Sunday February 4th, 2024 Worship

I’m going to be honest and admit that I spend a lot of time wrestling with what to make of healing stories in Scripture, especially as someone with several diagnoses that will impact me for the rest of my life, and as someone who spends hours a week in the presence of our residents at Foss Home and Village. I’ve also witnessed over the years countless people who have not had their prayers for healing answered in some way or another, or at least in the specific way they were hoping. When that happens, the responses from other Christians can become quite angering, accusing the person of causing this themselves through their sinning, or proclaiming that they must not have enough faith otherwise God would have healed them. None of this is helpful, especially when your mind and your body already make you feel like you are not enough or worthy of love because of your condition. And, as Amy Kenny writes in the book My Body is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church, which I mentioned last week, not everyone wants to be healed in the way that people think they should and it’s frustrating for people with disabilities when we cannot see them as image-bearers of God unless they are miraculously healed and have a “normal” embodiment. So, I came into this Gospel reading this week already feeling skeptical, as we continue the stories of Jesus healing people and casting out demons.
To make my desire to wrestle with it stronger, this story also includes the healing of Simon and Andrew’s mother in-law, who is healed of her fever and then begins serving Jesus and the other male disciples who were with him. (Mark 1: 31). It makes me want to argue because this woman was just severely ill with a fever and then immediately goes back to the work of serving the guests; where is the compassion in that?! She doesn’t even get a name! However, once I got through my initial burst of anger at the details of this story, I realized that there might just be more to the story than I initially assumed.
While our Inclusive Bible version translates her activity as, “then she went back to work” (Mark 1: 31b), when I explored the Greek a little bit more this sense of work comes from the word diakonia, the same word that we get Deacon from. The diaconate is also known as the Word and Service roster in the ELCA because this sense of work is grounded in service to the community, but also bridging the church and the world. When we think of it this way, the verse could also be translated as “she began to minister.” It goes beyond this sense of gendered household roles and instead brings it into the realm of her calling, which includes hospitality. While I still wish she had a little bit more time to rest after being healed, looking at it from this ministry perspective instead of a requirement because of her household role changes the way that I view her response to the healing. It takes on a sense more like joy than the initial obligation that I assumed it did.
Ultimately, I think this sense of ministry is actually what is grounding our reading today instead of just this focus on physical healing. Because Jesus’ ministry isn’t just about curing individuals, but it is about drawing the community into this healing process and is also in a sense a great example of the ministry of presence. I say this because the people that Jesus is quote end quote healing are the people that have been cast aside by others for their uncleanliness. They have mental and physical health challenges and are not seen as equal to the others in society, especially because they couldn’t contribute to society in the ways that were expected. This might sound familiar because we still have issues with this today.
So when Jesus shows up today doing these healings, it talks about how “Everyone in the town crowded around the door” (Mark 1: 33). Jesus was showing that his ministry wasn’t to the wealthy or those who were deemed powerful but were to those who were not seen as whole or worthy. He is included those who had been excluded in the kindom of God. And, while it says that many people were healed, our reading doesn’t state that everyone was healed. Jesus didn’t show up, snap his fingers, and magically heal everyone. Instead, he went to transform the community and bring healing to the whole community in regard to how people relate to one another. Healing wasn’t an individual act done in the privacy of someone’s home, but was done before this crowd of people. Even Simon and Andrew’s mother in-law had James and John as witnesses of her curing (Mark 1: 29).
As I mentioned, we don’t hear that everyone was healed in today’s Gospel reading. Even when Simon and the others try to get Jesus to go back, Jesus is quick to note that it’s time to move on to the other villages in the Galilee region (Mark 1: 28). It becomes the responsibility of the community to not blame those people for their own lack of healing, but to see how through Jesus’ and even Simon and Andrew’s unnamed mother in-law’s example they can serve each other and help each other thrive. It becomes about the well-being of the whole community; this is what Jesus is proclaiming. The already and not yet of God’s kindom and how each person and their unique experience of the world is an important part of that kindom. But Jesus can’t just do all of that work for them or the changes wouldn’t stick. It involves a transformation of hearts and minds to the ways in which life could be different.
Just as it was left in the hands of the people in the villages when Jesus moved on to the next one, this task of caring for the community, this ministry of presence, not just fixing or curing, rests on us now, guided by the Holy Spirit and the example of Christ. This healing ministry of presence can take many forms, including sitting with each other in our pain, illness, sorrow, and grief. Healing doesn’t always include the fixing of all of our problems, but it is a reminder to all of us that we do not go through the joys or sorrows of life alone. That we all share in this act of creating healing through love and care for one another, an embodiment of the love that God has for us. It’s up to us to accept this call to ministry, ministry for the sake of the whole community, despite the fact that it might be challenging or uncomfortable at times. May God continue to guide us it what it looks like to follow this call, as we participate in the already and not yet of the kindom of God, and as we continue to expand our understanding of what this kindom looks like.