Screaming in a Synagogue

Mark 1:21-28

February 1, 2009

Last week, as worship was in full swing, Margee Iddings, one of our Parish Associates, noticed a man in the back of the sanctuary. When Margee noticed him, the man wasn’t doing much of anything.

All of a sudden, the man slid on the floor and ended up next to the baptismal font. Margee could hear him start to mumble. Then he started mumbling louder. Margee thought, “Here we go, from mumbling to yelling.”

The man never got louder than his mumbling and all of a sudden he got up, walked out. That was it.

What if….the man would have started screaming? There the man was at the baptismal font, our sacramental symbol of holy welcome and acceptance, and Margee has this feeling the man was on the verge of yelling. If the man was in the back, yelling….what would our reaction have been?

Collectively, what would we have done?

Would we have been fearful? Tensed up, hoping he would just go away? Or how would we have cared for him? Engaged him? How would we have interpreted the experience? As a disruption to worship? An annoyance to our well executed written out order of worship?

Would we have done our best to be swift, efficient, get him under control and continue on with worship? Would we have stopped, taken a collective breath and worked our way into a realistic relationship with the man, guiding each other in how to best care for the stranger among us?

Would we have stopped worship all together, so if someone would have asked you later on in the day, “How was church?” you would have replied, “Good. Different. We took care of a mentally ill man.”

We talk a lot in worship about risk taking, stepping outside our comfort zone in our lives for the sake of Jesus, for the sake of building a just and loving world. But what happens when “that world” is fused together in our worship space?

Jesus had to make similar choices. Our Mark text today gives us a model in how to respond with life and worship blend together.

There they were. First Century Jews sitting in a synagogue. Listening. Learning. I picture a controlled, quiet environment; heads nodding in approval of Jesus teachings. Then, the doors fly open and a screaming man said to be full of evil spirits starts yelling at Jesus.

Everyone in the congregation starts to look at each other, “Um, Jesus didn’t say this was part of the program today.”

Jesus couldn’t have predicted it but the screaming man in the synagogue –in the sacred place for worship and teaching—gave the congregation the ability to witness Jesus putting into practice his interpretation of the Law.

Because of the man’s mental illness, he was already excluded from the faith community. Because of who he was, the screaming man would not have been welcomed into a synagogue—it was a place for the clean and healthy, not the chaotic and sick.

But Jesus was teaching this new way of being together, of being in relationship with one another. In that moment, Jesus was making the synagogue the “training ground,” the place to learn about relationships, community, justice, compassion; the list could go on and on. The screaming man gave Jesus a moment to embody and incarnate the Law he was teaching and proclaiming.

The congregation witnesses Jesus stop his verbal teaching and put the teachings into practice. Jesus exercises his authority; most importantly he exercises the Law and calls out the evil spirits. For a moment, the man is healed.

Then the questions started coming. What is this? Is this some kind of new teaching? How can evil spirits obey Jesus?

I love that it took this healing of the screaming man to get the new interpretation of the Law in the congregation’s gut. They had to experience and witness Jesus’ interaction with the man to force out questions of faith and practice. Otherwise, they would have believed in Jesus in theory, not practice. The interaction forced the congregation to face the truth about Jesus, this new movement they were part of. Jesus was no longer just a man who talked theology and philosophy. They witnessed Jesus movement in action.

Action, practice happened in a place of worship, the place were the rubber hits the road. Place where people came into direct experience to live out their faith.

Here at Pilgrims, we don’t have man huddled around the baptismal font very often. But things happen weekly in worship that gives us moments to re-interpret and act out faith in worship. Not just in the words we use, the rituals we create but in how we interact with each other as worship is happening. We can transform moments when we are just observing each other to experiences of being more relational together.

It was about a year ago when I was at the communion table with Jeff, getting ready to share the invitation and prayers to the table. I look to my right and I see Sam and Maddie, two of my kids, hanging on the communion table. Maddie had asserted herself by finding a chair to stand and see over the table. As Jeff was doing the invitation, they kept peppering me with questions, “Can we help?” “I’m hungry.” “I want the bread with the juice.” “When can we eat?”

I was petrified. My heart was racing. I was thinking, “What if they mess this up? What if they act out? What if I can’t control them?” I think I had my hand doing this back off motion and making my angry mom face.

