Online Sermons
The Fifth Sunday in Epiphany: February 8, the Rev. John Horn
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsThere are two things about today’s Gospel reading that have always bothered me. The first has to do with Peter’s mother-in-law. No, I’m not going to tell any mother-in-law jokes. But if you’ve ever had a fever, a real fever, the kind that a bacterial infection produces, around 102 or 103 or so, it really knocks you out. You can barely get out of bed and move around. Being sociable requires way too much energy. Even after the fever breaks, it takes a few days to fully recover. So how come as soon as Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, she gets up and starts serving everybody? Are the men that helpless? Can’t they fend for themselves? Peter was a fisherman, and we know that he can cook fish. Why didn’t he just fire up the grill and give his poor mother-in-law a break?
Then there’s this business about Jesus leaving behind a lot of sick people. As soon as the word got out about his ability to heal, people came from miles around and lined up at the door. He did as much as he could until quitting time, and then I imagine people camped out near Peter’s house until the next day. But Jesus got up a long while before daylight, slipped out, and went to a deserted place to pray. At least that part makes sense to me. He needed some space to be with God. Yet when his disciples finally found him again and told him that everyone was looking for him, he said, “Let’s go somewhere else!” What’s that all about? Why didn’t he finish the healing job in Capernaum before he moved on?
Those two parts of the story, Peter’s mother-in-law serving everybody, and Jesus appearing to walk away from sick people, have always bothered me. As I reflected on them in preparation for today, I realized that both point in the same direction. It just took me a while to figure out what that direction is.
Let’s start with the first problem. Given that Jesus and his disciples had just come from the synagogue, it must have been the Sabbath, later in the same day as last week’s Gospel reading. You may remember that last week that Jesus astonished everyone by casting an evil spirit out of a man. It was a very public exorcism, with the spirit shouting at Jesus and convulsing the man before Jesus told it to be silent and come out. What seemed to surprise everyone the most was not the healing itself, but rather that Jesus wasn’t using the ancient authority of the Law, the Torah, to heal like their scribes did; he was claiming authority for his own. And it worked. The man was healed. Right away Jesus’ fame started to spread.
Next Jesus and the disciples went to the house of Peter and Andrew, no doubt to get something to eat and to rest for the night. But Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with a fever, and as soon as they arrived Jesus was told about it. Notice what happened this time. The healing was very private. There wasn’t any shouting match. No one was told to be quiet. Instead, Jesus did something wonderfully tender. He went into the woman’s room, took her by the hand, and helped her to her feet. By the time she stood up, not only was the fever gone, but she had all of her energy back – maybe even more energy than she had before she was sick! She was completely cured.
Now imagine what it would be like to be sick and have guests in your house. I don’t know about you, but on the few times it happened to me, I was even more miserable because I couldn’t do anything to make the guests comfortable. I was up in bed, sniffling and feeling sorry for myself, wondering if everyone was getting all of the attention they deserved.
I imagine Peter’s mother-in-law to be feeling a bit that way. With guests in the house, she’d much rather be bustling about the kitchen and cooking up a storm than lying in bed. And until Jesus took her by the hand, there was no way she could do what she desired to do.
In other words, the healing power of Jesus restored her to full functioning. She was once again able to do what she enjoyed most and felt called to do. And if you think that “call” is too strong a word to use for waiting on people, consider that the Greek word that is translated “serve” is the very word from which we get “deacon.” These domestic duties were also holy service to others. Peter’s mother-in-law could now be the person whom God knew her to be.
If that’s the case, why didn’t Jesus stick around Capernaum to bring everyone back to wholeness, to allow everyone to become the persons whom God knew them to be? When everyone was looking for him, why did he decide to go elsewhere?
Jesus himself gives us the key to that problem. “Let us go on to the neighboring towns,” he says, “so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” Unlike the rest of us, Jesus knows who he is. If in the crush of people the evening before he might have lost track of himself, he would have regained that knowledge when he went to a deserted place and spent time with God while the stars were still out and the dawn had not arrived.
As one commentator puts it, “[Jesus’] primary mission is not to be a wonder-worker but to proclaim the kingdom of God.” Healing and wholeness are part of the kingdom of God, but they are only signs pointing toward the kingdom, not the kingdom itself. Jesus lived out the good news of the kingdom, proclaiming the extravagant love of God by acts of healing through the power of the Holy Spirit. And that is the direction that I had missed all these years, that these stories always and consistently point toward a God who loves us, who seeks us, who desires to restore us to be the people God knows us to be.
There’s a wonderful passage in a medieval work called The Cloud of Unknowing that I think expresses this very well:
It is not what you are or what you have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes, but what you desire to be.
What do you desire to be? Where do you need healing? Where have you turned away from God, feeling sorry for yourself? In what ways have you lost track of the person whom God knows you to be? Where does God need to look with those merciful eyes?
No, Jesus was not just a wonder-worker. Not everyone was healed. But everyone heard his proclamation of the love of God. Everyone was called to live a life ruled by the Spirit of God rather than by an evil spirit. We know that even those who followed Jesus did this imperfectly, stumbling along the way like Peter. But that didn’t matter, because God still looked on Peter with those merciful eyes, Jesus still took Peter’s mother-in-law by the hand, and people were still restored to wholeness. They still are. God still looks on us with love and mercy. Jesus still takes us by the hand. How can we do anything else but give thanks, get up, and serve others?
Amen.