A SERVANT CHURCH: THE WAY THINGS SHOULD BE
A Sermon for Annual Meeting Sunday

Mary Oliver has spent her entire adult life as a poet. In her seventy years on this planet she has become an extraordinary student and teacher of God’s creation. Reading her poetry I sometimes wonder: is there an animal or plant she has not yet praised? Since the death of her beloved partner Molly, she seems to write more and more poignantly about spirit, both human and divine. Yet Mary Oliver’s primary poetic focus has always been on what one of our prayers calls “this fragile earth, our island home.”

In her collection named House of Light there is a poem she calls “ Singapore.” It contains these lines:

A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain
rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

You might, then, be surprised to know that “ Singapore” starts this way:

In Singapore, in the airport,
A darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the women’s restroom, one compartment stood open.
A (working) woman knelt there, washing something
in the white bowl.
Disgust argued in my stomach
and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.
A poem should always have birds in it….

A poem should always be beautiful and pleasant and happy. And a life should always be wonderful and fulfilling. And a church should always be the body of Christ, a taste of heaven on earth. Isn’t that the way things should be?

In today’s gospel account we hear of Jesus, prophet, poet and more, proclaiming God’s Good News and healing all kinds of people, even casting out demons. In this chapter of Mark’s version of the gospel, Jesus is finishing his first day on the job as savior of the world. We have spent three Sundays in a row hearing about his first workday. Two weeks ago Jesus started his day by calling Simon (later known as Peter) and Andrew and James and John to follow him. Last week Jesus cast out an unclean spirit. Next week chapter one continues, when Jesus heals a leper. And there’s all that activity in today’s story.

Whatever Jesus thought his messianic ministry might look like, whatever he may have thought about his new job, whatever darkness or lack of awareness he might have had – all this was, as the poet puts it, ripped from his eyes in a matter of hours and days. Being human, did he wonder: Just what IS this job? What is my mission? Is it to heal people, one after another? Isn’t there more to being a messiah? The savior of the world should be totally in charge and rule the world, shouldn’t he?

And what about us? What about the church? If we are to be the body of Christ, if we are to carry on in Jesus’ name and carry out Jesus’ mission, just what is our job? You may remember that mission means to be sent. But what might that actually look like? What is our mission? What does mission mean for us at All Saints’ in 2009? Let’s look again at today’s gospel story.

First, we see Jesus and his friends descending on Simon and Andrew’s house, where Simon’s mother-in-law lays in bed with a fever. Right away Jesus hears of her illness. He comes to her, takes her by the hand and heals her. Then, it says, she begins to serve them. Now there may be some of you (mostly women, I’d guess) who are annoyed by this verse. This poor woman gets off her sick bed and goes to work straight away. Someone should be bringing her a cup of tea and telling her to take it easy. Someone should be serving her.

But also know this: the Greek word for lifted (as in lifted her up) is the same word that is used to refer to Jesus’ resurrection. Something much more life-changing has taken place than recovery from a fever, serious as that would have been in those days. It’s not just that the fever is gone, but Simon’s mother-in-law has been touched by a divine power. And it is not about Jesus restoring her to health so he and the boys can be fed. It’s about Jesus restoring her, lifting her up, bringing her back to herself. In other words, he banishes not only the fever, but also whatever shame or disappointment or uselessness she may have felt.

Matthew and Luke say that Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law and then she rose and served the men. In Mark, Jesus lifts her up. This is a fine distinction, but one worth making, I think. She doesn’t just get up. Jesus raises her up, and her fever leaves. People need to be lifted and raised up, on eagle’s wings, as Isaiah put it. On the wings of love. Love lifted me, the old spiritual says. When nothing else could help, love lifted me. Today, in this 21 st century world, when so much pushes us down, when nothing else seems to help, we – women, children and men – we all need to be raised by God. We all need to be lifted up. From time to time, we all need those heavenly eagle’s wings.

Second, all three gospel accounts of this story say that what this woman did is what deacons do. Matthew, Luke and Mark all use the word diakoneo to describe her response. It’s the Greek word from which our word “deacon” or minister comes. She is the church’s first deacon. In response to the healing, uplifting, resurrecting touch of Jesus, she becomes a servant minister of God.

