"Is a Women's Place Really (Just) In the Kitchen?"

Today marks the start of UCC Women’s Week, the week dedicated each year by the United Church of Christ, to women and their ministries and their role in the church and the world.  It seems clear to me that the denominational officials who chose this week for such a celebration have it in for male preachers like me; in fact, it would not surprise me if they owned stock in the local tar-and-feathers emporium!

            I mean, look at what happens in today's text, Mark 1:29-31. Jesus and his four fishing buddies arrive in Simon Peter’s hometown on the Sabbath, on Saturday, and after a day of prayers at the synagogue come home hungry and ready for a good sit-down. Only to find that Peter’s mother-in-law, who apparently lives there as part of the extended family, is in bed with a debilitating fever, the kind that could lead to her demise. But no worries, Jesus walks into her bedroom, takes her hand, lifts her up, and viola! She is healed – and immediately gets to work serving them, preparing a fine meal for these big, strapping, and apparently useless around the home, men.

            Sound familiar to any of the gentler sex here with us today? Remind you of an occasion where you had to drag yourself off your sickbed and get to work taking care of others who should have been able to take care of themselves?  Already getting ready to get mad at a preacher who you are waiting to tell you that this is exactly what God expects out of you, so quit your moaning and feel good about it? Asking yourself, he did mention something about tar and feathers, didn’t he? And if not that, asking yourself, where is the good news today  for me and women like me?

            I do think there is hope for us all here, thanks in part to the insights of Rev. Kathyrn Matthews Huey. She encourages us to take another look at the account of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, to see if we cannot find instead a conspiracy between Jesus and this unnamed woman to show the disciples, the community, and us, what hospitality, healing and service are all about, what it really means to be a disciple.

            Later on in the gospel, we will see that Jesus is still trying to teach the disciples that he is not about “power over”, he is about “service to.” They will go on to bicker among themselves who is the greatest and who will be granted the privilege of sitting at Jesus’ right hand, missing the point of this lesson at Peter’s house, but the lesson is there for those with ears to hear. A lesson that comes in three parts.

            Part the first: healing that truly heals can often come through something as simple and yet as profound as touch.  After all the thunderous and awe-inspiring events marking the beginning of Jesus’ ministry – the sky ripping open at his baptism, the wild beasts in the wilderness, the capture of John the Baptizer, the shrieks of the possessed man – the healing comes through something as simple and intimate as a human touch. Jesus comes to her, takes her by the hand, and raises her up. The divine love is extended through something we often take for granted, until it is missed – a human touch.

            Touching is so important. Think of the kiss on the skinned knee of a child; think of the hug that greets you at the door when you come home from college or a business trip; think of the importance of a welcoming handshake at the door of the church. Think of a man held at the Suffolk County Jail up in Boston, pending trial. It is a maximum security facility, and during visits we are seated on opposing sides of a thick pane of glass. At the end of each visit, we each hold a hand up to the cold glass, and that is the closest we can come to touching. We both know that it is something, and we both know that it is not enough….

            God knows that nearness is important. That is why God came to us in Jesus, the incarnation of God’s love, to put off all that distance and come near. A sobering thought for us who bear Christ’s name, who might be the closest many people ever get to being touched by Jesus.

            Part the second: the healing by Jesus of Peter’s mother-in-law does more than cure her of a physical ailment – it restores her to her place of honor in the family and wider society. It seems that she not only lived with Peter and his family, but had a particular role within the family unit – that of being in charge of hospitality. In this honor/shame culture, there were very strict rules governing hospitality, about the obligations the host had to welcome guests into the home. Failure to live up to those rules would bring dishonor and shame on the entire extended family. When this woman is healed, she is restored to her rightful role in the family and the community – which was extending hospitality to the guests, to serving them. Her healing is more than a matter of being freed from a disease – to be fully healed, she must be restored to her rightful place in the community. So for her, going from the sick-bed to the kitchen was not something to be bemoaned – it was liberating and healing.

            Part the third: healing, salvation, new life, come to us not so that, like the winner of the lottery, we can move forward into a life of self-indulgence and personal pleasure insulated from others. No healing comes so that we might live into our full humanity, understanding that no man or woman is an island, but that instead we all dwell within a web of mutuality and inter-relationship. Jesus would later tell his disciples that he came not to be served but to serve; here, lifted up to new life by Jesus, this woman by example shows everyone what discipleship is really all about – serving others.  Mark tells us that when Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted after his baptism, “angels waited on  (served)  him”. Mark uses the same word to describe what this woman did for Jesus and his followers – she waited on, or served, them. She is doing the work of angels.

            So what Mark and Jesus are telling us in this episode is not that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, and not that women today must be limited to the identical role that women may have had in society back in the first century A.D.  The lesson taught to us by Jesus and by Peter’s mother-in-law is that the good news is that we are healed, saved, redeemed, raised up – just as she was raised up – to be partners with Jesus in service to the world. What particular form that service takes will be different for each of us, but it is not limited by shifting cultural norms about gender roles. Just as the angels ministered to Jesus in the wilderness and Peter’s mother-in-law ministered to Jesus and his followers in the home, we are called to minister to the Jesus we meet in our everyday lives – in our fellow men and women, in the sick, in the lost, in the poor, in the lonely, in the kitchen, in the boardroom, in the office, in the school.

You and I, we have been raised up to serve.