Fifth Sunday after Epiphany Mark 1:29-39 February 8, 2009

A single woman in her mid-forties walked into my office recently saying she was going to throw up.  I probably should have run for cover, but instead I asked what was wrong.  She said she was in escrow on the first house she has ever bought.  It was so startling, exciting, oddly timed with the economy as it is, so beyond her ability to control all her emotions, that vomiting seemed the best response.  It made sense to me! She didn’t vomit, however, but talked about how her father could now live with her in this new home and how it was the biggest thing she has ever done. 

Grace is like that. It is not a stranger to odd timing and unbelievable circumstances. It can lead us to places we would never arrive at on our own. And grace keeps reminding us, we are not all on our own.  Grace is the promise that we are in relationship with our loving God whose Spirit is at work, and has been for eons, without our knowing even a finger was being lifted for us. 

I’ve known this experience of grace.  I’ve known it when out of who knows where, an invitation calls me through doors I would never thought of opening and could never have opened for myself.  I’ve known the grace of stories and film, word in Scripture and word from people, where what is read or said hits so close to home it seems a word just for me and my need. 

I’ve known the grace of gazing at the moon and being reminded that whether at Holden Village, or in Rwanda, or in Chico, we walk the dark under the same light.  Scientists tell us butterfly wings flapping here make waves across the globe. Feeling like vomiting may not be such a bad indicator that we finally get how far beyond all of us life is – always, everyday, if we have stomachs to pay attention.

In today’s Gospel, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law knows such radical grace and responds in a startling way.  It too is an odd story – truly odd timing with an unexpected act on the part of Jesus.  He had been out recruiting people to follow him in his mission of proclaiming the reign of God.  He’d been teaching in the synagogue, casting out demons, gathering fisher folk that they might do as he does.  And he was just about to get surrounded by hundreds of needy people. 
Mark tells us “the whole city gathers around the door.”  But before Jesus deals with the gathering masses, he does a most unusual thing.  He goes to an older ailing woman who lives in her son-in-law’s house.  What an odd picture for the first century world! – perhaps a bit like the odd timing of buying a house in today’s turned-down economy – or the surprise in the opposite direction of facing a foreclosure yet recognizing that none-the-less we still trust that through it all God’s grace would show up even there.
For the mother-in-law to be in her daughter’s house says she is without a husband of her own – most likely a widow with nowhere else to go.  It would have been customary for her to go to her brother’s house – or her late husband’s brother.  Brothers were the first on the list obliged by Levitical law to care for their kin’s widow.  But apparently this unlucky unnamed woman had to stretch all the way to her son-in-law to find a next of kin to redeem her. 
But her un-luckiness was just about to end, for though the story leaves her unnamed, it lifts her back into life.  Her son-in-law was one of those just recruited by Jesus to follow him in turning the world upside down.  Jesus had in mind that the way things had been would be no more– where widowed mother-in-laws would now be considered worthy, so worthy that when crowds of people came to Jesus, she is the one to whom Jesus comes: “He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.” 
And not only did he come, but he broke rules in his coming.  Not only the Sabbath rule, for it was a Sabbath day, but also the rules of touch and tenderness.  He was not to touch a woman who was not his own wife, but it was riskier still because he was not to come near the illness she bore.  Fevers were contagious, but they were also a stigma.  She must have done something scandalous to get such a fever. Who was he to interfere?  But that was just the kind of system Jesus came to turn topsy- turvy!  And he did.  “He came, took her by the hand and lifted her up.”
This story is given to us to announce that this one who comes to her, comes also to us, no matter how odd our circumstance or situation.  He comes, through this word, this story.  He comes in the waters of grace out of which we are lifted to new life.  He comes in bread and wine given and shed – the sign of the cost of such gracious love.  Christ comes to take us by the hand when we too, like this woman, feel unnamed or misnamed – diminished somehow for whatever reasons, devalued or dismissed.  Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, comes to lift us to surprising new life.
I have seen it happen where prejudice or jealousy or fear or simply lack of trust or imagination has led people to draw circles that count other people out – like racism does and classism, and sexism and ageism and homophobia and the illusion that there is not room for me and you too; not enough for all of us so you need to be shown the door.  All kinds of fears rule our world.  And try as we might, we cannot redeem ourselves by our own might.    
But God can and does.  Perfect love, as we see it in Jesus, continues to find ways to cast out fear.  Look at what Jesus does in today’s Gospel!  He came to one he should not have come to.  He took her by the hand, as he should not have done.  He lifted her up, a work on the Sabbath that would get him into trouble – trouble as costly as the cross.
And the story doesn’t end there.  We read on, “The fever left her, and she began to serve them.”  Now from a 21st century view we stammer at this.  Two Bible Study groups this week reflected on this text and both times there was an instant questioning. “Why should she have to get up and serve them – she who has been laid up badly with a fever?  Couldn’t someone for once serve her?  Wouldn’t the disciples serving her breakfast in bed have been a great ending to this story?”  Certainly she could have reveled in such care! 
But Mark’s Gospel suggests something even more powerful.  This unnamed woman becomes the first diaconal minister – the first example of the ministry of serving – not as servitude because she has no other options, but as loving response to being set free to meaningfully engage the world.  This mother-in-law was probably the elder woman in the home.  It would have been her honor to be in charge of serving the guests who came.  Jesus does far more for this woman than cure her fever.  He frees her from the pointed fingers, the talk behind her back, the false witness that would have assumed she was unworthy to set tables and serve.  But even more, Jesus becomes a recipient of her service. “She began to serve them.”  Jesus receives from the work of her heart and hands, and that is probably the greater healing. 
Sometimes the best gift we can give each other is to affirm each other in our callings.  Sometimes the healing people need is not a cure, but a correction of wrong interpretations of them.  Sometimes the lifting up people need is to be received for who they are, not for what fear has named them. 
In these days of massive unemployment, what many people most want is simply meaningful work where they can use their hearts and hands to contribute to the good of society and the good of their families and communities.  Employment isn’t just about being able to enter back into a world on consumption and over spending.  Employment is more deeply about being constructive with our lives – and all the better when it frees us to give of ourselves in the service of God’s expansive purposes in the world.  May we pray for creative healthy opportunities for those in need of them in our country and around the world.
And may we be given eyes to recognize when we too are being lifted up to be in service to others.  No time or place or circumstance is too odd for God who comes even this day through the table of grace not only to feed us but to just as importantly, send us!  There can be no greater joy than that our lives would be spent in the service of God who even now is using willing hands to participate in turning the world topsy-turvy towards God’s intended future.  Thanks be to God who heals us by empowering us for service and receiving from our humble hands! 
                                                                                           

Amen

   +Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Church, Chico, CA