Fortunately I had more than one voice in my head. I had the fearful part of me then I had this other voice saying, “Mess what up? Disrupt what? My script for communion?” I was afraid people wouldn’t be able to have the “right experience” of communion because my kids were clamoring at the table.

This was a huge learning experience for me. It made me re-think the idea of what I consider “disruptive” in worship; that my job in that moment at the table with my kids was to control and conquer. I was worried that my kids would be a distraction to what was happening at the table: the prayers, the breaking of bread, and the pouring of the cup.

As if my relationship with my kids around the table, the table that symbolized how we are in relationship with one another, didn’t really matter. I had pushed our relationship aside to make sure things were right and proper.

Jesus sure didn’t try to control and conquer the man in the synagogue; instead, Jesus built a relationship with the man, in the moment. This wasn’t a disruption, a nuisance, a ruined moment that didn’t fit the outlined agenda of learning and teaching that day in the synagogue. Jesus didn’t brush the man away, saying “give me a minute and I’ll be with you when I’m done.”

The man screaming, demanding answers, was life, the hard reality of life coming alive in the synagogue that day.

Sam and Maddie reminded me that I have this tape in my brain of what, how worship should be. Jesus is the model for being mindfully aware of the relationships right in front of us, even in worship, that gives us the experience to practice love, patience and to welcome people, and kids, as who they are. What if instead of this (back off hand motion) I did this (welcome hand motion). What if I let Sam help me read the prayers? What if I hugged Maddie during our time at the table?

How could I have transformed the moment from something frightful and disruptive to something relational and peaceful?

What if we thought about worship as being the time to practice our skills, hone our instincts about reacting to one another in real time, not delayed “I’ll do it later” time? What if we looked at this time in worship as the time to practice skills that need to be developed in order to do justice and walk humbly with God?

In our worship, how do we respond to those grieving, celebrating, struggling, screaming, in worship?

Last week, along with our baptismal font man, Erin Sharpe and David Bailey were here for the first time with their newborn daughter Iona. At one point, Erin got up to walk Iona who was getting squirmy.

What would it have meant for someone to get up, walk over to Erin, and ask, “Do you want me to walk with you?” “Do you need someone to keep you company?”

The same thing for John Dalton who was working like a true parenting champion with is one year old William. William was squawking and squirming all over the place. What if someone went over to John, not to parent William, but jus to sit with John, acknowledging his attempt to parent and listen all at once?

Parenting can be isolating—even in worship. What if we broke that isolation by just offering our company?

During our prayers of the people last week, Mary Josie Blanchard offered up three heartbreaking prayers of illness, death and dying. What if, after MJ sat down, someone went over and sat with her, acknowledging that if she needs support of the congregation we are willing to give it.

When it comes to social justice, what do we do in worship on the Sundays when there is a demonstration regarding Darfur besides announcing it? Could it be when a demonstration is announced, the person making the announcements asks, “who believes in this demonstration?” and those who believe stand up?

How do we embody in worship the knowledge that the hungry are gathering at our side door for our Open Table lunch after worship?

Risk taking, moving out of our comfort zone—in worship our comfort zone is the spot we sit in on the pew. Jesus shows us in the Mark text that we need to be caring for each other as worship unfolds. If someone needs the radical acceptance and comfort God calls for in order to create a different world, why wait until worship is over? Why not, like Jesus, react to the human condition that is being present and experienced in worship?

Today we come back to the table and the promise I made to myself was not to be a control freak. Communion, by definition, is mutual participation and companionship. This is a time to give and receive, share and connect and build community. We need communion because it helps act out the ancient story that Jesus’ friends and disciples needed these symbols, this meal, so they could mutually participate in Jesus’ ongoing ministry of solidarity, rebuilding and transformation.

The communion meal is what grounds us, centers us, pushes us to re-shape our instincts so we can change moments that our culture and world tell us we should be annoyed with into moments of togetherness.

So when you come to the table today, don’t worry about being decent and orderly and creating the perfect line to the bread and cup.

Don’t worry about the crumbs on the floor, the juice spilled.

Don’t think you can’t connect with others around you as you are waiting to receive. There is nothing that says we can’t talk to each other while we receive the bread and cup. We can make eye contact, we can check in with each other, ask someone about a sick friend….

Our sacrament is about togetherness so we can build more togetherness. Let’s not wait and be together after worship in coffee hour. Let’s be together now.

May it be so.