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2012-02-05 Healing Words - Serve - Mk 01 29-34 Healing of Peter's Mother In-law |
Healing Words
February 5, 2012
Mark 1: 29-31
Jesus' words can bring amazing power into our lives - power to teach, power to guide, even power to heal. In this series of three messages, we'll uncover the healing of the body, mind and spirit which Jesus brought and brings even now.
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February is a short month, and so we're doing a mini-series of messages called, "Healing Words."
As we heard from the scripture today, Jesus almost always started with worship. Whenever he'd arrive in a new town, he'd go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, which, because he was Jewish, was Saturday, and he'd worship. In the act of worship, he'd speak, he'd teach, probably something like a sermon. Ironically, we don't have much record of what he said in the house of worship. Almost all of what we know about what Jesus said comes from OUTSIDE the sanctuary. Jesus' ministry, Jesus' teaching, always started in the house of worship, but then really quickly spread out - into the streets, into the homes, onto the waterfronts, and hillsides, and mountaintops. Which is not to devalue what happens in worship, and what Jesus may have said there. But what it DOES say is that Jesus can't be confined to a building. Jesus TAUGHT about his ministry in the house of worship. Jesus TAUGHT the scriptures in the house of worship. But Jesus DID ministry in the streets, the homes, the waterfronts, the hillsides, the mountaintops - and all places in between.
I want to give a huge, huge, huge shout-out to all you teachers out there, whether you do it professionally, or on Sunday mornings, or in Children's Church. Teaching was crucial to what Jesus did. But as important as teaching was in Jesus' ministry, HEALING was every bit as important, if not more. Jesus was a teacher AND a doctor. Whenever Jesus went to a town, he TAUGHT first, but then, immediately after, he started HEALING.
So, we're looking at scriptures in the Gospel According to Mark where, parallel to his ministry of teaching, Jesus did a ministry of healing. We're calling this, "Healing Words." And the word for the day is, "Serve."
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There's a rule in the school system that you're not supposed to send your kid back to school for 24 hours after he or she has had a fever. I'm sure it cuts down on the spread of germs in the classroom. It's a good rule. But on the other hand, it can play havoc on a parent's schedule, especially working parents, or single parents, who then, themselves, have to stay home and tend to a kid who's really not that sick anymore. Of course for the kid, it rocks. You get to stay home, while your brothers or sisters have to go to school. So sad for them. And you're technically sick, so you have to relax, like, on the couch, or in the bed. And if you're still coughing occasionally, or if you just generically, "don't feel so good," your mom, or your dad, or your British nanny will bring you tea, and chicken noodle soup and crackers, or jello. Or - best of all - if you've had, say, a tonsillectomy or strep throat you get - say it with me - ice cream. Usually your favorite flavor of ice cream. Because ice cream has amazing healing powers. Every kid knows that. And you get to watch whatever you want on the Disney Channel, or those two guys who blow up stuff - what is that show - MythBusters - you get to watch a MythBusters marathon. You get to wear your PJs and a bathrobe all day, just like Hugh Hefner. Nobody wants to be sick, but when you're pretty much over it, but you're still getting waited on, especially by the people who usually tell you to turn off the TV and not to eat so much ice cream... it's a sweet deal.
When you're home sick, and when it's something not so terrible, like a fever, you get waited on. You get service. Service and sickness. And healing. That's what the Bible is talking about today.
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As we were saying, almost always, when Jesus came to a new city, he went first to the synagogue and taught. That's where today's scripture picks up. Verse 29 says, "As soon as they left the synagogue...." So we know Jesus is new to the city. And we know he has been teaching.
"As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John." Now, at this point in Mark's version of the Gospel, Simon and Andrew, and James and John were all the disciples Jesus had. Nowhere near the final twelve. This was still a ministry start-up. Jesus had four disciples who only days before were fishermen. So, they leave the synagogue and head over to Simon and Andrew's house. Actually, the Bible says, "...the house of Simon and Andrew." It may have been a single-family dwelling, but the idea of "the house of" implies the whole family, the extended family. The two brothers, Simon and Andrew, shared the home. And because it was the "house of Simon and Andrew," they were likely the two oldest brothers, the heads of the household. We can also assume Simon was married, because he has a mother in-law who's living with them. We can also assume Simon's father in-law had died and that the father in-law had no brothers, or at least no brothers who could afford to take in their deceased brother's wife, because the mother in-law was now living in the house of her daughter's husband. Which then means, Simon and Andrew were fairly compassionate people, even though they were probably pretty poor, as fishermen tended to be. Simon and Andrew opened their home to at least one relative who had nowhere else to go and who was a drain on their already meager fishermen's income.
Verse 30 says, "Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once." A fever in those days was not something that just kept you home from school for 24 hours. Advanced medicine like aspirin was still more than 1000 years away. Sure, you could chew up tree bark. But with no antibiotics, no saline drips a fever could turn deadly real fast. So this was serious. Which is probably why Mark says, "...they told him about her at once." They told him about her with urgency. And with compassion.
Verse 31 says, "He [Jesus] came and took her [Simon's mother in-law] by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her...." Jesus' healing technique is a lot like his preaching in the synagogue: we know he did it, but we have no idea how it worked. We just know it did. Mark doesn't explain the miracle of healing; he just says "the fever left her." And so, if Mark didn't get into the scientific method, then we probably shouldn't overthink it either.
