St. Paul’s On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

5 Epiphany; February 8, 2009

Isaiah 40:21-31

Mark 1:29-39

FOLLOWING EAGLES

On an ancient gravestone in Asia Minor in modern Turkey, somewhere to the east of Ephesus, there are written these words:

“Here lies Chloe. She loved much.”

Can you imagine the family that gathered ‘round that gravestone to bury her? Can you imagine them as they gathered, days earlier, to think about what they would write on Mom’s headstone? “Here lies Chloe. She loved much.” Yes, that just about covers it; the dinners made, the clothing fixed, the work done, day in, day out, year after year. “Here lies Chloe. She loved much.” Down through the centuries that gravestone lies, testifying to her love for her family and friends; a simple Christian, living her simple Christian life that loved much, and touched many.

Look also at the funny story in the Gospel.

“Now Simon Peter’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”

Now, you can’t get away from the idea that they had gathered together for lunch and there was . . . no lunch! Mom was dying! Wake her up! Heal her! Someone’s got to serve us and it’s not going to be me. ‘Get up, get up,’ they say. ‘No, let me die,’ she says. ‘But, what about lunch? The Messiah’s here. Even he’s got to eat!’

‘Oh all right, what will it be?’

But perhaps the possibility of service is what saves you.

Perhaps being needed is what gives life.

Even the Messiah needs to eat. And even we can serve him. Perhaps nobody else in that room knew what to do – but they knew she would. She had that faithfulness and devotion and the practical ability to get the job done, to live out that devoted love with practical means. A good example of practical Christianity, loving Christianity. “Here lies Chloe. She loved much” – and we have the full bellies and the carefully mended clothes to prove it.

So Simon Peter’s mother-in-law gets up and provides this work of devotion that, it seems, only she can do, after Jesus has tenderly taken her by the hand and lovingly lifted her up.

So, perhaps, Jesus takes us by the hand and lifts us up from our affliction so we can serve him and others in our own way.

So too, do we gain a reputation for this kind of service, as Peter’s mother-in-law gained a reputation for being able to serve in a way fit for a Messiah. Even at death’s door she had to be called back, for nothing else would do.

And of course there was Chloe. And in later years her children and grandchildren, her friends and neighbors and their children would ask themselves: ‘What would Chloe have done,’ “for she loved much.”

These are not great people of faith and their stories are not written in the history books. They are written in our hearts. We look around us, at the role models we see today – and we are all role models. We look around us in our neighborhoods and communities and lives – and we see those people we are acquainted with in our families, our communities, our nation and world.

How would they react? What would they do? I’ll copy them.

These people are saints, and so are we when we wait on the Lord. We can be the eagles in Isaiah: “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

These people, these role models who wait upon the Lord, who live lives of quiet faith, not famous faith, seem to mount up with wings like eagles, high above the rest of us, stronger than the rest of us; far-seeing unlike the rest of us, able to run and not be weary unlike the rest of us.

They can walk and not grow faint, unlike the rest of us.

How can they do it?

The eagles Isaiah referred to were the ones he saw high over the Judean desert. It turns out that in that part of the Mediterranean, updrafts of hot air, thermal columns, heated over the desert, rose up high and strong. And eagles flying by on their mighty wings along their migratory routes from Northern Europe to Africa knew this, and would catch a thermal column, let it carry them up so they could soar and look at what lay below; and when the updraft gave out from too much height, they would swoop down again until they caught another updraft and soared up again, thus making their way down the coast to Africa.

“They shall mount up with wings like eagles.”

Those people we know and love and admire shall mount up with wings like eagles. They run and do not grow weary. They walk and do not faint.

We . . . mount up with wings like eagles when we wait upon the Lord. We shall renew our strength.

What are the updrafts, the thermal columns? How do we spot the updrafts that will carry us up as we go through life?

What were they for Jesus?

Dinner with loving friends and family was one – with Peter and the disciples, and Peter’s mother-in-law. Let’s make that a good dinner with loving friends. You’ll notice he doesn’t ask Peter or anyone else to make the dinner.

We have that dinner here once a week, a representative dinner with bread and wine and friends, served by the same Lord who asked Peter’s mother-in-law to cook. This one is not as good, but just as loving.

This is an updraft we can catch every week, as we soar into the next one.

We have other dinners – the good kind – throughout the year. The next one is coming up Shrove Tuesday with Mardi Gras.

Another updraft that Jesus used is private prayer. We can use that too.

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”

This was after he healed all those people and cast out demons. He was exhausted. We get exhausted when we do the work of the Lord. Get away for a moment, even if it’s before dawn, and pray. Be restored by your heavenly Father in ways in which sleep will not.

Be carried up, up, up on eagle’s wings.

The wings develop the more you use them, the more you seek out the updraft that blows from dinner with family and friends, Eucharist with God and each other, private prayer. Each time you catch an updraft, each time you soar, each time you rise a little higher – your wings grow stronger, you can stay aloft longer, and from that great height you can see more of what God wants you to do on the ground.

What do we say when we pull back from our surroundings a little bit in order to see our way more clearly? We: ‘gain perspective.’ We gain ‘a bird’s eye view,’ an eagle’s eye view, from that great height we achieve by that dinner with friends, Eucharist with God and each other, private prayer. Try any one of these to rise up on eagle’s wings, your wings, before swooping down for the next stage of your journey, the next stage of God’s work with you, the next stage of your service with him.

Become an eagle, whom others follow; as your wings grow stronger and you can rise up on any breeze.

“What would they do,” these people ask themselves as they look side-long at you, observing you rising up above your troubles, looking at them with great perspective, and soaring down again, in mission and ministry.

What would they do? What would we do? Find dinner. Pray. Serve. Love much. Love God.

Amen