She Began to Serve Them

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 8, 2009

She Began to Serve Them
Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-31

You’ve seen it on television or in movies:
Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry;
Steve Martin as Jonah Nightengale in Leap of Faith;
the rotating line-up
on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

The preacher stands before the crowds,
everyone filled with excitement and anticipation:
flashing lights,
loud vibrant music,
a choir singing, clapping,
everyone up on their feet,
arms, heads, hearts, hopes lifted high.
Healing is about to happen.

The hopeful march forward
two by two, up onto the stage,
forward to face the preacher,
straight into the midst of the cacophony.

An assistant behind the person tells the preacher
the person’s ailment:
blindness, deafness,
arthritis, lameness,
a weak heart, depression….

And then the moment comes,
with the preacher in a state of euphoria
shouting out, “Be healed in the name of Jesus Christ!”
and with an almost violent push,
lays hands on the person,
who faints, and falls back
into the arms of the assistant,
who then typically hustles the person away,
to make room for the next person.
On it goes…
the music louder, the scene more chaotic.

Could the healing scene we heard in our gospel lesson
be any more different?
It so low-keyed, it is almost a transitional story,
a few sentences to carry us from one passage to the next,
a story that by itself seems really rather unimportant.

And yet the story is there: in Mark’s gospel,
and in Matthew’s and in Luke’s.
Three sentences in Mark, four in Luke;
Matthew manages it in one sentence,
albeit, a long one.

It’s a healing story,
one of many healings we read in the gospel.
One of many stories that fill us with awe,
picturing Jesus as he walks from town to town,
preaching the gospel and healing the sick.
This story comes at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
We are still in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel.
Jesus has done one healing, and he’ll do more,
before we even get to chapter 2.

These few sentences remind us of how much richness there is
to be found when we stop for a moment and savor
each word, each clause, each phrase, each sentence
as we read through the Bible.
Yes, there are passages we can skim --
the genealogies,
the measurements for the Ark or the Temple,
but a careful reading is always rewarded.

What’s one of the things we learn from this passage,
apart from the fact that Jesus healed someone?
We learn something about Peter, don’t we:
that he was married.
We find no reference at all to wives or spouses
of any of the disciples,
but if Peter had a mother-in-law,
Peter must have had a wife.
How do you suppose she felt
when Peter came home and announced that
he’d laid down his nets and given up his fishing business
to follow an itinerant preacher,
someone no one had every heard of?

Andrew, Peter, James, John, and Jesus entered Peter’s house,
presumably to have the evening meal
and to spend the night before moving on the next day,
as Jesus took the word out to the region
around the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus saw that Peter’s mother-in-law was ill,
ill with a fever.
Luke tells us that it was a “high” fever.
Mark and Matthew tell us that Jesus touched the mother-in-law
and she was made well.
Luke’s version is a little different:
he tells us that Jesus stood over the woman
and “rebuked” the fever;
rebuked it, called it out, chased it away:
“Begone!”

However Jesus did it,
the woman was healed, the fever gone.
We all know what it’s like to have a fever:
it is miserable.
Your head throbs, every bone aches,
your stomach is profoundly unhappy,
you’re freezing one moment,
and too hot the next.
It is awful: your body fully committed and involved
as it fights the infection that is the cause of the fever.

And once the fever breaks
and your temperature returns to normal,
it still takes a couple of days
before you’re feeling good again,
feeling energetic.
And the older we get, the longer it takes.

This was not the case with Peter’s mother-in-law, though.
Her healing was so complete, so immediate,
that she got up from her bed,
and began to serve,
serve them, serve Jesus and his followers.

Why would she not have taken it slowly
at least for one more night’s sleep?
An easy answer is that that’s what women
were expected to do in Jesus’ day:
serve the men.
If it was dinner time,
it may well have been the mother-in-law’s
responsibility to see to it that the men were fed.

But the Greek word for “serve” used here
suggests another reason:
The word for “serve” is the same word
from which we get the word, “deacon”.
In serving Jesus and the others
I think she was doing more than just putting
the meat and bread and wine before the men;
she was looking after them,
caring for them,
showing them warm hospitality,
all in response to what Jesus had done for her

And what had Jesus done for the woman?
More than just lift a fever.
When the gospels speak of Jesus healing,
it is more than just curing someone of an illness, an infirmity;
it is restoring the person to wholeness,
making the person whole, complete.

