Jesus heals Saint Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a stained-glass window in Saint John the Baptist Church, Blisworth, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the First Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany I, 12 January 2025), with readings that focus on the Baptism of Christ.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Jesus Heals Simon Peter's Mother-in-Law … a panel in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Mark 1: 29-39 (NRSVA):
29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
32 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ 38 He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ 39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Jesus heals Saint Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a stained-glass window in Saint John the Baptist Church, Blisworth, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Reflection:
This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 1: 29-39) is the story of Christ healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.
There are four parts in this morning’s Gospel reading:
1, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (verses 29-31);
2, Jesus heals many other people, including people with diseases and people who are exorcised of demons (verses 32-34);
3, Jesus retreats to a deserted place to prayer but is ‘hunted’ out by Simon and his companions (verses 35-38);
4, Jesus returns to preaching in the synagogues in Galilee (verse 39).
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 his father’s name 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 reference at all to 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 Simon 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 Saint Mark’s Gospel, this story follows immediately after the calling of the first disciples, Andrew, Peter, James and John. In all three synoptic Gospels, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and of a 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 and 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 claim they are ‘conservative evangelicals.’
It is not a story about a woman taking a late Saturday morning weekend sleep-in on her bed, and then getting up ‘to make the tea’.
The verb for serving, διακονέω (diakoneo), used in verse 31 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, relieve, assist, or supply with the necessaries of life, or provide the means of living, to do the work of the διάκονος 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.
James Tissot ‘The Healing of Peter’s Mother-in-law’ (La guérison de la belle-mère de Pierre), 1886-1894 (Brooklyn Museum)
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 15 January 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Bag of Flour’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 15 January 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, we pray that people like Yusuf may have safe and equitable access to critical aid like food and water.
The Collect:
Eternal Father,
who at the baptism of Jesus
revealed him to be your Son,
anointing him with the Holy Spirit:
grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit,
that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Lord of all time and eternity,
you opened the heavens and revealed yourself as Father
in the baptism of Jesus your beloved Son:
by the power of your Spirit
complete the heavenly work of our rebirth
through the waters of the new creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Heavenly Father,
at the Jordan you revealed Jesus as your Son:
may we recognize him as our Lord
and know ourselves to be your beloved children;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Christ Healing Peter’s Mother-in-Law … a fresco in Visoki Dečani Monastery, a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo and Metohija, 12 km south of Pec (© Copyright: Blago Fund, Inc)
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
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