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I would like to jump into our reading in Mark today by first jumping into the Creation story of Genesis 1. I think what is going on here at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel and his account of the beginning of Jesus’s work is that he is giving us a glimpse of Creation restored, a foreshadowing of the New Creation when Jesus returns. I think that to really understand the meaning of Jesus’s work of healing people and casting out demons we need to appreciate his work on the scale of it being as big as the creation of the Creation itself.
So, in Genesis 1 we have what many Old Testament scholars would say is actually a hymn, a hymn about how God made a beautiful place for God to come and repose in…you know, just a place to sit and listen to the birds and watch the bunnies and deer, and…best of all…do some people watching. It would seem God just wanted a place that’s well-ordered and peaceful, a place to go home to that’s in working order to relax. You see, everything was this watery darkness that was formless and empty. Other neighbouring cultures who wrote creation stories like this would use words like chaos, disorder, or even evil to describe this primordial state. There are monsters and other mean-nasties there. It’s just not good, not a place God can repose.
God decided to do something about that and, first, They (and I say “They” because God referred to Godself as Us, a convenient invitation for us to think in terms of God being relational in nature – Trinity; Father, Son, Holy Spirit.) They, God, turned on the light to see what They (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) were doing. Then, They created a big bubble in the midst of the primordial waters. Then They made land, seas, and heavenly lights in the bubble that give it the order of Day and Night. They filled the seas and skies with fish and birds and covered the land with vegetation and bugs and animals. Then, They created humanity in Their own image. They made us male and female which necessitated that there be loving relationship for our species to continue. They called it all very good and came and reposed.
So, Creation is supposed to be this well-ordered, peaceful bubble for God to come and repose and enjoy the beauty of it all and particularly fellowship with the one’s God made in God’s own image of “Us”. But, if we read on in Genesis, we find that those mean-nasties from the primordial chaos outside God’s bubble can come in and mess things up. That Serpent sure stirred up some muck in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and all but ruined God’s bubble. In time disease and death and broken relationships become rampant. God has been working to set things right ever-since.
That story of Creation, the idyllic Big Bubble, puts me to mind of my grandparents and the home they created. It was by no means perfect, but it was always a place I could go and repose and enjoy the sense of being safe, welcomed, and loved among people who were “for” me. Granddaddy was a quiet, solid, wise, and compassionate man. Grandma was gifted at making you feel at home. You never had to worry about conversation with her. As kids, we had plenty of laughs with her. Grandma was almost always in the kitchen. She lived to feed people. The Big Bubble of their home was at its best on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve when the whole family was packed in there together with the thermostat set at 87F. On those two days, I’m sure God was reposing and the “hominess” there was what he created this Creation for.
There were times when the chaotic disordered world out there broke in. I had an aunt who had a knack for not picking the right guy. But Granddaddy and Grandma always opened up the “bubble” to him. He was welcome at the table. The Bubble began to collapse when Granddaddy’s emphysema finally took him. Things weren’t the same anymore. Sadness sat at the table with us. Three years later my dad died and that pretty much did it for me. Then, Grandma passed two years after that. No more Bubble. But, I’m very thankful for my grandparents. Jesus told the thief who died on the cross next to him “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” When the big door opens for me, I’ve had a taste of where I’m going.
Anyway, back to reality, back to the Gospel of Mark. I said last week that in Jesus’s day in small town Judaism outside the home, the synagogue and the marketplace were the most important places. Last week we looked at the synagogue and how Jesus brought peaceful order back to the synagogue in Capernaum by casting out an unclean spirit from a man that like a church bully was using prejudice, fear, and mockery to dash the people’s hope that in, through, and as Jesus God was bringing in his reign as promised. In today’s reading Jesus takes the reign of God into the home, into Peter’s home and it spilled over into all of Capernaum.
