The Might of a Horse

Jesus has had a busy sabbath. He, James, and John observed the day of rest at the home of Simon and Andrew. While there, he cured Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever, just by taking her by the hand. Mark doesn’t tell us how word of the miracle got out, but get out it did, for when the sun set and the sabbath ended and people were out and about again, “the whole city,” Mark tells us, beat a path to Simon and Andrew’s door, bringing their sick, their injured, their friends and family held captive by malevolent spirits, to receive Christ’s healing touch.

And then the next morning while the others slept, Jesus slipped out of the house and walked the streets of Capernaum with only the stars and moon to see by, until he found a deserted place. There, God the Son started his day in prayer and praise, returning to center, resting in the fulness of the Holy Trinity in the darkness before the rooster’s first crow. This is what it looks like when the savior of the world gets tired.

And how about you? Are any of you tired? God knows there are lots of reasons to be. And I don’t mean just the usual list of social, political, and meteorological ills. Blessings can beget exhaustion, too, like being a first-time grandmother accompanying her daughter through the first weeks of caring for an infant, or an athlete finishing a race, or moving into a new home, or recovering from jetlag in a beautiful place an ocean away, or dealing with the aches and pains of the privilege of living to old age. Toil and blessing alike can take a toll on body and spirit and render them weak, because God made these human bodies to pause, to breathe, to be, just as God did on the seventh day.

There is a mistake we can make as Christians, and as church people especially, of defining our worth to our communities by our measurable outputs. At All Saints that might look like the number of socks or bars of soap we collect, or the number of dinners we serve at the Dayspring Center, or the dollars Mother Andrea disburses from the Rector’s Discretionary Fund to help with rent, utilities, and other emergencies. Now let’s be clear. This is essential: we are called as Christians to minister to the sick, the friendless, and the needy. “Faith without works is dead,” as the letter of James tells us, and these works of mercy are fruits of a living faith.

But measuring a church’s value solely by its charitable works doesn’t quite square with the faith we proclaim, not when the savior we follow seems to withdraw from crowds nearly as often as he walks among them. Jesus’s divinity during his time on earth was constrained by the limitations of his fully human body. So following Jesus looks like feeding the hungry. And following Jesus looks like taking a break, and giving those who carry heavy burdens rest.

          The promises of God in Christ are for everyone, but they are especially for those in need of rest. We live in a country, and more to the point, an economy, that needs people to mistake work for virtue to justify the demands it makes of them to get by. A few weeks ago I was at an establishment with as dystopian a help-wanted sign I’ve ever seen hanging in the bathroom – “Welcome to your second job.” Think about the realities that make a sign like that make sense. Think about what the people who work there need from a church. I’m pretty sure for most of them, and for the overworked in this room, it’s not more work.

We have a challenge as individuals and as a community to manage this tension of being a people who understand that good works and rest, stillness, and prayer are all core values. A people who understand that while a living faith requires having something tangible to show for it, the key Christian virtues are faith, hope, and love.

Both of the readings from the Hebrew scriptures today – the lesson from Isaiah, and the psalm, point to this. They present images of an all-powerful God, one who “brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.” The trouble with these images, majestic and beautiful as they are, is that they present an idyllic vision that just isn’t the world we live in. If the princes and rulers of earth really were put to naught, maybe we wouldn’t dread presidential election years so much.

Isaiah acknowledges this difficulty. Knowing that his hearers – and that includes us - will not recognize the world he’s describing as the one they inhabit, he calls out the faint, the weak, the powerless, and the exhausted, tells them he sees them, us, and urges them to wait - to wait - for the Lord, who will renew their strength and mount them on eagle’s wings. Isaiah doesn’t instruct us to work harder to get this result, our hope is in patience and in faith.

Verse 11 of the psalm reads, “God is not impressed by the might of a horse, and takes no pleasure in the strength of a man.” Now you can read that as an arrogant burn from the immortal to the mortal if you want, but there’s good news contained within it, namely that there’s nothing you can do to earn God’s favor; you need not be strong to be worthy of God’s love. The same goes for horses, apparently.

This sermon is not a manifesto for idleness and sloth. Keep collecting socks for the homeless. Keep serving dinner at Dayspring. Keep mentoring the ladies at the Indiana Women’s Prison. Keep giving to the Rector’s Discretionary Fund. Keep doing all the things you do to make this broken world a better place. But also rest in the knowledge that doing these things is not what makes God love you. God loves you because you are dust brought to life by God’s very breath. Be still and know that. 

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Sermon Preached at the Episcopal Church of All Saints, Indianapolis, IN

Epiphany 5 - February 4, 2024

Readings: Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39