Today’s gospel picks up immediately where we left off last week, with the disciples and Jesus leaving the synagogue in Galilee and traveling to the house of Simon and Andrew.
And here we witness another healing. In the synagogue Jesus had ordered the unclean spirit out of a man, and here, he meets Simon’s mother-in-law, who has been in bed with a fever.
To our hearing, it may sound dramatic to say that the woman was at the brink of death, but two thousand years ago there were no antibiotics or medicines available to bring down fever. There was really no understanding of what caused illnesses. So, we can appreciate how worrisome her illness was, with an unknown cause and no way to bring relief. We can imagine the joy that her family and friends experienced when they saw Jesus take her by the hand and lift her up and the fever left her. And we can understand the gratitude she herself felt at being restored to wholeness.
The healings show us how God is with us in our suffering, and they demonstrate the power of God to set things right. But there is more to this story than the physical healing that takes place.
When she is healed, the woman begins to serve those around her. (1:31) The word here is the same word that we hear earlier in this chapter, when Jesus is in the wilderness and Mark says, “the angels waited on him.” (1:13) Although some traditions have used this story to “put women in their place”, διακονέω (dee-ah-koh-nay-oh) is the beginning of the diaconate, the ministry of service to which we ordain mean and women as deacons today.
Her healing allowed this woman – who like so many women in Scripture is unnamed apart from her relationship to Simon – to fully be herself, to use her gifts in service to God. It happens that her gifts were those of welcome and hospitality, in caring for the needs of her guests. But she just as easily could have been like Lydia who financially supported the disciples’ gospel ministry in Acts 16 (Acts 16:14) or like the prophet Anna who worshiped at the temple in Jerusalem with fasting and prayer night and day and whom we hear about when Jesus is presented at the temple as a boy in Luke 2. (Luke 2:37)
If you have ever been at the brink, at your wits’ end, at the edge of despair, or uncertainty, you share this woman’s story. It is the story of God breaking into our lives to call us to being fully who God created us to be.
These Epiphany stories remind us again and again that all things are under God’s authority, and we can be confident that God is with us in the messiness of our lives and the world we live in.
And we can be just as certain that God has created us and calls
us to be witnesses of the love and grace shown us in Christ Jesus in this place.
I share this woman’s story. When I had been working in nonprofit fundraising for almost ten years, I was working with a founding executive director who wanted me to follow in his footsteps. I went to a workshop and as we talked about the stories that were most important to us, I realized that as much as I appreciated the work we were doing, that was not the most important story to me, and it wasn’t the story I wanted to spend the next twenty-five years telling. That realization sent me into a tailspin. I didn’t know what to do next. But I began talking with my husband Jamie, and with my pastor, and later that year, after many more conversations, I entered the candidacy process in the North Carolina Synod to become an ordained pastor.
It was one step toward becoming the person God created me to be.
Growing up, we often think that our progression through life is a straight line, right? Childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood. Primary school, middle school, high school, and then maybe college, or maybe not. But I think we have enough experience in this room to know that far more often, life resembles a roller coaster with more than one ‘loop de loop’ along the way.
And when we are hanging on for dear life, faith helps us know we are not alone, and the journey is not in vain. God is there, with us, helping us become fully who God created us to be.
When we catch our breath or regain our balance, we can ask, “Who
is God calling me to be?” and “What is God calling me to do?” and listen for
God’s answers.
Faith gives us the freedom to respond to God with our whole selves and serve with the gifts we’ve been given.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
We give you thanks for Your love and grace shown us through
Jesus all through this Epiphany season.
Thank you for saving us and healing us that we may be your
witnesses in the world.
Help us respond to your presence in our lives and fully become
the person that you created us to be, so that others may know You.
We pray in the name of your Son Jesus.
Amen.
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