Reverend Ref +

SERMON
EPIPHANY 5B
MARK 1:29-30

Last week I preached on Paul and how a little bit of religious knowledge can be a bad thing. If you missed it, you can go back and read it on the website. While not that specific, today's sermon has the same theme of love building up, as well as a little in-depth study.

First, what stands out for you in today's gospel? The fact that Simon was married? Jesus healing on the Sabbath? The mother-in-law serving the men? Jesus confronting demons? Jesus wandering off by himself?

Today I am going to focus on the unnamed mother-in-law, I'll call her Joyce, and how immediately (there's that Mark word again), immediately after being healed she served the men in the house. These two verses about Joyce always seem to get some attention, and usually in a negative way. Here's poor old mom, sick in bed with a fever. I don't know about you, but I know many households where mom simply isn't allowed to be sick. But there she is, sick with fever, and her son-in-law brings the gang over to watch the big game. So Jesus comes in and heals her, after which she immediately begins serving the men. Let's take our little bit of knowledge and try to expand it.

Last week, Mark told the story of a man with an unclean spirit whom Jesus healed. Sprits and demons seem to affect the mind. This week, Mark tells of the physical healing of mom. In this opening chapter, Mark is letting us know that Jesus has authority over the spiritual, the mental and the physical.

Last week, Mark said that Jesus taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes. The implication is that Jesus has a lot of knowledge and inherent authority, but never once uses that to glorify himslef; as opposed to the scribes who have authority because of their position and use it to puff themselves up within the community.

Furthermore, these last two gospel readings give us an account of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. Jesus will get in trouble for this in the next chapter. Not only did he heal (work), but he also touched a sick person, and a woman on top of it. In Jesus we are seeing a picture of a man who understands the relationship of knowledge to love.

So there's sort of an overview of the first part of today's gospel. Let's now focus on Joyce and see what we can learn from this story of a sick woman who is healed and immediately begins to serve the men.

One way to view this story would be as a literal interpretation of home life. Regardless of what happens, it is the women's job to serve the men. It would appear that men are to be in charge based on this passage's hierarchy of men being served and women serving. And since servants are usually inferior to their masters, it is clear that women are inferior to men.

But that's the problem with a little knowledge and literal readings. You can take a passage like today and say, "See, it says right here that women are to serve men." And you'd be wrong. Because while it may imply that here, you would have ignored the rest of scripture and you would have ignored the message of love and service found throughout. If you take the time to look deeper, that becomes apparent.

We know that Jesus healed mom. One word for heal is the Greek word 'sozo,' which also means to make whole, or save. (Not to be confused with the Led Zeppelin album commonly referred to as ZOSO). There's a very real possibility that Joyce was seen as unclean, and she would have been separated from the community. When Jesus heals her, she was made whole and could then be reunited with, and take her place within, the community.

Notice, though, who represents the community: Jesus, James, John, Simon and Andrew. The "Big Five." It is the community of the apostles; it is the community which will soon become the Church. Later on in Mark, Jesus tells this community of apostles that if you want to become great, you must become a servant -- just like Joyce.

I'm not a big fan of the KJV, but sometimes I think there are places where it gets it right, and there's a place today where I think we should have used their translation. The word we heard as 'serve' today was translated as 'minister' in the KJV. That word in Greek is our root word for deacon. A case could be made that Simon's mother-in-law is being upheld by Mark as the first deacon of the soon to be church.
In her actions, Joyce is exhibiting at least one of the mandates from our baptismal covenant: seeking and serving Christ in all persons. We are called to a servant ministry, and Joyce is doing just that. We are not called to loudly proclaim our religious knowledge in order to belittle others or make ourselves look good or to condemn others with our biblical knowledge. We are not here to glorify ourselves or to draw attention to how good we are because we attend church.

Instead, we are called to use our knowlege with love and reach out to those who need us to help make them whole and to help restore them to the community. We are called to minister to those around us. Like Joyce, we are made whole through the healing power of Jesus; and like Joyce, that wholeness makes us fit to serve those around us.