Epiphany 5 B: The Model Disciple
Dear Partner in Preaching,
Most of the time, I tend to focus on one passage when I preach because I enjoy exploring a passage on its own in greater depth rather than worry about connecting two or three passages and risk treating them more superficially. This isn’t a “right or wrong” kind of thing, of course, just my own preference. Most of the time. But not this week. Because the first reading from Isaiah and the Gospel passage from Mark work together to help me make sense of a question I’ve been mulling over of late: how do we mark God’s activity in our lives?
The passage from Isaiah offers something of a litany of the wondrous attributes of God. It is cosmic in scope and universal in significance. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is bigger, and stronger, and more impossible to comprehend than you can possibly imagine! On the whole, the God described here seems to embody absolute power. This is the way most folks, I have a hunch, imagine God: as BIG.
By contrast, Mark’s focus seems nearly miniscule. If Isaiah paints the story of God’s nature and work on the largest of canvases, Mark instead focuses on a simple, single detail. Still very early in his account of Jesus’ life and ministry, Mark tells the story of the healing of a woman, unnamed except that she is identified as Peter’s mother-in-law. The story is more intimate, almost private, and you may even wonder why Mark tells it. But though it is brief, it is far from simple. Indeed, Mark’s construction of the scene – and particularly the detail that, once recovered, the woman serves the male disciples – has been a source of frustration to many of us at it has functioned across the centuries to reinforce the notion that the woman’s role is not to lead but to serve.
Yet I find in Mark’s more intimate portrait two elements that are immensely helpful as I try to understand the nature of God’s work in the world and our lives and, perhaps more importantly, to see and participate in it.
First, the VERY LARGE God Isaiah describes is not above caring for us as individuals, as Jesus does not only announce the coming kingdom (1:15), call together his disciples (1:17), and cast out demons (1:25) – and all of this in the first chapter (whew!) – but he also slows down to care for a woman suffering a fever and then to tend, one by one, all those in the region who were ill or possessed and came for his help. Our (relatively) small problems are not insignificant to the God who tends the cosmos.
Second, the MIGHTY God whose praises Isaiah sings is indeed at work, unrelentingly and indefatigably, to sustain the cosmos, strengthen the weak, and restoring those who have fallen. And the most frequent way God does this is – wait for it, wait for it – by working through those all around us. When this woman serves after she is healed, she is neither being dismissed as somehow inferior to those she serves nor constrained to a lesser role. (That we interpret the story this way, I think, says more about us than it does either her or Mark.) Rather, Jesus has not only healed her but given her back her vocation which is, ultimately, a picture of discipleship. Indeed, the picture of discipleship: service.
Consider: a little later in the story, after James and John have asked Jesus to put them in places of honor and authority (and after the other disciples get pretty angry because of their arrogance), Jesus offers his disciples a lesson in greatness that aligns quite closely with the actions of this woman:
So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:41-45).
So where do we look to trace the actions of the God who “sits above the circles of the earth…and stretches out the heavens like a curtain”? By looking to the everyday acts of service, care, and sacrifice we see all around us. Which means, Dear Partner, that the seemingly ordinary lives of your people can become at any given moment the arena for the activity of the Holy One of Israel as God continues to love and bless the world… through us! And we have the opportunity this week to help them see, hear, and believe this. Might we might even dare to say, “Have you not seen? Have you not heard? The Lord God almighty is at work in you, with you, and through you to care for the people and world God loves so much.”
But perhaps our role on this day is to do more than inform or remind or educate, but also to promise. To promise that God is and will continue to work through us – all of us, women and men, young and old, of sound mind and body as well as those who struggle with illness or disability – and that, indeed, God will do marvelous things through us. Each of us, that is, has the opportunity to feel the creative, healing, and restoring hand of God and, just as did this early if also unnamed disciple, respond in service.
God is still at work, Dear Partner, through our people and their ordinary acts of service and sacrifice, and also through you and your ordinary words of declaration and promise. Thank you for your fidelity to this calling. You, too, are Christ’s disciples.
