Just last Sunday I was at Shari’s Diner. Steve, Ruth and I decided to meet there for breakfast after church. I suppose we must have appeared deep in thought, because soon Lew, Carol, Jim and Kathy, who were also there for breakfast, stopped at our table and said:
Look at them! Of the academic degrees represented at that table, there must be at least three or four times more the number than those actually sitting there!
We all laughed. But I guess I remained deep in thought, because it occurred to me that the faith we share, the faith for which we’d gathered at church earlier that morning, can be seen as an idea.
This is easy enough to do, especially in the Presbyterian tradition. People have to spend several years in formal academic study to qualify to serve as pastors in Presbyterian churches.
Indeed, the bar is set high even for ruling elders, as we will soon be reminded when we ordain and install a new class of them in a few moments. They too are expected to have a command not only of the Scriptures, but also of the Presbyterian confessions and catechisms.
Educated at some of the finest academic institutions in the land, aspiring Presbyterian pastors become, for good or for ill, men (or persons) of ideas. Incidentally, I recently asked a friend how she liked her new associate pastor. She replied: “He’s great. He’s so intelligent. When he preaches for us, I can’t understand one word he says.”
Is this what Christian faith is? A set of ideas that are inaccessible to those who don’t have academic degrees?
Jesus appeared on the scene in Galilee to announce the gospel of the kingdom of God. He was not talking and debating ideas. Rather, he was announcing an event. God reigns. God is the sovereign ruler of all things. God has always been this ruler. But he is now going to show how he is this in a new way.
For he has anointed this Jesus, the Son of God, with power to reveal and exercise this reign. Jesus not only announces the reign of God; he is the agent and bearer of this reign.
But let us be clear. When Jesus comes to announce and enact God’s reign, he enters into enemy territory. To be sure, the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein, as the Psalmist declares (Ps. 24:1).
But ever since sin and rebellion entered into the world, God’s rightful ownership of the world that he has created has been contested.
That is why the event that Jesus announces manifests itself above all in a power struggle. Indeed, one student of the New Testament goes so far as to say that one can see the whole New Testament as a power struggle. There are the devil and demons, and those who do their bidding, as well as sin, disease, and death on the one side, and mercy, goodness and redeeming love, on the other.
Did we not see this power struggle play out last Sunday, when Steve shared a message about the demon-possessed man in the synagogue? In this confrontation, the demon is no match for Jesus. As soon as he appeared on the scene and began to teach, the demon felt the “heat” of his presence and threat to the control he had over the hapless man.
With a word, Jesus silenced the demon and cast him out. The demon’s convulsing of the man as it left him revealed its destructive intent; the loud cry was both an acknowledgement of defeat and a protest that the regime of the demonic in this human life has a formidable challenger, who is bent on overthrowing it.
The dramatic episode broke like a thunderclap over the power of the devil. There is more revealed here than a single exorcism. This is no less than an apocalyptic showdown between the Son of God and the cosmic forces of rebellion.
I hope now that you are beginning to see the picture that is emerging. The good news of the kingdom of God is good news, because the bearer and agent of this kingdom, Jesus Christ, is the victor in this showdown. It is he who triumphs in power struggle. He does good to those who suffer under this foreign power, this terrorist regime—saving, healing, raising up, and empowering them.
What we have been saying is reinforced in our gospel lesson today.
It is still the sabbath, the day set apart by Jewish people to rest and renew family ties. And so, Jesus and his followers do only what we should expect them to do: they visit the home of Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew, with James and John, after the synagogue service, where Jesus cast out the demon.
The visit on this day, however, was not typical. Simon’s mother-in-law, who lived with him and Andrew–and presumably with Simon’s wife–is sick in bed with a fever. They tell Jesus about her at once.
There’s no reason to suppose that in telling him they’re expecting him to do anything extraordinary. Their words probably signify no more than that hospitality will not be provided. The reason is that the member of the household who would otherwise provide it is lying ill with a fever (Gabriel Byrne).
Jesus responds by entering into the room of the sick woman and healing her. It is worth noting how the author renders this. The text reads: he took her by the hand and lifted her up.
