Is
Cleanliness Really Next to Godliness?
In
the gospels there are sixteen separate stories of Jesus healing people. Ten of those stories are found in the Gospel
of Mark. Why did Mark focus more on them more than the gospel writers? I believe he saw them a signs that God was so
present in Jesus they were one and the same. That’s how he initially knew who
Jesus was. In the early days of Jesus
ministry it was those miracles more than his words that drew the crowds because
they and we all want to be healthy and to feel good.
Stop
by any bookstore and see how many volumes sit on the shelves labeled
health Why all the interest? We know that old cliché is true. If you have your health you have everything. No one believes that more firmly than someone
whose health has been in jeopardy. If
you are sick, you’re illness supersedes the importance of most other things in
your life. Presidential elections, the
big football game, and even your job become secondary to the desire to just feel
better again. You’ll do anything, try
anything to make that happen.
Our
scripture today focuses on the first two of Jesus’ healing stories and we will
find, I think, that he lifts us up in more ways than one. First let us pray:
God
of compassion, you have given us Jesus Christ, the great physician, who made
the broken whole and healed the sick.
Touch our wounds, we pray, relieve our hurts, and restore us to
wholeness of life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I’ve been in the first chapter of Mark for three weeks
now, so maybe you’ve noticed things move along pretty fast. Everything seems to
happen right away. Mark uses the word
immediately again and again. He wastes no
time with flowery adjectives or poetic metaphors. He is a just-the-facts, meat and potatoes
writer. So, in only 28 verses he takes Jesus from the baptismal waters of the
Jordan River to his 40 day temptation in the wilderness to the fishing docks of
Galilee where he recruits his first disciples to the synagogue in Capernaum
where he preaches his fist sermon and performs his first exorcism.
So, it’s time to take a breather and let Jesus go to the
home of Peter and Andrew so that he can sit back on the recliner in front of
the T.V. and have a glass of wine while waiting for dinner. No sooner does
Jesus take off his sandals when Peter sheepishly comes into the living room to
tell him that his mother-in-law is feeling pretty poorly. It doesn’t sound like it is life or death,
but when you’re sick you just want to feel better.
The Bible doesn’t tell us that Peter asked Jesus to heal
her. He may have just meant that dinner would be a little late because she wasn’t
in the kitchen or Peter who had just seen Jesus cast a demon out of a man in
the synagogue may have thought Jesus might be able to something for his
mother-in-law.
Jesus did. “He
came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her.”[1]
I
want you to notice a couple of things here.
First, Jesus did not ask Peter or his mother-in-law what she had done to
deserve this illness. He didn’t ask what
sins she had committed that God should make or allow her to be sick. He didn’t
ask her if she had been smoking or eating greasy food or drinking too much or
not getting enough exercise or not using enough hand sanitizer? He didn’t ask her if she had been vaccinated
for measles or not. He didn’t ask her what she had done to get sick. Why? He didn’t think there was always a connection
between affliction and sin and judgment. But, we do.
I
can’t tell you how many times over the years someone who is having real
problems has asked me why God is doing this to them or at least why God was
allowing it to happen. This question for
some prompts a crisis in faith because they began believing that if they
followed all the rules and did the right things and went to Church and put
money in the offering plate then God would watch over them and make sure they
never had any really big problems. When
problems arise their faith falters, “I did my part, why didn’t God do his?”
When
asked this question Jesus famously said, “God makes the sun rise on the evil
and the good and it rains on the righteous and the unrighteous.”[2] In other words it flat out rains on
everyone. This side of heaven we will
never understand all the whys and wherefores and all the reasons why. There is a reason we call faith – faith.
The next thing
I’d like you to notice about this story is that the healing was the last thing
to happen. The first thing was that Jesus came and lifted her up. It is almost as if the emphasis is more on
taking the hand and lifting her than it is on the fever leaving her. When Jesus
lifts you up, you feel better regardless of your circumstance.
There is no shortage of “down” from which people need to be lifted up. Down are jobs, wages, the economy, church membership, our hopes, and our children’s futures. Take your pick, add your own. What brings you down? What stoops your shoulders and bends your knees? The Bible says, Jesus will come to you if you ask him and will lift you up if you let him.
Now, after Peter’s mother-in-law is
feeling better the Bible says, “she began to serve them.” In recent years this snippet of scripture has
come under some scrutiny because it sounds a bit sexist, like the only place
for a woman is in the kitchen. I mean
give her a break, she just got better.
Let her sit back and enjoy some nice chicken soup for a change. Instead she heads right back into the
kitchen.
I’m not so sure that she was ordered
back to work, because it has been my experience that when someone has been ill
and lying around for a while and they finally feel better, the last thing they
want to do is lie around some more. They
want to get up and get back to work and feel useful once more. I could name people in this congregation who are
like that, who once they feel even a little better are eager to get back to work and in
the swing of things because they are tired of lying around. They get pretty
annoyed when you tell them to sit back some more. I think that’s what Peter’s mother-in-law was
feeling. She wanted to make a
contribution and think she wanted to say thank you by making the best chicken
soup ever.
