As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her right away. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon - possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
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One of my favourite cartoonists has always been Lynn Johnston, who created “For Better or for Worse”. In particular I remember one where Elly is sick in bed with a fever and cold, bags under her eyes, hair sticking out all over and looking as miserable as anyone can be. As she is lying there she is thinking “Let’s see - Michael will be home from school at 4, Elizabeth will be home at 11:30, and John will be home at 5:30. That means I have an hour to be sick.”
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Second century tradition ascribes the Gospel to Mark the Evangelist (also known as John Mark), the companion of Peter. It is supposedly based on the memories of Peter. However, the author uses a variety of sources including a passion narrative, collections of miracle stories, apocalyptic traditions, and sayings. Some of these sources were already written, some were oral. It was written in Greek for a Greek audience, shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, possibly in Syria. It is generally agreed that this is the earliest of the Gospels, but that the author is unknown.
In some ways, I wonder if it’s really important who wrote the Gospel. I do think, though, that it’s incredibly important that someone thought all of these things should be written down. One of the most interesting features of Mark’s Gospel is that we get no history, no poetic story about a baby as Luke does, no genealogy as Matthew does, and no theologising like John. He starts right in. “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.”
Mark’s Gospel moves at blinding speed. Jesus arrives with heaven-splitting force, deals with evil in the wilderness, announces the realm of God, chooses disciples and heals a man with a psychiatric illness in the blink of an eye. Everything in Mark happens “immediately”. Within the very first chapter, Jesus has set the framework for his ministry and for all those who would follow him. He moves from the synagogue, to the home, and out into the world.
Beginning with last week’s story of Jesus healing right there in the synagogue, we see that Jesus really doesn’t care where he is, and he really doesn’t care about the religious authorities’ interpretations of Sabbath law. He will heal those who are near him – whether it is a man in the synagogue, a woman in her home, people on the streets, or even in lands far away.
So today’s reading offers the second and third parts of that framework - the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, even as he is a guest in the house. She is ill with a fever, and the house is full of men who somehow don’t know what to do. They’re all hungry, but no one knows quite what to do. It’s still the Sabbath, which means that work should not take place, and (as we learn in many of the stories) even healing on the Sabbath is a violation, supposedly, of God’s law.
Jesus isn’t interested in the meal. He’s concerned about the sick woman upstairs. So he goes to her, and we see a healing touch - he takes her hand. Mark tells us she got up and began to serve them. Peter’s mother-in-law is generally understood to be the first deaconess in the new group. - and it’s a clue that this isn’t so much a story about a healing, as it is an example of the whole of Jesus’ ministry. Simon’s mother-in-law doesn’t see her role as serving a bunch of inept men, she interprets it as the beginning of *her* ministry. The first person to serve Jesus is a woman.
After the meal is over, a crowd begins to gather outside the house. Mark, with his typical exaggeration, says “The whole city was gathered around the door,”!
Well, we know that whenever there have been big events in the news, there is a media frenzy around the home of the families involved – sometimes it’s the home of the victims, sometimes it’s the perpetrators. Peter may have felt as if the entire world was standing outside his door, but Jesus meets the people, listens to their story, and offers a blessing. Like the meal earlier in the day, he kept his focus on the people around him.
Jesus is then fed and goes off to pray. The people keep coming and keep looking for him, and they are selfishly seeking him out so he can meet more of their own needs. Here we find the third piece of the framework for Jesus’ ministry. He sees the needs of people elsewhere, and leaves for other towns and places where healing is needed.
In a few sentences, Mark has given us all the things he considered most important about Jesus. The realm of God is lived out in three parts - synagogue, home, and outside the doors. The synagogue is part of the spiritual life, but always involves ministry, regardless of who the people are. There is no “us” and “them” inside the church. Jesus’ healing of the man in the synagogue demonstrates that to the fullest. Jesus demonstrates, though, that ministry is also outside the doors - right where people are, right where they live - and not necessarily the people *we* think need ministry.
Too often in the church, our primary paradigm is to meet our own needs. We ask what people want in worship, for instance, rather than asking what God wants for our worship. We talk about bringing more people into our church so we can pay our bills, instead of asking how we can help people meet their very real needs. The reality today is that there are a whole lot of people who say they are “spiritual but not religious.” What they are really saying is that they don’t find what feeds them inside our churches. In 1995, Canada’s leading religious sociologist, Dr. Reginald Bibby, wrote a book called “There’s Got to be More”, based on a study he had done of those people who had dropped away from church. He said people have three kinds of needs: spiritual, social and relational. When asked if they would go to church, those people answered “I would, if I thought it would be good for me and my family.” But they know that when churches talk about getting more people in, they care more about paying bills than about meeting needs, or real healing.
Dr. Diana Butler Bass, in her book “Christianity for the Rest of Us”, talks about churches which have transformed themselves into vital and living places of healing and ministry, and how that happened. Calvin Presbyterian Church in western Pennsylvania developed a healing prayer ministry. But they said their healing is not personal or inward. One member says “Incorporating spirituality of prayer and trying to find God in all places has given life to the whole mission of living each other. Through that love, you spread the Gospel. Another one commented “Healing prayer is an attempt to reach needs away from the church, not necessarily here in the building.”
Simply trying to convince people they should come to our church, or come back to church, won’t work if we figure our church is fine just the way it is, and if they come they will see it. That route means WE don’t need to change, we want them to change. But if we want our churches to be vital places of spiritual life, we have to offer something that is meaningful to those people who don’t come. We need to look through the eyes of Jesus, and to do that, we have to shift the way we think. Perhaps most significantly, we have to find a way to allow God to use us to meet the needs of others.
And then what we do can become an answer to the prayers of others, as the good news is experienced in their lives and in our midst. What we do becomes the living embodiment of the ministry of the one we follow. Thanks be to God.
Sources:
1. Seeing the Needs of Others sermon based on Mark 1:29-39 by Rev. Randy L Quinn
2. Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighbourhood Church if Transforming the Faith. Diana Butler Bass. HarperCollins, 2006. P. 106.
3. Barclay, William. The Gospel of Mark (The Daily Study Bible Series). Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark
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