Once there was a man who went to his doctor because he really needed help with his snoring problem. The doctor questioned him closely about it.
“As soon as I go to sleep,” the man explained, “I begin to snore. It happens all the time.” He was really quite desperate. “What can I do, doctor, to cure myself?”
The doctor then asked him, “Does it bother your wife?”
“Oh,” the man answered, “it not only bothers her, but it disturbs the whole congregation.”
I guess this little story points out that one person’s behavior can indeed have a great impact on those around him or her. And so it is in our Gospel story this morning – on two levels. First, Jesus’ actions have an immediate and profound impact on the other characters in the tale – from Simon’s mother-in-law to the persistent crowds of people who followed him and his disciples. And second, Jesus’ actions ought also to also have a profound impact on us as his latter day followers.
These verses from the Gospel of Mark are really two stories linked together in our lectionary, that is, in the verses assigned to us to read each Sunday. There is first the healing story, which then leads into an account of Jesus trying to capture a few moments alone to pray – in a sense to re-calibrate or re-center himself – after all the activity of starting up his ministry.
“And then…and then….and then.” You see, there is a certain immediacy about this particular Gospel, a rising crescendo of events. We have not even completed the first chapter of this narrative, and already Jesus has been baptized, spent forty days in the wilderness dueling with his own temptations, called his disciples, exorcised an evil spirit in the midst of a presumably whiz bang sermon in the synagogue, healed Simon’s mother-in-law as well as all those who were sick and possessed of demons who were brought to him in the aftermath. No wonder he yearned for a little time alone.
It was right after the incident in the synagogue with the possessed man ranting and railing that Jesus and his disciples hightailed it to Simon’s home – and that is where our story today picks up.
Oh, they must have been surprised when the usual welcoming dinner table was not set and no fragrant odors of matzo ball soup and lamb ragout wafted out from the kitchen.
This is unusual! What’s going on? Oh, no! The woman of the house – Simon’s mother-in-law - was sick in bed with a fever – not a good thing in first century Capernaum – what with no aspirin and only a cool wet rag to bring down the body’s heat and sooth the anxious twisting and turning, the moaning and crying.
Jesus, of course, went to her bedside. Perhaps his mere presence calmed her a bit. That we do not know, but what the Gospel writer does tell us is that Jesus reached out and took her hand. “Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand.”
And stand she did, her fever gone. She was healed. And just so we know that it really happened that way, that the Gospel writer was not making the story up to bolster Jesus’ already burgeoning reputation, Mark provides us with a wonderful detail, a joy-filled aside.
The old mother-in-law not only gets up, but then she goes about her first century womanly business – serving the men a full course meal – from soup to nuts.
For some of us, that may be almost as much of a miracle as the healing itself. But then again, maybe, as United Church of Christ pastor Kate Huey notes, Jesus and this unnamed woman give us a glimpse of what Jesus is really all about: wholeness, healing, service, humility.
However, moving right along….moving right along. Word spreads fast in this first century town. Texting and Facebook aside, when the sun had set and the Sabbath was officially concluded, people lined up outside Simon’s home – pushing, pulling, carrying, and offering an arm to the lame and the sick, the depressed, the oddballs, and the crazies.
“Oh, Jesus, it is my head, my back, my knees, my feet.” “Oh, Jesus, help me. When it is morning, I want the night to come, and when the night comes, I only want it to be morning once again. Jesus, help me.”
And Jesus began and then continued to heal the assembled motley crew sporting all sorts of ailments and diseases far into the night. And when the last cripple had gone home and Jesus had no sooner shut his tired eyes, the first rosy inkling of dawn began to color the Eastern sky.
Our rabbi raised his own tired body from the mat where he had caught just a couple of winks, quickly snuck out the back door and (moving right along….moving right along) walked briskly in the morning dew down the road that wound outside of town, there to find a lonely place, a quiet place, a place to breath deeply of the fresh air of a new day – and to pray.
It is a lovely scene – an introvert’s dream – but it does not last. Simon and the others, heady with yesterday’s experience of massive and crowd-pleasing healings find Jesus and proclaim: “Everyone is looking for you. They love us here. Up and at ‘em, so we can do it again.” They are like modern day political handlers.
However, Jesus sighs, prays a quick Amen, and takes the reins himself. As Roman Catholic scholar and professor, Dianne Bergant, writes, “Jesus realizes that the crowds are coming because they want miracles. He, on the other hand, wants crowds to come to hear the gospel he will preach”
“Moving right along,” he says. “Moving right along. We have places to go and people to meet. We have good news to proclaim.” And so they left Capernaum that morning and traveled to other towns and villages in Galilee, preaching in the synagogues, healing the sick, and driving out demons.
No doubt about it. Jesus’ actions certainly had a profound effect on those around him. After all, he healed Simon’s mother-in-law from what could have been a life-threatening illness. And word of that unusual occurrence was apparently enough to bring others from their sickbeds and mental prisons to find relief.
Lives were changed that day. Even the disciples were brought up short when they realized that their mission was not about fame and glory and people saluting them as miracle workers there in Capernaum, but rather it was about long miles to be walked, meals on the road, other places to go and people to see. Moving right along….moving right along.
Moving right along down through the ages to us latter day disciples sitting here this morning pondering these stories. Do these two little linked tales of healings and prayers say anything to us, all these centuries later? Do they offer us wisdom or direction?
I think these two stories offer us an important lesson. You see, when you come right down to it, they are a paradigm for sustaining ministry. They illustrate for us that if we are to be effective disciples or followers of Jesus, then we need a balance between doing ministry and centering ourselves in order to be able to continue doing that ministry.
Using these two little stories as a backdrop, I would say that we need a balance between healing or service and the lonely places of prayer. We need a balance between a certain inwardness and our outward action. We need a balance between doing outreach and serving others and coming to worship, which is where we re-center ourselves, re-calibrate ourselves, reconnect with the God who sends us forth in that God’s name.
You see, one without the other leaves us compromised. One without the other leaves us little better than the broken and the lame that came to Jesus for healing in the first place.
On the one hand, all outreach and service with no worship, no time to re-center ourselves and rebuild our energy eventually leaves us burnt out and probably quite resentful about it all.
On the other hand, all worship and inward centering with no outreach into the broken world around us leaves us little better than those who bask in the false presumption that all you need to get by is a personal relationship with Jesus and forget about the world around you.
A sustaining Christian ministry - and I am not talking just about the ordained clergy here - calls for a balance between outward action and rejuvenating prayer. That is why serving at Monday meals and putting our change in a Heifer Project ark bank is only part of the story. Being here at worship is the other equally important part.
Now I know that I am preaching to the choir, so to speak. And so, I would really appreciate your reminding folks who are not here that this is what worship is about. It is not about whether or not the congregation or the choir should sing the responses. It is not about whether we praise God with the organ or with an African drum. It is not about the size – or even the thickness - of the bulletin.
Worship is so much more than its structure. Worship is where we are re-calibrated. It is where we are re-centered. It is where we are reconnected – both to God and to one another. Worship is where we are rejuvenated so that our Christian ministry – our taking the hands of those in need, our being the hands of our Lord in the world - can be sustained. Why? So that we, like the disciples, can find ourselves moving right along, moving right along.
Rev. Nancy Foran
Raymond VIllage Community Church
Raymond, Maine
www.rvccme.org
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