Epiphany 5, Year B, 2024: Mark 1:29-39

 I have yet to meet an American adult who, if the topic comes up, doesn’t acknowledge a “pyromania” stage at some point in their lives. We have a fascination with fire that tends to correspond to the time in our lives when we are least heedful of the future. High school chemistry teachers all give warning stories of how quickly your hair will go up in flames if you’re not paying attention when in too close of proximity to a Bunsen burner. The lighted Bunsen burner is vital to many labs, but without the proper precautions can turn into a head full of fire. An early warning given to acolytes lighting incense for the first time is to tie back their long hair to make sure it isn’t caught in the torch or coals and then to properly dispose of the coals after use. The burning incense can be a fragrant and visible sign of our prayers and offerings being lifted up to God, but improperly disposed of coals can be disastrous.

The word translated as “fever” in today’s Gospel text is “πυρετός,” which comes from the word “πυρ,” which means “fire.” Biblical texts, both explicitly and implicitly, embrace the complicated nature of fire. How fire can be destructive and constructive. And in this case, as is also common in biblical texts, it can be both simultaneously. Because fevers truly are both destructive and constructive. Too high of a fever can certainly be dangerous, but fevers evolved as a defense mechanism. As someone with small children, I can affirm through my experience that fevers can be scary. I’ve spent many nights rocking a feverish child while googling “fever.” But Simon’s mother-in-law’s fever is doing both of the things fire can do in scripture: the fire of fever is its own paradox weakening her through the illness and purifying her in removing the impurities that cause the fever. The paradox is being embraced as that which can make you weak can be making you stronger in the future. And during this time of both suffering and purifying, Jesus came in. He “took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her.”

This story takes place in Matthew and Luke as well as in Mark. In Matthew, Jesus just touches her hand. In Luke, he stands over her and rebukes the fever - in the same way as in last week’s text from Mark when Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit. But in Mark, Jesus “took her by the hand and lifted her up.” “Lifted her up.” That’s an odd phrase if we read it literally. How does that physically work? The way I picture it in my head is like when my four-year-old goes no-bones and I kind of have to hold her up by the hand to move her. But that’s obviously not what is going on here between Jesus and Simon’s mother-in-law. So what is Mark trying to communicate with this phrase?

The phrase “he lifted her up” is just two words in Greek: “he lifted up” is one word, and “her” is the other. So it was pretty easy to find other places where that particular form of “lifted up” is used. In Mark chapter 9, Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit. “After crying and convulsing him terribly, (the spirit) came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, ‘He is dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand.” (Mark 9:26-27) In the Gospel of Luke’s Song of Zechariah, which occurs in chapter 1, “(God) has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (1:69), “raised up” being the exact same word translated “lifted up” elsewhere. And then in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter said, “But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.” (Acts 3:14-15a) Again the word raised being the exact same word in Greek as “lifted up.”

That word is used many, many times throughout scripture. But I chose these examples to draw attention to these particular ways in which it is used: to describe Jesus’ incarnation, Jesus’ healing ministry, and Jesus’ resurrection. In the same way in which the texts in English books engage with one another between sections, scripture does that too. This is not just an exercise in being clever. The readers of the Gospels would have been looking for these connections throughout scripture. Our challenge, today, is to be careful to look at the connections in the original language so that the relevance stays alive in the modern world.

How has Jesus lifted you up? When we think of ways in which Jesus interacts with us in our lives, it’s important to look at the big and the small. When we expect big miracles only in the way in which we envision them happening, we miss the small ways in which Jesus is present in the everyday. And when we only let Jesus do the small things and don’t look for him in the big, our faith is diminished into “Hail Mary, full of grace, help me find a parking space.” A colleague of mine tells a story of when wildfires were approaching his in-laws’ home. He said, “I prayed for winds to come and change the direction of the fire. Because why not? Why can’t God do that?” The trouble we get into, again, is when we then expect that prayer to be answered in the way in which we wanted in the timeframe in which we wanted. Expectations are premeditated resentments.

Who in the world have you seen Jesus lifting up? Grace and St Stephen’s is a living story of how Jesus lifts us up. As important as it is for us to move forward from our days in exile following the split, most of the stories I hear that live on from that time are stories of fortitude. Stories of creativity. Stories of how Jesus brought us together as a parish and gave us strength to keep fighting. Of how another church took us in and gave us a physical space to be our home away from home. And my favorite story is a series of retrievals when some of our worship leaders realized they continued to have some access to the building. These brave choristers came over a period of time and…liberated some of our essentials. 

How can we follow Jesus’ example by lifting up those around us? Ask anyone in a 12-step recovery program. They come to their program broken and desperate. Their Higher Power brings them to healing through relationship with others ahead of them in recovery and then, like Simon’s mother-in-law who is lifted up and arose and began serving, they who have received new life extend the hand of recovery to the still suffering.

We, as those who have received new life in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, are called to both lift up others as the body of Christ in the world and to allow others to lift us up on behalf of our risen Lord. We are called to lift others up, but also called to be lifted up. To be resurrection people. To let go and let God support us. We’ve all experienced how frustrating it can be to see someone who needs help and won’t ask for it or accept it. Now imagine God’s frustration. But God is God and I am not. Letting God help me is the least I can do. Amen.