Journey's Weekly Homilies

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 9, 2003
Marcia Burdon

Job 7:1-4, 6-7
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

  How did Jesus heal people?  He healed their bodies, their minds and their relationships, their connections to other people.  How did Jesus heal Simon's mother-in-law?  He healed her of a fever.  Did she experience any other kinds of healing?  Why did Simon's mother get up and start serving people, when she'd just recovered from a fever?  Why did they expect that of her?  Wasn't it a little inconsiderate?
  According to the commentaries, serving people restored her to her role in the family, her role as head of the household.  When I hear head of the household, I think of my mother, the head of my household when I was growing up.  She did most of the housework and all of the cooking for the family.  She complained a lot about the help she didn't get from the rest of us.  I never thought of being head of the household as a positive experience.  I didn't want to be a housewife.
  When I went to college, I started learning to cook.  I came home one vacation, and made some black bean soup.  No one in my family would touch it.  They refused to try it.  My brother said it looked like...well, black bean soup is sort of a dark brown, black color....  Then I tried baking some apple bran muffins.  No one would eat those either.  It wasn't until some visitors came and started eating the muffins, that I realized that the problem wasn't how well I cooked.  The problem was that by cooking I was intruding into my mother's role as head of the household. After both my brother and I were grown, my parents got divorced.  My father started cooking.  He had never cooked while he and my mother were together. He experienced cooking as a liberation.  He still attends potlucks every month and shows off his gourmet creations.  So, cooking, and serving, can be experienced as means to prestige and status.  Simon's mother-in-law was restored by Jesus to her status, her role as head of the household.  She experienced healing.
  The word for "serve" in today's gospel is diaconia, deacon.  Mark's gospel was written during the time of house churches.  The hosts, the heads of these house churches, were called deacons.  The first hearers of Mark's gospel would have thought of these house churches when Simon's mother-in-law was restored to her role of service   When Jesus heals someone, he restores them to their role in society.  We see this vividly with the leper in next week's reading.  This leper has a skin disease.  Because of this disease, he is forced to live outside the city, outside society.  Jesus restores him, restores his social connection, restores his connection to other people. Jesus healed the sick, and cast out demons.  The mentally ill, those burdened with demons, live on the streets in Portland.  We cannot afford to provide them with care.  Many live in jails.  We build jails, but not hospitals.  Jesus reached out to those on the margins of society. He cared what happened to them.  He restored their connections with other people.  He healed them. When I first read this gospel, I was reluctant to preach on it, because I didn't think I had anything positive to say about healing.  My back gives me
a good deal of pain, sometimes.  I've prayed for healing and it hasn't happened, at least not the way I wanted it to.  But when I think of healing as restoration of relationships, as healing in mind and body, I begin to think of the ways I have been healed by the people around me.  Margie, last Sunday, gave me a CD with Brazilian songs on it.  She said she hoped I would find one I liked and learn to sing it.  People like Margie, who believe in me and love me, teach me to believe in myself.  They give me hope and healing in a very special way.  We can all offer that kind of healing to one another.