The healing of Simon’s mother-in-law is a classic healing story (Mark1:29-39). It’s all fine and good. It’s what Jesus does. It’s what he’s good at. But there is something sort of disturbing about this story that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with healing. “Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” Doesn’t that strike us as a little strange? To many of us who suffered through the flu this year, just the idea of popping out of bed and doing anything at all much less serving guests, is inconceivable. If it were me I would have thanked them all, especially Jesus, then tactfully usher them out of my room, asking them to help themselves to tea and left over fruit cake…really hoping that they would leave my home so that I could rest some more.
This story reminds me of a scene in the classic 1987 movie, Moonstruck in which Loretta’s fiancé, Johnny travelled to Sicily to be with his dying mother. Johnny, played by Danny Aiello, telephones Loretta (Cher) in tears as he and the wailing woman keep vigil; “it’s just a matter of time.” Then suddenly, out of the blue, Johnny’s mother is miraculously cured and jumps out of the bed and begins to prepare an elaborate dinner for the future mourners. It’s a miracle Johnny proclaims; it’s a sign and being superstitious, tells Loretta he cannot marry her. To me, like Simon’s mother-in-law, the real miracle is that the old woman begins to cook and serving everyone.
I realize that in that time and in a time not so long ago, the matriarch’s role as keeper of the house was to serve her family and guests. If you are brought back from the edge of death, or from the brink of what you thought your life had been, shouldn't there be something else for you, some sort of new vocation, new career, and new identity? And yet she served them? As if that was what she was expected to do? As if that was the only thing she thought she could do. As if that was the only thing she could do?
But, what if the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law gave her a new lease on life and a new purpose, beyond her traditional role as mother and house keeper? And what if in being brought back to who she was, she became a disciple, called to minister, to serve. Have you ever felt like God has brought you back from the brink ... to yourself? That you were called back from a place that was not fully you, to be the “real” you?
Jesus lifted her up. What if resurrection is being raised up to be who you always were and always meant to be? Not that of a successful rock star, athlete or business tycoon but the radical, emotional, incredible feeling of being you. Being raised up is not just some sort of spiritual future but is your present reality, in the here and now, to live as the real you…your mind, spirit, body, everything together, everything that you were always meant to be. The story of Simon’s mother-in-law reminds us that God does not call us to be something we are not, but is in the business of restoring us to who we really are.
Of course, most of the time it’s easier to live on the brink, to surround yourself with people and projects and performances that allow you to pretend this is you. This enables you to avoid the feelings and frustrations and fears that come with acknowledging what is important in your life. It is so hard to live who you are. To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes, "The world is full of people who will go through their whole lives and not actually live one day. I do not intend on being one of them.” I think a lot of us spend a good part of our lives living on the periphery of ourselves.
God called Jesus to be who he was. That’s what the incarnation is all about. Jesus didn’t go around pretending to be something that he wasn't. “Please, please, let this cup pass. My God, my God, why have you forsaken ME?” are not laments about what should be but the truth about what is.
Being human is to what God committed God’s self and therefore, being who we are is what God wants us to be. God brings us back from the brinks of our lives, from despair, from disease, from desperation, to live. Because then, maybe, we will actually know, feel, and get that we are a part, that God needs us to be a part, of what’s at stake for God when God decided to become one of us.
(Adapted from Karoline
Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, February 1, 2015)
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