Wings of Eagles

Scriptures:     Isaiah 40:21-31, Psalm 91, I Corinthians 9:16-23,   Mark 1:29-45

Mother-in-law jokes have been a staple of comedy from time immemorial.  Here’s a classic:  “My mother-in-law and I were happy for 20 years.  Then we met each other.”  One’s mother-in-law may embody all the traits about your spouse that drive you crazy, without any of the good stuff.  Or they may be overprotective of their baby – even though their baby may be in his or her 50’s.  Or she wish her son or daughter had “married better” – whatever that may mean.   Some do much to earn the title of “monster-in-law.”  On the other hand, many people have relationships with their in-laws that are supportive and positive in every way.  Such people are doubly blessed, with the love not only of a spouse or partner, but their parents as well.

Today’s gospel reading picks up right where last week’s reading left off – and takes us into more familiar territory.  Remember that last week, we read about Jesus casting out an unclean spirit from a man at the synagogue at Capernaum.  And I, at least, struggled to connect to that reading, trying to find a way between the extremes of Hollywood sensationalism on one hand and an impulse to question Jesus’ understanding of mental illness on the other hand.

This week’s reading puts us back in familiar territory.  Instead of some unknown man at a synagogue, we have Simon’s mother-in-law – so we can feel a sense of kinship with her across the centuries.  We’re told that right after the synagogue service was over, they went to Simon’s house.  Archeological explorations have found that Simon’s house was literally right next to the synagogue.  And we’re told Simon’s mother-in-law had a fever, and we all know what that’s like – alternating between sweating and chills, forehead burning up, achy joints….we’ve been there, and anytime we watch a commercial for this or that cough and cold medicine, we’re there again in spirit.  It’s likely, though, that Simon’s mother-in-law had a fever that was more than a passing bug.  Normally, she would have been providing hospitality for her visiting guests, but at this moment she wasn’t getting out of bed.  Jesus was told, and he took her by the hand and lifted her out of bed.  It was a quiet, gentle moment - no shrieking, no convulsions, just a gentle touch given by Jesus and received by Simon’s mother-in-law.  We’re told that the fever passed, and she began to serve them.  This happened on the Sabbath, the day of rest.  We hope he got some rest that day, because he was about to have a long night ahead of him.

Archeologists tell us that outside Simon’s house – and outside the synagogue – was a large open area.  As news of Jesus’ healings spread – and after sundown, after the Sabbath had formally ended – days were counted from sundown to sundown, rather than from sunrise to sunrise as we count them – after the sun had set and the Sabbath had ended, crowds gathered -  seemingly everybody and their mother-in-law had a family member or knew someone who was under the weather, and they were all brought to Jesus.  We’re told that Jesus healed many people and cast out many demons, ordering them to be silent as they departed.  Jesus had compassion, and brought not only healing, but real refreshment and reconnection to those who came to him.  In those days, society’s response to illness was to isolate the sick person, just as we still use quarantine precautions under certain circumstances in hospital settings for persons with serious and highly contagious diseases.  While this prevented contagion, it also made it hard to maintain relationship, especially if the disease was chronic, such as leprosy.  So Jesus healed, not only bodies, but spirits, relationships, community connections.

Finally everyone called it a night, and Jesus did too.  But we’re told he was up in the wee hours.  He wen to a deserted place and, we’re told, “there he prayed.”  He was still praying when Simon and the others found him and told him, “Remember that crowd at the house yesterday?  They’re baaaaa-aack.”  The disciples expected him to go back to Simon’s house and wade into the crowds for the day two of the Jesus Medicine Show.  But then Simon and the others learned that this medicine show was about to hit the road:  Jesus told them, “Let’s go to the neighboring towns and proclaim the message, for that’s why I came. “  Simon had to be disappointed – he had brought the great healer to his home town, and would have liked to bask a bit longer in the gratitude of his neighbors who had been healed. But, we’re told, Jesus moved on to the neighboring towns, speaking in their synagogues and casting out demons.

