Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII, 30 August 2020). Yesterday was also the first day of Autumn and the beginning of the Season of Creation, which continues until 4 October.
The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers the Martyrs of Papua New Guinea (1901 and 1942). Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 4: 38-44 (NRSVA):
38 After leaving the synagogue he entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. 39 Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.
40 As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. 41 Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.
42 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. 43 But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ 44 So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.
Today’s Reflections:
There are four parts in this morning’s Gospel reading:
1, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (verses 38-39);
2, Jesus heals many other people, including people with diseases and people who are exorcised of demons (verses 40-41);
3, Jesus retreats to a deserted place but is followed by the crowds (verses 42-43);
4, Jesus moves on from preaching in the synagogues in Galilee to preaching in the synagogues in Judea (verse 44).
Most people Jesus meets in the Gospel stories are unnamed, so that many of the women he heals are not named too. Indeed, in the healing stories told of men, only Lazarus and Malchus are named. But the high priest’s servant Malchus is only named by John (John 18: 10), and not in the synoptic gospels. Mark refers to blind Bartimaeus, but this is a reference only to the name of the father of the blind man and not the name of the blind man himself (see Mark 10: 46).
In all the Gospel stories in which Jesus heals women, the women too are anonymous. In this morning’s Gospel reading, even Simon Peter’s mother-in-law remains unnamed, and she is identified only by her relationship to Simon Peter. Indeed, there is no mention at all of her daughter, Simon Peter’s wife.
All three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell this healing story (see Matthew 8: 14-15; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38-40). Matthew says Jesus ‘touched’ the woman's hand, Mark say he ‘grasped’ it, and in Luke he simply ‘rebuked the fever’. Mark says the house was the home of Peter and Andrew, who both interceded with Jesus for the woman. Luke alone says she had a high fever.
The healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is the first story of physical healing in Saint Luke’s Gospel, and it follows immediately after the first story of spiritual healing, of an unnamed man in the synagogue in Capernaum. In all three synoptic Gospels, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and the demon-possessed man trigger a wave of sick and possessed people being brought to Jesus.
Mother-in-law jokes illustrated many seaside postcards and were part of the stock-in-trade of comedians in the 1960s and well into the 1970s. Those mothers-in-law were never named, and the jokes served to emphasise the domestic role – perhaps servile role – of women in homes and families in those days.
But mothers-in-law were also mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, wives, nieces, daughters, they had careers, hopes and ambitions, fears, illnesses, and sufferings, they had love and emotions, and they had names … none of which were acknowledged in those postcards or comic sketches.
Those attitudes were reinforced by many of the ways in which I have heard men in the past interpret this morning’s reading. Yet a closer reading of this story shows that it does not reinforce a woman’s place as being servile or secondary, the ‘complementarian’ view offered by some commentators who describe themselves as ‘conservative evangelicals’.
It is not a story about a woman taking a weekend sleep-in on her bed, and then getting up ‘to make the tea’.
The verb for serving, διακονέω (diakoneo), used in verse 39 in reference to this woman, means to wait, attend upon, serve, or to be an attendant or assistant. Later, in Acts and other places in the New Testament, it means to minister to, to relieve, assist, or to supply with the necessaries of life, or to provide the means of living, to do the work of διάκονος (diakonos or deacon (see I Timothy 3: 10, 13; I Peter 4: 11), even to be in charge or to administer (see II Corinthians 3: 3, 8: 19-20; I Peter 1: 12, 4: 10).
The word describing this woman’s service also describes the angels who minister to Jesus after he is tempted in the wilderness (Mark 1: 13; Matthew 4: 11), the work of his female disciples (Luke 8: 1-3), and describes Martha of Bethany when she serves while her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet and learns, before Jesus specifically affirms Mary’s choice (Luke 10: 38-42).
Most significantly, this word describes Jesus himself, when he explains to his disciples that ‘whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (see Mark 10: 43-45).
Being healed is not just about personal relief but also about being restored to a place where one can serve and contribute to the community. The Book of Common Prayer describes God as the one ‘whose service is perfect freedom’, and this is modelled by Peter’s mother-in-law. Her response to Jesus healing her is a model not just for women but for all Christian service. In the kingdom, serving is not women’s work, it is everybody’s work.
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 2 September 2026):
In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 30 August to 5 September 2026 (pp 34-35), is ‘Anglican Youth Tackle Waste in Madagascar’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Ialy Tongasoa, Community Development Lead, Diocese of Toliara, Madagascar.
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The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 2 September 2026) invites us to pray:
Gracious God, we lament the widespread plastic pollution and unmanaged waste that blights Madagascar’s landscapes and waterways and threatens fragile ecosystems and human health. Have mercy, we pray.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who called your Church to bear witness
that you were in Christ reconciling the world to yourself:
help us to proclaim the good news of your love,
that all who hear it may be drawn to you;
through him who was lifted up on the cross,
and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God our creator,
you feed your children with the true manna,
the living bread from heaven:
let this holy food sustain us through our earthly pilgrimage
until we come to that place
where hunger and thirst are no more;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength
and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflections
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
