Matthew 1:29-39
29 Καὶ εὐθὺς ἐκ τῆς συναγωγῆς ἐξελθόντες
ἦλθον εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν Σίμωνος καὶ Ἀνδρέου μετὰ Ἰακώβου καὶ Ἰωάννου. 30 ἡ δὲ πενθερὰ Σίμωνος κατέκειτο πυρέσσουσα, καὶ εὐθὺς
λέγουσιν αὐτῷ περὶ αὐτῆς. 31 καὶ προσελθὼν ἤγειρεν αὐτὴν κρατήσας τῆς
χειρός· καὶ ἀφῆκεν αὐτὴν ὁ πυρετός, καὶ διηκόνει αὐτοῖς.
32 Ὀψίας δὲ γενομένης, ὅτε ἔδυ ὁ ἥλιος,
ἔφερον πρὸς αὐτὸν πάντας τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας καὶ τοὺς δαιμονιζομένους· 33 καὶ ἦν ὅλη ἡ πόλις ἐπισυνηγμένη πρὸς τὴν θύραν. 34 καὶ ἐθεράπευσεν πολλοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας ποικίλαις νόσοις καὶ
δαιμόνια πολλὰ ἐξέβαλεν καὶ οὐκ ἤφιεν λαλεῖν τὰ δαιμόνια, ὅτι ᾔδεισαν
αὐτόν.
35 Καὶ πρωῒ ἔννυχα λίαν ἀναστὰς ἐξῆλθεν καὶ
ἀπῆλθεν εἰς ἔρημον τόπον κἀκεῖ προσηύχετο. 36 καὶ κατεδίωξεν
αὐτὸν Σίμων καὶ οἱ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ, 37 καὶ εὗρον αὐτὸν καὶ
λέγουσιν αὐτῷ ὅτι πάντες ζητοῦσίν σε. 38καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἄγωμεν
ἀλλαχοῦ εἰς τὰς ἐχομένας κωμοπόλεις, ἵνα καὶ ἐκεῖ κηρύξω· εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ
ἐξῆλθον. 39 Καὶ ἦλθεν κηρύσσων εἰς τὰς συναγωγὰς αὐτῶν
εἰς ὅλην τὴν Γαλιλαίαν καὶ τὰ δαιμόνια ἐκβάλλων.
And immediately, coming out of the synagogue they went
into the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. The mother in law of Simon was lying down and
having a fever, and immediately they are speaking to him concerning her.
And, when he approached, he raised her, taking her by
the hand. And the fever left her, and
she was serving them.
When evening came and the sun set, they were bringing
to him all the ones having illness and the ones demon-possessed. And the whole city was gathered together at
the door.
And he healed many that had illness, various diseases
and he cast out many demons and he did not permit the demons to speak because
they had known him.
And very early at night, having gotten up, he went out
and went away to a desolate place and he was praying. And Simon and the ones with him searched for
him.
And they found him and they say to him, “all are
looking for you,” and he says to them, “let us go elsewhere into the
neighboring villages, so that I may also preach there, for I came for this
purpose.”
And he came preaching and casting out demons in the
whole region of Galilee and its synagogues.
Have you ever had a nagging feeling that you left something unfinished?
A project… a conversation… maybe something happened and the way that you…….. -- wasn’t all that you could have done? Maybe something was said and you just couldn’t come up with the right…. – until it was too late. Maybe someone approached you, you felt you needed to do something, and you just didn’t know how to……..
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator and Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior… Amen.
That was almost painful, wasn’t it! When our response, or how we respond, is left out -- we have an unfinished story. A discomfort. It can nag at us. Whether a moment ago you were shouting the unsaid word at me in your head, as I would have been doing, or you just wondered “where is she going with this…? There is some level of unease at an action without any response.
Our very biology is built on this. We eat food and our body responds with digestive chemicals and hormones that tell our system to extract nutrients. When we are too cold, our body responds with a shiver that warms us.
Socially, we are very attuned to the responses of other people. When we spoke, did the other person smile? Nod? Frown? And then we respond – based on THEIR response.
This passage is full of responses! The entire town responds to the news that there is a healer at Simon Peter’s house. The whole city! Can you imagine the commotion? Each and every personin the town of Capernaum has some kind of brokenness – an illness, an injury, a demon possession, which in this era might be something we’d call mental illness. The need for healing is a universal fact in this moment. And here they are, nearly breaking down the door, in order to come to Jesus.
But before the commotion, before the word gets out and the dust is kicked up and the house is crowded and smelly and full of desperate humanity – something quiet and important happens.
Simon’s mother in law has a fever – she can’t even sit up, and she is lying in bed.
Adult fevers in ancient Palestine were not a simple thing, nor something usually recovered from. Without antibiotics, infections quickly overwhelmed a person, and by the time she was unable to get up things were probably looking pretty grim. In fact, when Jesus came into the house, “immediately,” Simon speaks to him concerning her.
What happens next is remarkable. Jesus grabs her hand – and the word here is not gentle, in fact the same word is used when the soldiers “seize” Jesus and arrest him -- and raises her up. And the fever left her.
This is also an unusual word in this Gospel, “raise up.” In the Greek text this word is used in the gospel of Mark two other times – in 5:41, when Jesus “Raises” the daughter of the leader of the synagogue – and they have already confirmed her to be dead and started mourning for her – and, in Mark 16:6 – “he is not here, he is risen.”
A special word. Some would argue that this is the first resurrection from the dead story in the Gospel of Mark. It’s important.
“The fever left her,” the text says, “and she was serving them.”
I have to be honest – I got stuck here! I mean, What kind of sexist garbage is this? This poor woman has been to death and back and the best she can do with that experience is get right up and wait on the guys that have just barged in to her house?
