February 4, 2024

Epiphany 5b

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Mark 1:29-39

First I want to tell you something really great about what happens in this story. Jesus’ new friends, or students, or apprentices, whose names are Simon and Andrew and James and John, have just arrived at Simon and Andrew’s house and they find out that Simon’s mother-in-law (why doesn’t she get a name?) is sick. So Simon and Andrew and James and John tell Jesus about her – “she’s got a fever, she’s sick, we don’t what’ll happen, she’s sick, she’s…we don’t know what to do, but we thought we should tell you about her.” So they tell Jesus about her, and Jesus takes her by the hand and puts her back on her feet. The great thing is, they told Jesus about her.

In my first parish I had a parishioner named Viola; a solid fifty-something farm woman who lived on a farm just outside a tiny town in Saskatchewan. Early on in my time as her pastor, she told me on the way out of church, “I pray for you and Val and your boys every day.” She said it in the most natural way, as though she was just telling me about the weather that day or what she was having for dinner that evening. Over the next three and a half years she told me the same thing so many times. Once when I was picking up a few groceries at the Lucky Dollar, another time while I ate onion rings at the curling rink, and at least once at the Lion’s Hall when there was a fundraiser or school concert going on. There were more times than those. I never had any doubt that she meant it, and that she prayed for us every day. There were times when I was just not sure how to be a pastor, or when I kind of felt adrift, and I’d remember that Viola had prayed for me that day and my worries would lift a bit and for a time, at least, I would remember that it was going to be OK. I’d remember that my worries would not get the best of me because Viola’s prayers already had. I left that parish and came back to visit three years later and Viola said, of course, “Pastor Paul, I pray for you and your family every day.” Twenty or so years later I put some bread in her hand at a communion rail at a church convention. I hadn’t seen her for year. As I said, “the body of Christ, given for you,” she grinned and winked and we both knew what she was thinking and what she was saying. What happened was this. Every day Jesus would walk into Viola’s house, and right away she would say, “Jesus, I’ve got to tell you about…and she would tell Jesus about her grandkids, and about her mom and dad, and her friends, and her pastor and his family, and probably about people she didn’t even know… And Jesus would take by the hand everyone she prayed for and lift us up and put us back on our feet. Jesus came into the house and Viola just had to tell him about us all. So, I don’t know. Be Viola. We pray about so much and among the bunch of us here there are so many other people we care about and worry about, and there’s a broken world we worry about and care so much about. So be Viola. All we’ve got to do, if we can’t think of what else to do, is tell Jesus about it. And the promise is always out there – that Jesus will take them, you, me, us, everyone we pray for, and raise us up by the hand and put us back on our feet.

2 Now about something not so great. Later that evening, after Jesus raised had raised up Simon’s mother-in-law, after sundown, the people from the town came and brought everyone who was sick or who had demons. The whole city was pressing at the door, and they brought everyone, and Jesus healed many who were sick. And Jesus cast out many demons. But not all. Isn’t that kind of a disturbing detail? What happens to the many who are not healed, and the many who still just keep on living with that sense that some accusing voice or tormenting presence has made itself at home inside… and they still live with that, because only many were healed and only many demons were cast out. Not all. It should have been told differently. But there it is: Many were healed; and so…many were not. What about all the rest? What happened after Jesus and the disciples closed the door to the house and went back inside? Did some who were still not healed give up, and their friends just took them back home again? Did some camp out on the front step, hoping to catch Jesus when he left the house quietly the next morning? How long do you keep waiting for something to happen?

3 I don’t know what happened with those ones who were not healed, or those ones who still kept on living with their demons. Maybe some of them remembered old stories from their own religious tradition, like what we heard from Isaiah a few minutes ago. Isaiah writes to people who have been waiting for years for something good to happen – waiting and waiting - and he says, “Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you known? Haven’t you been told from the beginning?” And then Isaiah reminds them that the God who stretched out the heavens, and who named the stars and called them to shine in the night, is also the God who brings down the mighty and the powerful and all the powers that hurt and kill – the sickness, the tyrants, the powers and the systems that oppress. And again Isaiah says, “Haven’t you seen, haven’t you heard, haven’t you known, that that same God gives power to the weak and strengthens the powerless?” And then Isaiah asks the weak and the powerless “Why do you say that your way is hidden from God, and that God is not paying attention to your lot in life? Those who wait for God will renew their strength, and mount up on wings like eagles. They’ll walk and run and not grow weary and not faint and fall along the way.” Some probably heard the word and felt comfort. And some probably heard the word and said, “That’s no comfort. We’re still waiting.”

4 What about those many outside the door at Simon and Andrew’s house who were not healed and those many who still lived with those demons that haunt them? Some are healed; some are not. Some are set free from what haunts them, and some are not. Sure, it’s a healing story. But the story of the gospel and the story of history and the story of the church and the story of our lives is as much about the ones who are not healed and the ones who are still stuck with their demons as it is about the ones who get better. The whole story that we’re a part of is the story about the ones who are waiting and the world that is still waiting now. Waiting for healing, waiting for freedom, waiting to be delivered from demons that are not just evil spirits but are all the things, the systems and powers, that hurt and divide and haunt the world. This story we’re a part of makes room for those who are still waiting and who are growing weary; this story always makes room for the ones who do not feel like they are soaring on eagles’ wings but are just getting tired and starting to feel faint. And at the centre of the story, right in the middle of the crowd, is Jesus, who himself will grow weary and will feel faint. He’ll be worn out by the crowds, by questions, by disciples, by Pilate, by a cross. And Jesus himself, like all those who wait, will be weary and worn and will finally one day say “Why is my way hidden and why does God disregard my right? My God, why have you forsaken me?” All through the story of our faith are the ones who still wait, and the ones whose strength wears out.

5 But all through that story there are these other pieces too: Jesus’ friends tell him about Simon’s mother-in-law, how she needs help. All these people bring their sick and their suffering beloveds to Jesus. There will be a story soon after this one where four people bring their sick friend to Jesus and they can’t get in through the door so they tear a hole in the roof and go in that way. Maybe all of that is the real miracle. It isn’t the healing of sickness and the casting out of demons. Maybe all of these stories about healings aren’t so much about the healing as they are about the persistence of friends and strangers who keep taking everyone else to Jesus and saying, “Look, he needs healing. Look, her heart is breaking. Look, this world…is breaking.”

We think of the miracle of all of this being that Jesus heals. But maybe the miracle looks more like this: Viola prays for her old pastor and his family every day. Jesus’ friends tell Jesus about Simon’s ailing mother-in-law (let’s call her Viola!); people all over the place pray for people all over the place and there is this care and compassion and concern and this trust that just flow everywhere.

6 Jesus has come into our house again today. Well, again, he’s always been in the house. The house here, the house out there, the place where you live, the places we visit. He comes in and listens while we tell him about our world and its hurts and its joys – we call that prayer. And this One who has lived with us all this time, this One who himself will lose his life, and then be taken by the hand like Simon’s mother-in-law, and be raised to new life….this One comes to us as one who serves and who hears our prayers, then takes us and all creation by the hand and lifts us up again.