A Sermon on Mark 1:29-39

Preached February 9, 2003

First Christian Church, Corpus Christi, Texas

By Donald M. Tuttle

The story is told of a little boy and his father. They were walking along a road when they came across a large stone. The boy looked at the stone and thought about it a little. Then he asked his father, "Do you think if I use all my strength, I can move that rock?"

The father thought for a moment and said, "I think that if you use all your strength, you can do it."

That was all the little boy needed. He ran over to the rock and began to push on it. He pushed and he pushed, so hard did he try that little beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. But the rock didn’t move—not an inch, not half an inch.

I don’t know about you, but I feel for the kid. I think a lot of us spend our time and energy pushing on rocks that just don’t move.

• Every workday and many a weekend, he found himself in his office. But this was no high-rise, corner office overlooking some financial citadel. It was a small, windowless office in the basement of a musty, old church. It was where a coalition of churches housed its "community ministry." There, along with his office, was the food pantry, the clinic that was open only once a week, the clothing closet, and, of course, the help desk for those who needed financial assistance. When he first accepted the position, he was filled with hope. Together these churches would change the community. But now, after several years, the names of those coming for help are familiar. The faces are ones that he has seen not once, not twice, but dozens of times before. Having pushed and pushed at the rock of poverty, he begins to wonder if it has moved at all.
• She really did love him. When they married it was her intention for them to grow old together. But in all the time they had dated, she didn’t realize the role alcohol played in his life. He wasn’t just a social drinker; he was an alcoholic. It wasn’t long after their wedding that he began stopping at a bar rather than come home to her. When he did show up he would be three sheets to the wind. She tried it all. She tried unconditional love. She tried tough love. She tried acceptance. She tried threats. She pushed and pushed and pushed on the rock of his alcoholism and it never moved.
• A post-game party. A few beers. A little romance. And soon she was a mother-to-be. But a baby wasn’t in the plans for a pair of high school seniors heading off to separate colleges. And so she "took care of it." Although it was many years ago, although she had told herself it was just a youthful indiscretion, although she assured herself it was the best decision she could make under the circumstances, although she had pledged many times to have no regrets, she still feels guilty. Try as she might she can’t move that rock that weighs heavily on her conscience.
• He stopped setting the alarm clock a long time ago. Now he wakes up in the morning when the sun finally filters into his room. But just because he wakes doesn’t mean he has a reason to get up. Retired, widowed, alone in the world, every day challenges him to hold back the tears that creep into his eyes and the despair that creeps across his soul. He tries. He tries hard. But the stone of grief and depression doesn’t move.

I think most of us feel for that rock-pushing boy. We know what it is like to be powerless, to fail. We know what it is to get discouraged, to imagine something that despite our best efforts we cannot seem to make happen. We know his pain and frustration.

Yet maybe there is another option than resignation or despair. Maybe we haven’t done all that we can do.

After a while, the little boy sat down on the ground. His face had fallen. His whole body seemed to be just a lump there on the earth. "You were wrong," he told his dad. "I can’t do it."

His father walked over to him, knelt beside him, and put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. "You can do it," he said. "You just didn’t use all your strength. You didn’t ask me to help."

The world in which we live tells us that it is all up to us. It tells us that we have to be strong and independent. It tells us we can’t and shouldn’t count on anyone or anything else. And yet, what faith tells us and what Jews and Christians have known forever is that we have a ready resource in God, strength for those who ask.

It had been a long day for Jesus. It had started in the synagogue in Capernaum where he had gone to teach. While there a man with an unclean spirit confronted him. Jesus both silenced and cast out the spirit, leaving the people astonished at the power and authority that he possessed.

And when he was finished there, he went to the home of Simon and Andrew, where he discovered that their hostess, Simon’s mother-in-law, was sick with a fever. So Jesus went to her, took her by the hand, lifted her up and made her well.

And while she got up and went to prepare him something to eat, a crowd gathered at the front door. Word of Jesus’ power had spread throughout the city. And as soon as the Sabbath was over, as soon as they could bring their family and friends to him, they did. They brought the sick and diseased, the weak and weary, the possessed and the pathetic that he might speak to them, touch them, and make them whole. And he did. I am sure that it was late into the evening before Jesus could get back into Simon’s home and lay down upon a mat to rest.

Yet before dawn, before anyone else awakened, Jesus rose and made his way out of the house and into the wilderness. "Why?" So that he could pray. Having poured himself out in love and care for those around him, having pushed and pushed against the rock of illness and evil, he went to ask the Father to add his strength to the Son’s. He tapped the one limitless resource available to God’s people so that he could go forth to do God’s will.

Jesus knew what God’s people have known for centuries. Years and years before, the Psalmist wrote: "I look to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." The Psalmist knew that his strength was insufficient, but that God’s was great.

Years after Jesus, the author of Hebrews would affirm the same truth. He told those to whom he wrote that they could "approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that [they might] receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." He knew that they were not, in and of themselves, strong enough to be faithful, but he knew that if they were to ask, God would be gracious.

How often do you suppose that we assume it is all left up to us?

William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas have noted that we are often "functional atheists." Oh we may believe that God exists, but when it comes to living our lives, when it comes to dealing with the weight of our troubles, we trust only in our own strength. We push and we push and we push some more. We give it all we have, figuring that it is all with which we have to work. And in the end we too often see little movement.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The greatest resource we have is not in ourselves but in God. And learning to be disciples of Jesus means learning how to pray, how to ask the Father to add his strength to ours. Learning to be disciples of Jesus means never failing to ask God for the help we need.

There is no ending to the story with which I began. But I can imagine one. I can imagine the father lifting his son to his feet and the two of them walking over to that stone, placing their hands against it, and with one big shove sending it down the hill.

And I can imagine the Spirit of God, lifting up you and me, and adding its power to our own, until the rocks of frustration and addiction, guilt and depression, and all their allies tumble away. Amen.