February 7, 2021
/The Fifth Sunday After Epiphany
1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39
The Rev. Jeff Bohanski
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Let me start this morning with saying that it is my honor and blessing to be standing here in front of you this morning on this, the second to the last Sunday of Epiphany, this Sunday that some would call Protodeacon Sunday.
As many of you know, an Epiphany is a sudden understanding of something. Every Sunday in Epiphany we hear an epiphany story, a story of a sudden bright understanding of God or of Jesus the Gospel writer wants his readers to have.
I see epiphanies happening in my first-grade class a lot. My favorite first-grade epiphany is a reading epiphany. It’s when a child suddenly and completely understands that letters make sounds, sounds make words and words have meaning. The meaning of the word hits the child like a bolt of lightning. The child knows he or she can read!
Over the years I have found that my favorite first-grade epiphany reading moment happens during the restroom break. Invariably a child, usually a boy, runs out of the restroom and yells at the top of his lungs, exclaiming, “Mr. Bohanski, someone wrote sh… !” I usually jump in before the child has a chance to finish the sentence and say, “Congratulations, you are reading! But remember, just because you can read that word doesn’t mean you can say that word.”
Today’s epiphany story happens in the first chapter of Mark. That in itself is important because the author is laying the foundation for the message the author wants to give his readers. Mark tells these healing stories in chapter one because he wants his readers to know now, in the beginning of the Gospel who Jesus is and what it means to be his followers.
Now let me recap the story. The story takes place in Capernaum on the same sabbath day where Jesus had just healed a man with an unclean spirit. He had given orders to an unclean spirit to come out and be silent. After the healing Jesus and his disciples leave the synagogue and go straight to Simon and Andrew’s house where Jesus is informed that Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. Jesus goes to her, takes her hand and lifts her up. The fever leaves her and she begins to serve them. Later that evening more sick people in need of healing and people with demons in need of exercising were brought to Jesus. The next morning Jesus was nowhere to be seen. Finally he was found praying in a deserted place. Many people are surprised at Jesus’ response. He says, “Let’s go. Let’s go do this somewhere else.”
I believe, the author of Mark is first telling his readers that Jesus is God’s son, the one who demonstrates he has power over the physical world when he heals the sick, the one who demonstrates he has power over the spiritual world when he gives orders to demons and they obey him. Mark wants his readers to know that it is this powerful Jesus who wants to come into their worlds, into their current state of life to lift them up like he did with Simon’s mother-in-law in her house and transform them. No questions asked. Jesus wants to encounter them. Jesus wants to encounter us.
The second question is, what is a faithful Christian supposed to do? This week I learned that when the author of Mark wrote the sentence, “She began to serve them.”, he used a word we translate as deacon. So Mark is saying the faithful response to an encounter Jesus is to deacon, is to serve as Simon’s mother-in-law served. As faithful Christians we are all called to serve one another, to deacon one another. Be like Simon’s mother-in-law the first deacon, the protodeacon, the one who faithfully demonstrates she follows Jesus by serving others.
So this week, as I pondered Simon’s mother-in-law and how she served in her faithful response to her encounter with Jesus, I could imagine the rest of the people in the town of Capernaum who Jesus healed and exercised doing the same as Simon’s mother-in-law had done. They were “deaconing”. They were serving. As the week went on, I began to see with my minds eye a town filled with joy, a town where no one bashed each other on Facebook but instead posted positive memes. I could see with my mind’s eye a town where people were caring for one another despite their race, creed, sexual orientation, their gender identity or struggle with their gender identity. I could see a town where no church would exclude a minister for being in a same sex relationship. I could see a town where people lovingly listened to one another. I could see a town where someone could express their grief and another would listen and be with that person in their grief. As I envisioned this new Capernaum I thought, perhaps that is why at the end of this story Jesus says, let’s go. These people of new Capernaum have got the message, others need to hear it.
So this week, I invite us all to open ourselves to this powerful healing and exercising Jesus, who like with Simon’s mother-in-law, wants to come to us, take our hands and lift us up be in relationship with him, just as we are. I invite all to, with God’s help, to serve, to deacon one another whether we are at home or at work. Whether we are with people whom we agree with or with people we don’t agree with or we are with people who look like us or people that don’t.
Finally, I invite us all, me included, to love God and respond faithfully to God’s love by serving one another like Simon’s mother-in-law, the protodeacon did.