SERMON OR SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2021    TEXT: MARK 1:29-39
     This story about Peter’s mother-in-law makes some readers uncomfortable. She, like all too many woman in the Bible, doesn’t even get her name recorded. And then, after Jesus heals her, what does she do with this gift of life restored? She apparently falls back into the all too famiiar gender stereotype; she negates herself and looks after the needs of others. Here is one such critical reflection on the story from the contemporary New Testament scholar Matt Skinner:
     “There’s something about Mark 1:31 that makes audiences bristle. Why is the healed woman’s first response to serve Jesus and his four disciples? When we learn that ‘serve’ translates [a Greek verb] diakoneo, most likely indicating food service, and means she “waited on” them, it doesn’t help. Why didn’t Simon tell his mother-in-law to take it easy while he made sandwiches this time?
     Yes, preachers explain in breathless attempts to explain away the discomfort, indeed that little detail matters. But it means only to indicate that the woman was fully healed at once. What a miracle — no recuperation period needed!
     Or: yes, she served the men, but her service was a way of showing respect and gratitude to her healer. Maybe she was also serving God as a means of doing so. Jesus always commends humble service and describes himself as one who came to serve (diakoneo; 10:45) — what a faithful response!
     Yes, the explanations continue, in that culture it would have been shameful for a woman in a household to neglect a guest. To feed Jesus would have honored him, but it would also have restored the woman’s own honor and dignity. Healed, she could do what her society expected her to do and what her fever had prevented her from doing. She was set free!
     All of these responses are true, but they still exacerbate the frustration generated by this aspect of Mark 1:31. The woman’s appropriate response is to serve? Appropriate in whose eyes? Wouldn’t true healing and liberation allow her to take on other roles? After all, when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead in John 11, Lazarus doesn’t respond with service. He reclines at a dinner table in John 12:2 while his sister Martha “serves” (diakoneo). Jesus’ healing of the mother-in-law and the miracle’s outcome remain indelibly gendered, and gendered in ways that veer too close to the stereotypes we know to be tired and destructive.
     Is more possible from this unnamed woman? Is more possible for her? That depends on how fertile a preacher’s imagination may be. It won’t do to castigate Mark or the ancient gender roles that made this story sound normal or appropriate to its original audiences (at least probably to most of the men in those audiences). A preacher might instead open up new horizons of opportunity and agency for Simon’s mother-in-law.”
     Professor Skinner, the gentleman who made this comment, proceeds to do exactly that. He turns to Mark 15:40-41, where the evangelist finally reveals to his readers that the company of Jesus’ regular disciples includes more than twelve men. We learn that when Jesus was crucified, “there were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem” (Mark 15: 40-41). The Greek verb translated here as “provided for” is the same as the one used in today’s Gospel to describe the healed woman’s response: “she began to serve them.” Interestingly enough, this verb is not used of Jesus’ male disciples, whom Mark portrays as remarkably slow on the uptake. In fact, at one point James and John, who were among the first called by Jesus to follow him, generate ill will among the twelve by asking outright for positions of power, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (Mark 10:37). In response to their ignorant demand, Jesus applies to himself the same verb used of Simon’s mother-in-law : “ . . ,. 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 10:43-45). 
     Jesus’ healing of Simon’s mother-in-law is a sign of the kingdom of God come near, as he has proclaimed it would. Her rising to serve in response to his gift may be a sign of greater things to come. To serve the Lord is the essence of discipleship, the fundamental act of faith. Perhaps she is not falling back into drudgery but taking the first step into freedom. Professor Skinner suggests that she might later be found among the serving women who watch and wait with the Lord through his crucifixion. He then concludes: “If she’s among them, then she’s more than a cook, waiter, and dishwasher. She’s also a follower. If she’s a follower, and a follower who is willing to serve as she goes, then she’s also a disciple. If she’s a disciple, then to her ‘has been given the secret of the kingdom of God’ (Mark 4:11).” 
     Admirable as the attempt may be to rescue the unnamed mother-in-law from the bondage of stereotyped gender roles, it’s a stretch, given how little the biblical text actually has to say about her. And some interpreters would argue that such a rescue isn’t required. The point of the story is hardly to enforce women’s subordination. Jesus didn’t heal Simon’s mother-in-law so that she could conspicuously return to the universal destiny of womankind, serving the men in their lives to whom they are beholden. What Jesus did was enable this particular woman to recover the life she knew, to take up again her position in her family and her community and engage in the activities that shaped her identity.  One of the hardest parts of illness is the way it isolates people and interrupts their social connections.  “Jesus’ ministry involves restoration of those cut off from community to a full role in the community,” writes the New Testament scholar Sara Henrich. “Those who have been seriously ill in our own time will understand the joy of simply being back as a participant in the ‘ordinary’ processes of community life.” Like being able, strong enough in body and mind, to express one’s gratitude to someone who has cared for you in your pain, to practice the grace of hospitality in your home, to get back to the familiar routines that connect us in ordinary ways with daily life.
      “Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.”  One could also translate the verb as “raised” — Jesus raised her up. The word appears 18 times in Mark’s Gospel, and each time it points ahead to the climax of Jesus’ story, when the women come to the empty tomb and are told, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here” (Mark 16:6). Our risen Lord is constantly reaching out to restore us in body and spirit, even in the darkest circumstances. He is always raising us up to new life. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves,” writes St. Paul. “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Romans 14:7-9). Amen.