Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, 4 February 2024: Isaiah 40:21-31; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c
Last Monday on X (formerly known as Twitter) Elmo asked a simple question: “How is everybody doing”? At this point, there are 19,000 responses, which range from stories of grief and loss to existential dread. People are clearly not well. I thought of this as I read today’s gospel. Jesus goes to the home of Simon and Andrew, where Simon’s mother-in-law has a fever. He took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her. This made it possible for her to serve her guests. (That’s one of those comments that I always wonder about!)
It turns out it was not just Simon’s mother-in-law who needed help. At sundown (the end of the sabbath) all who were sick and possessed of demons came to be healed. “The whole city” was gathered. People were not well. They needed help. And Jesus cured the sick, and cast out many demons. But the next morning, he went off to a deserted place to pray. When he was joined by his disciples, they wanted him to go back: there were more in need of help. Jesus said no: he needed to move on. He needed to preach in other towns. He knew what road he had to follow.
Jesus is a model for those in the helping professions: he has a clear sense of his mission, and he does not allow himself to get sidetracked by the needs or ideas of others. He has as we say in contemporary parlance, “good boundaries”. Paul also has a clear idea of his mission: it is to spread the gospel. So while Paul’s account of how he changed to meet the Jews, those under the law, and those outside the law may make it look as if he has no center, he does. His center is his mission to spread the gospel. If he has to fit in different worlds to do so, he will.
What road are you on? What road are we on together? How do we stay with that road as life pushes us in one way or another, or when we, like Elmo and Jesus, get overwhelmed with the needs of others? Our readings today do not tell us it will be easy, but Isaiah promises that the Lord “gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. We need to always know what our core mission is, what road we are traveling.