Jesus of Capernaum
As a little boy in Sunday School, hearing Bible stories about Jesus and children, I used to imagine being the little child Jesus picked up and held that day in Capernaum.
A warm, sunny day by the seaside - - have you seen on the internet, pictures of present day Capernaum? Touches the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and the long-abandoned village has been excavated so that the synagogue Jesus attended on Sabbath is still there or at least its foundations under the synagogue later built on the site. And the house where Jesus healed Simon Peter’s sick mother that day so long ago in human Time, that house has been identified at least by “tradition.”
I’d imagine Jesus picking me up, and I’d know him, my next-door neighbor in Capernaum, where as an adult he makes his home, a place where everyone knows everyone (I once lived in a fishing village like that). As I imagined Jesus holding me, I’d also know who and what he was and is for time and eternity - - that he touched me, picked me up and held me. The memory of that moment would carry me along, chosen, loved, blest, held and saved throughout my life and forever.
Can you imagine being that child? Come and go to Capernaum with me. Close your eyes if you want to, but you don’t have to, you don’t need to, maybe you’d rather look at the gospel picture in the bulletin.
Capernaum can’t be all that different from here on StAndrewsBay in September: early fall, a bit too warm, a bit too humid. Sea of Galilee is fresh, so no salt smell in the air. We are playing in the dirt road, Jesus walks by with friends, who are arguing among themselves about who is the greatest. Overhearing their trash talk, Jesus stops, sits down, leans over, scoops you up, beams a huge smile at you. “Jesus loves me, this I know.” Only in your mother’s arms could you feel so loved and so safe - - and then he tells his disciples that not they but this child is the greatest; and the child is you. The other kids are looking at you with envy, admiration and astonishment, and they come running to where you and Jesus are, and gather round. And nothing is ever the same again.
I wonder if this is why we are here today, this morning, here because of this and all the stories about Jesus, Jesus who loves us, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the stories tell me so, wonderful stories of our Savior.
Today’s may be the best story of all, you know. Easter is good, victory over Good Friday. Christmas, the Nativity story is about Jesus and his Mother, but this is about Jesus and me, Jesus and you, the best story of all. This and Matthew’s similar, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” The kingdom of heaven is like us, like you and me, did you realize that? And here we are! Here we are.
Are you still in Capernaum with me, are your eyes closed? Does not matter.
My favorite picture of Jesus and the Children used to be the one in Sunday school rooms at East Hill Baptist Church in Pensacola, where I went with my grandfather Gentry - - you know the picture, sitting on a rock, Jesus with a child on his knee and other children gathered round. Nowadays I know he really did not look like that, not like us, light skin, light hair, blue eyes, no Palestinian Jew did, nor did he look like the Bethlehem babe in our stain-glass window (I once told the Rector that one of these days when he’s away for Alabama Football I’m gonna come in here with a bottle of black shoe polish and correct the color of Jesus’ golden curls), but it really does not matter: in every age, people think of Jesus looking like themselves, ourselves, and if it helps us identify more intimately with him, that’s fine; because Jesus is whatever, whenever we need him, comfort or challenge, gentle or sharp, all things to all people, and each of us is different and may need him differently at different times.
But I mentioned my favorite picture of Jesus and the children. There is a series of Jesus art from a Christian community in Africa, art titled “Jesus MAFA,” from the Mafa, an ethnic group of Cameroon African people. In their art, everyone is black, of course, African, they do not see a white European Jesus. And unlike our practice of picturing Jesus wearing white, in their art Jesus always wears red, a red garment. I like that better! I like red, red cars, red shirts, red hats, red church vestments, red clergy stoles (the one I have on this morning), red chairs, red doors on Episcopal churches. I like art with Jesus wearing red. I enjoy Christian art that is more true to the truth than the blond, white, blue-eyed Jesus I grew up knowing - - because he was not, he really was not.
But, again, it does not matter: we can imagine Jesus of Capernaum any way we like because, after all, images are not Jesus; icons, pictures, images, help us see Jesus better, and that’s the idea of Eastern Orthodox iconography, but icons are not Jesus. Jesus said “God is Spirit.” And Gospel John says Jesus is God, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was in the beginning with God - - all things were made through the Word.” And we repeat that in our Creed:
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
God is Spirit so we cannot see God, and two-thousand years on, unlike the child he picked up and held that day, we cannot see Jesus of Capernaum except as icon, image - pictures that help us. The Cameroon art today, Jesus in red, holding one of us in his arms. Let it be me.
Jesus in Capernaum. He walks by, you look up at him, you know him - - he knows you, he’s known you all your life. He leans down, scoops you up into his arms and holds you. This is Capernaum, you are there, this is that day, and you are that child. Jesus loves you.
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Sermon/homily in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida, Sunday, September 23, 2018. Proper 20B. Text: Mark 9:30-37. The Rev. Tom Weller.
Leaving the villages of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was near to the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”