Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking:
February 4 Worship Service Video
Join us for Worship Sunday at 10:00 AM followed by fellowship and refreshments in the HeBrews Café
- Join us next Sunday, February 11 for our annual Mardi Gras Sunday featuring Dixieland music with the Winnipeg Brass Ensemble. “O When the Saints…”
- Root to Rise is a workshop on climate change hosted by Mission and Social Action in conjunction with Crestview United Church. Join us Sunday, February 4 at 1:00 in the Van Roon Hall.
- Tickets are now available for our first fundraiser for this year’s roof project. A concert with “The Very Groovy Things” is the place to be on Saturday, February 17 at 7:00 PM. Tickets are $25 and available from the church office or before and after service on Sunday.
- For news and events please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work
Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, February 4, 2024.
Mark begins in a flurry of activity. I’m certain I remember that in my first year New Testament course the professor said that Mark’s favorite word is “immediately”. If you read it through, as opposed to one story at a time as we do on Sundays, you get a sense of action, and movement, and urgency. And along the way you will pass many familiar and beloved stories like the man lowered from the roof, the Gerasene Demoniac, and the parable of the sower.
The flurry of activity found in Mark chapter 1 all seems to take place in a single day in the fishing village of Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. This is the beginning of the Galilean ministry and it doesn’t take long to get it off the ground. But I am convinced that the message of all this action is not simply to say how popular Jesus must have been. I think we understand it better if we think of it as an indication of how important Mark believes the gospel message is. And one way to interpret that importance is to say that God wants for our well-being.
A lot of the early ministry of Jesus consists of healing stories. People healed of unclean spirits. People healed of leprosy. People healed of infirmity. People who literally pick up their mats and walk.
It’s not all healing. In the lesson from last week Jesus was teaching in the synagogue and the people were amazed at his teaching and said that he taught as “one who had authority’. The healing that came after that was therefore in demonstration of that authority. Mark may move fast but he wants to reader to pay attention.
Why begin telling the story of Jesus with an abundance of healing stories? I believe it is very theological. God wants for our well-being. Mark would have the reader know that God never, ever, never is the cause of our suffering and sorrow. Rather, God sends Jesus to make it clear that pain comes from the world and not from the God who is love. In first century Judaism this would have had a lot of resonance. A culture that knew much, much less than we do about disease would have routinely ascribed that which cannot be explained to God. Both good and bad, but especially bad. Further to that, Jesus was dismayed that the religious authorities of his day seemed to reinforce this belief with their excessive cleanliness rituals. The result was a people who kept the ill at a distance as opposed to embracing them, who saw the disease on the surface rather than the beautiful soul beneath. And this couldn’t stand. Why? Because God wants for our well-being.
With Mark 1 as a backdrop, we have had some consciousness about well-being in our community and our world. We pray for an end to bombardments because in our heart of hearts we know this can’t be what God wants for God’s people. We have talked about mental health, removing stigma and increasing resources in the wake of a crisis because God wants for the well-being of everyone without exception. Personally I was pleased to read this week that expanding access to MAID was delayed, perhaps indefinitely. Surely a line has to be drawn somewhere and only time and dialogue, the profound listening to one another, can help us arrive at a consensus of where that line should be. Dare I suggest that if you don’t believe God wants for our well-being you haven’t read Mark very closely.
Universal well-being may never be achieved. For all our advancements and treatments we bear much in common with our biblical ancestors. We still know sorrow as they did. We still know ailment as they did. We still witness hatred and violence and prejudice just as they did. Many of things which Jesus came to transform are still with us. But so too is the revelation that came to Capernaum and everywhere else where Jesus shared the good news of God’s redeeming love. God acts with urgency and with power for healing and wholeness and well-being. There is nothing else that unconditional love can yield.
God wants for your well-being. The Bible tells me so.
Grace and peace,
Michael
- Did you know you can support this ministry by e-transfer, automatic withdrawal (PAR), and gifted securities, in addition to weekly or monthly cheques? For Offering Information please visit: https://charleswoodunited.org/support/ Thank you for your generous support.
- Through the United Church of Canada’s membership in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, an appeal for donations has been issued for the Humanitarian Crisis in the Middle East. For more information and to donate please visit: Humanitarian Crisis in the Middle East Appeal
- Share the service with friends by forwarding this email or using this link: https://youtu.be/nyQfNGqKKPs
- Read this week’s scripture lesson here: Mark 1:29-39
