Chia seeds are recommended because of my fragile and lazy digestive system. So many of us have ailments and issues, we are so scarred and scared and so hopeful that something else is possible. Thank goodness I read somewhere that fermented foods are good for digestion. So many are worried and hurting and frustrated some of it inside, some of it is the turbulence all around. I will buy the turmeric and avocado oil coated baked coconut chips because I'm hopeful that it will do something that I can't seem to do on my own. Our gospel today suggests that this behavior isn't all new. The people are flocking to Jesus rushing to him because they have heard that his very presence offers healing from illness and release from hurts: huge ones and tiny ones.
The book of Isaiah comes to us canonically as one book with one title. However in its composition is more like how all the Star Wars movies are called Star Wars even when each film has different writers and directors- think of Isaiah as a little like a boxed set. They belong together in the wisdom & inspiration, but the distinctions can be enlightening. Today we come in with Isaiah 4, it is the first 5 minutes of the 2nd film in a 3 film series (or maybe a 4 film series depending upon which scholar you ask). The last chapter, chapter 39, is believed to be over a century and a half older. It was naming an apocalyptic vision that warfare and breakdown and decay were imminent. There was an overriding conviction that our failure to love God and love all others was the cause of the coming devastation. The new setting of this chapter is a radically evolved understanding of God’s connectivity and relationship with us. One that experiences a God who knows the pain and misery of the world and wants for us a sweetwater reign.
The experience of the wretched exile of the Hebrew people is now in the rear view mirror,but its memory is alive and well. And alienation and confusion are not something of the past. So the chapter begins:
Comfort o Comfort my people. The Lord God is coming with strength like a shepherd, he will tend his flock, he will gather lambs in his arms.
God is not removed and unconcerned, God has not left us all on our own in our pain and fear and confusion, God lifts us out of the pits and carries us like we are soaring through the skies.
We don’t know if Simon's mother in law asked for Jesus to come over.She had a fever, but apparently, she was not so drastically ill that she was avoided, which was a common practice in that era. I have to say if I had a fever and someone in my life decided to bring over all their friends my initial response would not be kind. She's not one of these people in the crowds who rushed to Jesus surround him at every side in hope of relief. But she does have people in her life who love her and bring healing to her door. There are none of the occasions of other episodes where it is said that her faith or the faith of her friends has made her well. Jesus touches her and the fever ends and she gets up. What does it mean that her response to the experience of the healing presence of Jesus is to get up and to serve? It's easy to jump to gender roles and householding arguments, but that's not the intention here. The word used is diakonaeo, in which we can hear a related term, Deacon. This woman sets the example of the faithful response to being set free is to set others free. Love as you are loved by God.
She could of stayed in bed. She could have mistrusted her senses or come up with another explanation. A healing on the small scale is no different than the cosmic comfort God offers on a large scale. We are a part of a divine movement that is both as immediate as a woman being relieved of a fever and as historic as a people being set free from Exile. Sacred texts went from spoken word to written word because ancient prophets and caregivers and community experienced new life in the deep comfort and healing power of God and they wanted to share it. How is this Jesus a way of life and not just a dash of this week's superfood on our cheese fries? How could your mysterious affection for him be a life-giving diet not only for ourselves but for others? What needs to change to live into that call?
From the section but not the text of Isaiah that we read today is the very idea of good news.Good news goes from just being nice information to a holy concept of divine rescue, words that find themselves expressed in the Greek text with the word we know as gospel - which means big deal message. Good news is a big deal message of comfort and liberation from the cruelty of the powers that be and it is rescue from a fever or emotional turmoil and bitter dysfunction. We have the option to believe this Good News or to try and ignore it and find other solutions. Yet it is alive and working to heal us with or without our comprehension of it.
