2-4-2024 “In High Demand” (Mark 1:29-39) ~ Epiphany V

Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

There is a channel on YouTube that allows you to watch old commercials. You can relive your childhood and see all the commercials that used to come on during Saturday morning cartoons or the ones that appeared before, after, or during Bonanza, the Honeymooners, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, you name it. What’s ironic is that as you watch these commercials there are pauses every so often so that they can show you actual commercials! You take a trip down memory lane with Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and all of a sudden, you’re hit with an ad for the latest iPhone. Today’s commercials become tomorrow’s entertainment. One of the commercials that I never quite understood was Calgon. Remember that one? Remember the tagline? “Calgon, take me away.” I didn’t get it. What was in that stuff that took all your cares away and put you into a euphoric state? Furthermore, the much younger me just didn’t get it. “What are people being taken away from?” And then you get older, and you realize that raising children, having to work, having to pay bills, all of that (and a host of other adult responsibilities) is enough to make anyone say, “Calgon, take me away.”

Everyone needs a break once in a while. I used to have a parishioner who was a police chief. He once said to me, “You know, our modern workaholic work ethic is for people not to take time off. It’s to the point,” he said, “that I have officers feeling as if they shouldn’t even take vacation time.” He then said, “Actually, the vacation time isn’t for them; it is for the department.” His philosophy was that you cannot do a good job if you are wiped out. You need to recharge your batteries every once in a while so that you can be more effective at your job. Jesus knew this, too. Notice what he does in today’s Gospel lesson: he tries to take a break.

Jesus is exhausted. His popularity has spread. People are coming from all over to see this miracle worker who has been healing people. Mark tells us that “at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.” Actually, Mark says that “the whole city was gathered around the door” of Simon and Andrew’s house where Jesus just healed Simon’s mother-in-law. The whole city? Mark is clear that Jesus is in high demand and there is no rest for the weary.

What does he do? He answers their requests: “he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.” Then, like anyone else, he tries to get some rest. He wants Calgon to take him away. Mark says, “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” But not for long. Everyone wants him. Simon and his friends go looking for him. Jesus doesn’t even get to kick his feet up and have a breather! When they find him, they say, “Everyone is searching for you.” Of course, they are! If you are suffering from a terrible ailment, and you’ve heard that there was this itinerant Jewish rabbi who was healing people, you’d want to get in on the action, too, before he went elsewhere.

Jesus does go elsewhere. He tells Simon and his crew, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came to do.”

No day off for Jesus. He’s onto the next task. He is in high demand. He’s more popular than Taylor Swift!

For a long time, this was used as an example of the ministerial task. Seminary professors would look to passages like this and say, “As a minister, you are always on the clock.” I had a professor at Andover Newton who taught pastoral care whom I love named Dr. Earl Thompson. He was a smart, compassionate, and extremely personable man, and he would always say, “There are no timeouts.” Not quite the advice that my friend gave to the officers in his charge. There have to be time outs or you will burn out.

Nowadays, seminaries teach a different lesson. It is about constructing healthy boundaries and self-care. They’ve gone to the other extreme. That’s human nature, isn’t it? Go one way until you find that you’ve gone too far, then swing the pendulum to the other extreme. No profession should ask you to work till you drop. In the same vein, your life is not just about you and your own needs, especially if you work helping other people. You need to strike a healthy balance between work and relaxation.

Clearly, Jesus worked hard. People came from all over to hear his new teaching with authority (as we discussed last week). They came to be healed of various diseases and to have demons exorcized. He was a social worker, a doctor, and a priest all rolled up in one. He was able to do all this because he is God incarnate. Going to Jesus is no different than going to God. (It is going to God!) But he was also fully human. He felt many of the same things that we felt. He wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. He was tired and even fell asleep when at sea when the boat he was in was battered by the waves. He even got angry. (Remember the story of the moneychangers in the Temple?) To deny this is to deny his humanity and to deny the incarnation.

But notice, even in his exhaustion, Jesus moves forward. He continues his ministry. No, this is not a sermon in which I tell you to go do and be the same for others, as important as that is. I am telling you to go to those arms of Jesus when you are tired, when you are worn out by life, when you’ve had enough, when you’ve asked why me when you don’t know where to turn or what to do next. Go to him. Let him hold you because he will. Turn to him in prayer and literally cast your cares upon him, for, as we read in 1 Peter, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (5:7). You cannot take care of others if you do not take care of yourself first. Take time for you, for your soul, for that which gives you fuel to get up each day and go at it again. Take time to be held in the everlasting arms — the arms of our Savior. Amen.