Well – maybe it is. Maybe it is the best she can do.
Jesus heals a lot of people in Capernaum on this day. He has been to the synagogue and taught – and then healed to show that his teachings have authority. Immediately after the synagogue he comes to this house and then the whole town comes. He heals them all and we are told that he warns the demons not to speak because they know who he is. But what about everyone else? They are amazed at his teachings – they are feeling better – but just like those awful unfinished sentences I spoke a few minutes ago – they don’t DO anything. They don’t respond.
Simon’s mother-in-law is different. She didn’t ask for help – she was too sick to even participate. Yet he pulls her from death. Pulls her into new life. She was in a desperate situation, but then she has an encounter with Jesus -- and she responds. She responds by serving him. She responds to the new life given to her by serving Jesus Christ.
There is really nothing sexist in this line of text. As the disciples bumble around trying to follow Jesus and figure him out, Simon’s mother-in-law is the first person in this Gospel to really “get it.”
Mark tells us that the truest response to an encounter with Jesus Christ is to serve. Simon’s mother-in-law understands that at the very core of her being, and without even thinking about it, shows us true discipleship. She shows us what it means to follow Jesus.
And just look at what happens next. She serves them, she is restored to her rightful place in the household, and what happens? Here comes the whole town. Through her restoration and subsequent service an entire town is restored to life and health and wholeness.
This Jesus – he comes for us. He strives for us. He pulls us from the brink of death. This is Christ’s work. All we get to do up to that point in the story is be dead. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…”
But then – then, just look how much our response matters.
Our call is to discipleship and to service, even if -- maybe especially if – the entire suffering and broken town is then on our doorstep, seeking healing, seeking acceptance, seeking community.
Seeking Jesus.
Remember that 1980s movie “Field of Dreams?” It’s the only movie I can think of that has a genre description “American Fantasy Drama Sports Film.” Kevin Costner plays a corn farmer that hears voices and thinks he needs to build a baseball diamond in his corn field. The voices have told him, “if you build it, they will come.” And they do! Shoeless Joe and his team. They play ghost baseball while Kevin Costner’s wife, who never believed in the nonsense, looks on teary eyed.
It's great, isn’t it? So hopeful!
But we don’t need to build a baseball diamond – or even a church – for Him to come.
The good news is that Jesus is present with us here and now, seizing our arms and fighting to pull us into new life.
So then what? All we have to do up to that point is be dead – but afterwards, after he raises us up, what is our response? Maybe then is when we do the building. Maybe we need to build a community that serves and opens our hearts to the lost and brokenhearted and hurting – a community so strong in service to Jesus Christ that we can take in those who the rest of the world
has only offered a sense of worthlessness and rejection and love them into healing and restoration and knowledge of their worth to God.
Think, for a moment, of where you fit in that community. Have you had an encounter with Jesus Christ?
I didn’t grow up in the church. In fact, I grew up in a family that was actively hostile toward Christianity. My late teen years were marked with a lot of loss – friends to suicide and to car accidents; an important mentor to AIDS; grandparents; and there just wasn’t any accompanying hope. There wasn’t a future beyond this world, and there didn’t seem to be much meaning in it.
But when I was twenty years old and working my way through school I was offered a job in a Lutheran church conducting the choir part time. I thought that actually having a job using the skills I was in school for sounded like a great idea. They interviewed me, never asked anything about faith. Crazy. I loved that job. I wanted to do it well, and I would spend lots of time matching lyrics and messages of songs in the choral library to the sermon texts.
Suddenly I was reading about hope, a future, and this man named Jesus Christ that people had spent my entire life telling me was irrelevant but whose words reached into my very core and showed me that it was empty and dark. A place of death. The words “existential crisis” are maybe thrown about too much but really, I was living it. By Christmas I was acutely and desperately aware that something was missing from my life that I really needed in order to continue. By Easter I was truly experiencing the resurrection. Jesus had fought for me and raised me into new, real life.
I didn’t know anything about the theology of discipleship at that moment – but what I did know is that my teen years would have been a lot less awful if I had had accompanying faith. Compassion
for kids and teens that didn’t know God became my life’s focus; using music, since it was what I knew how to do. My mind didn’t know how to respond to my encounter with Jesus – but my heart did.
Have you been lost, broken, grieving, or hurt and felt him seize your arm? Has he fought through all of that pain, suffered with you, grieved with you, died with you in order to raise you to new life?
Will you leave that story unfinished? Will you remain in the unease and discomfort of having done nothing? Or will you respond? How will you serve him?
Simon’s mother-in-law did not make any radical changes. She used the gifts, talents, and skills that she already had and turned them toward Christ and toward support of his ministry. She saw what was needed and she responded with what she had to offer.
I encourage you to look around. What is the need here? What does this community of faith need? What about the neighborhood? The whole town? How can we support Jesus Christ’s work of restoration and healing? How can we serve others in order to bring restoration and healing to our home, our work, our church, our community?
It’s true that once our eyes are opened to need it can seem overwhelming. But the good news is that Jesus asks us to serve using the uniqueness that God has given us. For Simon’s mother-in-law, that was restoring the household, ministering to Jesus so he could continue to minister to others, and providing hospitality so those who needed healing had a place to come and get it. And she is held up, shown in these few lines to be the first person to truly understand what discipleship means. There are no prerequisite skills, there is no act of service too small or too ambitious. The only requirement is to have been raised to new life by Jesus Christ. This gives us the qualifications to be true disciples, and to turn our hearts, minds, skills and strengths to his service.
If you are here this morning you have had some encounter with Jesus. You are called through that encounter to serve. The first part of the story has been written, and the next chapter is eagerly waiting to be continued. It’s your story to tell, and it’s kind of exciting to have the opportunity to write the next chapter with our unique…
…
…response.
Amen
