Epiphany 5B_2018

The 5th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year B February 4, 2018 I’ve always had trouble with this gospel passage. It used to bother me that Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, and she immediately gets up to fix them something to eat. I used to think, “Come on, couldn’t you guys at least give her the day off from cooking for you since she has been so sick?” But I see it differently now. My 1st year of seminary was an especially challenging time in my life. The year started with our second day of classes at General Seminary in New York City on 9/11/2001. The year ended with the death of one of our most beloved classmates in a New York City cab of an anyeurism. In between, I had a nasty bout with mono and several other persistent infections. And I went from classes straight into Clinical Pastoral Education, a summer-long hospital chaplaincy program where I learned pastoral care skills and also did work with my class-mates in learning about myself. (Believe me, it was much worse than it sounds!) That summer, my mom contracted what we later learned was West Nile Virus, and she was seriously ill back in Mississippi. In my brief summer break of a week or two, I flew back to visit my family, and as a part of that trip, I drove my mom and I over to Vicksburg to visit my maternal grandmother. I don’t remember much about that visit, but what I do remember is vivid. Mom and I sat at the kitchen table and visited with my grandmother as she joyfully buzzed around her kitchen cooking for us. She cooked for us because that is what she did—she was an excellent cook—and cooking for and feeding us is one of the ways that she loved us. (And my mom might not appreciate me saying this, but we were both a mess!) I remember eating those chicken and dumplings in my tattered state, accepting it for the healing gift that it was, and thinking, “this is a sacrament.” In our gospel reading for today, Jesus heals a bunch of people, and then he withdraws to a place to pray, and then he tells his disciples that it is time for them to go on to a different town: “So that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came to do.” And what exactly is this message and how is it connected to all the healing work he’s been doing? The message is found a little earlier in Mark when Jesus 1st speaks: “The time has come. The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.” Jesus is the Kingdom of God come near, and as a result of that, his very presence heals people. Maybe we cannot come into the presence of the Kingdom of God without it healing something in us? And maybe Simon Peter’s mother-in-law was like my Ma ma. She was immediately restored to fullness of health and life, and it was her deep joy, her vocation, her act of thanksgiving to feed people. You’ve probably heard this before, but the theologian Frederick Buchner talks about this when he writes: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.”i That is vocation. I wonder about all those other people who Jesus healed that same day and what their joyful vocations were? How they once again lived into them with the fullness of life and health restored to them through their brush with Jesus, through their encounter with the Kingdom of God? At least once a week, every week, we are offered this brush with Jesus, this encounter with the Kingdom of God. And really we have infinitely more encounters every week—we just have to be open and to pay attention. We are, through the Eucharist, restored to fullness of life and health every single week, and we are able to go out into the world and live out our unique vocation, our calling to meet the deep needs of the world with our own unique and joyful giftedness. Your invitation this week is to reflect on this: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.” And then explore how you may live into that more fully, more faithfully, in thanksgiving for your encounter with the Kingdom of God. i. http://www.frederickbuechner.com/quote-of-the-day/2017/7/18/vocation