Mark 1:29-39
(Once again I am much indebted to David Lose’s commentary on this week’s Gospel.)
The Gospel for this Sunday follows directly from the passage we heard last week (at least those of us who were here in the blizzard!) In Mark’s Gospel these are the initial events in Jesus’ public ministry. In last week’s passage Jesus publicly healed a man who was possessed (however you want to interpret possession). The man was there in the synagogue in Capernaum with Jesus and his disciples. In today’s passage Jesus privately heals a woman of a clear physical disease, a fever. So right at the beginning we see the breadth of Jesus’ healing ministry.
Modern readers and hearers of this passage can’t help but notice, though, that bam! the very first thing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law does the instant the fever leaves her is to get up and serve the others! And we bring a lot of personal perspective, we might say baggage, to the interpretation of that part of the story. Nonetheless, I think it’s a good part to look at. To consider the result of Jesus’ healing. The story isn’t just about the physical healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, but also the impact or consequences of that healing.
One commentator (Sarah Henrich HERE) puts this passage into the social and cultural context of the time, the time in which it took place:
[I]llness bore a heavy social cost: not only would a person be unable to earn a living or contribute to the well-being of a household, but their ability to take their proper role in the community, to be honored as a valuable member of a household, town, or village, would be taken from them. Peter’s mother-in-law is an excellent case in point. It was her calling and her honor to show hospitality to guests in her home. Cut off from that role by an illness cut her off from doing that which integrated her into her world. Who was she when no longer able to engage in her calling? Jesus restored her to her social world and brought her back to a life of value by freeing her from that fever. It is very important to see that healing is about restoration to community and restoration of a calling, a role as well as restoration to life. For life without community and calling is bleak indeed.
I would certainly agree that life without community is bleak and that Jesus restored Peter’s mother-in-law to her community. But my message today focuses on her calling. Her calling. Her vocation. She was restored to her vocation. In today’s collect we pray to be set free from every bond… so that we may have the abundant life that is God’s hope for us. A big part of abundant life, I think, is pursuing our calling. Living into our vocations.
It occurs to me that we can only talk about vocation because of the incarnation. It is only because God’s Son became human that we can talk about human beings sharing in the divine vocation. It is only because God brought holiness into human being that we can talk about our human lives, our actions, having the potential to be holy vocations.
The work or tasks of our lives can be useful, meaningful, even rewarding without being holy, without fulfilling our vocation. Holiness is one of those things that’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it, when you experience it. And when we are fulfilling our vocations we are sharing in the holiness of God’s life and purpose. We are being the hands and voice and presence of Christ.
I quote Buechner from time to time. He is particularly quotable on the subject of vocation. This is the entry on vocation from Wishful Thinking:
[Vocation] comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a [person] is called to by God.
There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.
By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.
Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Vocation is where your gladness and the world’s hunger meet. Where what gives you joy meets the needs of others.
As you may know the Church used to talk about “a vocation” as a call to ordained ministry (or perhaps the monastic life). You either had “it” or you didn’t. Some people had “a vocation;” most did not.
Thank God we’ve gotten away from that language and perspective. Everyone has vocations. Plural. I think it’s important to think about plural vocations. Each of us doesn’t have just one vocation. We have many. Big vocations and small vocations. Vocations that change with time. It isn’t as though you absolutely have to find your "one true vocation" or else face a life of total desolation. We have many vocations. Your vocation may or may not be how you earn your living. You may have several vocations that are just part of how you earn your living-- or are expressed in other ways.
I think we need to get away from this idea that a vocation must be grand and all-consuming. Think rather in terms of tasks or activities. Those are where we engage our vocations. Plural. Vocations. The tasks or activities where your joy meets another’s need. Where your gladness meets the world’s hunger. Both parts are important.
For example. Sitting on the sofa listening to music by the CSO brings me great joy. I’m thankful to God for the music and for the capacity for joy, but that’s not really a vocation. On the other hand, musicians from the CSO taking music into juvenile detention centers could be. I hope they feel that as a fulfillment of vocation. Some parts of my job as a priest in the church are vocation; other parts, not so much. Where my gladness and the world’s need meet.
I was recently a guest at a big family gathering welcoming a granddaughter home. I’m thinking of the grandmother who cooked for hours and hours making every single food that the granddaughter likes. Where joy and the need to be welcomed and reconnected with family meet. Vocation close to home.
I’m very excited about a new mini-vocation for me: planting milkweed. Where my gladness and the world’s need meet. The world needs the restoration of milkweed. Monarch butterflies will not survive without it. (You’ll hear more specific details later.) Vocation.
Think about the tasks or activities that give you joy. Do you or can you offer those to meet the world’s need? How can you give what gives you joy to others? That’s vocation. That’s living the life abundant. Look for ways to connect what makes you glad with the hunger of the world.
And if there is something keeping you from engaging in any vocation, small or large, pray to be freed. Pray to be freed, like Peter’s mother-in-law, from whatever binds you or holds you back from the abundant life of your own calling.
Set us free, O Lord, to live into our vocations.
