A Place at the Table

Christ Lutheran, Walla Walla

Mark 1:29-39

²⁹As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. ³⁰Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. ³¹He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

³²That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. ³³And the whole city was gathered around the door. ³⁴And 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. ³⁵In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. ³⁶And Simon and his companions hunted for him. ³⁷When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” ³⁸He 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.” ³⁹And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

I love the beginning of Mark’s gospel so much. It is so clear, in every incident and story, that God, who has come in the flesh in Jesus Christ, is a God of life and wholeness. The God we worship cares about human bodies, yes, as well as our souls. This is a God who wants the world teaming with belonging, beloved community, and deep joy.

We are still in the season after Epiphany, the season of manifestations, of learning who this Jesus is. Today we see and hear that Jesus cares about bodies and souls, not one or the other. Jesus is also a teacher and leader who uses both words and actions, and his words and actions are aligned. His primary task is the preaching of the good news of God, the news that God is breaking into human reality. But there is more, as we read this morning. In Jesus’ present preaching, what he proclaims, the future intervention of God, actually occurs.

In our passage today, we encounter the first person to be resurrected. And this is a very big deal in Mark’s gospel. You see, the word used for lifted her up is the same one translated as raised her up – as in resurrection! This is what new life looks like – not just for this woman, but for all of us. When Jesus takes your hand, and raises you up, you are meant to use your renewed life to serve others: Women, men, children, all followers of Jesus! 

This word will show up repeatedly in the Gospel of Mark, as Jesus heals people; he’s bringing the resurrection into their lives. There’s no account of Jesus’ actions after his own resurrection in the Gospel of Mark. However, the disciples are instructed to go to Galilee, where Jesus did all these acts of healing to remember what resurrection looks like. But this woman’s story is the first resurrection story of all of them! 

Let’s consider her for just a minute. We know she’s a mother-in-law, so imagine, probably past the age of bearing or raising children herself. She is possibly past the age of being pursued by men who find her attractive. But she is certainly not past contributing to the good of her community and the work of God in it.  

I assume many of you have been through a serious illness or injury, or perhaps childbirth, and healed to the point of returning to your previous life. Well, resurrection might ring true to your experience. Just to be able to do the most mundane things for yourself again is like a breath of new life. 

But other times we don’t spring back. Maybe your condition is chronic and is not going to get better.  Or consider a new parent who struggles with postpartum depression. We don’t know if the woman in our text sprang back into action without any side effects. 

Jesus still extends a hand to raise you up to new life, but instead of returning to the old one, it is to a new normal, and we have to learn to navigate what service to others looks like for us now. Part of your new way of interacting could include a new-found empathy with those who are suffering. The new normal is new life, it’s just different because we have been transformed by our suffering. 

Nonetheless, after Jesus raised her up, the woman “served” them (not just Jesus, but a whole group of them). The word for “served” is the same one we use for ministering, diakonia, from which we get “deacons” those rostered leaders who are ordained to “Word and Service” instead of Word and Sacrament. 

This woman is not only the first resurrection story, but the first minister. Serving epitomizes Jesus’ own ministry: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45). Serving also epitomizes following Jesus. In the waters of baptism we are not just freed from sin and death, but freed for neighbor love, for service, in its many beautiful manifestations.

To be released from illness and restored to oneself means one can fulfill responsibilities to others. Repairing the bonds of family and community is a dimension of resurrection. In Mark’s gospel there is no “individual” healing, only those that repair relationship: son to father, daughter to mother, and here, mother to children. 

The resurrection life that Jesus proclaims here at the opening of Mark’s gospel and that Christians experience, is not unambiguous or uncomplicated in the world in which we live. The verses that follow this story of resurrection suggest the enormity of the suffering (“the whole city was gathered around the door”) and the toll the ministry takes on Jesus. Mark’s gospel is honest about the opposition to and the cost of healing people.

The summary of Jesus’ healing in today’s text shows us Jesus’ compassion for the poor and so many who are ailing. There is a socio-economic character to this story. From the very beginning Jesus the healer experiences the incessant press of needy masses. The way he responds to the destitute subjects despite continual opposition dramatizes his preferential ministry to the poor.

Economic and political deterioration had dispossessed significant portions of the First Century Palestinian population, especially in the densely populated rural areas of Galilee. Disease and physical disability were an inseparable part of the cycle of poverty (a phenomenon still true today despite modern medicine). For the day laborer, illness meant unemployment and instant impoverishment. Jesus’ healing ministry is an essential part of his struggle to bring concrete liberation to the oppressed and marginalized of society. 

Jesus and all healers of that period could only perceive illnesses and not diseases. Notice the little regard for symptoms. Jesus heals. He does not cure. Illness was associated with impurity or sin, a state that mean exclusion from full status in the community. 

Jesus always seeks to restore the social wholeness denied to the impure by the social order. This is why his healing is interchangeable with his social interactions with them. His acts defy the order that segregates those who lack bodily integrity. He was constantly challenging the prevailing social boundaries and class barriers. This is why Jesus the healer was a threat to civic order. And so, his miracles were not universally embraced. Depending on one’s status in society, one either perceived Jesus’ miracles as a real threat or as pure liberation. 

The implications of Jesus’ preaching and healing, the inbreaking of the reign of God, intersected forcefully with real life Thursday morning as I sat in the Idaho State Capital. I sat there and listened to the reading of a bill which could repeal Medicaid Expansion, my adopted state’s effort to insure those in the health insurance gap. The explanation and argument for the bill was made by an out-of-state lobbyist. Only two other people spoke in support of the bill.

For two-and-half hours the committee and those of us in the hearing room listened to two-minute in-person and remote testimony overwhelmingly arguing against the bill. Again and again, we heard stories about how, since the ballot initiative in 2018, when hundreds of signatures were collected from across the state, people’s lives have changed for the better. Yes, they have received medical care previous not available to them. But that was never where the stories ended. 

What followed medical care of diseases and, equally as important, preventative measures, was entrepreneurship, people better able to parent their children, employees able to work in small businesses. My favorite was the doctor who called in from Couer d’Alene to tell us about his small engine mechanic patient now able to control his diabetes. What is so beautiful about the Medicaid Expansion Initiative in Idaho is that it was not just a new law that changed people’s lives. It was a movement across the entire state, a movement that said we collectively believed in this expansion and what it stood for—wellness and wholeness of body, mind, and spirit. I have no idea how many of those who testified confess the faith we do. It doesn’t matter. We saw and heard the inbreaking of the reign of God in words and actions. Side note—the bill stayed in committee. Which in Idaho we take as a win. Liberation and new life will continue.