I have come to believe the mission of the church is all about its servant ministry. It’s all about servanthood, about being servants. Over the past decade, while serving as a chaplain in both retirement community and hospital settings and later as an associate rector for pastoral care, I learned once again that following Jesus is all about service. Being a disciple, truly becoming a follower of Jesus, whether we are called to either lay or ordained ministry, is about serving others. Service, of course, is not servitude. It is not about being a doormat for Jesus. No, God’s service is, as one of our prayers puts it, “perfect freedom.”

What would it be like if All Saints’ Episcopal Church were known as “the servant church,” the church that seeks to serve? What if our services of worship were so uplifting that people flocked to join us? What if our Christian formation and education programs were so helpful and healing, everyone came back and brought a friend, so, together, they could learn to follow Jesus? What if our new Care Teams got so good at serving others, the whole city gathered at our door?

Jesus didn’t heal just those people who came to him or were brought to him. He got up, and he went to the neighboring towns. He also got down, on his knees, the night before he died, unafraid to wash the dirty feet of his friends. This brings us back to the woman in the restroom and the poet who writes:

Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watch (this woman) as she stares down at her labor,
which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as
hubcaps, with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.

And then poet Mary says:

I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life.

Did Jesus love his life? Did Simon’s mother-in-law love her life? Do you love yours? Forgive me, but I am going to get a bit personal here. I love my life, most of the time. Sometimes, when I think about how long my wife Eyleen and I have been apart, sometimes I don’t love my life as it is, right now. But I do love my life here. Although the word rector means “ruler,” I don’t love life when I feel the pressure to rule. I do love it when I am free simply to serve God, to serve as Jesus served, alongside all of you, in this grand old church called All Saints’.

What does it mean to be a church? It means to serve and be served, just like Jesus. And it means to lift people and be lifted up, just like Jesus. We need to lift and be lifted up, to serve and be served, regardless of what the world may tell us. Over the years I have learned that, as a privileged person of power, it is incumbent upon me to relinquish that power in ways that make it truly possible to share ministry. I do this imperfectly, one day at a time. But I need to lift up and to serve women, children and people with disabilities. I need to lift up and to serve people who are older, people who are younger, people who are single, people who are married. I need to lift up and to serve people who happen to be of a different color or race or ethnicity or sexual orientation. I need to lift up and to serve people who are not like me and people who are like me. I need to lift them up and to serve them, in the name of Jesus. And when I do, when I am truly a servant of God, Jesus will lift me up – through them, through you.

Many of you have served and lifted me up during my first year of serving as your rector. I pray that I have lifted up and served some of you, too. For that is what mission and ministry are all about: we serve and lift others up, like the nameless mother-in-law in the gospel account, like the nameless woman in the poem – just by doing what we do. Our mission IS our ministry. When I look at the ministries of this church, I see so much wonderful serving and lifting up all around. And I see so much potential for us! I see so much more we could do to serve and to lift up others – globally, nationally, locally. Do you see it, too?

Mark says that Jesus cured many who came of their sickness and cast out many demons that day. Jesus did NOT cure all of the people. He was finite, and he was human. And Jesus wanted his disciples to follow the example of Simon’s mother-in-law. On this, his first day on the job, he started teaching by example. Jesus wanted to show his followers, right from day one, that no one, not even a messiah, could heal and save everyone. No one person, human or divine, could do it alone. But what about two people, serving together?

And what about all of them? And what about all of us? What might the body of Christ in this place do together that one person – even the One who is love incarnate, Jesus Christ – cannot do alone? Through pasta and poetry, through song and silence, through time, talent and treasure, how is God calling us more and more to become a true servant church? In this beloved congregation there are countless ways to serve God by uplifting others and to be served, when that is what we need. There are ways to minister that, believe it or not, only you, with God’s help, might be considering right now.

So, sisters and brothers, let’s go. It’s time. It’s time to be lifted up and to lift up. It’s time to serve and to be served. It’s time to follow Jesus and become more fully the church called All Saints’. After all, a church should be the body of Christ, a taste of heaven on earth, like a great poem. Isn’t that the way things should be?

The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
All Saints’ Episcopal Church Frederick , Maryland
February 8, 2009