"Resurrections and Deacons" - Sermon for Epiphany 5 Feb 4, 2018

Sermon:

Text: Mark 1:29-39

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who lifts us up to serve.

            Ole was really, really sick and couldn’t get out of bed at all. Lena told him that she’d make sure to take really good care of him and make sure he had everything he needed. So Ole stayed in bed and Lena went to the kitchen. Soon a heavenly aroma came from the kitchen. Lena was making his favorite cookies! "Lena must really love me" he thought. Ole summoned all his strength and got down the hallway and into the kitchen and started to take a cookie. Lena slapped his hand away and said "Get avay! Dese cookies aren't for you, der for da funeral!"

            As a newly married man you’ll notice I was smart and went with a joke about being sick instead of a joke about Mother in Laws.

            I remember back to 3 years ago when I had mono leading up to Lent, luckily I didn’t have it very bad and was still able to do most things, but I do remember being just exhausted and worn out, not able to do anything. Spending all day either in bed or on the couch. If you’re not sick it sounds great, many of my favorite vacation days are the ones just spent doing nothing. But, not having the option to get up, no ability to do so, to be not relaxing, but stuck and immobile, is entirely different. There is a massive difference between wanting to lay around and having to lay around.

            We meet Peter’s mother-in-law in our text today, and just a quick side note, if Peter has a mother in law, it means he’s married and therefore the first pope is married. Back to his Mother in Law, I really wish we would be given her name for one, but she’s definitely in the second category. She’s not in bed because she’s enjoying a relaxing day off, she’s sick, sick enough with her fever that she couldn’t come with them to synagogue worship. As we said last week the synagogue is the center of life, just like the man with the unclean spirit then, she has been cut off from the community because of her fever.

            And Jesus goes and takes her hand and lifts her up, the fever leaves her and she begins serving them.

            There is so much going on in that one verse. The word for lifted up, isn’t just picked up, it’s the same word for resurrected. When Jesus rises from the dead at the end of our gospels, he is lifted up. While she is not dead here, Jesus resurrects her, restores her to community and her life, gives her back her ability to serve.

            We talk often about Jesus lifting us as well, picking us up when we are down, at the bottom of life. That is resurrection. The resurrection promised by Jesus is not just for heaven or after death. Jesus’ call of the kingdom of heaven come near, is not just the promise of eternal life, but it is the promise of resurrecting us, lifting us up, in this world. God’s promise found in Christ is not to remove us from this world, but for us to be resurrected to work and be God’s hands in this world. This is God’s world, where in creation we see God seeing all things as good, we are called to work to allow others to see that good as well. Called to be people who help others be who God wants them to be. Helping to alleviate illness like in our text today so people can live as God intends. Confronting things like racism, sexism, ageism, again and again so that those things do not hold people from being who God created them to be. It’s working to confront things like human and sex trafficking on days such as Super Bowl Sunday, so those people held as victims of this horrible practice can be restored to the life that God wants for them. All of this call is for us to be servants of God to the whole world, being God’s hands and doing God’s work.

            There’s a word for that, being a deacon. A deacon is someone whose role is service. There are different kinds of deacons, in the ELCA we now have another roster, like the roster of pastors, called deacons. Pastors are people called to Word and Sacrament. My call is to preach the word, and to administer the sacraments, preside at Holy Communion and Holy Baptism, and so my role is mainly within the confines of the church. This roster of deacons is called to Word and Service. They are specifically called to be people who preach the word and serve in the community. They may be people who work as youth directors, or ministry coordinators in a church setting or as social workers, or community planners, and the like, in a secular setting.

            But, we are also called to be deacons in the world, to also be people who are called to serve God’s world.

            I mentioned that there is so much going on in this verse. Guess what, deacon shows up here as well. If we go straight from the Greek, this verse can be, Jesus resurrected her, and she became a deacon for them. The mother-in-law of Peter is the first deacon of Christ. Through what Christ did for her, she jumps up and begins to serve, she jumps up and becomes a deacon. And it’s not just making sandwiches for them all. Which is what a lot of people may think. It’s an unfortunate and sexist view of translators of the bible, but when this word, diakonia, service, shows up, if the subject is a woman like this verse it’s often translated waited on them, or even cooked for them, but if it’s a man, he is a deacon for them. That’s not correct, here Peter’s Mother in Law isn’t just making them food, she’s serving them and the community.

            The next part of the text is all the other people hurt and sick in town showing up the next day, why is that? It’s because she and the rest of the disciples go all around town, serving the community and bringing them to Jesus so he can heal them. She knows who needs help in the town, and so she serves by telling them where they can be healed. She sees the need, and works to solve it.

            That’s part of what a deacon does. Serving the community. But, it’s not all. This is not the first time in Mark that this word has shown up, even though it’s still the first chapter. Peter’s Mother in Law is not the first being called a deacon, but she is the first human. The first instance of this word is at the end of the temptations of Jesus.

            The devil leaves after Jesus magnificently answers all the questions and angels show up. And they serve Jesus. Yep, same word. These angels are deacons to Jesus.

            To be a deacon is to do the work of Angels, it is to serve people, serve those sick and in need in the world, but it’s also, like those angels, to serve Christ. It reminds me of the great quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.” Part of our service to the world, to be deacons of Christ, is to act in our lives as if we were proclaiming the good news through our actions. To make sure that what we do in this world conforms to what we say we believe and trust.

            I send you out with this, go, be deacons to the world, be people who serve Christ and those in this world. Help all that you meet be who God wants them to be, lifting them up and allowing them to serve, just as the angels and Peter’s mother in law.

            Let us pray,

God of service, we thank you for serving us by having Christ our lord lay his life down for us. Help us to see the many times Jesus lifts us up, the many times he resurrects us from sin in this world, and then like Peter’s mother in law, help us to respond to that resurrection by serving in the world. Amen.