Readings:
- Job 7.1-4, 6-7
Psalm 147.1-2, 3-4, 5-6 Response: “Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.” - 1 Corinthians 9.16-19, 22-23
- Mark 1.29-39
Reflections on the Gospel Reading
This Sunday’s gospel contains three episodes in the course of instruction that Jesus gives his first disciples. It completes the typical day in the ministry of Jesus that serves as an overture to Mark’s Gospel. Then it goes on to illustrate what Eugene LaVerdiere calls “the centrifugal nature of the gospel and its proclamation.” (LaVerdiere 1999, 67)
After calling the two sets of brothers (3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time), Jesus proclaims the good news in the synagogue assembly of Capernaum (last Sunday’s Gospel). In today’s Gospel he goes to the home of Simon and Andrew and heals Simon’s mother-in-law; after that he reaches out from their home to all of the townspeople gathered there after the end of the Sabbath; and next he escapes from Capernaum in order to pray and to move on to preach in the nearby villages. In next Sunday’s Gospel he will cure a leper who had to live outside of the village.
To the first readers of Mark’s Gospel the next step in this centrifugal pattern was obvious – the proclamation of the gospel to Israelites living in Judea and other parts of the Roman Empire, and ultimately to non-Israelites or Gentiles. This Sunday we are privileged to be the most recent recipients of that centrifugal motion of the gospel down through the centuries.
This Sunday’s gospel reading is rich in opportunities for comment. One could reflect on the nature of the people Jesus healed. Mark uses very general terms for their afflictions. Simon’s mother lay sick with a fever (literally: “was laid up feverish”), and the townspeople were sick with various diseases (literally: “doing poorly” or “not feeling well”). Perhaps their diseases were not only physical ailments but also the hopelessness described in today’s first reading from the Book of Job.
Or one could take up the question of why Jesus did not permit the demons to speak “because they knew him.” This command to be silent is a major theme in Mark’s Gospel. Perhaps Reginald H. Fuller and Daniel Westberg are right when they say that to call Jesus by a title such as the Holy One of God “simply because he is a wonder-worker would be dangerously misleading. Hence, the demons are enjoined to silence. Only the centurion at the foot of the cross can rightly confess Jesus as the Son of God, for the Jesus he sees is not the wonder-worker but the crucified One.” (Fuller & Westberg 2006, 303)
Then, there is the intriguing question of why Jesus had to move on from Capernaum to other villages. John Dominic Crossan suggests that “the itinerancy of Jesus’ movement . . . is a symbolic representation of unbrokered egalitarianism. Neither Jesus nor his followers are supposed to settle down in one place and establish there a brokered presence. And, as healers, we would expect them to stay in one place, to establish around them a group of followers, and to have people come to them. Instead, they go out to people and have, as it were, to start anew each morning.” (Crossan 1991, 346)
The people of Capernaum would have liked nothing better than to have had a famous healer set up shop in their town. It would bring them honor, fame, and fortune as they brokered the salvation (healing) of the holy one in their midst. However, it seems that Jesus felt that God’s saving power was not confined to any place or time or person, not even to himself! It was not confined to Galilee or Judea or Asia Minor or Greece or Rome. It was not confined to the first century or the thirteenth century or to the twenty-first century. Once again we see the centrifugal force spiraling the gospel straight at us. This raises serious questions about our fondness for shrines, huge churches, and massive institutions. A church on the move – to the ends of the earth and to the end of time – travels light.
Finally, one could comment on the timing of Jesus’ healings after the Sabbath ended at sundown. This was a time when people who lived more than a Sabbath day’s journey from Capernaum could come to hear Jesus’ word and seek healing. They could also carry burdens such as the sick. (Donahue & Harrington 2002, 82) They were raised from their illnesses and afflictions on the first day of the week, just as Jesus would be raised from the dead on the first day of the week.
There is reason to believe that Jesus observed the Sabbath rest, but after sundown took advantage of the opportunity to meet with his followers and share a meal on the evening of the first day of the week. (Bradshaw 1996, 77) There are many accounts in the four Gospels of Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath, but no account in any of the Gospels of his sharing a meal on the Sabbath.
I want to comment on the women mentioned or alluded to in today’s gospel reading – Simon’s wife, Simon’s mother-in-law, and the women in the villages who came to Jesus for healing.
