February 8, 2015 – Mark 1:29-39
Mark 1:29-39
Freed For Service
5th Sunday after Epiphany – February 8, 2015
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
About 6 weeks ago or so I told you about one of our members who I visited before Christmas.
She has become frail – but she still insisted on offering me hospitality,
even though she was too weak to carry the tea pot she’d made tea in and
had to ask me to do it.
Many of you were moved by that story and wanted to talk with me about it.
About how important it is to offer hospitality.
About taking the hospitality we receive at this table week in and week out and
take it with us into the world to give it away as freely as we have received it.
This woman went into the hospital shortly after I visited her – and she’s still there.
And let me tell you: she is still offering hospitality.
She is weak, she is tired, she is very sick.
But there she is, asking me about my boys, about the church, about my work.
And assuring me she will pray for me.
She may be sick, but she is healed in spirit.
Healed in the sense of being whole, of being who she is meant to be and
doing what she is meant to do:
and that is serving by offering hospitality, and offering prayer.
Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is ill.
She has a fever, and in the ancient world that could be a serious thing when
there were no antibiotics to take care of an infection that wouldn’t go away.
What has been taken away from her by her illness is her ability to
do the things that God has called her to do: offer hospitality to guests in her own home.
This was her role in her community,
and it gave her honour as a valuable member of that community.
It integrated her into her world.
Her illness cuts her off from that.
My old professor of preaching Sarah Henrichasks this question about the woman:
“Who was she when she was no longer able to engage in her calling?”
Her illness causes her to lose her identity as an honored servant of God and of her community.
So when Jesus cures her what he restores her to is to a life of value.
What he restores her to is community.
What he restores her to is calling.
Sure: she is physically cured.
But what she is really healed to is wholeness in regaining the ability to offer hospitality.
There is a lot of dignity in that.
In and through Jesus, she regains her true self.
Well, lots of things can help us misplace our true self.
When we are hurt, physically or emotionally, we can misplace our true best self by
reacting in ways that do not really reflect who we really are.
Age can feel like it is taking away our true selves and
when we can no longer do the things that we are used to doing it can feel like
we have lost ourselves.
Retirement can also feel like this, whether we feel like we are no longer a contributing
member of society or whether we feel like we no longer have the dignity and
worth associated with our working selves.
A lack of self worth can contribute to taking away our true selves.
Grief, mental illness, a broken relationship, loss of a job, stress: you name it,
there are many things that conspire to take away our true selves,
cut us off from community, and cut us off from calling.
I like to think that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law could have been healed even if
she had not been fully physically cured.
What if Jesus cured her of fever but she was left unable to walk anymore?
Would that have robbed her of community and calling?
I don’t think so.
I think she still could have been healed and restored to purposefulness and dignity and
community and calling.
Like I also say in my e-mail this week, maybe – like our dear sister in the hospital –
should could have offered to pray on behalf of the community.
Many of our members I visit who are shut in tell me they feel useless and that
there is no point in their living any longer –
when really nothing could be further from the truth.
I am not making light of the aging process – I have said many times it takes a lot of
grit to age gracefully – but I am saying that when I tell them they can use
the gift of time they have to pray for people like me and for members in
our community who do not have that gift of time they often look at me
with unbelief, or think I am patronizing them.
But I’m not: the gift of prayer is maybe the most important gift of all.
Nothing can happen without prayer: look no further than the Gospel story this morning.
Jesus cannot do what God calls him to do without getting up while it is still dark,
finding a quiet place, and praying.
Many of you have been praying for me, and when I discover you are, I make sure to tell you
that that is something I don’t take for granted:
prayer is maybe the most important gift of all.
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, other things the woman could do that have
purpose and dignity and that have their origin in a call from God.
Yes: she could pray.
What else?
She could organize a letter writing campaign to advocate for better working conditions
for the people who fish the waters of the Sea of Galilee.
She could knit prayer shawls that have been prayed over by members of her community
to be taken to those who are sick, physically wrapping them in the
prayers of the community.
I don’t know: there are lots of ways in which she can serve the community and in so doing
restore her to a place in the community and fulfill her calling from God.
There are lots of ways Jesus can assist her in regaining her true self.
Over the last couple of weeks I have had a few conversations with some of you where
I see Jesus at work raising you up to wholeness like Simon’s mother-in-law.
One of you is looking forward to retirement, thinking about how you can serve
even though circumstances will be different.
Thinking about how God is calling you to an honoured dignified role outside the workplace
where you can have a place and a role and value in our community and where you can still be
the person God is calling you to be by volunteering at our Food Bank,
alongside other retirees who are making good use of their gift of time.
Others, already retired, talked with me about becoming members of our Caregivers,
who visit the shut in and elderly on behalf of our community.
Together with those already visiting, you will happy to know that every single one of our
shut-in members will have regular contact from one of our caregivers,
who through this ministry find a role in our community and
heed the call of God even though their circumstances have changed.
In this they find their true selves, the people God is calling them to be.
In this, they discover how they are freed to be the people God is calling them to be.
Truly, like Simon’s mother-in-law, like our dear sister in the hospital,
this is what they have been freed for.
What is it that calls to you?
Who needs you this week?
Every time you respond to the needs of the people and world around you,
you are responding to God’s call.
Every time you respond to the needs of the people and world around you,
you are living in the freedom you were freed for.
Every time you respond to the needs of the people and world around you,
you are reclaiming your true self, the one God created you to be.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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