Mark 9:1-8

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

For only the 3rd time this millennium, we gather for Sunday worship on the day that commemorates St. Valentine and celebrates the role of love in our lives. In light of this rarity, and given that there is a proclamation of love in today’s gospel, it seems that the stars have aligned for a “lovey-dovey” sermon.

Actually, every sermon every Sunday should be a “lovey-dovey” sermon. For many people, the experience of worship is the only time they are reminded of the fact that God loves them. Everything we do as a church–not just worship, but every service project, every class, every piece of music rehearsed, every decision the church Council makes, every meal shared, every dollar given to the church, and every dollar the church gives to the community is a reaction to the announcement that God is love (1 John 4:8), God loves you, and God loves this world.

I’ll pause here to make sure we are all on the same page about what love is. To help, I’ll share some Valentine’s Day cards from some brilliant Christian thinkers through the ages:

In order for each of us to function at our best, we require being the subject of loving attention. It is as vital to our spiritual and physical wellbeing as oxygen, water, and food. There is an abundance of research that has concluded that the extent to which children feel loved by their parents in their adolescence correlates to the child’s ability to form healthy, secure, and trusting relationships with others throughout their lives. One study concluded, “Children who felt rejected (unloved) by their parents were more anxious and insecure, as well as more hostile and aggressive toward others, when compared to children who felt loved.”*

This does not mean that anyone who grew up feeling unloved is destined to a life without love; however, it does mean that such a person will have a harder time and have to do more spiritual and psychological work to overcome their childhood deficits.

I hope that everyone worshipping with us has had the fortune of being loved, in a healthy way, for as long as you can remember. I know that not everyone has. I know that some people need to do more work to really understand that they are worthy to receive love and effective at showing love to others.

Once again, just like every other week, we invite you to experience that love; so, we repeat the announcement that God loves you. God is completely head over heels in love with you; and not because of anything you have or haven’t done. God decided to love you before the earth began. God loves you even when you do not feel loved by others. God loves you even when you feel like you can’t love yourself or others.

We all need to hear that; we all need to be reminded of that. I do. You do. Even Jesus and his followers needed to be reminded of that.

Recall the gospel story for today. Jesus ascends the mountain with three of his disciples and there they experience the presence of Moses and Elijah. In the midst of their conversation, Jesus begins to shine like the sun. The voice of God chimes in, proclaiming, “This is my Son, the Beloved! Listen to him.” It’s an announcement reminiscent of Jesus’ baptism when he rose out of the Jordan River and heard the voice of God announcing that he was loved.

Jesus was God’s beloved; therefore, we should listen to Jesus. And what does Jesus have to say to us?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength….You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mark 12:30-40)

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mark 5:44)

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.” (John 15:9-10)

Jesus is God’s beloved. Listen to him!

Take the time today to remember and thank those who have loved you. Even if they have passed from this life to the next, speak to them, visualize their smiling face, honor their memory and their love for you. I encourage you to make a list of people who have loved you well; not as a self-indulgent exercise but simply as a way to fill yourself with gratitude. Seriously, make a list. Like, right now...you’re at home after all; there’s got to be a piece of paper and a pen somewhere nearby.

Regardless of whether your life has not been filled with love or not, know that you are invited to experience God’s unconditional love in the pages of scripture and in prayer. Find your Bible, open its pages, and let yourself be immersed in God’s story of love and redemption. Once you find something that speaks to your soul, sit in silence with nothing but that scripture and find yourself transported into God’s safe and loving embrace.

I’ll finish by inviting you to do one more thing. Come up with a subtle cue or some way of reminding yourself throughout the week that you are loved. You could bookmark a verse about God’s love in your Bible and re-read it at least daily. You could draw a heart on a sticky note and stick it to your bathroom mirror. You could change the background image on your phone or computer to something that reminds you of God’s love. You could commit to listening to sappy love songs all week long. Just keep it simple and make it fun. Valentines’ Day or not, we all need to be reminded that God loves us so that we can share that love with the world.

Amen.

* https://medium.com/@williamfwalkerjr/how-to-destroy-a-child-make-them-feel-rejected-and-unloved-95b89fcdff1c

Mark 1:21-28

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

A friend of mine from college had an interesting way of filling his free time: he would climb up the exteriors of various buildings on campus. This all happened at Valparaiso University, so one of his climbing adventures took place on this building: the 60’-high Chapel of the Resurrection (see image below).

His attitude towards life was engaging, fresh, and often quite different from mine. I rode a bike, always with a helmet firmly attached; he had a skateboard. I played cards and video games; he came up with crazy pranks to pull off on campus. I was concerned about following the rules; he pushed boundaries. I kept my feet firmly on the ground; he...did not. Well, I kept my feet firmly on the ground until the day I finally went with him to climb a building on campus. I didn’t attempt it until our senior year. In all reality, it was little more than an attempt to impress the girl I had recently started dating. We all made it up to the roof and back down without falling and breaking any bones. And she must have been impressed because we kept dating and eventually married.