Mark says, “Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew.” That is curious. When Jesus called James and John they were working with their father Zebedee. However, there is no mention of Simon and Andrew’s father. (Mark 1.16-20) Apparently, their father Jonah was dead. Ordinarily, the elder brother would inherit the home, so we would expect it to be called “Simon’s home” or “Andrew’s home,” whichever was the elder. Were Simon and Andrew not just partners in the fishing business but “brothers” (eventually the main title of Christian men) who shared everything including their home? Did this prefigure the Christian practice of communal living?
In order to have a mother-in-law Simon had to have been married. Where is his wife in the story? She is alluded to in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians when he says “Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife (literally a ‘sister woman’), as do the other apostles and brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” (1 Corinthians 9.5) Curiously, this passage never comes up in the three-year cycle of Sunday readings. (See Lectionary 1998, 1171.)
Perhaps Mark omits mention of Simon’s wife because of the schematic nature of the account and the concentration on the healing of her mother. It appears, however, that the daughter became a believer in Jesus and was closely associated with the itinerant ministry of her husband. As we shall see, she was following in the footsteps of her mother.
The main attention in this passage is to Simon’s mother-in-law who was “laid up feverish.” What was she doing in the house? Evidently, her husband had died. Ordinarily, she would have lived in the house of her eldest son. If he were dead she would have lived with a brother or one of the relatives on her side of the family. The fact that she was living with her son-in law, Simon, might mean that she was totally destitute – a prototype of the widows supported by the early church.
The first four disciples bring Jesus to Simon’s mother-in-law. He grasped her by the hand, and “helped her up.” (egeiren) Toward the end of his Gospel Mark uses the same verb (egeiro) for Jesus’ action in healing (Mk 14.28) and for God’s action in raising Jesus from the dead. (Mk 16.6).
The verb also brings to mind several instances when Jesus heals a paralytic (2:9, 11, 12), someone with a withered hand (3:3), a boy possessed with a mute spirit (9:27), a blind beggar (10:49), or raises a girl to life (5:41). Jesus raises people from illness and from affliction as well as from death. The verb egeiro is also associated with the general resurrection of the dead (12:18-27). (LaVerdiere 1999, 72)
The original readers of Mark’s Gospel would have had no difficulty recognizing allusions to baptism, especially given the continuation, “Then the fever left her and she waited on them.” She prefigured those who were freed from the bondage of sin and dedicated themselves to mutual service. Up to this point in the gospel narrative, the church consisted of only Jesus and his first four disciples. Simon’s mother-in-law became the first deacon, the first pastoral minister, i.e. one who ministers to members of the church. Her table service to the embryonic church became a paradigm for subsequent Christian ministry.
Finally, there are the anonymous women among the crowds who flocked to Jesus both in Capernaum and in the other villages where Jesus preached. Some of these women turn up again later in Mark’s Gospel as “followers” of Jesus (another word for believers) who “provided for him [literally “ministered to him”] when he was in Galilee. . . .” Mark also tells us that “there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem,” presumably from Galilee. (Mk 15.40-41)
In this Sunday’s gospel, then, we peer across space and time back to the origins of Christianity. We see the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry through the lens of Mark’s church. We see what John Dominic Crossan calls “a kingdom of nobodies,” (Crossan 1991, 266-276) for the most part anonymous peasants transformed by the realization that God’s reign was breaking into their lives. We see a community of equals dedicated to proclaiming the good news in ever widening circles and to ministering to Jesus in one another. We see women as well as men called to ministry or service (diakonia ).
Let’s put down our biblical telescope for a moment and look around. What has become of that vision?
In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:
Bradshaw 1996 – Paul F. Bradshaw, Early Christian Worship. A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 75-79.
Brueggemann et al. 1993 – Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, Year B. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), pp. 134-142.
Crossan 1991 – John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), pp. 345-348.
Donahue & Harrington 2002 – John R. Donahue, S.J. and Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., The Gospel of Mark (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 2002), pp. 78-86.
Fuller & Westberg 2006 – Reginald H. Fuller and Daniel Westberg, Preaching the Lectionary: The Word of God for the Church Today, Third Edition (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2006), pp. 301-304.
LaVerdiere 1999 – Eugene LaVerdiere, The Beginning of the Gospel: Introducing the Gospel According to Mark, Vol. I (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1999), pp. 67-75.
Lectionary 1998 – National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Diocese of the United States of America, Second Typical Edition, Volume I, for Sundays, Solemnities, Feasts of the Lord and the Saints (New Jersey: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1998), Appendix II: Table of Readings, p. 1161-1173.
Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 150.
Pilch 1996 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle B. A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 31-33.
Taylor 1959 – Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes (London: Macmillan & Co. LTD, 1959), pp. 178-185.