OK. Now finally. Here at the end of the story, we get to the crucial word, the Healing Word of the day. And we also get to the part of the verse that a lot of people seize on. Mark says, "He [Jesus] came and took her [Simon's mother in-law] by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her... and she began to serve them." She began to serve them.
Alright. To people looking for examples of the Bible's gender inequality, that line, "...and she began to serve them" sticks out like Gloria Allred's lipstick. And yes, if that were all you were reading of the story, and if that's all you knew of scripture, it does kind of sound like Jesus healed Simon's mother in-law so she could "serve" them supper. Here's my thought on that.
Oh, come on. This is the guy who can turn water into wine. This is the guy who can feed 5000 men, plus their wives and children on five loaves of bread and two fish. This is the guy who after he was resurrected, cooked a grilled fish breakfast for his disciples. Do you really think he needed Mrs. Peter's-wife's-mom to cook for him? Seriously? If you're looking for examples of the Bible's gender discrimination, there are a hundred better examples. If that's all "...and she began to serve them" means, I think you might be missing the point.
So what is the point? Why even include that phrase? Why use the word, "serve" at all?
The Greek word for "serve" that Mark uses is pronounced, "diaconai." We get the church word, deacon, from it. Deacons are, from the earliest times of the church, the leaders, the elders, often the preachers in the church. In a lot of churches these days, Deacons are the ones who both minister to the sick, and who take care of the building, an interesting combination of duties. But that's another sermon. In contrast to "supper-server," or "waitress," Mark uses the word for "deacon" which implies two things. First, it means Peter's mother in-law was instantly promoted to a leader in the infant church. Score one for women's equality in the Bible. I think Mark snuck that one in on the guys. Good for him. The phrase some people read as evidence of inequality is really Biblical affirmative action.
The other thing it means when mark says, "serve," is that Peter's mother in-law began to minister to, to take care of, to heal, to serve... the very disciples who were trying to heal her. In her being healed, the people around her were healed, too. The patient changes, the patient is healed, and so, in a sense, is the doctor.
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Doctors will tell you that your body can teach you things. If you will only listen. Doctors: am I right? If you get winded going up a couple of steps, your body may be telling you something. If you suddenly lose your appetite for food, in general, your body may be trying to say something. If you get stabbing pains when you do something that shouldn't hurt, it may be your body saying, "Hey! Look over here!" "I'm your heart, speaking." "It's your gall bladder, here." "Call coming in from your large intestine." (Wouldn't it be great if it were so obvious?) Remember, Peter's mother in-law had a fever. And back then a fever was a pretty scary warning sign that something really bad could be coming. Life expectancy was not long. So this was kind of Peter's mother in-law's wake-up call. Luckily, there was someone around to help her listen.
I don't know anyone who... and a lot of you here can personally testify to this... I don't know anyone who has gotten through some sort of serious illness, or injury, or accident, that hasn't changed. And I'm not just talking physically. That stands to reason. Of course there's physical change when you have a serious health problem. But I don't know anyone who's overcome a serious illness who hasn't changed, somehow, in their spirit, changed in their thinking, changed in their way of seeing the world. A lot of times it's a wake-up call. It's a red flag to say, "Heart here. If you don't stop it with the red meat I'm giving up." But what really changes... and again, I've heard a lot of you testify to this... what really changes, isn't just your habits. What really changes is your perspective. Your outlook. Your way of thinking about yourself. Your way of thinking about your life. Your way of thinking about the things or the people you used to take for granted. You change physically, sure. But more than that, you change spiritually.
And that, I think, is what that little word, "Serve" means in the story of Peter's mother in-law. "...and she began to serve them." Them - these four disciples and their master. Them, the ones who stepped out of the boat, who stepped out of the water, and followed Jesus up the other side. Them - the ones who taught and who healed, who healed and then taught, teaching and healing, healing and teaching, sometimes one after the other, but really, actually, I think, at the same time. Because when you are healed, you see things differently. Your body has taught you some things. If you are wise, you have listened to it. And if you are blessed, you have learned.
The other side of this is that, according to Mark, when Peter's mother in-law was healed, she became a teacher. She became a doctor, a deacon, to other people's souls. I mean, think about how many people have read her story in the Bible. Don't you think someone has been inspired by her story? Isn't that kind of what the Bible is supposed to do - inspire us?
Think about a person whose story of healing has inspired you. They might be big-name celebrities who've become spokespersons for health awareness, public figures who are advocates for a cure. Or, they might be someone you know. Someone sitting in this room. They might be teaching, not by their words or their actions, but teaching just by showing up. Teaching by not giving up. Teaching by taking Jesus' hand and standing up. Standing up in faith, and in hope, and in compassion. Raising us up by their presence.
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Whether we're men or women or kids, whether we're moms or dads, or grandparents, or mothers in-law... we've all got so much to be thankful for. A lot of the time (too much of the time) it takes a threat to our health to make us realize how very, very much we have.
But once you have that wake-up call, once you have that awareness, that gratitude, that healing, the question then becomes, what next? Now that you have that feeling, what are you going to do? Now that you have that blessing, what are you going to do with it? The answer from the Bible, the answer from Peter's mother in-law is, serve. Serve. Take whatever healing of mind, or of body, or of spirit you have been given, and serve. Serve it back to others. Serve it back to God. Become a disciple, a deacon, a follower of Jesus Christ, all over again. Begin again, to serve.
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