the empowerment of God the Father to do what God called Him to do, how much more do you and I need that empowerment? Whether it’s a small group gathered to study God’s Word, our musicians gathered to practice for worship, or a group undertaking an outreach to the community, we need the Father’s help at least as much as Jesus did.

Over the course of his long ministry, some people have been dismissive of Billy Graham. “He’s not such a great preacher,” they say. Billy Graham actually agrees with them. But these critics miss the point. Billy Graham’s goal is not to wow people with his intelligence. His goal is to point others to Jesus Christ. Probably no person in history has pointed more people to Christ than Billy Graham. When asked what the secret of his amazing ministry has been, Billy Graham said that there were three main factors: Prayer. Prayer. And prayer.

Jesus has told us, “Without Me, you can do nothing.” But He also says that, “With God all things are possible.” To move beyond our comfort zones and live the life to which Christ calls us, we need to first, reach out to the forgotten and second, reach up to the Father in prayer.

But Jesus calls us to move out of our comfort zones in a third way. While He was praying, our lesson tells us, Jesus was interrupted by Simon and others. “Lord,” they tell Him, “there’s a whole gang of people waiting back in town. They want You to heal them too. This is a great PR opportunity. It’ll make you even more popular in Capernaum than You are.” But Jesus refuses to go back. Instead, He says, “I need to move on to other places.”

Jesus knew that in those other places, He would run into opposition and hatred and jealousy. Eventually, He knew that He would be villified and killed in those other places. It would have been easier to have stayed in Capernaum where everybody thought He was wonderful. But He had to leave this place of comfort because, He explains, that was why He’d come into the world in the first place.

For twelve-and-a-half years, this congregation worshiped in an elementary school auditorium. Throughout much of that period, we were involved in all sorts of outreach projects: feeding folks in Over-the-Rhine, building homes here in Clermont County through Habitat for Humanity, weekly Kindness Outreaches that touched more than 15,000 people.

Then came our push to get into this building. We’ve spent most of the past three years simply sighing with satisfaction.

This building is wonderful. It’s a comfortable place. But God hasn’t called us to lives of self-satisfied comfort. He has called us to a life, as the Bible puts it, of “faith active in love.” He’s called us to be servants of others and advocates of justice and bringers of the Good News of forgiveness and new life that comes to all with faith in Jesus Christ! The God Who left the comforts of heaven to serve and love us has called us to serve and love the world.

That’s why our upcoming Forty Days to Servanthood is so important. Starting on March 5, through a series of Wednesday evening Soup, Salad, and Servanthood gatherings and daily devotionals, we’re going to look at what it means to be servants of Jesus Christ. Then, on Easter Sunday, we’re going to all be commissioned to lives of deep servanthood as we together adopt a ministry in which we agree that in the power of Jesus Christ, we’re going to reach beyond our comfort zones, leaving behind the comfortable in order to fuflill God’s deeper purposes for our lives.

Jesus calls us all to move beyond the comfortable by reaching out to the forgotten, by reaching up to God for His help, and by leaving the comfortable to live for God’s purposes for us. May these three elements always be evident in our lives!