From the First Baptist Church in America pulpit
75 North Main Street
Providence, RI 02903
February 26, 2006
"Weary in Well-Doing"
Mark 1:29-39
Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

Do ya'll ever get tired of doing good? Or feel a need to get away from church? You're in good hands if you do, because Jesus grew weary in well-doing; worn-out from the pressing crowds. Being around needy people can eat you alive sometimes. So you have to get away in order to stay effective. If even Jesus did, you know we do. Mark says: "And in the morning, a long time before day, Jesus rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed" (Mk 1:35).

Jesus needed to be by himself.  And if we're wise, we'll make time for such a place. For some, it is a real place, some spot on a hill perhaps. Or on the Cape Cod beaches. Maybe you prefer the tall buildings and the river front...city life.

For others, it's a quiet place, simply having time. A little solitude in the car on the way home; a last cup of morning coffee with a slight hum from the refrigerator. Or watching the embers of a dying fire. Or the house grown silent after the wife and dog are in bed. We all need such places, because its hard to function well for long without them.

"And in the morning, a long time before day, Jesus rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed."

With all the violence in our world, HIV/AIDS; the crowded demands of family, job, and for some, church just adds to it. Earthquakes, mud slides and relational polarization, doesn't this text sound appealing? There's a seductive tranquility to this story about Jesus rising early in the morning for retreat. Like the hymn put it, "There is a place of quiet rest -- near to the heart of God?"

But Mark wants us to know something else about those times when we get tired of doing good. They're not just places of refuge and renewal. But also places of temptation; primarily because it is a place of coming to grips with what's most urgent about life and ourselves.  Its finally not a place of calm, but of stress; not placid retreat, but a place of crisis and decision.

One scholar says the word translated "Alonely place" is really too gentle. Because it hints of trouble-free serenity. "Wilderness" is a better word. John the Baptist was the "voice of one crying in the wilderness." Jesus was "driven by the spirit into the wilderness." It's a place of temptation, where God's will is made clear and the demand for obedience becomes urgent. Where decisions are made that can make you or break you.

All of us have weak places where the temptation to disobey is felt most powerfully.  It can be a holy place, alive with the presence of God, like the story of Jacob's ladder. Or a dangerous place, where the atmosphere is charged with the possibility of betrayal, like Judas. This is the place where Jesus made it his habit to go and pray.

This is the first temptation story of Jesus. In the deserted place, while Jesus withdrew from doing good, he prayed, and the temptation came...in a surprising way: from Peter, his best friend.

Mark tells us Peter and those around him arose and found Jesus and said, "Everybody's searching for you!" Enough of this isolation! Let's get up and get with it! Important things are waiting! Like most real temptations, this one doesn't seem like temptation. Because its tempting us to do good. But its apparent innocence betrays a deep enticement -- to relinquish something valuable. "Everybody's searching for you!" "Come back to Capernaum! And stay! Stay, where you healed the sick and astonished the people with your preaching. The people admire you in Capernaum. Come back. Let your ministry end where it began. You can be the local wonder-working, village priest. "Everybody's looking for you!" The temptation to do good.

But Jesus isn't so easily localized. He went out in the wilderness, facing a crossroad. One path went back to Capernaum and a life of comfort and popularity. The other led to Jerusalem, a trial, the cross. Costly sacrifice. One path would take him where the people yelled, "Hosannah!" The other would take him by the place where they'd cry, "Crucify him!" We know which one Jesus chose.

Instead of a place of serene reflection, his was a place of momentous decision. The pull of self-interest vs self-service. The same thing he faced in that other lonely place, the Garden of Gethsemane, where 2 separate wills competed against each other. And Jesus lost.

So Jesus is facing the "tempter" again and made the same decision he would make later: "Everybody's looking for me, huh? They want me to come back, do they Peter?" "Nah, let's go on to the next town, that I may preach there too; for that's why I came out."

How important is this story? It shows the secret to Jesus' ministry. It is from his quiet moments that he found the courage to follow God's will and not his own; to preach God's words and not his own; to do God's work and not his own. Not Peter's. No matter how good it sounds. Not the church's. God's.

They're not always the same. And when we choose to follow Jesus, there will be such times for us too; where we are lured to misuse the faith we confess. Not the gentle places of retreat from life's pressures. But the wilderness-times, when we must choose between our will and God's, between our word and God's, between our purpose and God's. 

