"Need A Lift?"
1 Corinthians 9: 16-23; Mark 1: 29-39
February 5, 2006

Paul is not a slick politician putting on different faces to persuade different people…two-faced we call it today, saying what someone wants to hear in order to get them to come on board….that is a modern take on the story as we hear it through 21^st Century cynical ears.

That’s not it at all. Paul’s interest is in sharing the gospel…the word of hope made real. It provides, and so he wants to share, a vision of wholeness and joy radically different than the one the world offers….hope through faith that there is more…the more being God…a God who promises to be with us no matter what….and that’s freedom from the affects of this world, a freedom to discover joy right in the middle of the life we have! You see….never having to face the world alone…why…that makes everything different….if we believe it is true. If we will open to receive this grace, such healing.

Words alone would never make someone believe this could be true. Words alone have never made you believe anything, have they? Belief takes personal connection, experience to make it real.

Paul shares the gospel by coming up along side of those whom he meets…he becomes like them…is one with them…sees the world through their eyes…honors their values and need…and shares as is appropriate….one size does not fit all. Paul shares through his presence and actions, not words. This is his living form of evangelism….which is not about church membership but about sharing the good news. May this evangelism also be ours!

Paul comes up along side of someone and shares this good news: God is what ever you most need God to be in this moment. Do you need: Hope? Strength? Power? Tenderness? Anger? Stamina to resist? What is it you need most? God meets you there. That’s how much our God is personally invested in you! Sustaining you in the moment.

Can you feel how different this is from using faith talk to problem solve people’s lives for them or sweet talking the faith to them coating their problems with words, or downplaying their realities as if things really aren’t so bad…buck up!

And Jesus…..lives it one step farther. He goes to Simon’s mother-in-law and he comes along side her and he reaches out his hand and takes hers and lifts her up. I would say lifts her body and spirit. It doesn’t say the fever left her, but that she was lifted up and she began to serve with them…not merely as a housewife, although significant…but as one healed…a different form of service….discipleship

When was the last time you needed a "lift"? Did anyone reach out their hand to you? Would you have seen it if they did? When was the last time you were sick or in a down time? Did someone come along side you? How were you made different through that one loving act of compassion?

I remember when I was in 7th grade and very sick with ear infections. I can remember the pain and lying in my mom and dad’s bed in a darkened room trying to sleep so I wouldn’t feel it. Then I realized that someone was gently massaging my temples and brushing the side of my head with their hand. My grandpa, my dad’s dad, had come in the room and all he did was sit there caressing my pain. He never said a word. I am not sure he ever even knew I knew he was there. That one loving act lifted me and touched my life in ways he could never have imagined. In that moment I discovered love is not boastful and needs no reward (like Paul), that it is enough just to come along side and be with someone…in fact, it is everything. I learned that the healing that came to me through his unselfish act of oneness with me was far more dramatic than the physical cure that soon came about the ear infections.

Do you have an experience like this….when someone came along side of you? How has your life been lifted by such an experience?

Need a lift? Relationship lifts…love lifts.

Love lifted me. Love can lift you. You can lift others. You can lift yourself!

Need a lift?

Being lifted up may include a fix of the way things are, but if all you get is a quick fix, then you haven’t been lifted at all.

You know how you can tell the difference between healing and quick fix? Look at how you are serving? Has there been a shift in you that nudges you to reach out differently to those around you? No shift in how you "serve" others….no healing….just a quick fix.

Sometimes I have seen it work the other way around too….change how you are serving others and it may just begin to fix what ails you and if you ground this shift in God…see the connections/the relationships…why your life just might get lifted!

A true healing touches us, lifts us, in such a way that we are propelled out into the world differently…we are called to serve…to come along side of others in meaningful, powerful ways. We experience relief and rejoicing as the healing touches us to serve in new ways….volunteer in the nursery, give more generously of your financial resources, prepare food for Hope House, go visit our shut-ins without even being asked, ask how you can do more, write your congress person, support the Red Cross, take the Core Communication class, begin family counseling, limit the number of activities your kids are involved in so you can stay home together….so many ways to serve!

To receive the healing of the gospel is to see your body and spirit as one and so see life differently and be drawn to serve others in new and amazing ways. The good news is we are more than bodies, more than spirits alone. Body and Spirit are one and powerful as we let God come along side of us in life…as we are lifted up, healed to a new way of being.

What is the lift you need?

How is God coming along side you offering you relief and wholeness?

Will you crack your life open to allow some grace to come in?

Receiving your healing, the good news just for you…..in what ways are you now enabled to serve that you could never have imagined were possible before?

The gospel in two words: LOVE RELATIONSHIP…that’s when someone comes along side you without false expectations, with few words, offers you their hand, appreciates you, and frees you to see things differently, to live in new ways yourself….just by being there with you….lives the good news with you!