The woman’s experience appears to be like that of the Psalmist: The Lord lifted him out of the pit, out of the mud and mire, and set his feet upon the rock (Psalm 40:2). The image in both cases is that of a strong hand reaching down to grasp the hand of one in need of rescue.
The image is a compelling one. We have in our own language the phrase “to lend a helping hand.” Perhaps we find it easier to lend a helping hand than to receive one. To refuse one is a common reaction, as I have noted in this pulpit before.
But in relation to Jesus and his power, we are always on the receiving end. When he extends his helping hand to us, we have always to be ready and willing to reach out and take hold.
For her part, Simon’s mother-in-law did so. She can now make the testimony of the Psalmist her own: “The Lord sustains them on the sickbed; he restores them from their bed of illness” (Psalm 41:3).
Just as in the preceding episode, so in this one too: Jesus does good to those who suffer under this foreign power. Jesus proves himself more powerful than the power of death and destruction. Just as Jesus commanded the demon with words (Mark 1:25), now he commands the fever to leave the woman with his touch.
Note here that his power extends not only to the spiritual realm, but also to the physical. In the modern mind, the two are distinct. But in the ancient mind, the two are integrated. Parenthetically, holistic medicine in recent decades has begun to recover the wisdom of a holistic approach to treating the human person. We are whole persons—body, mind, soul, and spirit. Some holistic approaches offer promising new treatments.
The power that Jesus extends is no less than resurrection power. It is significant that the phrase “lifted her up” recalls resurrection from the dead. The author of the Letter to the Ephesians prays that his readers will know how great is his power in those who belong to God. It is the same power that God exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand.
This is the power that God has unleashed in this world in Jesus Christ, the agent and bearer of God’s kingdom.
When Jesus lifts her up, she rises to serve others. At one level, she is now providing the hospitality that her illness prevented her from providing when the four men first arrived. But again there is more revealed here than a single healing. The word translated her “to serve” is used in the context of discipleship.
At the end of the gospel, the women, who in contrast to the male disciples, have stayed to the end are described as those who followed him and served him (15:40-41).
One Bible student insightfully points out that this mention of these women’s service, together with that of Jesus’ own service, makes Simon’s mother-in-law a model of all, especially women disciples, who are “raised” for the life of the kingdom and live out this new life by sharing in ministry.
Let’s be sure we understand this, because it applies just as much to us who are sitting here today. There is God’s touch on our lives, and then there is service.
It is important that we have the order right: What God does for us always precedes what we do for God. The power that heals and forgives and restores always precedes our gratitude, which finds expression in our serving one another in love. Christ’s power in us is the power to serve.
Returning to our lesson, we note that it is now evening. Because the Jewish people reckon a day from dusk to dusk, and not from midnight to midnight, the sabbath has ended. The new work week has begun. And Jesus has his work cut out for him. Great crowds of people who heard the news about him show up in Capernaum, at the door of Simon’s house. They come in search of healing of their diseases, of deliverance from their demons, and were not disappointed. What Jesus did for the man with the unclean spirit and for Simon’s mother-in-law, he does for them too.
No doubt the intensity of the spiritual combat in which Jesus is engaged has wearied him. To be sure, he bears the power of God as the Son of God. But at the same time he is human, just like us. It is a mystery, but in its light, we can understand his retreat in early morning to God to pray for renewal of strength.
Our Old Testament lesson reminds us that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
And this is good news to us too. We do have confidence in the campaign of Jesus to destroy the grip of the devil and reclaim human lives for the kingdom of God. We do pledge ourselves in support of this campaign by leading lives of service. But we do get tired.
But let us also have confidence that the time Jesus spent with God in prayer renewed his strength. Simon and the others go out to find him to tell him that everyone is searching for him. Having been recharged, he responds that he is ready to move out and continue to do what he’s been doing. Spending time with God in prayer reenergizes him to continue in his mission, which he reaffirms in the presence of his disciples.
Soon they too will go out to the neighboring towns to continue his ministry of teaching and healing.
This is an appropriate note on which to conclude, especially today, because in a few moments we are about to ordain and install elders in Christ’s holy church. We have seen that Christ is the source of Christian ministry, but we have also seen in the case of Peter’s mother-in-law, that Christ also empowers women and men to serve.
Let us then bear this in mind as we move now to our service of ordination and installation.