2018-02-05
Brooke Strong
Scripture: Mark 1:29-39
For the past several weeks I’ve known that I would be preaching on this text, and so I have been reflecting on it. As many of you probably know, the month of January was a rough one for me health-wise. I began the month with a pretty bad cold, and thought I was getting better. It helped that I traveled to Florida for the long Martin Luther King weekend, and spent some time in 70 degree sunny weather which seemed to have knocked that nasty cold out of me. But after getting back home, and working for a few days, I got hit with a fever of over 102, and was knocked down flat for 4 days of bedrest and chicken soup. Then it was a matter of slowly easing back into my work. I am now finally back into regular routine, feeling just about normal and healthy again.
So, in thinking about this passage recounting Simon Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed with a fever, I thought – “Well, I could relate to that.” I had just experienced firsthand being in bed with a fever, with a desire for healing. But what I could not relate to is her experience of being instantly cured and jumping out of bed to cook and serve her guests. And then, when news got out about her remarkable healing from Jesus, she not only had Jesus and his new disciples in her house, but the whole neighborhood came to her place with their sick and demon-possessed friends and relatives. The reading says, “And the whole city was gathered around the door.” I’ll be quite honest with you – even though my fever lasted only a few days, on the day it left, I was not in any shape to get up and serve a group of invited guests, let alone a whole town of unexpected company showing up! While I would have loved a complete and instantaneous recovery, that is not what I got.
This waiting for wholeness and health to come back has not been easy. And I know that we have all had that experience of having to wait, of not being able to make something happen as quickly as we would like it to. It may be renewed health and strength we’re waiting for, or a new position or job to be offered, or a college acceptance letter. We may be waiting for medical test results and prognosis, for a sense of direction after life events have derailed us, for a relationship to mend, or for grief to become bearable. For me it seems that, whatever we’re waiting for, as Tom Petty famously sang, “The waiting is the hardest part.” And if you’re like me, maybe your prayer to God is “Lord give me patience – and give it to me now!”
The first reading we heard this morning from Isaiah promises that those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, and they shall mount up on wings as eagles. Somehow that passage does quite resonate with me. During the time I was sick, I’m not sure it was the waiting that actually renewed my strength, or made me feel eagle-like. And so, I am intrigued by the different translations for the phrase “wait for the Lord” as I try to make sense of this promise from the Isaiah passage. The Voice translation says, “those who trust in the Lord” shall renew their strength. That one rings truer for me. I could see and relate to trusting in God to hold me, to journey with me during a tough time, to bring me through it somehow. I have had the experience of that trust in God renewing me and lifting my spirits by giving me hope and strength.
But when I learned that passage from Isaiah as a child, and I still remember it because there was song we used to sing about that verse – it was with the words as used in The Message and the Modern English version. Instead of the phrase “those who wait for the Lord” or “those who trust in the Lord” – those other translations say, “those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” To me, this gives the verse a very different meaning. We don’t often use the phrase that we’re waiting upon someone, unless we’re talking about a server in a restaurant. Servers, waiters, waitresses - they are the ones who wait upon people. So what is it that the prophet Isaiah is calling for here? What is it that actually renews our strength? It is waiting for God, or trusting in God, or waiting upon God?
The answer is probably - All of the above. We know how hard it is to wait for God when we have something we so desire, when we want to get back to ourselves, back to the persons we were before we had a setback. And perhaps if we wait for God, we will in time be granted that. But it may be that the before time is a place we will not be able to return to, no matter how long we wait. The perfect job lost, the beloved partner or friend dead, the trusted relationship betrayed and destroyed, the healthy body no longer attainable. And so what we end up waiting for is a sense of God’s presence, a knowing of God’s peace, a glimpse of God’s direction for where we’re supposed to go next. And as we wait, we are called to trust that God is with us in the waiting, accompanying us through the worst of it, assuring us that we are not alone, that we are held, guided and loved. And in this time of trusting in God and waiting for God, we are also called to wait upon God.
Throughout this Epiphany season, we have been reflecting on the themes of the four pillars of the church. The past three Sundays have focused on Faith Formation, Community, and Worship. Today we are exploring the fourth pillar – that of Service.
