"The First Deacon"
by The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman
4 February 2024, Christ Episcopal Church,
Year B, Epiphany 5 Isaiah 40:21-31, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39
Today’s Gospel lesson is the story of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law. This story lays out a pattern for us, actually a couple of patterns that are well worthy of our reflection as we head toward Lent.
The first pattern is set by Peter’s mother-in-law. She was, no doubt, in charge of the household. That’s the way it was. The senior woman—the matriarch—was in charge of the household.
She is sick when Jesus arrives. I like to think she was sick from doing “grandma daycare”! I do grandma daycare and love to do it, but occasionally I come down with some kid disease the grandbabies caught in regular daycare.
In any case, although she is sick, Jesus is welcomed in. He learns of her illness and immediately goes to her bedside.
Now I must pause to explain a couple of things because so much in our reading of Holy Scripture is lost in translation. Our reading says Jesus “lifted her up.” The Greek used here is the same exact word as is used for Jesus’ resurrection.
So what we have here is a mini Easter, a foreshadowing of the Easter story. She is not dead, but in a sense, Jesus resurrects her. And what does she do? Immediately she begins to serve.
Again, our lesson says she begins to “wait on them,” and the Greek word used for that is diaconia. And diaconia means “service among others.” It is also the source of the word “deacon,” and deacons are the icons and leaders of servant ministry in the church. So Peter’s mother-in-law is, in that sense, the church’s first deacon.
But remember what Jesus said about himself. For the son of man came not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). We are all called to serve, from Jesus on down. We are all called to announce the Gospel by our actions in service to others.
Peter’s mother-in-law’s home becomes a house church, a home base, a gathering place for those who need forgiveness, healing. Our translation of this story says “the whole city was gathered around the door.” Older translations say "the whole world was pressing up against the door."
It’s important to note that Peter’s mother-in-law’s home, powered by the Love of God in Jesus, is a new kind of gathering place, one outside of the mainstream of religious institutions. And outside of the mainstream of religious instiutions is where Jesus did most of his work. Yes, he preached in the synagogues. But the places place of healing, administering justice, and helping all who come looking for him mostly happened in this new type of gathering place, outside of the mainstream.
So that’s the first pattern: Peter’s mother-in-law receives the Love of God in Jesus into her home/life, she is raised up from her place of weakness by the Love, and the Love shines through her and her home as she ministers to others. To this day, her home in the middle east is a revered site of healing and pilgrimage.
In what ways does your own life become a conduit for God’s Love? In what ways has your home become a base for comings and goings in Love?
The second pattern in this story is set by Jesus himself. He serves; he heals the multitudes pressing at the door. The story say he began healing at sundown; it was probably the Sabbath. And from sundown until who knows what wee hour of the night, he healed the multitude at the door. He must have gone to bed exhausted.
Nevertheless, he gets up early, the story says, emphasizing that it was still very very dark. He gets up and goes to a deserted place to pray.
Which of us has ever done that? Or would do it? I might indeed wake up early when the house is quiet and everyone else asleep. But if I think of praying, I am most likely to convince myself that I’ll just lay here in bed and pray, right?! And I’ll be back asleep again in minutes.
We’ll get up early to go hunting. Or to catch an early flight. But to get dressed to go out in search of silence and solitude? Not likely.
But Jesus must refresh his relationship with Divine Love through prayer in silence and solitude. He must go back to the source of all Love.
Thomas Merton was a monk and poet who lived alone in a cabin in the woods that he called “the hermitage.” He so craved solitude that he got special permission to live by himself in this cabin, rather than in the monastery proper, where he went for meals and communal worship services.
Here’s Merton’s description of what I think Jesus is up to in this story: Let me seek, then, the gift of silence … and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.
Wherever you go—outdoors,
a space in your home, an empty church (
And what does Jesus do next? Restored, he plunges back into the waiting world. He answers his call, he expands his ministry. He takes his disciples to spread the good news of God’s love to the neighboring villages.
Seeking, loving and serving human beings is as much an absolute as seeking, loving and serving God. One movement is vertical, the other horizontal; both are essential.
Jesus left us in no doubt about the necessity of this simultaneous movement in two planes: toward God and toward each other.
Here’s how author Carlo Caretto puts it: The closer you come to God …, the greater … your craving to love human beings on the level of action. The perfection of men and women on earth consists in the integration … of our love for God and our love for human beings.
Notice now, these two patterns:
Peter’s mother-in-law receives the Love of God in the person of Jesus into her home and life, he reaches out to her in her weakness and raises her up, and she responds with diaconia, loving service to humankind that extends far beyond her immediate household.
Jesus, full of God’s Love, heals and serves and ministers to the world pressing at the door, goes out into silence and solitude—that is, prayer—to be refreshed by the very source of Divine Love, then returns to the world to expand his own ministry in love to the world.
These are really two versions of one pattern—the very same pattern we will shortly enact. We serve. We get spent and exhausted and cranky and sick and tired of it all. We come to the Holy Table to be refreshed, to be renewed in body, mind and spirit. And we go back out to serve some more.
That is our theology of Holy Communion. That is what we who are dwelling places of the Holy Spirit do.
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.