Yours in Christ,
David
Okay…I’m going to head in a completely different direction. Why is it that no one wants to talk about the command to silence, the secret, etc? I’ve combed through piles of contemporary commentary and am finding almost nothing. I am convinced that there’s homiletical hay to be made here but can’t put my finger on it. So am I the only one who finds this stuff interesting…or is it really a dead horse? A little direction please…
David,
Look at the commentary on Mark 1 in Binding the Strong Man. It may fit your needs.
Thanks, Carly. I will.
Also known as Mark’s Messianic Secret. The people/disciples see Jesus as the Messiah promised. The white knight that comes on the horse to free the people from Rome’s oppression. They will want to make him a King as humans define King.
But Jesus doesn’t fit into that mold of the Messiah, or that definition. Jesus is changing the direction of the war. Heaven’s ripped open to save us from the depths of Hell, so to speak.
One approach might be to look at how we see Jesus, what we expect from Jesus, who we think Jesus loves, forgives, cares for… and how that Jesus takes those expectations and expands them, and shatters them.
When we draw the line, as it is said, Jesus is found standing on the other side of it.
This is a potential direction. Thanks John!
Btw… I think that is the direction I might go in my sermon. Thank you, David, for posing the question.
You bet, John.
When women are mentioned so seldom, and often without a name, it makes me wonder why she is there at all. Besides that, as a woman pastor I feel I must address this because women so rarely see anyone in the gospel that looks like them. There’s plenty here without going to Isaiah or the Psalms or Letters. I’m really disappointed, David. I was looking forward to reading your insights here. Yes, you mentioned her but this was not the due you usually give to the gospel. It’s almost as if you couldn’t get away from her fast enough!
Hi, Patricia. I had written more about Simon’s unnamed mother-in-law a previous piece and was trying to do something different this year. Beyond what I’ve written, I think Sarah Henrich’s commentary on Working Preacher was very good. Perhaps you’ll find it helpful:
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1200
Blessings on your work.
David
Hey Pat, these thoughts are more aligned with your questions this week.
http://www.davidlose.net/2012/05/mark-1-29-31/
David, I have been a school chaplain. One song that has stood out, probably more for me than for the children was, “My God is so BIG, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do. The mountains are His, the valleys are His, the whole world is under His smile.My God is SO BIG…” I think you have done a wonderful job of relating together the wonder of our VERY LARGE GOD, and His cosmic and universal significance, with His work in individuals and through individuals. Thanks
In his commentary, “The Good News According to Mark,” Eduard Schweizer writes: “Jesus appears to have been more liberal than the rabbis, who disapproved of women serving at the table.”
In the temptation story Mark introduces the cosmic battle between the power of God and the power of Satan, evil, demons. The same battle is played out in last Sunday’s text and again this week. When Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law he wins another battle, and then after the Sabbath is over he continues to win more battles as people bring many sick and demon-possessed. When the woman is healed she is not only restored to health, she is now able to resume normal life in caring for her family, her community, and providing hospitality for her guests. She is doing the work of angels, just as they served/waited on/ministered to Jesus after he defeated Satan in the wilderness.
Thank you Pastor David! You not only helped me put my sermon thoughts in order but your comments on “Big God” and a God who works through us…. will help my confirmation students see where God is at work in their everyday lives.
What seemed to be a small story in the Gospel now seems huge. This story of healing so that we can serve. So that we can be like Jesus. Thank you for the reference of Jesus’ mission of service. That he came to earth to serve. And so he heals us and casts out our demons so that we too can follow in his mission of service.
In response to David Grindberg’s Thoughts on the command of silence from the demons; I made some notes about negative self- talk. Like the demons being cast out by Jesus, our personal “demons” that haunt us, do not let go quietly or without resistance. We may call it negative self-talk now, but the need to silence those voices (ours or a friends) is still needed today.