That is what Jesus Christ does for all of us;
He heals us, restores us, and makes us whole.
And we don’t have to wait for him to travel from Capernaum.
He can heal us and make us whole, make us complete
any time, any place.

At the end of next month, on the fifth Sunday in Lent,
we are planning to have a Service of Wholeness,
a service of Completeness,
as an important part of our Lenten preparations
before we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.
But we should not wait until then to think about our need
to be healed and made whole by Jesus Christ.

When we turn from God, turn from Christ,
and pursue our own self-centered paths,
we are rending ourselves,
tearing ourselves apart,
part of us struggling to stay faithful in God’s way,
part of us seeking our own will, our own way.
When we turn back to Jesus, and walk in his way
we are restored to wholeness, completeness.

It was Augustine who said,
our hearts are restless until they come to rest in God,
and that restlessness is a reminder that
we are incomplete,
that we are not whole,
that we need healing.

We can play on the team that wins the Super Bowl,
we can win an election in a landslide,
we can make a pile of money,
but we will still be incomplete;
still not be whole,
still be in need of healing that can come
only from Jesus Christ.

Peter’s mother-in-law understood that both
a way to wholeness,
and a response to the gift of wholeness,
is through service, serving others
faithful service,
humble service,
selfless, caring service:
serving one another,
serving in the community,
serving in the world.
For in serving, we are not just doing something,
we are responding to grace and love,
the healing and wholeness given us by God
through Jesus Christ.
Serving is our responsibility,
in that we are able to respond,
and need to respond.
In serving, we become what James,
the brother of our Lord called,
“doers of the word.”

The work we do as we serve
can be taxing, but the work is never draining,
for God renews us, restores us,
refreshes us and re-energizes us
through the Holy Spirit.
That’s the promise God gives us through the prophet Isaiah.
It’s why Peter’s mother-in-law was able to
get out of bed and serve immediately,
her energy restored.

It doesn’t matter where we serve
or what we do:
We have heard lately of lots of opportunities
to serve through SERVE,
and the needs there are always great.
But that may not be where God is calling you;
God may be calling you to work with children
or visit the elderly,
or participate in a cleanup day along the banks o
of the Potomac or Chesapeake.
We can serve through the church,
we can serve through nonprofit organizations,
or we can serve by going across the street
to a neighbor’s home and say,
“May I help you?”

Our Youth Group has been doing a wonderful job
raising not only money but awareness
of the need to look after young children in African countries
where adolescents are kidnapped,
drugged and turned into
murderous, soul-less war machines:
so called, Invisible Children.
Parents killed, children orphaned,
and then they themselves often dead before they
are old enough to drive a car.

Our Confirmation Class members are working on
their Service Project proposals,
one of their requirements for Confirmation.
We ask them to complete 6 hours of service,
separate and apart from service
they might be required to do for school
or for another organization they are part of.
We want them to remember that
we are called to service;
we want them to feel God working
through them as they serve;
we want them to grow in awareness
of the endless needs all around us;
we want them to feel whole and complete
as they serve.
One of the joys I have had working with Confirmands
over the years is that almost all
after doing the project
continue with the work on their own.

In serving we can find joy, deep joy,
a joy we can find in no other way.
Joy even in the midst of a never-ending stream
of bleak economic news;
Joy even when fear, anxiety, and worry
seem to be constant companions in workplaces
and homes.

“We are God’s servants, working together”
(1 Cor. 3:9)
Paul reminds us.
“God’s servants, working together.”
Working together as we serve one another,
serve the community, serve the world.
each of us doing our part,
using the gifts given us by God,
trusting God to guide us and lead us.
All of us serving, not because
it buys us a few more points with God,
or a better seat at God’s table,
but because we know that in serving we are healed,
and made more complete, whole,
more Christ-like.

Peter’s mother-in-law,
a woman whose name is lost to history,
a woman who appears in a fleeting passage in the Bible,
shows us the way of life,
for it is the way of our Lord,
the one who came, after all,
not to be served, but to serve.
AMEN