SLOW MIRACLES

Text: Mark 1:21-28

Jesus has just called Peter, Andrew, James and John, fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, to be his disciples. They immediately follow him and the same day, it seems, they go to Capernaum, a town on the NW shore of the lake. It’s not a big lake – only 13 miles long by 7 miles wide – certainly in our context it wouldn’t be called a “sea” though it’s bigger than the lakes in southern Alberta. So it wouldn’t be a long walk from Bethsaida where the others come from, about five kilometers. Shortly after they arrive, it is the Sabbath, and Jesus goes to the synagogue. Perhaps he is known there already, and he is invited to teach, which was the custom in the Jewish faith. They didn’t ordain their preachers in order to determine who could teach in the synagogue; they simply found out who was sufficiently learned and gave those people the opportunity to speak. I think it might have been a more demanding system, since they were constantly being evaluated and public recognition could be withdrawn at any time! There was no tenure for a wandering rabbi….

Jesus is always recognized as a gifted teacher. In this instance, it says the people are “astounded” at his teaching. And why is that? Because he teaches “as one having authority” and not as the scribes. That means that Jesus doesn’t have to appeal to authorities other than himself, as the scribes do. The scribes cite the scriptures and the words and deeds of other teachers. Jesus is confident in his own authority. And he immediately demonstrates this when a man disturbed by a demon or suffering from a form of mental illness appears in the synagogue, challenging Jesus. The evil spirit in the man speaks out loud, identifying Jesus as a man from Nazareth and also the Holy One of God, and expressing fear of his power. Jesus gives an order and in a violent manner the spirit leaves the man. Everybody is amazed; they begin talking about his new teaching and his authority over demons. The news about Jesus spreads around the countryside.

What is interesting about this story is that the evil spirits identify Jesus as God’s Holy One. It’s not the scribes the spirits are afraid of – because the scribes only have authority derived from other authorities…mainly from the religious powers-that-be who themselves derive their power from other religious authorities. Something like the pastors and bishops of our church – the authority that we have is conferred by others and by the policies of the church. But Jesus has intrinsic power…power within himself. His power resides in who he is. Just like the evil spirits. They have power too – power to cause distortion and dysfunction and endless harmful effects – and that power comes from who they are, the servants of Satan, the Evil One.

This matter of spiritual power is one of the most frustrating things about trying to live as a Christian. We read the stories in the Gospels about Jesus’ words and actions as he travels around the countryside and we have to say that we don’t have the same experience. We don’t have the power that he has: we can’t heal sickness, we can’t free people from the things that oppress them, we can’t raise the dead. OK, so maybe we don’t have the power to do those things, but we believe Jesus still has, right? So how often do we see spiritual power doing those things? Not very often. Hardly at all. More often we see dreadful things happening and we are helpless to do anything about them. Except that we suffer along with those who suffer. And we do what we can to help them, even though we can’t do what they really need and want, which is healing or liberation or resurrection. We’re like those scribes, with no authority of our own.

That was the frustration in the inner-city ministry as well. Every day we had the opportunity to meet and get to know the most vulnerable and needy people in our society. As a group of agency-workers we were able to help some of them to the extent that they recovered from their addiction or got medication for HIV/AIDS or got some job-training so they could be employed. But the majority of them were in more or less the same situation when we left as when we came – except for those who died, and many died. The most frequent question I got asked by church people in the presentations I did about inner-city work was “Do you see a lot of improvement among the people you work with?” The answer was “No.” And then I had to justify that by explaining that many of these were damaged people – damaged by neglect, by abuse, by addictions, by chronic illness, mental health problems, brain injury and other disabilities. And their situation wasn’t going to get any better…at least not in the near future in a society that doesn’t provide enough help for those who are disabled in some way. I could have made much more amazing presentations to suburban churches if I’d been able to tell stories of miraculous recoveries and dramatic turn-arounds in people’s lives. The really amazing things were the sweetness of the street people, their hilarious black humour, their generosity with the little they had, their constant hope and their heartbreaking stories of being knocked down once again and picking themselves up yet again. And the amazing goodness of agency-workers who face that pain and degradation every day and keep hammering away at the barriers that keep people down. I know that these discoveries – and you couldn’t keep working in that situation unless you made these discoveries – weren’t convincing to outsiders. One of my pastor-colleagues came with me to the inner city one day – just to our office on the second floor of an old building on 97th Street in Edmonton, above the second-hand clothing store. I thought our office was sort of funky but comfortable…and she said, “How do you stand the dirt?” I thought, “You haven’t seen dirt, lady – this ain’t dirt.” I was stunned by her question – it hadn’t occurred to me to worry about dirt. Not that I thought it was good for anybody to live or work in a dirty place – but our office wasn’t dirty by most standards. And to this day, I don’t think ministry is about being super-clean – physically, morally or spiritually. But I could see her point. Why aren’t we cleaning the place up – doing what Jesus did: healing disease, giving sight to the blind, freeing those in bondage to addiction, making nice clean neighbourhoods out of the mean and dirty streets?