If you have a fever, or someone in your life has a fever, then I believe Jesus would say to take care of yourself or that other person, eat wholesome foods, whether they are super healing or not. Jesus would say to take care of whoever has a fever just as medical science has shown, and God will hold us in his arms while we do. If your fever is of a different sort, heartache or loss or the frightening stream of ridiculous absurdity that surrounds us, then Jesus comes to us in word and community and sacrament and lifts us up as if we were soaring through the skies on the back of a broad-winged bird.
This is the feeling that people had when they met Jesus, when they followed him and told others about him.This life of resurrection is the good news that started the Jesus movement the new life that God continues to raise us into. Good News. He who is so much more than a viral superfood miracle diet is with us.The Savior Shepherd Lord Friend Neighbor Healer is already here.
Let us pray.
Epiphany 5 Year B RCL
We don’t know if Simon's mother in law asked for Jesus to come over.She had a fever, but apparently, she was not so drastically ill that she was avoided, which was a common practice in that era. I have to say if I had a fever and someone in my life decided to bring over all their friends my initial response would not be kind. She's not one of these people in the crowds who rushed to Jesus surround him at every side in hope of relief. But she does have people in her life who love her and bring healing to her door. There are none of the occasions of other episodes where it is said that her faith or the faith of her friends has made her well. Jesus touches her and the fever ends and she gets up. What does it mean that her response to the experience of the healing presence of Jesus is to get up and to serve? It's easy to jump to gender roles and householding arguments, but that's not the intention here. The word used is diakonaeo, in which we can hear a related term, Deacon. This woman sets the example of the faithful response to being set free is to set others free. Love as you are loved by God.
She could of stayed in bed. She could have mistrusted her senses or come up with another explanation. A healing on the small scale is no different than the cosmic comfort God offers on a large scale. We are a part of a divine movement that is both as immediate as a woman being relieved of a fever and as historic as a people being set free from Exile. Sacred texts went from spoken word to written word because ancient prophets and caregivers and community experienced new life in the deep comfort and healing power of God and they wanted to share it. How is this Jesus a way of life and not just a dash of this week's superfood on our cheese fries? How could your mysterious affection for him be a life-giving diet not only for ourselves but for others? What needs to change to live into that call?
From the section but not the text of Isaiah that we read today is the very idea of good news.Good news goes from just being nice information to a holy concept of divine rescue, words that find themselves expressed in the Greek text with the word we know as gospel - which means big deal message. Good news is a big deal message of comfort and liberation from the cruelty of the powers that be and it is rescue from a fever or emotional turmoil and bitter dysfunction. We have the option to believe this Good News or to try and ignore it and find other solutions. Yet it is alive and working to heal us with or without our comprehension of it.
If you have a fever, or someone in your life has a fever, then I believe Jesus would say to take care of yourself or that other person, eat wholesome foods, whether they are super healing or not. Jesus would say to take care of whoever has a fever just as medical science has shown, and God will hold us in his arms while we do. If your fever is of a different sort, heartache or loss or the frightening stream of ridiculous absurdity that surrounds us, then Jesus comes to us in word and community and sacrament and lifts us up as if we were soaring through the skies on the back of a broad-winged bird.
This is the feeling that people had when they met Jesus, when they followed him and told others about him.This life of resurrection is the good news that started the Jesus movement the new life that God continues to raise us into. Good News. He who is so much more than a viral superfood miracle diet is with us.The Savior Shepherd Lord Friend Neighbor Healer is already here.
Let us pray.
We gather and make a pause amid many voices
Some innocent and some coercive,
Some genuine, and some not.
Amid this noisy flow that pulls us in many directions,
We have this Good News
That you are fierce and generous and surprising and abiding.
Give us good ears to hear your Good News
In our lives and in our neighborhoods.
Give us grace and courage to listen, to answer, to care,
And to rise and serve,
That we may be more truly your people.
Amen.
(prayer adapted from Walter Bruggemann)
Epiphany 5 Year B RCL
February 2018
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Walla Walla, Washington
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