2024-07-30
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
July 28, 2024
Our Church is called to be a Hospital…
A scripture reading from the Gospel of Mark 1:29-34
29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.
32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
Let us Pray:
Open our hearts and minds to receive the healing blessings offered through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In case you haven’t been able to worship with us the last several weeks, we have been exploring the themes:
The church is to be …
The church is to be A Fortress… a refuge, a secure dwelling place... and our fortress, this Holy space that is Federated Church is built out of love and anyone can come in.
And
The Church is to be A Lifeboat…called to save people from drowning in fear, grief, and drowning in isolation and bitterness. Here we offer a way out of our fears and bitterness.
And
The Church is to be A Training Ground… called to unfurl ourselves and to walk with others as they unfurl and together, we become our true selves in a life with Christ. And here, at Federated Church we provide many learning and growing experiences for people of all ages.
I am going to go out on a limb and declare that “being the Church” is not for the faint of heart… no sissies here! There is a lot we are called to be… And now… The Church is to be A Hospital… a place to receive, welcome and care for one another.
All of these calls for the church, to be a Fortress, a Lifeboat, a Training Ground and a Hospital, are calls to protect, rescue, nurture and care for all of humanity… and no one is excluded from the love and care!
I hope I can put this all into a simplified context so we don’t all throw up our hands and say… this is too much; I can’t live into this call from God to be all these things.
The good news, the Truth is, we may not fully live into being “the church, being any of these things” fully on any given day….
When I write notes to graduating students, I write these words as they go on to make their place in the world… “Congratulations, now go be the best you
that you can be”.
Sometimes that does not look perfect in the eyes of God… but most days aren’t perfect. So, when we set out to be the best “Church” we can be… it’s our best for that moment and it is really all we can do… and truthfully, I think God understands.
And certainly, we can’t all be …all things. We can’t all be paddling the Lifeboat or be the Trainers, we are not all going to provide greeting or healing and a place of refuge. We are not Qualified to do it all.
So, who then? Who is qualified. Who can tend to those that need healing? Is it just the ordained? Is it only a few?
Some might say yes, only a few are qualified… but I beg to differ. You might be educated in business, in law, as a teacher or you might be a master carpenter, or a mason and you could be trained in tech… or a first responder… you may even be a child or a youth still in school. Or… you may actually be ordained. My thinking is, that when you are committed to being part of the church you can be called to be on staff of the Hospital we know as the Church.
Listen to this Reading from 1 Corinthians 1
(From Eugene Peterson’s The Message)
14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, transparent and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
27-31 You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything. You’re familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his “body”:
Apostles, prophets, teachers, miracle workers, healers, helpers, organizers,
those who pray in tongues. But it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that Christ’s church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It’s not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues.
Clearly the message here is that it is important to know, no one part is more important, and try as some might, no one can do everything. The trick is for us to discover how we can bring the best of ourselves, our gifts to the church and actively participate. Who will be the pray-ers, some will be the caregivers and others the greeters…
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the English word “hospital” originates from the Latin noun “hospes”, which stands for “a guest, a visitor” and “Host…one who provides lodging or entertainment for a guest or visitor”.
Which gives us the word Hospitality, meaning Kindness in welcoming strangers or guests.
And 'Hospital' is also said to come from the Latin word 'hospitalis', meaning “being concerned with guests, caring for guests”.
That is a lot to unpack… for the Church to be a hospital, we are to be welcoming to guests… we are to be a good host… and we are to be concerned with the well-being of those guests.
I found an account of the origins and growth of hospitals written by a Charles R. McConnell from the perspective of the medical field…
Medical Anthropologists believe there were organized institutions existing more than 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia, and hospitals existed in Egypt and India even in antiquity. Hospitals and medicine played an ever-expanding part in the history of the world. As Christianity and Islam became widespread, Hospitals were established in both Christian and Muslim countries. During the early years of Christianity, the outreach of the church in general included caring for the sick, feeding the hungry and caring for the destitute.
This account shows the tie to God, to people, whether Muslim or Christian or maybe even others and the call to care for fellow humans.
So, what does that care look like?
It is a broad scope. Welcoming the stranger, those that are different. It is offering rest to travelers. Healing, mind, body and spirit.
The Rise Band has brought us reminders of where we are as members of this congregation… in the song the “Way Maker”
You are moving in our midst
Working in this place
A Miracle worker
A Light in the darkness
Touching every heart
Healing every heart
God, Christ and the Holy Spirit are moving in and around us… Through us! Empowering us to be a part of the Hospital.
