Epiphany 5 – 2024
Mark 1:29-39
Marian Free
In the name of God who will not be held or confined. Amen.
The gospel reading set for today raises far more questions than it answers. What looks like a relatively simple healing story, followed by a story of Jesus’ sense of mission is much, much more. You will remember that Jesus has spent time in the synagogue. There he was confronted by a man with an evil spirit. When he cast out the demon he raised the ire of the leaders of the synagogue because they interpreted the exorcism as ‘work’, something that was forbidden on the Sabbath.
In today’s reading Jesus leaves synagogue and goes to the home of Simon and Andrew. On hearing that Peter’s mother-in-law has a fever, Jesus goes to her, lifts her up and the fever is gone. The mother-in-law immediately gets up and serves them. At sunset – when the Sabbath has ended – people (the whole city!) bring the sick and the possessed to be healed by Jesus. We are not told, but we presume that Jesus has some time to sleep, because he gets up before dawn to find somewhere quiet to pray.
The account seems straight forward, but if we look closer we are left wondering about a number of things.
- Why, in a patriarchal society, is Peter’s mother-in-law living in the home of Peter and Andrew? If she is a widow, her sons not her daughter would be responsible for her and yet she is here with Peter.
- If Peter has a mother-in-law, then he has a wife who is never mentioned and is presumably left to run a household and care for children while her husband and sole source of support abandons his job and his family to go with Jesus.
We learn nothing else about Peter’s family life.
- Another puzzle is this – why does the author say that the woman (Peter’s mother-in-law) got up and served them? Is it to prove that she is completely made well or is something else happening here. Peter’s wife is the host, it would be her role to serve the guests. The woman’s actions make sense if we understand that in the ancient world healing was seen not just as a cure for the physical ill, but as a restoration of the person to the community. Serving guests would have been a sign of the woman’s full re-integration into the family and the community. That is well and good but why, one might ask, does the author use the word ‘diakonos’ for serve? Diakonos – the word we use for deacon – is used by Mark only for Peter’s mother-in-law, angels, and Jesus. Is this a hint that women had formal liturgical roles in the Marcan community or played a significant role among the disciples?
- Another Greek word is equally puzzling. Mark uses the word “katadiöxen” when speaking of the disciples looking for Jesus. This word can be translated in a number of ways – “hunted” (as in our translation), “pursued”, “looked for”, or “searched for”. ‘Hunted’ gives us a sense of the disciples’ urgency. They have woken to find Jesus missing and are anxious to bring him back. By now, they have seen what Jesus can do, and they know that they want to be part of it. As his disciples, they would also have felt a sense of responsibility for all the people of their city who still seek Jesus’ healing power.
- Lastly, and this is the question I’d like to focus on, is why, when the crowds are searching for Jesus does he insist on abandoning them and moving to another place?
The author gives us the answer. Jesus responds to the disciples: “Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”
“So that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”
Jesus’ primary focus was never on the miraculous, but on the message. It was never about having crowds of adoring fans, but on challenging people to change their lives around. His mission was not to heal, but to proclaim the good news, to teach God’s inclusive, unconditional love and to draw the whole community into a relationship with God that was based not on their observance of the law, but on God’s love for them. Jesus heals because he can. Jesus heals because he has compassion not because that is what he was sent to do. Jesus casts out demons because they stand between him and his message of love and inclusion. He casts out demons because they hold people in their thrall and keep them separated from the love of God – not because he wants to draw attention to himself.
Jesus’ mission was never about building his ego as is made clear in the accounts of the wilderness temptations in Matthew and Luke. There, the devil tempts him to turn stones into bread, to jump from the Temple so that the angels can catch him. Jesus resists the temptation to do the showy and obvious – even though that might have been a much quicker way to gain an audience and to build a following. But it is not about him. It is not about what he can do, but about the message he has come to bring.
Jesus knows that some will follow him because of what he has to offer them. He knows too that they will not last the journey.
If we turn Jesus into a miracle worker, we see only the surface. If we want a hero who works magic then we will lose interest when the magic is not in evidence. If we want someone to make everything right, we will fall away when life gets hard. So when the disciples seek him out and urge him to return, he turns his face away from the easy option. He will not stay and be made a local hero. He will do what he came to do and preach God’s kingdom.
Who is Jesus to you? Would you like to own and contain him as your personal helper or are you willing to stand on your own two feet, take Jesus’ teaching as your standard and your comfort and let Jesus go so that his message might ring throughout the world?
Tags: healing, Peter's. mother-in-law, prayer, questions, temptations
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