Margie Quinn
My friend Margo is not afraid of death. She has lived through the loss of her mother-in-law, several dear friends, her own father and her dear cousin, my sister-in-law, Tallu. Margo is a death doula, a person who guides a person and their loved ones through the process of dying. “Margo’s particular capacity for accompanying people in death and loss,” Tallu wrote before she passed, “has been honed because she herself has experienced so much personal loss. I don’t know that this was ever her life’s plan, but I am struck by how skilled, motivated, confident and comfortable she is entering into this role and these conversations. I watch in awe as she accepts and compassionately passes along the gifts within herself that have cultivated and catalyzed this next part of her journey.”
In our text this morning, Jesus and the guys are just coming from the synagogue and are on the move. John the Baptist has been arrested, Jesus has walked in the wilderness for 40 days and has just healed a man with an unclean spirit, which sort of drew a crowd. Have you ever noticed how the people with demonic spirits are the ones who recognize Jesus for who he is?
His fame has begun to spread all around Galilee. As soon as Jesus and his illustrious crew of four fishermen leave the synagogue, they go to the house of Simon and Andrew. We then learn that Simon’s mother-in-law is sick in bed with a fever. This most likely wasn’t a fever in the modern sense with a 99.6 reading on the thermometer. No, this is more like an infectious disease that would have plagued this woman for a while, at least since Jesus snagged the fishermen and said “Follow me” and all. The guys immediately take Jesus to her.
As an aside, it’s frustrating that yet again, we have a nameless woman in the gospel while a bunch of the guys are named. The bleeding woman, the poor widow, the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet–all nameless, like a small footnote in Jesus’ grand narrative. And yet…the nameless women in Mark’s gospel often come off as the ideal disciples, whereas his twelve disciples are often portrayed as confused goofballs who struggle time and time again to get the memo. We can certainly name this woman today, because God can handle us talking to or talking back to the text, so I’ll call her Susannah.
Susannah the Sick, who hasn’t been touched since she got sick; she hasn’t received that comforting hug, a massage, a hand hold. Back in 1st century Palestine, it was taboo for a man outside of the family to touch a woman and at the time was considered unclean to touch anyone who was sick. Yet here comes Jesus, doing some work on the Sabbath even though that’s a big ole violation, and continuing his ministry of touching lepers, outcasts, the mentally ill and Susannah. You could almost say that beyond the miracles of loaves and fishes and walking on water is the miracle of Jesus offering his healing touch to the untouchable.
And Jesus does just that. He comes and takes Susannah by the hand and lifts her up. I imagine him slowly and gently propping her up, putting a pillow behind her back, cradling her head. The fever leaves her and she begins to serve.
In a small bedroom in a fisherman’s home, without onlookers or big crowds, Jesus meets Susannah in a moment of deep need. And Susannah knows what to do after she receives the healing hands of God. She does the very thing that the Disciples refuse to do. She uses those very hands to serve.
To serve. The Greek translation diakonein, is the same verb used when we read that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve; the same verb that is used of the angels in the wilderness who serve Jesus in the midst of all of his temptation, perhaps offering him a healing touch when he feels lonely, afraid, parched, hungry.
Susannah’s service becomes a response to that healing touch of Jesus. And Jesus does not command her. She is the one that jumps up and gets going, not waiting for any man to give her the run-down. She has been well aware when receiving Jesus’ help and when responding to him precisely on the Sabbath that it’s time to break some rules and heal some souls because the kingdom of God has come near.
In doing so, Susasnnah becomes the first deacon in the New Testament, totally getting the picture that the disciples won’t quite realize for many years. “This is no woman bowing to cultural convention and keeping in her restricted place as a servant,” Ofelia Ortega writes, “this is a disciple who quietly demonstrates the high honor of service for those who follow Jesus…who, like Jesus, will not shy from broken bodies or demonic spirits.”
Word spreads of this healing, and all of the sudden his moment of private ministry turns quickly into a public ministry once again. The sick and demon-possessed and the whole city gather around Susannah’s door. Jesus does his Jesus thing: curing and healing and casting out demons. One pastor talks about how our Susannah may have looked out of her door to see all of these people with fevers like hers and pushed up her sleeves, touching and healing, loving and speaking truth to all of them. She does not hoard her healing or remain stagnant, celebrating her health in private, she immediately embodies Jesus’ ministry by using her healing to heal others.
Using her healing to heal others. Like my dear friend Margo, who not only cared for Tallu as she died but even wove her a burial shroud. “Into this shroud,” Tallu wrote, “I imagine her weaving past, present and future prayers–not just for the dying but for all of us trying to make sense of death coming too soon.” Margo and I recently talked about how much we miss those last few weeks before Tallu died, which may seem ironic, but if you’ve tended to someone in hospice care, you may have experienced the kingdom of God come near. The way we gathered, day after day, in her bedroom to read poems, cuddle with her, share stories and laughter, break bread, cry…the whole house was filled with family and chosen family, a foretaste of heaven on earth–close and communal, vulnerable and present.
The thing about Susannah or Margo: she knew what it felt like to go from brokenness to wholeness. Maybe you know that feeling, too. Maybe you still feel broken. Jesus knows that feeling too. The bad news and the best news is that there is rarely healing without suffering. The best healers are the wounded ones, and the best ministers (which is every single one of us), as Henri Nouwen writes, are the ones who make their wound available as a source of healing.
Margo didn’t stop weaving or healing once her journey with Tallu ended. She now walks with many people, a modern-day Susannah, offering healing touch, colorful shrouds, and an honest and loving presence so that people do not have to die alone, or feel alone as they die. My brother Robbie didn’t stop his healing journey with Tallu, either. A librarian for over a decade, he just started nursing school this year after serving Tallu and seeing others nurse her, too.
Jesus could have stayed in Capernaum and become a local celebrity, basking in the notoriety of his ministry. And yet, as he often does, Jesus gets up while it’s still dark, takes a moment to pray, and gets going to share his healing with other towns and to proclaim the message that he is here to heal the untouchable. He reminds us that in order for the kingdom of God to come near, we’ve gotta push through the crowds and proclaim the gospel message outside of our private spaces. God wants you to be healed for the sake of your own wholeness but also because there’s a lot of healing to be done out there. Spoiler alert: his next few moves? Touching a leper, healing a paralytic man, healing a man with a withered hand, touching a bleeding woman.
Church, just by virtue of being here, you’ve been brought into this wild story of God’s love for all of humanity along with smelly fishermen, demoniacs and sick old nameless ladies and the rest of Jesus’ motley crue of a dream team. That’s the gospel for you: it’s confusing and hilarious and heartbreaking and it’s for us. Us who are wounded, us who seek healing and us who can offer it.
May it be so.