Two Movements to Make in a Time of Crisis

Series: Mark: The Life of Jesus

“Two Movements To Make In Times of Crisis”
 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church –Sunday, March 29, 2020
Text: Mark

Hello, friends. My name is Brad, I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge.  Welcome into this space. We are going to look into the Scriptures as we do each week here at Jericho – whether online or in person – for a source of hope, a sense of direction and guidance for our lives. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it challenging to establish a sense of rhythm to life these days.  It’s hard to tell days apart from one another or remember what day I did anything on.  It can be disorienting to be in isolation in our homes for extended periods of time. 

At the same time, I am finding life sometimes strangely unpredictable because of the rate at which things are changing and the uncertainly from knowing when and how this is all going to end. 

And our natural human tendencies in a time of uncertainty is to close ourselves in.  To put up barriers – not just social distancing ones, but emotional and financial and relational ones.  Just last week, I would go out jogging and people would, from a safe social distance, wave and smile hello.  Now, it feels different.  A bit more guarded.  People crossing the street and not making eye contact.  There’s a tendency to shut down, to give the side eye to the person in line in front of you at Costco who you just know is going to get to that last case of toilet paper before you do.

It’s human nature to think in terms of scarcity and protection, but I want us for a few moments today to look at the Life of Jesus and two examples that can help us make two movements in our own lives that I am convinced are necessary, helpful and healthy for us to flourish as human beings and as a community during this time. 

Here at Jericho, we’ve been studying the Gospel of Mark this spring as we make our way toward Easter.  And one of the things that we notice again and again in Mark’s gospel is how Jesus practices purposeful self isolation.  Jesus withdrew regularly to be alone.  Not because he needed to practice appropriate social distancing, but because Jesus’

The objective was to deepen His connection with God (not simply to avoid the crowds)

Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.” Mark 1:35

REFLECT & RESPOND: (?) How am I deepening my connection with God during this season of isolation?

DWELL Account – We’ll email you tomorrow. (on JRCC email – home page, go down to the

Jesus balanced contemplation and action

 The purpose of being alone with God was to be present with others in their time of need

Movement #1 – Isolation to Compassion

If you have your Bible, open with me to mark 5

Mark 5:24-26

Slide – Picture of Jesus

2 Slides – Mark 5:27-30

Seems like a cutting remark.  A snide interchange.  Btu the word here isn’t dogs, its cute little doggies. 

Slide: Archaeologists tell us that first century was familiar with a concept we know as lap dogs.     

Food was scarce in the ancient world so you don’t have doggies as pets unless you are well off.  In a recent Bible for Normal People podcast,  Sara Ruden, poet, Quaker, PhD in classical philology from Harvard, notes that in pagan literature, the time cute little doggies get the scraps from the table is at a lavish feast.  A banquet of infinite generosity.  So we are talking theologically here about the heavenly feast, the banquet that God is preparing for the end of time. And in this heavenly banquet, there is so much food there, that even the dogs under the table get stuffed.”  For the very dogs to get enough, that is amazing…. The readers, see they are heirs to the kingdom, they can imagine a banquet in which no one is excluded and there is always enough. 

Jesus is saying to this Canaanite woman, this outsider, in God’s economy, in God’s family, there is so much abundance, that there is always enough.  Jesus is saying to her “God is Enough”

I love the way Bible teacher and author Beth Moore puts this.  Riffing off the Beatitudes, she says “Blessed are those who need God enough to know Him enough to know He's enough.               - Beth Moore

Friends, if you are listening or watching today, no matter the circumstances you find yourself in personally or we find ourselves in globally, blessed are those who need God enough to know God enough to know that God is enough. 

It’s here we make the second powerful movement: Scarcity to Generosity. 

We are called not only to believe this with our heads but to evidence this with our lives.  With our time, with our talents, with our treasures. While others in the world move to hunker down and hide, we move out into the world to give, to love, to serve.  Not because we believe we are enough but because we serve a God who is enough. 

So as we reflect and respond, I want to ask each of us an individuals and each family to think: 

(?) How am I going to practice radical generosity during a time of scarcity?

How will your family be the one on the block who shares what you have in times of need?

And I want to let you in on something we are working on together with other churches in our city.  We are planning a city-wide movement of radical generosity that  

(?) How are we going to practice radical generosity that reaches beyond the walls of the church and touches our city with hope?

This is going to be our Easter blessing to our community and there are literally dozens and dozens of churches representing thousands and thousands of followers of Jesus who are planning to band together to unleash a tidal wave of generosity and blessing into the lives of those impacted in our city.  So church, top up your giving to the benevolent fund and we will be ready to respond with hope to those who are in need. 

  Because the Father sent the Son who sent the Spirit who sends us into the world.  And that is enough.  

Let’s pray…

Our Benediction today comes in the form of a story from mark 5:21-43 and a liturgy entitled The God of Enough by Tim Graves:

 

In Mark 5, Jesus is approached by the leader of a local synagogue.  A responded person who’s daughter was dying.  He approached Jesus in faith asking him to come and lay his hands on her and heal her.  So Jesus started out for his home. 

 

On the way, a crowd pressed into Jesus.  They were touching him, pressing against him with anticipation.  And mongst them a woman who had suffered for man yyears at the hands of man ydoctors.  She had spent everything she had to pay them but had only gotten worst.  She heard about Jesus.  She heard He was a healer. So she came up behind him and she touched the hem of his robe.  When she did it, immediately, she could feel in her body that she had been healed from her terrible condition. 

 

Jesus know that healing power had gone out from him so he turned around and asked the crowd “who touched me?”.  Jesus asked this not because somehow Jesus had a limited amout of power or a limited amount of healings that he was ab le to do that day and this impertinent woman had somehow ruined Jesus’ plans to heal the young girl who was dying. 

 

 

Yet Jesus contines going to the house.  The little girl, she’s 12 years old, she has died by the time Jesus arrives.  And yet we see as we continue our march toward Easter that Jesus does not even let death define, confine or control Him.

 

He holds the hand of that little 12 year old girl, and in the presence of her parents and with authority and tenderness Jesus says “Talitha Koum” which means Litle Girl, get up”.  And the girl immeadiatel stood up, began walking around. They were totally overwhelemend and amzxed. 

 

Friends; I invite you to read aloud the portions of this benediction :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some days we let a theology and attitude of scarcity overtake us.

On those days we allow what we have 

to define us, control us, and restrict us.

 

God provides enough.
God created each of us as enough.
God creates a world of abundance.

But our certainty of scarcity,

our idolatry of the shiny,

and our fears of others

prevent us from gratitude, graciousness, and sharing.

 

Even in times of crisis, we live in an abundant world.

Our creator makes it so.

 

Move our hearts, lessen our fears in this hour.

There is enough for all of us.

 

Praise be to the God of Abundant Love!

Praise to the God of Enough!

 

 

 

So go, into your weeks. Not out of our homes. But carry with you a desire to move from ilosation into places of compassionate action.  And from a mentality of scarcity toward prayerful action fuled by radical generosity, to the praise and honour of a God who has always been enough, is wnough now, and will be enough though every age, every c ircumstance and every generation.  In the name of the Father, Son and Spirit we bless you. AMEN. 

 

During times of crisis, we often feel like isolating and turning inward. But as we deepen our connecting with God, we are invited to move from fear into places of deep compassion and radical generosity.

Speaker: Brad Sumner

March 29, 2020
Mark 7:24-30

Brad Sumner

Lead Pastor

Previous Page