Mark narrates a day and a half in Jesus’ ministry this Sunday. Jesus raises up Peter’s mother-in-law after he preaches on the Sabbath in the Capernaum synagogue and frees a man of an unclean spirit. After sunset, a new day begins. Sick and possessed people crowd his door. He heals and frees them, repeating for many what he has done for the two individuals.
This is Mark’s storytelling technique. The first evangelist dramatizes the dynamic inbreaking of God’s healing, liberating power in Jesus’ ministry by following two stories in which Jesus helps individuals with a summary scene.
Early the next morning Jesus goes out to pray. The disciples whom he sought out and called only a day earlier now seek him. In fact, they tell him, “Everyone is looking for you.” Jesus sets off with them to do in neighboring villages what he has done in Capernaum, again expanding the story. Jesus is at work doing what he came to do — to bring God near and touch people with his healing and liberating power.
- How is Mark’s busy, energetic, and prayerful portrait of Jesus like or unlike your own?
- Who do you know with an urgency to serve, heal, and free people
Peter’s mother-in-law becomes Jesus’ first woman disciple, an anonymous but significant woman who models more than making brunch for her son-in-law’s new friends. The New American Bible version of Sunday’s gospel, which Catholics hear at worship, translates her story: “Jesus approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her, and she waited on them” (Mark 1.31).
The word the New American Bible translates helped is the Greek word egeiro, which means to raise up. This is the same word that Mark uses to describe Jesus’ own resurrection. Before his arrest, Jesus promises, “After I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee” (14.28). The young man in the empty tomb tells the three women who come to anoint Jesus’ body, “He has been raised; he is not here” (16.6).
Mark also uses this same word to describe Jesus’ actions in other miracle stories. Jesus commands the paralyzed man whose sins he forgives before he heals his paralysis, “Arise, take up your cot and walk” (2.11). He commands Jairus’s daughter, whose family perceives her to be dead, “Arise” (5.41). Jesus takes an epileptic boy by the hand and raises him up (9.27), just as he does Peter’s mother-in-law.
Mark repeats the word and gesture of raising people up to connect Jesus’ resurrection with his healings. God’s same life-giving power raises up Jesus from the dead and raises up the sick.
- What meanings does to lift up or raise up have?
- What connection do you see between Jesus’ miracles and his resurrection?
The New American Bible translates the Greek word diakonie as “began to wait on.” The word means serve. The word deacon comes from this same word. The word can mean providing for physical needs and serving the table. In Mark’s gospel Jesus gives the word serve additional meaning when he equates serving with giving one’s life. He says of himself, “For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (10.45).
Peter’s mother-in-law responds to Jesus’ act of raising her up by serving him. She becomes a disciple who gives herself. In fact, in this story the disciples and Jesus are those who come to be served and Peter’s mother-in-law is the model disciple. She does the same service Jesus twice carries out in Mark’s gospel when he feeds multitudes.
Peter’s mother-in-law is the first woman disciple in Mark’s gospel, but not the only one. Mark tells us that many women witness Jesus’ crucifixion, standing at a distance. All of Jesus’ men disciples have fled (14.50) or in Peter’s case, denied him (14.66-72). Mark names three of the women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome, but says there are many.
Gospel tradition gives these women little space but important credentials. Like Peter’s mother-in-law, these women serve Jesus. Like the four fishermen whom Jesus called, these women follow Jesus. They come with him from Galilee to Jerusalem (15.40-41). Perhaps Peter’s mother-in-law is one of the anonymous women disciples who follow and serve Jesus to the end.
- What do you see at stake in recognizing women among Jesus’ disciples?
- What does Peter’s mother-in-law exemplify for you?
- Who models a discipleship of service that you try to follow in your life?
Besides raising up Peter’s mother-in-law and healing myriad sick people, Jesus seeks time to pray in Sunday’s gospel. Galilee is rural. He probably climbs the hills that rise behind Capernaum and finds a rock to sit on beneath the stars before dawn. Perhaps it is breezy in this place when it is usually hot and humid all day.
- Where do you find such a place to be alone with God and creation?