The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Year B
February 8, 2015
The Reverend Amelie Wilmer Minor
Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew,
with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told
him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the
fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with
demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were
sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the
demons to speak, because they knew him.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place,
and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found
him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to
the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I
came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their
synagogues and casting out demons. (Mark 1:29-39)
-------------------------------I want to begin today’s sermon with a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, written
by John Henry Newman about 200 years ago.
"Oh, Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in
your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen." (BCP,
p. 833)
One of the strengths of this prayer lies in the fact that life is quite often feverish. The
prayer helps me to acknowledge that reality. In fact, one of the ways that the stresses of
life can be felt and known is in literally getting a fever. Rarely are we as close to
knowing our own limitations, our vulnerability and fragility, than when we are in the
grips of a fever.
Writing in the fifth century, St. Jerome said, "Every one of us suffers from fever. When I
grow angry, I am feverish. So many vices, so many fevers."
One way to think about our life’s fevers is in terms of the daily stresses and anxieties that
take us out of the flow of life and creativity, out of community – things that consume and
isolate us - our worries over our finances, our health, our jobs; anxiety about our weight,
our relationships, our children’s academic performance…
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Research shows how our chronic anxiety over these things lies at heart of many illnesses,
which makes matters even worse. Just google the word anxiety, and you’ll find hundreds
of articles on the way it promote disease, from schizophrenia to cancer, to anorexia to
birth defects.
If we use the term "fevers" as a metaphor for all these conditions that separate us from
one another, from our inmost selves, and from God, what can and does lift us back into
the flow of life and creativity, back into community with others?
Let’s consider what happens in today’s reading from the gospel of Mark. Just before this
passage, Jesus has spent a very long day calling his first disciples, teaching in the
synagogue, casting out demons and curing all sorts of diseases. All that we’ve been
hearing about these past few weeks, and at a pace you might call “feverish.” Jesus now
returns to the home of Simon Peter and Andrew, and discovers at once that Peter’s
mother in law is in bed, in the grips of a fever.
Now, a fever was no small matter in the ancient world. It was not only debilitating for a
short while, but often a symptom of a condition that would usually lead to death. We
know nothing from Mark about this fever - its intensity, its duration, or its cause - but we
do know a valued family member was unable to be up and about her work. Her life’s
calling, her purpose and source of identity, had been taken from her by an illness.
We read also that when Jesus arrives at this woman’s bedside, he takes her hand, and
simply "lifts her up.” And then, in Mark's swift and direct style we learn that the fever
left Peter’s mother in law, and she served them." That’s all we get, nothing more. Jesus
takes a woman’s hand, raises her, and then she serves.
And what we gather from this scene is that a very important part of Jesus’ healing has to
do with touch, with personal encounter. Jesus took the woman’s hand and her fever left
her. Elsewhere in Mark’s gospel, Jesus touches the eyes of a blind man, and he sees,
touches ears of a deaf man, and he hears. Such episodes remind us why we touch people
while anointing or laying on hands – and confirm what medical research has shown us
about the importance of touch in healthy human development and in healing.
Sometimes I think we underestimate the importance of touch, of personal contact. Touch
is a sign of acceptance and nurture – not only of those we love and know, but of those we
are not so readily inclined to encounter. Jesus touched the unclean and restored the
banished to community – and the sick to a meaningful role of service. He didn’t treat
people as outcasts, untouchable, like some kind of a pollutant.
Many of you have told me how your experience of handing our sack hunger lunch bags to
people you meet on the streets has given you a glimpse into the way Jesus touched and
healed the lives of those who society ignores. I believe that as followers of Jesus we are
all called to administer, and to receive, this kind of non-judgmental, healing touch. And
while it is not always possible to touch someone through physical contact, we are able
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touch another through the sound of a soothing voice, the sight of a smile, or the warmth
of a hat or a pair of gloves tucked inside a lunch sack full of food.
The thing that is so powerful about Jesus' ministry of touch, of his encounter with the sick
and marginalized, is that involves restoration of those cut off from community to a full
role in the community. If you’ve ever been seriously ill you understand the joy of simply
being back as a participant in the "ordinary" processes of community life – things as
simple as going to the grocery store, having dinner with a friend, showing up at the
office. What we learn through times of illness or incapacity is that there is nothing
ordinary at all about life in community – it is a gift we take for granted until it is taken
away.
The touch of Jesus’ hand on a woman’s head is the same touch that brings with it the
power of God to restore our own participation in community – to touch our minds and
hearts in such a way that reduces the fevers of our lives that keep us from being truly
present to one another. The fevers of anxiety and fear, of restless self-seeking, of
bitterness or resentment – all these infections leave us when we just allow the healing
hand of God to touch our own feverish foreheads.
Each one of you has, I venture to say, known this touch…and that probably has a lot to
do with why you are here today. Perhaps it has met you in acts of kindness, of support
and companionship. Maybe it has reached you in prayer, or in the breaking of the bread.
Or maybe even, in the blanket of silence, in the quiet presence of God. Note, that in
today’s story, Jesus retreats to a quiet place to pray after his own feverishly busy day.
Yet, we would not be true to the story of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law were we to omit its
final verse. Mark's gospel reads, "Then the fever left her and she began to serve them."
Simon Peter's mother-in-law "served" immediately after having been raised. The Greek
word used to describe this is diakoneo, which is where we get the word “deacon.” It is
the same word Jesus uses to describe his own servant ministry... in fact, this healed
woman is the first character in Mark's gospel to exemplify this kind of servant
discipleship.
The good news is that "life after fever"—or perhaps more realistically, "life between
fevers"—is a life that in turn promotes and encourages spreading the healing touch of
Jesus throughout our environment. Being healed from the fevers of life is not an end in
itself. As we hear in our Eucharistic prayer, we do not come for solace only and not for
strength, for pardon only and not for renewal. In other words, we don’t take our healing
and then isolate ourselves —now cured, now made whole. Rather, being lifted from
fevers are invitations from God to join a community of healers. We are God’s only hands
and feet on earth. We are the touch of Christ.
The great author and physician, Dr. Gerald May, put it this way: “The power of touch, of
intimacy, of nearness to make whole: Jesus must have understood that which we are
often too slow to comprehend. Love not expressed, love not felt, is difficult to trust.”
Which is, Dr. May believes, the reason for the incarnation. That is, God knew the human
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need for nearness, and in Jesus he put flesh on that love. Which makes it all the more
demanding, if not frightening, to realize that for some people, we are the only Jesus they
will ever meet,”1
God reaches out to us in a variety of ways to heal us – through our prayer, our worship,
our relationships with each other. And then God invites us into the service of spreading
that healing – both within and beyond the walls of this place...within and between the
fevers of this life.
Oh, Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in
your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen."
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Gerald May, as quoted by P.C. Enniss in Feasting on the Word, Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Mark
1:29-39 “Pastoral Perspective, Kindle Version.
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