Matthew 8:14-17
When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
Peter was married? Who knew?
Actually, anyone who had read the gospels, as the story of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law is told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We don’t know much about Peter’s wife – her name, her hometown, her feelings about Peter’s discipleship. Truth be told, we don’t know anything about her, even if she was alive at this point in the story. But we do know that at some point Peter was married because he has a mother-in-law.
We might therefore glean from this story several things. We might note, for instance, the on-going conversation in the Roman Catholic faith community about the possibility of having married priests and wonder whether this passage that describes Peter – the Rock on whom the church was founded – as married will have any bearing on that conversation.
Or we might go in another direction altogether and wonder about the role of women in the first century and both their prominence and checkered treatment in the gospels. Women are featured regularly in a number of important roles, most prominently as the first witnesses to the resurrection. But too often they are not named, as here where this woman is identified only as “Peter’s mother-in-law.” Moreover, when she is healed she immediately resumes what we might imagine was considered “women’s work,” serving Jesus and his male disciples.
But while each of those paths of inquiry might be fruitful, I am intrigued by another thought. When Jesus’ heals Peter’s mother-in-law, he not only makes her well physically, he also restores her to her community. She is able to play an important role, offering hospitality to honored guests. She has a place again and serves a purpose, two things we often take for granted until illness or unemployment take them from us.
And the same is true for those who are possessed. They lose not only their self-control, emotional balance, and minds, but also their community. For to be demon-possessed is to be an outcast. Jesus, Matthew tells us, heals all who come to him. But he names two of those illnesses in particular – a fever that robs a woman of her place in the community and demon possession which sunders all bonds of human fellowship.
All of which makes me think that perhaps Matthew is trying to tell us something. Perhaps Matthew is promising that Jesus doesn’t only heal in the sense of making well, but also heals in the sense of making whole. Jesus comes to care for our physical needs and for our emotional and communal needs as well.
Jesus comes to make us, ultimately, whole people, restored to right relationship with God, each other, ourselves, and all of creation. It’s something the Israelites had been longing for since at least the time of Isaiah. And it’s something we long for as well.
Prayer: Dear God, you grant healing of the heart and soul as well as the body. Grant us such healing that we may live in peace and joy with those around us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Post image: “Healing the Mother of Peter’s Wife,” by John Bridges (19th century).
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