The last few verses about the healing of the leper aren’t actually part of today’s reading – if Easter were later this year, we’d have read the passage next week – but I thought the story was too good and too important to miss.  A leper – one who had a dreaded, disfiguring skin disease, who was excluded from society – approached Jesus.   According to Leviticus 13:45, “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be dishevelled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ “  But this man, after giving Jesus the prescribed warning, knelt on the ground in front of Jesus – humbling himself, but also blocking Jesus’ path, forcing Jesus to look at  him.  “If you choose, you can make me clean”.   Jesus was deeply moved – by some strong emotion, and actually translations differ, some translations say moved with pity, others with anger, perhaps at how this man had to live.  But Jesus said, “I do choose. Be made clean.”  Jesus told the man not to mention Jesus’ name in connection to the healing, but to go to the priest and perform the prescribed ritual and offering to be allowed back into society.   But the leper spread the word about what Jesus had done, and then the crowds grew so large that Jesus couldn’t enter a town, but stayed out in the country, where people found him.  And that’s where our Gospel lesson ends.

How can we connect to this reading?  We’re told that Jesus taught and healed, taught and cast out demons.  Not just one or the other, but both.  And so, for Jesus, the good news – the teaching - about the reign of God was connected to the acts of healing.  Our churches are sometimes accused – and not without reason – of being too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good.  That is to say, our proclamations of God’s good news often don’t connect to people on a real level in their daily lives.   Words about good news mean exactly  nothing if they don’t actually lead to good things happening.  I think that is changing at Emanuel Church; we’re not just talking about feeding the hungry or offering water to the thirsty, but actually doing it.  And we have seen healing, physical and spiritual, take place among our members.   This is as it should be.  While only Jesus gets to be Jesus, we too are called to teach and heal, teach and feed, teach and minister.  Not just words in isolation, but words that are connected to actions – actions that not only help individuals, but strengthen families and support entire communities.

Our reading also reminds us of the value of being part of a wider church community that extends around the globe.  Remember that in order to minister to the surrounding towns, Jesus had to leave Simon’s town.  That is to say, in his earthly ministry, Jesus could only be at one place at one time.  Unlike Jesus, we, the church, as his body, can minister in many places at the same time, because through Jesus we are all connected.  We can minister in Simon’s hometown and in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, in Bridesburg and Port Richmond, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the United States of America, and to the ends of the earth – all at the same time.  Jesus told his disciples that they would do greater works than his, and this is one sense in which Jesus’ words come to pass.

Remember that Jesus healed the leper, reaching out to touch someone that nobody else wanted to get near.  Our reading also reminds us that good news is for all, including those whom our society treats as lepers, as untouchables.   Easier said than done – the first time I saw the encampments under the bridges along Lehigh Avenue, I felt some overwhelming combination of fear and nausea.  And yet we can’t just retreat behind closed doors and pretend they don’t exist…at least not if we want to follow Jesus.  There’s certainly room to differ on what should be done – but “nothing” isn’t a faithful option.  Jesus’ healing of the leper also calls into question legislative proposals on the state and national level to allow businesses and hospitals to refuse services to customers of whom they don’t approve – LGBT persons, racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants among others – under the heading of religious freedom.   I remember like it was yesterday – it’s indelibly burned into my brain - in the 1980’s and 1990’s when AIDS patients – many LGBT - were refused services on a similar basis – landlords wouldn’t rent to them; businesses wouldn’t employ them; doctors wouldn’t treat them; undertakers wouldn’t bury them.   In our Gospel reading, Jesus used his religious freedom not to refuse healing, but to heal those whom others refused to touch, not to refuse service, but to serve those whom others rejected.   The followers of Jesus are called to do the same.  Our faith in Christ calls us to expand our range of service, not to reduce it; to build bridges, not walls.

Finally, we may ask how Jesus mustered the energy to do all this.  Jesus was like the Energizer Bunny…he seemingly just kept going and going and going.   The key is one little verse: “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”  Jesus lived in a state of continual connection to the God whom he called Father, and that connection sustained him.  Jesus’ works weren’t just do-gooderism or random acts of kindness, admirable as that would have been.   Rather, Jesus saw his teachings and healings as part of something much larger, an inbreaking of God’s reign into the world.  His connection to God through prayer and his sense of mission sustained him.  In John’s gospel, at a point in their travels when his disciples were urging Jesus to eat something, Jesus told his followers that he had food and drink about which they were unaware – and Jesus later explained that his food and drink was to do the will of God who sent him, and to complete God’s work.  But in order to know the will of God, Jesus had to wait on God in prayer, to listen, to be renewed and refreshed.  He first had to receive so that he was able to give. 

“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  May we, like Jesus, wait upon the Lord in prayer, and having been refreshed, may we wait upon the Lord’s people in service.  May we not grow weary in well-doing.  Amen.