Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
Year B, RCL
February 7, 2021
North Fork Ministries
Gospel:
Mark 1:29-39
Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Mark tells us that Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever. Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. It’s the story of the first deacon, a story of a woman who was healed and then immediately began to serve Jesus.
And that evening, at sundown, the whole city gathered around the door of Simon and Andrew’s house, and Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases. Jesus went alone to pray and then with his disciples he went to the neighboring towns to proclaim the message. Healing the sick, praying, and proclaiming the gospel – such was Jesus’ ministry, all contained within this small passage.
There is an intriguing science fiction book written by Michel Faber, called The Book of Strange New Things. It was written about fifteen years ago, but seems particularly relevant to an age of pandemic. It’s the story of a Christian missionary named Peter Leigh. But instead of the missionary proclaiming the gospel in the wilds of Africa or in the Brazilian rainforest, or on the East End of Long Island, he instead climbed aboard a spacecraft that carried him many light years away to a distant planet called Oasis. He was welcomed to Oasis by the native inhabitants who, unexpectedly, have an unquenchable hunger and thirst for the gospel of Jesus.
The Oasans have small frail bodies and a face that resembles “a massive, whitish pink walnut kernel.” They are a primitive, agrarian people, who spend their days harvesting an all-purpose crop called “white flower”.
The Oasans long for Peter to read to them from the Bible, a book they refer to as “The Book of Strange New Things.” Their theological understanding of The Book of Strange New Things is limited, but they are gentle, kind and compassionate creatures, who seem to grasp and practice the essence of Christianity. The Christians among the Oasans call themselves “Jesus Lovers”, referring to one another as “Jesus Lover Number One”, or “Jesus Lover Number Thirty-Nine” depending upon the order in which they had first learned to love Jesus.
Yet, as Peter discovers when one of the Oasans, Jesus Lover Number Five, is injured in an accident, the Oasans do not heal. If they contract an illness, crush a bone, or puncture an organ, they don’t get better, they get worse and then, eventually they perish. An Oasan body doesn’t have the capacity to repair itself.
The realization that the Oasans can’t heal astounds Peter, and struck me as remarkable as well. We take healing for granted. We can break bones, we get infections, we suffer from COVID 19 and most of us get better. The reality of healing itself is miraculous. It might not have been that way. The very fact that we can heal is truly a gift.
You don’t have to have confidence in televangelists or put your trust in “faith healers” to appreciate the miracle of healing. The fact that it is possible for us to be made whole is miracle enough.
But simply because we have been healed, been made whole again, doesn’t mean that scars don’t often remain behind.
You may be familiar with the Japanese art of kintsugi. (kent-sue-gi) Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with gold, silver or other precious metals. Instead of attempting to hide the break, a kintsugi craftsmen will accentuate the seam, creating wandering fingers of gold that flow through the surface of the once-shattered teapot or vase. Having been broken and then restored, an ordinary piece of pottery can be transformed into a unique object of extraordinary beauty. What might have formerly been viewed as a flaw, or an imperfection, becomes the characteristic that defines and separates one simple piece of pottery from all others.
Sometimes our breaks and scrapes and cuts leave our bodies with physical scars as well. They usually heal, and when our eyes fall upon them later we are likely to recall the day the accident, or perhaps the surgery, occurred. I have a small scar on my knee, that always reminds of the day when I stood at the top a hill, climbed aboard my new red wagon, a classic Radio Flyer, and first knew the thrill of a fast downhill plunge. And just moments later experienced my first bone-jarring crash.
But most of the scars we carry with us are of the emotional kind. Many of us, maybe most of us, walk around holding a sense of our brokenness. You don’t have to live very long on this earth to experience loss, pain, rejection, or disappointment. It’s just part of living. And a life, fully lived, leaves scars behind. But imagine that our emotional wounds are mended with the hands of a skilled Kintsugi craftsman. So that the scars we might regard as unsightly, the scars we might want to hide, are instead illuminated, shining radiant, calling attention to the fact that we have lived life unafraid, that we have been willing to take risks, and that we have known a tumble or two. And it is those beautiful gold-filled breaks in our hearts that have made us who we are.
Unlike the Oasans we are Jesus Lovers who heal. After reading The Book of Strange New Things I imagined what it would be like if our churches had, at their founding, initiated the practice of calling one another by a title that indicated the chronological order in which they became members of Holy Trinity or Redeemer. So that Barbara Reiter might be called Jesus Lover Number 300 or David Bagshaw might be known as Jesus Lover Number 560 and Nicolas Perrin as Jesus Lover Number 800 and we would call Abraham Conrad, Jesus Lover Number 999.
My prayer is that whether you are Jesus Lover Number Three or Jesus Lover Number Three Thousand, that our churches on the North Fork will remain for you a place of healing. And not just a place where wounds heal over and then are hidden from sight, but a place where our scars are infused with gold, so that they remind us and show others that when we count ourselves among those who have been restored, our imperfections are made perfect.