Sometimes it can be a place of discord, a place we'd never go unless forced to do so. A marriage falls apart. A job is lost. A child goes astray. A loved one suffers in pain. Somebody we trusted betrays us. These too are lonely places, that we visit reluctantly, at best. No wonder church people get worn-out!

And sometimes it seems that the thing to do is just "suffer in silence," you know? Or this awful one: "It's God's will." But watch out -  sometimes that which appears most holy, like going back to Capernaum and ministering among the needy - is the very temptation God would have us avoid!

I sense in this place that church is a place of temptation for many of our leaders. With an outdated structure that is cumbersome and leads to expending quality energy. That'll wear you out pronto. But its not just church, where standard procedure in most churches is having to do a lot with a little. So much of life is like that. In our relationships, our families, anything that matters. The ocean is so big and our ship's so small.

There is a phrase in Mark's Gospel that embodies the opportunity for good or ill in our temptation times. The baptismal water from the river Jordan had no sooner dried on Jesus' skin, than he was "driven to the lonely wilderness," where for 40 days he was tempted to take shortcuts as the Messiah. He could be a social worker, offering handouts. Or a military warrior, ruling with power. Or have the entire world fall down at his feet in worship. Of course, Jesus rejected all the popular ones.

Mark speaks of the contrasts he met there, of "beasts and angels." Can you feel it? Bludgeoned by beasts. Ministered unto by angels. But there Jesus made his decision that set the course of the rest of his life as a suffering servant. And the world is still reeling from it to this day.

Our own places of temptation, and decision, where we decide to follow the call of God or our own noses...can be at the breakfast table or on the job. Or an insight that comes from deeply thinking about something profound. Or an argument with somebody we care about. It can come in the morning or at nighttime. When we're tired or when we're refreshed. In the singing of a public hymn. Or in the praying of a private prayer. At the movie theater. Or even...in the middle of worship while somebody's preaching...

Will Willimon, a Methodist Bishop in the North Alabama Conference, tells this story on himself. He got an agitated call one Sunday evening from a parishioner, who allowed as how his daughter Anne had decided to drop out of pharmacy school. She'd been home for the weekend and worshiped with her family that morning and the news of her decision caught them by surprise.

The pastor wanted to know why Anne would do such a thing, but her father wasn't sure. All he wanted him to do was try to talk some sense into her. Of course he called Anne to remind her of the many hours and great expense she'd put into her pharmaceutical career; which she seemed to be willing to toss away. "How did you come to such a decision?" asked the pastor. She said, "It was your sermon that started me thinking." She described her own lonely place. And admitted her interest in pharmacy school was simply to earn a decent living. But the pastor's sermon had emphasized the call of God that comes to all of us sometime or other. That God has something important for each of us to do. And that's what caused Anne to recall the past summer she had spent teaching in the church literacy program among migrant workers, a time when she really felt like she was serving God.

She told the pastor that it was after his sermon, that she made her decision to leave school and pursue a calling to full-time Christian ministry. And after a long silence on his end of the phone, Will finally said,

"Now look Anne ... I was just preaching."

PASTORAL PRAYER: It was so hard for Peter, Lord. Because he just didn't understand the reality that Jesus had brought to Capernaum. Or why he would interrupt his time of serving for strengthening. So he did the expected and begged for more miracles from Jesus in a place where he was popular.

But if you are the God of Simon Peter, you are our God too. Always doing the unexpected, for we too fail to understand the kingdom you have brought into our midst. Like Peter, we long for a rescuing messiah. But you came as suffering servant. What a disappointment that is! What a let-down.

We take heart in the fact that Jesus chose to go "to the other towns." And because he did, he comes to our town too. And he is here even now, tempting somebody, in our lonely places, calling to us, if we will, to follow.

In worship we remember when Jesus taught us to pray, "...lead us not into temptation," he said that to you! But when you tempt, it is never to do wrong, but to do good. Because Jesus spent his life "going about doing good," help us to balance the tension between serving and strengthening as he did. And thereby keep faith, in a world worth saving, with a dream worth sharing, and a heritage worth preserving.

Jesus was not afraid to blend opposites, like a serpent and a dove. Advocating for sharp minds and tender hearts. So may this worship open our minds, melt our hearts, and consume our pride, that we may perceive the difference between what is good and what is best; what is real and what is self-deception and how we should best spend whatever time we have left.

We dedicate this hour to bless you O God, as we sing about it, like the Psalmist; and preach about it, like the Apostle; and embody it as did the big fisherman, who finally got the picture, and served...Amen.