A Stir in the Water
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
Pastor Katie Shaw Thompson – January 14, 2024
A Stir in the Water – Mark 1: 4-11
Today’s scripture story takes place in the wilderness and begins with a description of the ministry of John the Baptist, who wore camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.
That is not the description of a typical resident of Judea in that place and time. The setting and this description of John would have tipped off the original hearers of the likely read aloud Gospel of Mark that something out of the ordinary was happening.
In fact, they may have heard those wild descriptors and understood that the storyteller was likening John the Baptist to ancient Israelite prophets of old, who were not always popular with the people but who were often in touch with the message of God to their place and time.
In her book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Katherine May writes about the way she responded to a series of crises in her life. Rather than keeping the “stiff upper lip” so ingrained in her British culture, she chose to let herself fall apart. She took a leave from her stressful position as a college professor and started homeschooling her young son.
She made cookies and took long walks on the coast. She screamed and cried and argued with members of her family. She slept and ate and wrote whenever she wanted to. She came to think of this time as a kind of winter and a retreat from the press of expectations she had held up for so long.
Writes Katherine, “Everybody winters at one time or another; some winter over and over again…We must stop believing that these times in our lives are somehow silly, a failure of nerve, a lack of willpower…They are real, and they are asking something of us. We must learn to invite the winter in. We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.”
In my experience, the dominant culture doesn’t usually applaud stories like Katherine’s. It seems to me it’s more likely that the stories that get passed around on social media or published in the paper or highlighted on TV news are ones where, in the face of overwhelming odds, someone persevered and performed a superhuman feat. I love those stories. I love hearing about the resilience and capacity of the human spirit.
But what I don’t love about the dominant culture’s preference for those stories is how easy it becomes then to see productivity, prosperity, perseverance, and popularity as the only good goals. Is there any space for the naturally occurring cycles of internal winter times in a culture like that? Or do we have to lie and pretend we’re always in a high emotional summer all the time?
What happens to rest, grief, and the uncomfortable business of accepting our sadness and anger in a culture like that? How does a culture like that cut people of faith off from hearing the word of God as it whispers or wails out from our places of supposed failure?
Mark tells us that John the Baptist offered a ritual cleansing of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. What kind of sins do you think those folks imagined themselves to be carrying to the River Jordan? What kind of sins did John have in mind? And were those understandings of sin all in line with the nudging of that eternal Spirit of Life and Love we call God?
Would God really see our inability to conquer all odds or please all people or make all the money or always be happy or fit in with our neighbors as sins? That’s not an image of God that resonates with me despite the pressure I often feel to atone for those supposed failures.
Rather, I think the shortcomings that the Spirit of all Life and Love would call us to turn away from would include making idols of productivity, prosperity, perseverance, and popularity.
It’s pretty easy to get wrapped up in an orientation toward those things. But if you find, like me, that you are still at least sometimes oriented toward those things to the point where you are unkind to yourself or others, I invite you to imagine slipping into the warm waters of forgiveness and letting yourself return home to that place where you know you are made for love and so is everyone else.
You don’t have to be more than you are.
You don’t have to be ashamed of needing a break.
You don’t have to be afraid to say you’re sorry or to simply say “no.”
You don’t have to push away uncomfortable feelings forever.
The winter time can be a great time to welcome in all those things you’ve pushed away the rest of the year. Indeed, you may find these longer nights bring all those uncomfortable feelings and realities rushing in without your welcome or permission. What if instead of the cultural prevalence to push through and push down discomfort, we got a little more comfortable with being present to the things that make us uncomfortable?
If we let ourselves spend time in that wilderness, might we too find ourselves better in touch with the message of God for our place and time?
I know a lot of you know this Rumi poem “The Guest House”, but even if it’s well-worn to you, I want to offer it to you again today in case it has some new insight for you this season:
“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
For who knows if they may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”
I can’t even begin to guess what the human part of Jesus brought to the wilderness waters of baptism in the Jordan. But Mark tells us there was a clear message from God:
“And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’”
Whatever meets you on these long winter nights, may you trust that the soft light of a winter dawn is coming and may you hear the clear message that you, too, are a beloved child of God.
May it be so. Amen.
