Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Luc Thuku, OHC
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany - Sunday, January 31, 2021
Today we gather to celebrate God’s love and mercy shown to us in His son Jesus who was born, lived and suffered like us and for us, to set us free from the dominion of sin and evil. Sin and evil are most of the time made manifest by various illnesses and death. Our readings this morning are showing us that when we believe in God; and in the presence of Jesus, they are all powerless! The readings also point us to the fact that God will always meet us at our point of need.
The Gospel passage today is a continuation of the first chapter of Mark which is describing to us the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. He has already called disciples. He has also performed his first sign in the synagogue at Capernaum by healing a man with an unclean spirit by rebuking the spirit and calling it out of him! The people are amazed and talk about the new teacher who is teaching and acting with authority, unlike their leaders the pharisees and the scribes.
After the healing in the synagogue, Jesus enters the home of Simon Peter. A home is more that a roof on four walls. We humans have to mark out our personal lives from the public square, separating family and friends from the general crowd. An ideal home therefore offers a secure, comfortable place to drop off the many impersonal masks, both literal and spiritual, that we use to shield ourselves from an equally impersonal world. Although Jesus didn't have a personal home, he too leaves the public area of the Capernaum synagogue to retreat to a private household with his friends. There, death threatens to disrupt the rest Jesus and the brothers who had invited him would expect to enjoy. He finds Peter’s mother in law in bed with a fever. The duration and the intensisty of the fever or the illness that was causing it we do not know from Mark although Luke 4:38 says it was severe or great. We, however, know one thing and that is, a valued family member was unable to be up and about her work. Her calling had been taken from her by an illness.
Jesus heals Peter’s mother in law instantly. We do not hear her asking to be healed but Jesus heals her anyway! He does this by simply taking her by the hand and raising her up. The word or verb used, raising up (Egeiro in Greek) takes a significant meaning in the gospels and in Christian communities everywhere. The word is even applied to Jesus himself. The word suggests new strength being imparted to those laid low by illness, unclean spirits or even death, so that they may rise up again to take their place in the world.
Once healed, she right away goes ahead to serve! Jesus later on will say that his own ministry is to serve rather than to be served. If serving characterizes the Christ of God, it also characterizes his disciples. Some Westerners and extremist feminists may see Peter’s mother in law serving immediately as an example of an oppressed woman whose whole life is pathetically a perpetual service to men. If we however read this in its Middle Eastern, as well as in the African and many of the so called “primitive” cultures, context where the matriarch of the house was the host in chief, then we will understand that rather than being oppressed, she takes the pride, honor and place of the first character in the Gospel who exemplifies true discipleship! Jesus therefore restores Simon’s home and simultaneously reveals the saving truth of who he is.
After the healing in the synagogue and at Peter’s house, word of course spread, as is usual in a village context, that something great has taken place. So far the healings were unsolicited but this is about to change. Later in the evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons and we are told the whole city was gathered around the door. He cures them all and casts out demons without letting them speak because they knew him. Remember it was still the Sabbath and those of the “strict observance” or the cowards among them who hid behind the rules and regulations, wouldn't want to be seen to break the law by carrying the sick which would be regarded as work and since the sabbath ended at sundown, that is why they all flock to the house at that hour.
Illnesses bore a heavy social cost. The sick person was unable to earn a living or contribute to the well being of a household. The ability of the sick person to take their proper role in the community, to be honored as a valuable member of a household, town or village would be taken away from them and some illnesses, for example leporosy, meant the person would be totally cut off and become an outcast. Healing therefore is about restoration of dignity, restoration to community, restoration to a calling, restoration to a role and restoration to life! As we Christians and monastics know very well, a life without community and a calling is a bleak life!
This morning, Jesus is reminding us that his ministry involves restoration of those cut off from community to a full role in community. Anyone who has ever been seriously ill in our own time will understand the joy of simply being back as a participant in the ordinary activities of living community life. It is then that we realize that there is nothing ordinary about life in community! The major lesson here is that Our God, made present in Jesus, always takes us by the hand and lifts us up! He heals us and makes us whole physically, mentally and spiritually, not just for our own comfort and wellbeing but for service! Healing and curing were, and still are, just signs to show that the kingdom of God has come among us. The real sign of the new age will be Jesus’ death and resurrection. Many of us are attracted to miracles and healings and fervently pray for them, which is not a bad thing in itself, but the question is, are we ready to respond to the invitation of Jesus to take up his cross?
Paul in the second reading we heard this morning, from 1 Corinthians 9: 16-23, reminds us that we need not boast, or make celebrities of ourselves, when we proclaim the Gospel for it is an obligation that we have laid upon ourselves freely by becoming followers of Jesus, and woe to us if we do not proclaim the Gospel. We very well know that ninety percent of proclaiming the Gospel is by our way of life and only ten percent is by word of mouth. The holy saint, Francis of Assisi, understood this very well when he urged his disciples to preach the Gospel at all times and use words when necessary. We, like Paul, are called to become all things to all people so that we might by all means save some, and salvation as we have seen from the example of the Savior himself means restoring dignity to all people especially those from whom it has been robbed by evil, be it the evil naturally occuring in the world such as illnesses, or the man-made evils that include oppression, discrimination, fear, hatred, greed, poverty, and so on. This at times will and ought to put us on the cross if we are preaching the true Gospel.
We may think that we are not strong enough or get discouraged by the times we fall short and possibly give up. Sometimes we even claim that God has abandoned us especially when the going gets tough but that is not the case. God’s promises are true for those that believe so wait and abide in him.
This is made clear this morning in the last verse of our first reading from Isaiah 40:31. We have been reminded that “youths may faint and grow weary, and young men stumble and fall BUT those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will rise up high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint”.
There are difficulties in life that overwhelm the strongest of people. There are fears that keep eating even the strongest of human hearts. Young men faint, stumble and fall because of trusting in their own inner strength and human resources which are not a sufficient shield in the storms of life. Only God’s power is sufficient to sustain us and only His protective hand can shield us from the storms of life.
Our God is a God of comfort and grace. He never goes back on His word, nor does he grow weary. In His loving kindness, He gives grace to the humble and renews the strength of those that wait upon Him by faith. Even when our senses and logic seem to suggest the opposite, or appear to contradict His promises, if we have faith, it will help us soar with wings as eagles to rest in His promises. Just like an eagle’s strong wings carries it higher and higher to safety in the skies, let us pray this morning to God to strengthen our faith so that we can trully believe we are children of the most high. Let us ask for confidence that assures us that we can soar and reach Him in faith as we face evil, illnesses, death and all our fears both real and imaginary.
Amen.
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