Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him 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.
In this week’s assigned Gospel, Jesus enters the home of Simon Peter and finds that Peter’s Mother-In-Law is sick. Some of the specific details in this Gospel are worth looking at closely.
We are told that Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up. Never underestimate the power of touch. There is a reason why the sacrament of healing in the church has always included the laying on of hands. When touch has a gentleness about it, the Spirit can move in ways that will allow a healing to happen through acceptance, assurance and the awe of love demonstrated.
Healing doesn’t happen when we when we attempt to bend the will of God to meet our needs, for such a thing is not only impossible, but it’s absurd because God’s will is already well-bent in our direction. Healing happens when the touch is such that it feels very much like the touch of God’s love and just when we think it might not be real.
Don’t gloss over the fact that Jesus took this woman’s hand. Don’t lose sight that Jesus once again broke with the conventions set up by the religious and cultural institutions of his time and place. A man was not supposed to touch a woman who was not a member of his own family. This taking by the hand would have caused more than whispers among the crowd except for the fact that she was healed.
The crowds were temporarily side-tracked by their amazement, but we take note, no matter how subtly, that Jesus has come as a reformer as well as a healer, and that perhaps both are sometimes one and the same.
Mark tells us that after the fever left this woman, she began serving them again. I think it is unfortunate that we have chosen the word serveinstead of the word minister because it almost sounds as if Jesus healed her so she could get on with preparing dinner and washing dishes. I do not believe that was his purpose. Instead, you see, a part of what Jesus did when he healed someone was that he ordained them to be healers as well.
Think back for a moment to the Samaritan woman at the well; she was cured of a terrible condition. You might not find it in Taber’s Medical Dictionary, but it’s a killer. I’m speaking of the condition known as rejection. After Jesus healed her by accepting, embracing, and touching her soul, all she could think of to do was to run into town and tell everybody that this Jesus who knew everything about her had accepted her, and maybe it was possible for them as well.
Jesus blessed people to be a blessing; he healed people, in part, so they could become ministers of healing. Have you ever noticed how survivors so often go on to help other victims become survivors? It’s almost a natural reaction. One might think this was part of God’s plan of action.
Part of what Jesus was about was creating a network of healing ministers to be the Christ for others. This is why Jesus can say in the Gospel of John: I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things.
Now you probably took notice of the fact that as all those sick people were pressing in on Jesus, he just ups and leaves in the middle of the night. What a time to go into seclusion. His disciples were beside themselves. Jesus’ popularity was immense, and they wanted to capitalize on it. In his early ministry in Galilee, Jesus dealt mostly on the personal and relational level with people he embraced. This is always popular, and the disciples knew it. The most popular pastors in churches are usually the ones who can interact on that same personal and relational level with their members.
Jesus began his healing ministry personally and relationally. This is where it must begin. As someone once said, you may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
Less popular, on the other hand, are the pastors who also understand that healing also needs to take place on the institutional and cultural level as well. However, popular or not, it must be a mixture of both.
Jesus understood that there needs to be a balance between both kinds of healing. Good Christian ministry doesn’t just mean being a personal guru. This is why Jesus moves from the interpersonal to the institutional and cultural as well.
His next stop is Jerusalem, where the purity codes and other exclusive social mores have their headquarters. Jesus is going to Jerusalem to make his healing ministry systemic. His popularity will quickly diminish.
Institutional and cultural healing does sometimes lead to a cross. Setting your face toward Jerusalem is what makes a church a church rather than a cruise ship with welcoming doors, but no swimming pools.
I read an article on things churches should do in the new year ahead. One of them really caught my eye:
Churches should very honestly ask the question, ‘If we were to close our doors, who besides our own membership would really miss us?’
Christianity is not just a personal religion. We are called to be part of that net of healing that Jesus has set up. This means more than mentioning names in our morning prayers. It means that we must fight the equivalent of the First Century purity codes in our time; we must be the catalysts that cause change in our institutions and in our culture.
It’s always good to remember our history: The words, closed communion, excommunication, non-believer and heretic, weren’t invented by fascists, they were invented by the institutional church and have most definitely carried over into our social and political institutions.
To engage in social justice is to engage in a systemic healing ministry. It is also our calling. It should follow us to every church meeting and every diocesan convention and beyond, even into our societal institutions.
I often hear people say, Oh, I’m not called to a ministry of healing. I believe this is only said out of a misunderstanding about what healing really is.
Of course, you are called to a ministry of healing. . . every single day! When you and I refuse to label people and ostracize them; when we refuse to allow the church and the government that is ours to do the same; when we envelop with respect and love those who have been categorized and labeled; when we welcome the outcast back into relationship; when we put our sometimes petty self-interests aside for the sake of another, then we take those people by the hand, and we lift them up so they can, in turn, join the web of healers stretched across the kingdom.
Those are the times when we best image our God. Those are the times when we become nothing less than miracle workers.
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