Simon Peter’s Mother-in-law in our gospel passage sets a shining example for us when we reflect on Service, on serving. She was touched by Jesus, raised up by him, healed and saved by him. And her response to this love and care? We are told that when the fever left her, she began to serve. The Greek word for service is “Diaconia” – which is where the word “Deacon” comes from – one who serves. In this scripture passage, the word indicates food service, so literally it means this healed woman got up and “waited on” them.
As I was playing with this image of Peter’s mother-in-law waiting on Jesus, I was imagining what that might look like. What would it mean to wait on Jesus, to be a waiter or waitress for him? What would that look like, not only for Peter’s mother-in-law, but for us? What might Christ, as a customer, be ordering? My imagination pictures this: Christ saying, “I’d like to start with a portion of Isaiah 2: Let’s have people beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks so they shall never learn war any more. And then, as a main course – How about some of Matthew 22: Loving God with one’s whole heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving one’s neighbor as oneself? I also have a taste for Matthew 28, seeing that the hungry are being fed, the thirsty sated, the strangers welcomed, the naked clothed and the sick and the prisoners visited. And then, for dessert, how about some fruit from Galatians 5: fruits of the spirit maybe: a plate of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
That’s what I picture Jesus’ order to be. But Jesus doesn’t really “order” us, rather, he invites us. He invites us to follow his example – the example he set as one coming not to be served, but to serve. We’re called to be Deacons, those who wait on other, those who bring to others the healing, grace and love that they have received from Christ. We’re called to be Beacons – of light, of hope, of reconciliation in a world that is too often dark, broken, and in despair. We’re called to be servers, to attend to and to care for those who are in need.
When we were sharing reflections about this theme at our Federated Staff meeting, Marty Culbertson shared with us that when young people she works with come to her, when they are at a crossroads, not knowing what direction they want their life to go in, or are feeling some despair, she has some advice for them. She tells them to find some volunteer work to do, to go out into the world and serve. And she says it makes such a big difference in their lives. Their attitude changes, they become more settled, more hopeful, more open to possibilities, more joy-filled. I found a quote by Rabindranath Tagore which I shared at staff and share with you now: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
This service that we are called to is not an obligation, not an order from God. It is rather a grateful response to having been touched by God, saved by God, healed by God. It is our way of receiving in deep gratitude the love that God has given to us, and responding with the desire to share that love with the world.
The Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz Weber reflects on the passage about Peter’s mother-in-law. It bothers her that this woman doesn’t have a name in the story, so she names her “Lois” – and she says, “… the thing I love about Lois is that Lois knew what you do with hands which have received the healing touch of God….Lois used those very hands to serve. She immediately became an agent of what she had just received: grace and mercy and healing. Not as an act of obligation, or law or social expectation but as an act of freedom. . . . So every person who Jesus healed was conscripted into the Kingdom of God so that they may go and do likewise. It’s like a spiritual pyramid scheme.
When Lois sees a whole city’s worth of sick and demon possessed outside her door, I like to imagine her pushing up her sleeves and touching and healing and loving and speaking truth to all of them. She transmits what was given to her. She gets up and serves.”
Nadia goes on to say: “That’s the thing with the kingdom of God, there is no personal treasure to be had…there are only gifts to be shared. God’s desire for the wholeness and healing of all creation was inaugurated in a world changing way in the life of Jesus and it continues through you – through the hands on which rest the waters of baptism and the hands which, when extended at the Eucharistic table, receive Christ’s own body and blood. Your hands are what God has to work with here. Hands that, no matter what your story is, have as much to receive as they have to give. … And God wants you to be healed for the sake of your own wholeness but also because there’s a lot of healing to be done out there.”1
Today we are invited to gather around Christ’s table. Here, we who are called to be servants of God, who are called to wait upon God, here we receive strength and nourishment for this calling. Here we receive the Body of Christ, so that we may become the Body of Christ. As Teresa of Avila reminds us: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
May we trust in God to renew our strength, to give us love, mercy and grace. And may we receive those gifts and wait upon the Lord by serving those in need, by offering Christ’s healing and hope to others, and becoming the body of Christ in this world. Amen.
1http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/02/sermon-on-jesus-dream-team-rank-fishermen-demoniacs-and-sick-old-ladies/