Let’s talk about Peter’s home, his bubble. We don’t know much about Peter’s home, about his family. There are three things we know. His brother Andrew lived with him and he had a mother-in-law who lived with him. We also know a little about the roles of men and women in the family back then. Women looked after keeping the home – cooking, cleaning, raising the children, managing the servants, getting the groceries, etc. Men looked after things outside the home – business, family reputation, participation in synagogue, civic duties. Roles are different now. Let’s not get sidetracked by the way their culture did things. Outside of those three things we can only conjecture. So…
We never hear about Peter having a wife or children. He got married at some point, hence the mother-in-law. Conjecturing, he likely married a woman who had no brothers and her mother was a widow and so Peter did a very honourable thing. He took his mother-in-law into his care as well. It was not a friendly world back then for widows with no sons. I like to image that his mother-in-law was a lot like my grandmother. She loved to cook and offer hospitality. So where is the wife? It is likely that sadness sat at his table. Peter’s wife likely could have died giving birth. Peter’s status as a honourable man would have increased tenfold in that he continued to take care of his mother-in-law as if he were her natural born son. Peter’s home was well-ordered with compassion and honour, but it also knew the disorder of grief.
That brings us to Jesus coming to visit. Jesus went to Peter’s home but there was no one there to offer the customary hospitality. This could have brought serious shame to Peter. Peter informs Jesus that his mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. We don’t know what was causing this fever, but for it to be severe enough to keep her in bed meant it was quite serious maybe life threatening. There were some popular ideas about the cause of fevers. Demonic attack and punishment by God for sin topped the list. Needless to say, no matter the cause this fever was another outright incursion of the disordered world outside God’s Big Bubble into the home of Peter bringing with it the possibility of death. Peter’s bubble was greatly threatened.
What does Jesus do? He doesn’t destroy Peter’s home because there is sin, sickness, and evil there. He restores Peter’s bubble to the “very good” that God pronounced at the end of Genesis 1 so that God could come and repose. Jesus does this in an eyebrow raising way. He doesn’t have her brought before him to interrogate her as if to find fault in her for this plague that is upon her. Rather, he goes into the bedroom of a woman (raise one eyebrow). In her bedroom, he touches her, he takes her by the hand (raise both eyebrows.). He raises her up out of the bed…and she is well…and she immediately returns to doing what she loves doing – serving, offering hospitality. She is restored. Peter’s bubble is restored to “very good” ...and…God is reposing at his table. Jesus is reposing with them. The next thing you know the whole town is outside the door bringing the sick and the demon-possessed to be healed. In Capernaum that evening many bubbles, many homes were restored.
This little seemingly insignificant story of Jesus healing a woman with a fever is a signpost passage for what the reign of God looks like when it breaks forth amidst the disorder and chaos that is life today inside God’s Big Bubble that has been invaded by the forces of darkness from outside the Bubble and humanity is in collusion with them.
This is the way the Reign of God works. Jesus in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit comes into our bubbles, our homes. He does not judge us for the sin sickness that is there. But rather he meets us in our most shameful places of weakness (where we burn with fever, so to speak). He touches us and raises us up.
Greek lesson – that word for “to raise up” is almost always used as some form of a reference to resurrection from the dead. Jesus raised up Peter’s mother-in-law and that points us to the Day of Resurrection coming. In the Reign of God Jesus touches us and raises us up to renew us, restore us with resurrection life, new life in him – living with compassionate purpose in the sure knowledge of the love of God and God being with us reposing.
The appropriate response to being “raised up” is to serve. Another Greek lesson – the word for serve is the one we get our word “deacon” from and the type of serving it refers to is offering hospitality and compassion to others. It is the perfect word to describe the way a disciple of Jesus should live. A little Gospel of Mark trivia – this word shows up four times in Mark’s Gospel. When Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan for forty days, the angels served him. Deaconing is what angels do. Peter’s mother-in-law, raised up and restored to health, serves Jesus and the disciples. Also, when Jesus was dying on the cross the only people from among his immediate followers who didn’t desert him was a group of women who traveled with Jesus and the disciples serving him. Deaconing is what faithful disciples do. Finally, Jesus says about himself, “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. Deaconing is what Jesus does.
The reign of God – Jesus steps into our sick disordered lives. He touches us. He raises us up to new life and restores us. Thus, we deacon. We serve others offering hospitality and compassion. This is God’s Bubble restoration project. God is restoring the Bubble in which he reposes and finds rest and joy. We are part of that.
In closing, I really miss being able to gather for worship and fellowship with the folks of my churches due this COVID-19 lockdown. We are small congregations. We don’t have a lot to offer in the way of programs and stuff. But what we do have is Bubble. We got Bubble, Big Bubble, especially when we potluck. The longer I am your minister, the more I get to know you each, the more it feels like Grandma and Granddaddy’s home. It really hurts when disorder breaks in and one of us falls ill or passes on. Regardless, God is in our midst reposing and it is very good. Amen.