The only explanation I can offer is that we were trying to do exactly that. The inner-city health centre, set up by a group of nuns and other Catholics in the neighbourhood, made huge improvements in the health of local residents. The drunk tank and detox centre, built by the United Church, gave people the opportunity to get off the street and start addressing their addictions. The Women’s Reintegration Program, staffed by a female Anglican priest, worked with women coming out of the prison system and put them in touch with Christian people who would accompany them through their first year out of jail. I knew some of those women and that program gave them a new community of friends that saved them from falling back into criminal behaviour. A Catholic woman is the Executive Director of the Prostitution Awareness and Action Foundation of Edmonton and she manages a fund and programs to assist sex-trade workers while they’re still working on the street and while they make the transition to what they call “straight” life. I guess the main difference between the miracles that Jesus did and the ones these agency-workers do is the time it takes. Jesus could do his miracles instantaneously; for us it takes longer.

So I really do think Jesus’ followers achieve miracles. “Slow miracles”, they call them, day by day, step by step, standing by, offering acceptance and encouragement and support. And in the meantime, there are small “counter-miracles” which travel the other way: I think those mini-miracles are meant to encourage Jesus’ followers, to keep us going in the face of discouragement, when we think we are getting nowhere, that there is no improvement and ultimately no hope for change. Here’s a story….It’s from a book called “Slow Miracles”, written by a minister who works in urban ministry in a US city.

In late summer, when the blackbirds are beginning to swoop in southward arcs, I…get a job….

The job is in a junior high school. They are looking for someone to work with the “behaviour problems”, the potential dropouts. I am to help these kids with their school work and see if I can keep them out of trouble….

My first student strides into class, impeccably dressed, toothpick between his gleaming teeth. One look at him and I know I will love this child.

Benjamin D. has a reputation. He carves swastikas in school desks, and sometimes in his own skin. Swears fearlessly in the face of important people. Refuses homework. Has a file as fat as an unabridged dictionary, full of phrases like “sociopathic tendencies” and “high criminal risk”. He is eleven years old….

Benjamin D., after a great deal of posing and stancing, has revealed his big secret: he can’t read.

Can’t read the textbooks, the library books. Can’t read the comments teachers have scrawled on his math worksheets. Can’t read a thing. And nobody knows it. Nobody even suspects it. He has fooled them all by acting outrageous to distract them.

“Benjamin D.,” I say, “believe me, you must be brilliant to have pulled this off. Think about it. You’ve been in the public schools for seven years, man.”

“Oh right. Yeah. That’s me. Brilliant. Sure. You bet.”

“Do you want to learn how to read?”

Long pause. “Yeah.”

“All right. Tomorrow. We’ll start…”

February….Benjamin D. and I have tried everything. Sight-word method. Phonics. Flashcards, sandtrays, games. We have gambled our pocket change on five-card stud with three-letter words. Studied street signs. Drilled and practiced and worked, hours each day, yearned and even wept. He’s not getting it. Not at all.

He’s not getting it, and I can’t get him to get it. Benjamin D. is raw with pain; he has taken the risk of his life and failed. Swastikas begin to appear in my classroom, carved on the desks, drawn on the walls. I feel like screaming.

Then I get this idea….

April…By now, Ben and I have finished at least twenty books. It’s been easy. I’ve simply read each book to him out loud. We began in February with Black Boy by Richard Wright. It riveted him to his chair, set his bright mind on fire, whetted his appetite for more.

From there we went on to other books – Malcolm X, Mohammed Ali, James Baldwin. Ben’s mind is deep and complex, and nuance never evades him. He has begun to tell his own stories and proves to be a master at weaving narrative. He has started to produce exceptional drawings that the Art teacher studies in awe.

Today, though, we are reading a text on aviation, an assignment from the Physics of Aviation class he began last month. He sits absorbed, his head resting in the palms of his hands, eyes closed.

He’s getting it. Storing it in memory. Tomorrow, when the teacher says, “Which rule…explains the phenomenon of such and such?”, his hand will go up, probably ahead of the others.

June…It is the last day of school. Benjamin D. will be gone next year, off to a magnet school that specializes in the arts.

“I will miss you. Very much.”

“Yeah. Sure. Right.” His smile is tender, though, for he knows that I speak to him from my heart.

“The school will be a good place for you. You will do well.”

Long pause.

“I have some advice for you. Can I give you some advice?”

“Sure.”

‘I know you like the Marines, but I hope you think carefully about that. You’re an artist. You have all the brilliance, the spiritual depth, of a real artist. I know you’re only twelve, but I may not get a chance to give you advice again. So I have to give it now.”

“And one more thing. I believe that there will be lots of women who will fall in love with you. Pick one who likes to read. To read out loud. That way you’ll be in books for good.”

He grins. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll do that. See you.”

I grin back. “See you….”[1]

Sometimes we need to look more carefully at the things that happen, so we can see the miracles. They may not be so easy to see…but miracles do happen for people who believe they can happen. Jesus hasn’t lost any of his power.

[1] G.F. Thompson, Slow Miracles, Lura Media, Inc.: San Diego, CA, 1995, pp. 69-72.