As we begin to recognize how God has empowered us, we are learning what the gifts are that God has bestowed on us and is calling us to use… we as Federated Church and the larger body of Christ start to build our Hospitals. Welcoming strangers, caring for our visitors, praying for our sisters and brothers in Christ.
Fred Rogers is quoted as saying…
“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
The Church as a Hospital becomes a part of your being! No act is too big or too small. We, as Fred Rogers points out, never know what difference we can make in someone’s journey… we don’t have to know their struggles to know that if we greet each other with a welcoming, caring heart we can buoy them up and lighten their load.
Maybe some of us are travelers and come to this sanctuary with our own concerns and we are looking for care. Maybe you are a stranger and want to feel welcomed. With God’s Love at our core, we are here for you… you have a Huge Hospital Staff ready and able to meet you where you are on this journey. Open and affirming you!
Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up.
Then the towns people brought the sick to Jesus for healing… When bringing the sick, the grieving, the fearful and those in despair to God in prayer, we are bringing them to Jesus for healing. When we send cards and give hugs, when we bring meals to those in need and when we welcome the stranger… we are lifting them up to God, to Jesus to the Holy Spirit offering strength and love.
As many of you know, just about 7 weeks ago I had a cancerous breast tumor removed. 6 weeks leading up to that and the weeks in my recovering from surgery were filled with anxious moments… from my experience I can most assuredly tell you, this church takes this call to be a Hospital very seriously when caring for its “guests”.
The cards, flowers, the calls and emails, the food!
Okay, side note, I loved the food, sweet treats mostly, but I am not sure the sweets, which I didn’t turn down, they may not be the best choice for someone who is forced to be sedentary J ! BUT they did not go to waste! And it was noted by a few care givers that some situations give you permission to say, “what the Heck, indulge!”
These loving gestures all express love and care and were so appreciated. And most of all, I appreciate these words, Eight powerful and caring words… “I am sorry you are on this journey”. These words express it all. A recognition that one is in a trying, difficult and scary situation… no one is trying to fix it for you… just letting you know that what you are feeling, your fears and worries are real and legit. So, thank you for being the Church as a Hospital for me! My journey continues… we just don’t know what it is exactly… good news is that I will be fine and restored to good health when the journey is complete in the month or so ahead!
Jesus went to her, took her hand and helped her up.
When we heard the word Hospital… I am guessing most of us thought of a building… a place you go for care. But as I thought of the Church as a hospital, I began to see it here at 76 Bell Street, but I also envision the Hospital going where we go when we leave here… The hospital can be on the sidewalk where we encounter strangers, in our work environments or at the ball game. How we greet one another at Starbucks or Heartwood, at the grocery and the gas station, with a smile or a kind word… that is offering care, and I will add, when you care for a loved one, as my wife Martine has been caring for me these last couple of months… that is being the Church as a hospital!
William Sloane Coffin Wrote the following in his book Credo
None of the twelve disciples had any of the so called “advantages” --- education, wealth, social status. They were as ordinary as they come, which makes the point that Christ is not looking for extraordinary people but for Ordinary men and women who do ordinary things extraordinarily well.
So, we shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by this call from God. Each of us ordinary people, young and old and everyone in-between, need to recognize the gifts that we are empowered with by God to use as a Hospital staff member. Use those gifts extraordinarily well, offering healing to the world around us.
Brennan Manning, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel also wrote a daily guide, Reflections for a Ragamuffin… ( I love this reflective guide… because, I whole heartedly see myself as a “Christian” Ragamuffin, slightly disheveled and imperfect)… The reflection for July 21st was the following…
Genuine Christianity pulls us away from the stupefying specious religion that points to some future opportunity to practice virtue on some misty ideal. Christ wants Christians to live in the present, to love now, to touch this person in those concrete circumstances. His word pulls us away from every form of escape from involvement with others. In the Upper Room on the eve of his death, as a final emphasis to his life and ministry Jesus left us with a clear understanding of Christian life and community. Again and again he repeats, love one another… “Love one another as I have loved you. If you love me you will do what I tell you… and this is what I tell you (what I demand of you)… that you love one another.” Briefly and succinctly, Jesus reemphasized the rock foundation of the Christian life. And in so doing, he wants us to respect one another and take care of one another; he wants us to fuss and worry about, to be concerned about and involved with, to forgive and to make excuses for, to be good to and to love one another until the day we die and ever after. “In short there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love .”
Let us Pray:
Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, tried and true
With thanksgiving we shall be a
living sanctuary for you
Amen