Mark 1:29-39
Simon Peter’s Mother-in-law in our gospel passage sets a shining example for us when we reflect on service…on serving.
- She was touched by Jesus…raised up by him…healed and saved by him.
- And her response to this love and care?
- We are told that when the fever left her…she began to serve.
- The Greek word for service is “Diaconia.”
- Which is where the word “Deacon” comes from…one who serves.
- In our scripture passage…the word indicates food service.
- So…literally it means this healed woman got up and “waited on” them.
- Our passage says that the whole city was gathered around the door.
- How would you like to get up out of bed after you have been ill and find the entire town at your door in need of being served and fed by you?
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
OK then…what might that look like?
- I mean…to wait on Jesus…to serve Jesus…to be a waiter or waitress for him?
- What would that look like?
- What might Jesus…as a customer…be ordering?
Well…pictures this…Jesus saying:
- “I’d like to start with a portion of Isaiah 2: Let’s have people beat their swords into plowshares…and their spears into pruning hooks so they shall never learn war anymore.
- And then…as a main course…how about some of Matthew 22: Loving God with one’s whole heart…soul…mind and strength…and loving one’s neighbor as oneself?
- I also have a taste for Matthew 28…seeing that the hungry are being fed…the thirsty satisfied…the strangers welcomed…the naked clothed and the sick and the prisoners visited.
- And then…for dessert…how about some fruit from Galatians 5: Fruit of the spirit maybe…a plate of love…joy…peace…patience… kindness…goodness…faithfulness… gentleness and self-control.”
That is what I picture Jesus’ order to be.
- But Jesus does not really “order” us…rather…he invites us.
- He invites us to follow his example…the example he set as one coming not to be served…but to serve.
- We are invited to be Deacons…those who wait on others…those who bring to others the healing…grace and love that they have received from Christ.
- We are invited to be Deacons of light…of hope…of reconciliation in a world that is too often dark…broken and in despair.
- We are invited to be servers…to attend to and to care for those who are in need.
- Rabindranath (Rob-in-dra-nath)Tagore writes:
- “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold…service was joy.”
This passage about Peter’s mother-in-law bothers me because she does not have a name in the story…so I will name her “Grace” after my own mother-in-law.
- And she was THE quintessential mother-in-law.
- The thing I love about Grace is that she knew what you do with hands which have received the healing touch of God.
- Grace used those very hands to serve.
- She immediately became an agent of what she had just received: grace and mercy and healing.
- Not as an act of obligation…or law or social expectation but as an act of freedom.
- So…every person who Jesus healed was conscripted into the Kingdom of God so that they may go and do likewise.
- Oh my…It is a spiritual pyramid scheme!
When Grace sees a whole city’s worth of sick and demon possessed outside her door…
- I like to imagine her pushing up her sleeves and touching and healing and loving and speaking truth to all of them.
- She transmits what was given to her. She gets up and serves.
I was counseling with a woman from my congregation many years ago.
- As she began to speak…her voice was flat…with little emotion apart from a pervasive sadness.
- She said: There are no medical issues…my health is good. There are no financial problems. We put our boys through college at a state school and we can pay our bills.
- I had a job until a couple of years ago when I was laid off. It’s just that I feel that most of the nice things that will ever happen to me have already happened.
- I’m getting older. Neither of my boys has a serious girlfriend…but even if they did…and even if I approved of the girl and her family…I like to think I would enjoy going to their wedding…but then what?
- Two nice days in the next thirty years? And if I didn’t get along with the girl’s family…I wouldn’t even have that.
Well…I was not sure how to respond.
- Clearly…this woman was bored with her life…
- But telling her that would not have been very helpful.
- After telling the woman that I appreciated her coming to talk…
- I pointed out that: If her life was lacking in drama…it might be because she was operating with a limited cast of characters:
- Herself…her husband, and two children.
- But were there no other family members…no friends…no organizations she belonged to?
- I thought she might consider reaching out to include a few more people in her life.
- And if she was not comfortable taking the first step to do that (I suspected she was not) there were all sorts of ready-made groups she could join.
My concern was that she spoke only about what other people were or were not doing for her.
- I did not hear anything about what she was doing with or for others.
- Yet that might be the exact thing to start changing…the easiest way to feel better about her life.
I have been a pastor for a long time.
- I have provided ministry to a lot of people who were hurting.
- Women and men whose spouses had died or had left the marriage.
- People grieving the death of a child or the loss of a job.
- People whose deteriorating health left them unable to do things they once enjoyed.
In every case…I gave them one rule and it almost always worked:
- The best way to feel better about yourself is to find someone to help.
- The widow…the parent whose child has died or is critically ill…
- Those people not only have the right…
- They have the almost magical power to say to someone else who is hurting…
- Something that doctors and clergy are not able to say:
- I know what you are going through because I was there. Let’s talk about it.
And so…we become Jesus’ mouthpiece…Jesus’ hands and feet.
- There is no personal treasure to be had…there are only gifts to be shared.
- God’s desire for the wholeness and healing of all creation was inaugurated in a world changing way in the life of Jesus and it continues through all of us.
- Our hands are what God must work with here.
- And that is what Peter’s mother-in-law teaches us this morning.
- Hands that…no matter what our story is…have as much to receive as they must give.
- And God wants us to be healed for the sake of our own wholeness…
- But also…because there is a lot of healing to be done out there.