Proclaiming the Mission

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Isaiah 40:21-31 

Mark 1:29-39

What is it that ails us this Super Bowl Sunday morning? What fever grips us to the point of desperation for Christ’s healing touch? Is it “Patriot Fever”? Or a desperate determination to drive Eli Manning into the endzone for a go-ahead touchdown?

Or is it a somewhat more refined fire for soaring sopranos to lift our spirits on wings like eagles, as the prophet Isaiah says, higher and higher over the exhaustion of the daily grind or the anxiety of just not ever seeming to be able to make those ends meet or the true reality of our ever-present mortality, so we can remember the whole purpose of human existence. Which is, in the end, “to glorify God and enjoy God forever.” Which is what we re-member when we come here to this table of grace.

All these things and more raise us up out of our beds on a perfectly good sleep-in Sunday, and drive us from the comfort of our own homes to the greater comfort of this home, where the waters of baptismal grace flow unbounded, and the joyful feast of the people of God feeds the deepest hunger of our souls, and the Word of hope carries us forward as a new creation for justice and peace.

All these things and more have also propelled Jesus and Simon and Andrew and James and John to their first century synagogue in Capernaum in Mark’s Gospel reading for this morning. But something is not quite right on this particular Sabbath day. Someone is missing: Simon’s mother-in-law, who is bedridden, burning with “demonic force,” as her community would have interpreted her illness. “Homebound,” as we would say in the church today. She has missed out on the healing and the wholeness and the hope of that morning with Jesus in the gathering of the people. And they miss her. And she misses them.

And so “immediately” after leaving the spiritual home of the synagogue, Simon brings Jesus to the actual home of his mother-in-law and begs Jesus to help her.

Now we could get cynical here. I know the first time I read this story as a budding feminist, I thought, “Sure.” They heal the woman so she can serve them! What a victory for humankind! (A woman’s work is never done.)

But something much more profound is going on here, if we pay close attention to the story. Simon’s mother-in-law is, as far as we can tell, quite poor. Very likely a widow, living with her daughter’s family. Meaning we can assume her sons are either non-existent or no longer living. And Simon, himself—her current provider—is among the class of fishermen that does not even own a boat. He and his brother, Andrew, wade waist deep every day into the water of the Sea of Galilee to cast their nets, gathering whatever fish are swarming in the shoals along the shoreline.

It is a subsistence living. And the way things are going with the Roman commercialization of the Sea of Galilee, even this subsistence living is literally and metaphorically “drying up.” Not only that, but Simon and Andrew have just thrown it all away to join this Jesus guy from Nazareth in proclaiming the coming kingdom of God! Leaving the women of the house truly panicked about what will happen next.

Simon’s mother-in-law may, in fact, be ill. Or she may be flat-out exhausted by the weight of it all. Whatever it is, she could use those wings like eagles right about now. She has been “waiting on God” for an awfully long time. So here comes Jesus. And he could, if he wanted, just patch her up with an ice-pack and a pat on the shoulder and send her running back down the field with two minutes to go in the game. No pain, no gain. All for the good of the team.

Instead he raises her! He raises her.

And by that, I mean that the Gospel writer uses the same word here to describe the raising of Simon’s mother-in-law that is used fifteen chapters later to describe the raising of Jesus. Meaning that the raising of Simon’s mother-in-law is the first resurrection to occur in the gospels! Meaning that in “serving” Jesus and Simon and Andrew and James and John on that Sabbath day—in response to her resurrected life—Simon’s mother-in-law becomes the first “Deacon,” which is the word used here to describe her ministry with her new human family. Meaning that in breaking the bread and pouring the wine that was likely her very simple meal for the disciples of Christ on that Sabbath day, she presides over a truly “holy communion”—in grateful response to her resurrected life—making her the first “minister of Word and Sacrament.”

Simon and Andrew may have left everything to follow Jesus. But it is Simon’s mother-in-law who really “gets it” about what Jesus is trying to do. She who has served so very many for so very long—perhaps out of love, perhaps out of economic necessity—can go no further without the touch of Christ. And it is the same for us. In order to keep serving—out of love or out of necessity—we must be healed, we must be restored, we must be refreshed for new life. And so we come to the table of sustenance and find a new life of our own.

But our healing, our salvation, our resurrected lives gift us with the power of Christ to heal others in the same way. Simon’s mother-in-law, the minister, knows it. We, I hope, know it. Simon, God bless him, does not. He thinks it all depends on Jesus, himself. “Where have you been?” you can almost hear Simon demanding when Jesus has gone off by himself to pray. “We need you!” But Jesus has already ordained the minister of the first “house church” of the Jesus movement. She can keep the ministry of healing going on just fine without him.

Jesus has been called to proclaim the mission throughout the rest of Galilee. And in the preaching and the teaching and the pastoral care of Jesus throughout the neighboring towns, the home of Simon’s resurrected mother-in-law becomes the prototype for all of the house churches in which the earliest Christians would gather for over two hundred years as a new human family to claim that same resurrecting power for themselves: by serving one another, by feeding at the table of sustenance, by claiming the waters of baptism for themselves.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the house church of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is the model for how we do ministry here at Madison Square today. Because healing is, right here, right now, for all who would join in this Sabbath grace welcome home. With the mother-in-law of Simon soaring on wings like eagles, inviting us to join Jesus here at the table for a resurrection feast.

But it doesn’t end here. Because healing is—right here, right now—for all who cannot seem to find their way to this particular home in this particular place on this particular day. And our job as the resurrected people of God is to proclaim that mission as far and as wide as we can.

It just so happens that the Mission Committee of Madison Square Presbyterian Church is ready to do just that. We will meet after worship today to focus our attention on two major areas of mission outreach in the coming year: working for peace in particular by advocating for a Department of Peace at the national level; and responding to the homelessness that surrounds us as a downtown church. And of course, there are many other ways Madison Square is involved in mission, including the support of small farmers through the Presbyterian Coffee Project and our ongoing support of Haven for Hope, SAMMinistries, Christian Assistance Ministries, the SouperBowl of Caring, Habitat for Humanity, and the “Ready, Willing, and Enable” program.

If you have not yet made a commitment to one of the many missions of Madison Square, now is the time to do so. Talk to Rebecca Baker about your desire to serve . . . or talk to me, and I’ll put you in touch with her or whomever the right person may be.

In the meantime, we bring to the table of grace everything that truly does ail us on this Super Bowl Sunday morning, with a prayer for healing and a trust in the resurrecting power of God and a hand of hope held out in love, that leads us all to abundant life, so that we may proclaim the same for all we meet.

May we soar on wings like eagles.

Amen.