29
As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon
and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon's mother-in-law was in
bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31 He came and
took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and
she began to serve them. 32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to
him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city
was gathered around the door. 34 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. 35 In the morning, while
it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place,
and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him.
37 When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching
for you." 38 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." 39 And he went throughout Galilee,
proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
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."
- I almost don't know where to start. Jesus is quite busy, as he usually is in the Gospel of Mark. Here we find him healing, preaching, casting out demons, and praying, all while ready to move on to other places almost immediately.
- Still, throughout all the busy-ness, there is a theme. It may be hard to catch sometimes but it is there. Allow me a brief time to show this.
- First off, Jesus heals Simon's mother-in-law who is ill with a fever. As things are done in Mark's Gospel, she gets up and begins to serve and wait on the guests in the house. I know this sounds familiar to many of you – I know that many of you have gotten up while sick or tired to cook a meal or prepare for company, even skipping other things that might be important to you in order to be hospitible.
- I'm not going to go into how this might be the way thing were in Jesus' time and culture. I'm not going to make excuses for what strikes us as a great unfairness. (One commentator wondered why Simon Peter couldn't have made the sandwiches this once.) I don't need to make excuses for a detail in the Gospel story, even if some folks want me to.
- The word used for what Simon's mother-in-law did is the same word used for Christian service of any kind. When Jesus lifted her up from her sick bed, it wasn't for her to wait on them; it was for her to be healed and to become a disciple. Discipleship always includes service for service is the shape discipleship takes in day-to-day reality. The reality of discipleship points to something even greater.
- As the story continues, Jesus heals the sick and casts out demons from all who were brought to him. Mark seems to put these two actions on the same level. Of course, Jesus will not permit the demons to speak because they know who he is.
- Did you ever wonder why Jesus appears to heal selectively? Why Jesus did not go around making a point of seeking out people to heal? The actions of healing and the actions of exorcism do not stand alone; they are signs of greater things. If Jesus had only come to heal people and deliver the possessed from their demons, he might have set up a stand on the roadside or in a town - maybe even Jerusalem – and been known as a fine and true healer. He might have even made a career of it.
- But this was not the case! Jesus was about bigger and better things. Again, the healings and exorcisms were tangible signs of something larger and Jesus' every action calls everyone involved to discipleship.
- Again as the story goes on, Jesus goes out “to a deserted place” in the early morning in order to pray. Simon and his friends have to search for him. When they find him, he tells them it is time to move on to the neighboring towns... so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.
- Jesus always seems to go out to deserted places to pray and be in communion with his Father. For Jesus, prayer was not simply a few muttered words before a meal or a hurried reading at bed-time or a worshipful necessity on the Sabbath. It is as important to him as the bread he ate to survive or the air he needed to breathe. In this, he is our example of how to pray and what prayer can mean to a disciple.
- Discipleship, healing, service, and prayer are all included in this Gospel story. And all of them are part and parcel of something larger. Jesus' preaching and teaching, his call to discipleship, his prayer, and his healing and casting out demons, his opposition to all that dehumanizes people are all part of the larger picture that the Gospels -and the church- refer to as the Kingdom of God.
- All of the individual actions shown in this Gospel passage – the healings, the exorcisms, the almost instant jump to service, the prayer and communion, and even the moving on – are all ways that the Kingdom of God can be shown to be breaking through the every-day reality those people encountered.
- That is why Jesus did not set himself up as a healer. In fact, he only healed those who either came to him or were brought to him. That is why he moved on to proclaim the message of the Kingdom of God rather than stay permanently in one comfortable place. That is why Mark writes of the recovery and service of Simon's mother-in-law, a thing that seems so completely beyond our understanding and our own concepts of fairness. That is why Jesus prayed so earnestly in private and sought out times and places to deliberately be with his Father.
- All of these incidents must be taken together. Taken alone, they are just news items which we can take or leave, imitate or lay aside. Taken together, they tell us of the presence of the Kingdom that is yet to come. Taken together, they invite us to follow, to reform our lives, and to let the Good News of Jesus Christ set our priorities and our directions. In short, taken together, this passage -like so many others- invites us to become disciples.
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."
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