5 Epiphany B 2012

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
February 5, 2012

5 Epiphany B

Every Wednesday afternoon at 1 o’clock, the door of the Christ Church Food Pantry opens for the crowd of people gathered under the porch of Hollenbeck House. Ever since last fall, the crowd has been growing larger and the need has been staggering. Our Food pantry does not take appointments so we never know how many people we will serve. Typically, the beginning of the month is very light, and the end of the month is very busy. These past few months, however, even the Wednesdays early in the month have seen a surge in the number of people needing food, and the grocery bill for the Food Pantry has grown in proportion to the increased need. Some weeks the cost of restocking the pantry for the following Wednesday is as high as $600 and we wonder if we will continue to have the money to operate. But the donations continue to come in and Wednesday after Wednesday our volunteers are able to fill grocery bags with three days worth of food for hungry person after hungry person. Some days there seems to be no end to the hunger in our community.

I wonder if Jesus felt overwhelmed this morning when the whole city of Capernaum gathered outside the door of the house where he was staying. The gospel tells us that Jesus cured many who were sick and cast out many demons that evening. But apparently there were many more than even Jesus could cure. We are told that the next morning, while the sky was still very dark, Jesus got up and went to a deserted place to pray. In the linear story line of the gospel, the last time Jesus went to a deserted place to pray, he was in the wilderness for 40 days and was tempted by Satan. We won’t hear that story until the first Sunday of Lent, but Jesus was actually in the wilderness just a few verses ago.

Part of the reason I wonder whether Jesus felt overwhelmed is the enormity of having the whole city show up on the door step wanting healing for themselves or their loved ones. The other reason I wonder is because of the darkness of his time alone. Jesus left while it was still very dark and went to a deserted place, a place that may well have reminded him of that recent time in the wilderness. Jesus had been confronted with tremendous human need. How was he to respond? What was he to do? He could go back to Capernaum and spend his whole ministry healing the people there and still not be finished. Or he could move on to other towns and villages. How was Jesus to respond to the overwhelming amount of human need at his doorstep?

While Jesus was praying, we are told that Simon and his companions hunted him down. The newly minted disciples did not merely go looking for Jesus. They hunted him down as if Jesus was some sort of prey. When the disciples found Jesus, they said "Everyone is search for you." Of course the people were searching for Jesus. There were desperate people in need of healing and they had seen and heard about Jesus’ power. The disciples had seen Jesus at work the day before, and they, too, knew what Jesus could do and what a successful ministry he could enjoy in Capernaum. But Jesus’ prayer time has strengthened him. The prophet Isaiah said "those who wait on 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 faint." So Jesus can now say "Let us go to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came to do."

Jesus’ mission is to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God has come near. Jesus does that, at least in part, by healing and casting out demons. The disciples want Jesus to go back to Capernaum and bask in his success, but Jesus knows that his mission is to keep moving and proclaim the gospel in new places. The gospel has been proclaimed in Capernaum so now Jesus needs to move on. So Jesus travels through out Galilee, proclaiming the message in the synagogues and casting out demons.

Springfield will always have more hungry people than we can feed, more children than we can tutor, more need than we can possibly ever meet. Most of us are not going to feed hungry people in Springfield this week and move on to another city or town next week. In the face of overwhelming need, the temptation may be to simply give up and wonder what good our little drop in the bucket of hunger relief can do, other than provide a temporary solution for a few people each week. However, Jesus offers us a different way to look at the outreach work we do that helps keep us from being overwhelmed.

Jesus reminds us this morning that our primary mission is to proclaim the good news. The apostle Paul seconds that when he reminds us in the reading from I Corinthians of our obligation to proclaim the gospel. To stay centered on that mission, we, like Jesus, need regular time for prayer so that our strength is renewed, for proclaiming the gospel is no less daunting a task than feeding the hungry. But our mission is not to feed every hungry person in Springfield, any more than Jesus’ mission was to heal every person in all of Capernaum. Our mission is, however, to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God has arrived by doing one church’s worth, no more and no less, to make sure that people do not go to bed at night hungry. If our primary goal is to feed every hungry person in Springfield, we will be overwhelmed by the need and disappointed by our failure. If our primary goal is to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has arrived, and to do so by distributing as much food as we can to as many people as we can, then we will not be overwhelmed because we will have accomplished the work we were given to do. Our mission is to proclaim with our lives that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and in doing so, the hungry will be fed, children will be tutored, and we will make a difference in the lives of the people living in this neighborhood.
Amen.