I asked my friend if he was ok with me talking about him and his campus climbing adventures for my sermon illustration. He joked that he wasn’t aware of the story of Jesus climbing the temple. However, I reminded him there is a story about Jesus climbing the temple. It’s found in Luke 4:9, which reads: “The devil...placed [Jesus] on the pinnacle of the temple.” It all makes sense now...the devil made him do it!

I’m not advocating for anyone to go scale the facades of buildings. That’s not exactly what inspires me about him. I am inspired by his impulse to push against rules, norms, and expectations in order to serve others. This same friend graduated and went down to Guatemala to work with people who lived in landfills. That takes a serious boundary-pushing impulse.

I hope you are blessed with a friend like this; someone who helps you see new possibilities. A friend like this keeps you on your toes. A friend like this helps you understand that some rules are made to be broken.

In this way, my friend modeled an aspect of Jesus’ life that is often overlooked by Christian churches in the West today: Jesus was ornery. This is evident in the miracles he performed, the wisdom he taught, the friends he made, the freedom with which he lived his life, and the way he understood and related to God. All of it clashed against the customs and rules of his time.

Ornery Jesus reserved his most radical and controversial actions for the Sabbath day–the day no work was to be done. I imagine Jesus was pretty low key throughout the week, but as soon as the sun goes down on a Friday night, Jesus would get a look in his eye that suggested he was ready to break some rules...because some rules are made to be broken.

In the gospel story for today, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He’s not teaching like everyone else teaches...this guy is impressive! He’s engaging, authoritative, and exciting. He’s pushing boundaries. He’s the skateboard-riding, thrill-seeking, excels-at-everything guy captivating a room full of rule-followers wearing safety glasses, pocket protectors, and bike helmets...or whatever the equivalent was 2,000 years ago.

He is addressing an assembly of people whose power is perfectly preserved by the rules they impose and enforce. But here they are, eating up Jesus’ every word. They begin to see that the rules should ensure that all people thrive. Maybe someone other than a priest can forgive someone’s sins in God’s name. Maybe people should be allowed to be healed on a Sabbath day. Maybe sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes are worthy companions with whom to sit down and break bread.

And then someone in the assembly recognizes what Jesus is doing and calls him out on it. “I know who you are. You will destroy us!” Scripture says this is the voice of an “unclean spirit.”

The unclean spirit has found a compatible host in this religious man preoccupied with his own power. This unclean spirit is threatened by anyone suggesting there is a life to be lived beyond the rules, regulations, and structures that preserve the power and privilege of the elite. The voice insists what matters in life is to follow the rules so that you can keep your cupboards and treasure chests full, even if those same rules mean others are denied their fair share.

Jesus does not sit quietly and listen to the concerns of the unclean spirit. He does not allow the voice of lies, deceit, and unbelief to utter another single word. He has no time to waste rationalizing with such narrow-mindedness. Instead, Jesus commands this unclean spirit to be silenced and remove itself from the man. It does. All are amazed.

I like to think that all those who witnessed this event in the synagogue that Sabbath day left feeling free and emboldened to push the limits of society, ready to treat people with more respect and compassion than they had before. However, there were some whose hearts were hardened against the new gospel they were hearing and witnessing with their own eyes. They saw Jesus as an ornery rule-breaker. And when your identity, value, and salvation is tied up in maintaining the rules even if those rules oppress others, then ornery rule-breakers must be stopped at any cost. These men would conspire with other powerful people to rid themselves of this rebellious Jesus once and for all. They would, of course, fail.

Fortunately for human civilization, history is full of examples of people who have been in touch with the rebellious nature of the universal Christ and have gotten into “good trouble,” as the late Georgia Representative John Lewis liked to refer to it. John Lewis, leading the crowd of black southerners across the Edmund Pettus bridge to register to vote. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, raising the world’s awareness of the sin of apartheid in South Africa. Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head for demanding girls be given the right to be educated in Taliban-occupied Pakistan, only to survive and find an even louder voice. These are just a few of the stories most of us know well. But each day there are people who challenge rules and assumptions that only serve to preserve the power of the privileged. They get into good trouble.

God did not send Jesus into the world to sanction our worldly preoccupation with preserving our sense of power and privilege. God sent Jesus into the world to expose the sin of humankind, teach us a more beautiful way for all people, and remind us that we are forgiven even when we fail to follow that more beautiful way. In the coming days and weeks, I encourage you to get to know ornery Jesus. Ornery Jesus calls out injustice. Ornery Jesus calls out the unclean spirits that tell us our salvation lies in our power and privilege. Ornery Jesus looks at an obstacle as intimidating as a 60’ brick wall and says, “We can make it up there.”

Amen.