 The Fever Left Her
and She Began to Serve them
A
Sermon preached at St. Luke's Church
by The Rev. Anne E. Hodges-Copple
on the Fifth Sunday of Epiphany, 5 February 2006
My mother tells a story about a time early in
married life when she and my dad were terribly sick with the flu. They
had the couldn’t-get-the-head-off-the-pillow kind of flu.
Complicating the situation was the fact they had a six month old infant
as well as a two year old who needed attention no matter how sick the
young parents were.
Apparently, the parent whose fever was lowest would
take a childcare shift until the lower fever became the higher fever
and the pecking order was reversed. The somewhat cruel reward for
getting slightly better was to be forced to leave the bed to care for
needy babies.
With this image in mind, I can’t help but
admit some mild reservation about the healing of Peter’s
mother-in-law. Maybe I am exhibiting a hint of a feminist
hermeneutic of suspicion, but I find myself slightly annoyed that she
was healed just in time to jump up and serve the guests her son in law
had brought home for dinner. I am, however, going to resist a
devilish temptation to take this episode into the wrong direction.
In this lesson Jesus is not a needy child saying
“you can’t be sick; you have to take care of me.” Nor is Jesus
like a long suffering spouse wondering when his helpmeet will be well
enough to crawl out from under the covers and help out around the
house. Jesus’ acts of healing are part of a much larger story. While
the curious, the hopeful and the desparate are coming from all over the
Galilean countryside to have their various illnesses cured, he is
actually preparing them for a much more dramatic reordering of their
lives; and a far more demanding kind of life transformation than the
relief of a fever, the restoring of speech, the expulsion of an evil
spirit.
When dealing with the many accounts of Jesus healing
the sick and the lame, it is easy to draw the wrong
conclusions: We, like those early seekers might just want to see
Jesus the medicine man: some one who will provide the magic cure if we
are just good enough, faithful enough, repentant enough or pray enough.
We might yearn for Jesus the superhero who will drive away the demons,
conquer our enemies and whisk us out of harm’s way. Or we just want a
Savior who works like the All State insurance agent, keeping us in good
hands.
Then and now, Jesus cares, tends and sometimes heals
the suffering. Then and now, our prayers for healing and rescue are
answered: sometimes in ways we understand and sometimes in ways that
break our hearts. But God’s healing is part of something more
mysterious that an easy, magic and sudden fix. God’s healing has a
larger purpose than an immediate cure to a particular person who will
at some point, at some time, face illness again.
As Christians we know that death is God’s ultimate
form of healing. We know it, though we also resist it. (Norma
Hollingsworth…) So knowing that earthly healing is just a temporary
state until God’s final invitation to heavenly healing, then healing in
this life means renewed opportunity to serve God and serve others in
this life. We are healed for a purpose; God’s purpose. And God’s
purpose is that we proclaim this healing is available to all.
When we are healed we are indeed like that blessed
women who rose from her sick bed to serve her Lord. We are
invited, we are welcomed into a life of service to our God.
This healing known as servant ministry is also
liberating. As Jesus and the disciples walked the country side, curing
the sick, the lame, the blind, he called to oppressed people who
believed freedom could only be achieved by one army conquering another
army. He called to those who thought they understood illness as
punishment from God. He called to those who thought they couldn’t be of
possible interest to God if they were hungry, or poor, or persecuted,
or meek.
The way he spoke with authority. ….The way he
healed with compassion….The way he pointed to a different way of
understanding God. People didn’t just see, didn’t just hear, just
sense: they could feel the Kingdom of God was close at hand. This signs
of power were really that, just signs, that in Jesus, the Son of Man,
all our previous conceptions of power and purpose are changed.
So really my sermon this morning is only about
healing as a wake up call of sorts. An attention grabber. Look; wait a
minute. Wait… that might be.. well I’ll be: God is up to something. God
has work to do, news to share and those who are healed are who discover
they have the faith to follow Jesus in the life of servant ministry.
Simon Peter’s mother in law was not just invited to get back to her
same old life and same old work: she was invited to join in
serving the Divine Servant Leader. She was called into mission and all
mission is first and foremost a way of proclaiming God’s love through
the witness of serving others in the name of God.
Probably one of the best role models we have
of this radical turn of life is the Apostle Paul. Paul was
first and foremost a man who was healed. He was healed from his
hardness of heart as a persecutor of Jews who were claiming Jesus as
the Messiah. He was healed of his theological blindness as a Pharisee
who couldn’t see how Jesus was not the enemy of the Law and the
Prophets, but its fulfillment.
But most especially, Paul found he was healed - was
freed - from the bondage of all his sins and set free, set free, to
serve the Jews, the Gentiles, slaves and masters, men and women.
“For
though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to
all….To the Jews I became as a Jew….To those outside the law I became
as one outside the law….To the weak I became weak….I have become all
things to all people…..I do it all for the sake of the gospel.”
Paul is not being hypocritical or manipulative. He is being a
missionary. He is being one who will go to whatever lengths it takes to
take the message of Christ’s love to another in a place, in a language,
and in a context that gives the other person the best possible starting
point. There are probably an infinite number of starting points
to a journey that lead to Jesus Christ. Paul who serves Jesus Christ
becomes the servant leader, who by his service leads others to Christ.
We are called to be disciples like Paul. We
are set free from our sins in order to take on new duties,
new obligations, a new commission to serve Christ. Having
received a new life in Christ we must be willing to lose our life for
the sake of the gospel. Set free from burdens of our sins, our guilts,
our fears and our failures, we are set free to invite others to seek
and discover such freedom. Released from believing we are masters
of our lives we are free to serve our master who by his life shows us
how to be servant leaders.
In a section of prayers toward the back of the BCP
we find this lovely prayer.
O
Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the
evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is
over and our work is done.
And the fever of
life is over. There
are countless ways that we are lured into a feverish pace of life that
obscures the presence of God; the calling of Jesus. In a few moments we
will commission the members of the Belize Mission Team, folks who are
stepping out of the fever of their daily lives and looking to discover
Jesus’ presence in a new, surprising and life changing kind of
way. Maybe they are as much pilgrims as they are missionaries. I
believe they will discover a healing if their own lives by being open
to the pain and the wisdom in others lives. But one doesn’t have to go
to Belize to step back from the fever of life and ask: where am I
really needed. In the busy-ness of everyday life are we still able to
hear God’s call to us. Do we take the time to ask: “Lord, how do you
need me today? Lord, where do you need me today? Lord, how might
I better serve thee, today? Heal my hardness of heart when I think I
have nothing to give. Heal my blindness when I can’t see the need that
is right in front of me. Heal the smallness of my mind and the weakness
of my spirit with the grandeur of your heavenly vision, that I hear
your call to do your will to the glory of your name. AMEN
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