Before desert was served the word
got around that Jesus could heal and when people heard that the whole town
turned out. Everyone had a story to tell
and an ache and pain to share. It was kind of like the retirement community
where my parents live. Go to the dining
hall there and all you’ll hear are laments about skin cancer and high blood
pressure and aching knees. Everybody
over the age of 30 has something to complain about. Jesus spent the rest of that
night helping those who were feeling bad feel better.
It was a great start to his
ministry, and that’s what makes what happened next so confusing. Everyone
wanted to shake his hand and pat him on the back. He went from 0 to 60 in seven
seconds flat. If he continued that
strategy, if he gave the people want they wanted he’d be a superstar in no
time. He could become rich and
famous. But, he does not.
The next morning he disappears and
goes to what the Bible calls a “lonely place” and there he prayed. Jesus did that a lot, because he knew what
many pastors sometimes forget and that is if you are not grounded in prayer,
grounded in the Word, grounded in the Lord, you can fall into the temptation to
be liked and loved by your congregation above all else. If that happens, if you just give people what
they want, tell them what they want to hear; you may stop telling them what
they need to hear. The gospel provides
both comfort and challenge, grace and commitment. The Apostle Paul addressed that when writing
to the church in Corinth, “I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but
rather as people of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you
were not ready for solid food.”[3] In other words, children do prefer milk and
cookies, but it is not responsible to skip the broccoli and rice. Everyone needs a balanced diet physically and
spiritually.
When Peter found Jesus and that must
have taken some effort because the Bible says he hunted for him, Peter said, “Everyone
is searching for you.” By that I think Peter
meant, “Why don’t you go back and heal some more people”? Jesus said instead, “Let us go to the
neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message, for that is what I came
to do.”[4]
Why did Jesus think proclaiming the
good news of the gospel was more important than healing some more people? Why did not let himself be used and a miracle
factory bending the laws of physics and nature at every turn?
He knew what we sometimes forget and
that is where our home truly lies.
Everyone who gets sick and then gets better will one day get sick again
and not get better. Everyone who breaks
a leg and sees it heal and so walk again will one day not be able to walk. Jesus knew this life in this world is not all
there is and not our final destination. He
knew first hand there is more beyond this life and this world and he wanted to
prepare us for that day.
That’s why he said, “Let not your
hearts be troubled and neither let them be afraid, believe in God, believe also
in me. In my Father’s house are many
mansions. If it were not so, would I
have told you that I go to prepare a place for you…that where I am you may be
also.”[5]
That is an important promise to hold
onto when your are sick in body or soul, when you are down and need to be
lifted up.
This past week Steve Hayner passed
away at the age of 66. In all likelihood
you have never heard of him. He was the
president of the Columbia Theological Seminary, a
Presbyterian school down by Atlanta. About a year ago he was diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer. After tests had revealed that the chemotherapy wasn't
working, Hayner wrote, "The cancer continues to have the upper hand. What
now seems clear from a purely physical perspective is that in all probability
the remainder of my life on this earth is now to be counted in weeks and
months.
Many are praying for one of God's
"big" miracles. We are as well. But it is not how God answers prayer
that determines our response to God. God is committed to my ultimate healing.
But being cured of my cancer may or may not be a part of that healing work …
One person told me how disturbing it is to her to watch so many thousands of
prayers on my behalf and yet to see a minimal of physical evidence of healing.
Does God really heal? … Does the amount of prayer have any special impact?
Honestly, while I understand the importance and logic of questions like this …
most of these questions are not ones that are important to me.
I truly don't know what God has
planned … I could receive "healing" through whatever means, or I
could continue to deteriorate. But life is about a lot more than physical
health. It is measured by a lot more than medical tests and vital signs. More
important than the more particular aspects of God's work with us … is God's
overall presence with us, nourishing, equipping, transforming, empowering, and
sustaining us for whatever might be God's call to my life today.
TODAY, my call might be to learn
something new about rest.
TODAY, my call might be to encourage
another person in some very tangible way.
TODAY, my call might be to learn
something new about patience, endurance, and the identification with those who
suffer.
TODAY, my call might be to mull
through a new insight about God's truth or character.
He
closed by quoting the poet E. E. Cummings: "I thank you God for most this
amazing day …
May
that be your prayer as well, to thank God for a most amazing day, for a most
amazing life, for the most amazing promise of life rich and full and forever in
God’s kingdom.
Let us
pray:
Almighty and everlasting
God, You are strength to those who suffer and comfort to those who grieve. Let the prayers of your children who are in
trouble rise to you. We claim your
promises of wholeness as we pray for those who are ill or are suffering loss
and long for your healing touch. Make
the weak strong, the sick healthy, the broken whole, and confirm those who
serve them as agents of your love. To
everyone in distress, grant mercy, grant relief, and grant refreshment. Amen
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