Today’s Gospel is one of my favorites. It looks like only a bit of narrative that ties the story of Jesus casting out an unclean spirit last Sunday with his healing a leper next Sunday. But, to me, it has always been very exciting–and this week, it is healing.
Mark 1:29-39
Last Sunday, Mark announced that Jesus can and does cast out “unclean” spirits, i.e. evil spirits. This was a dreaded spiritual sickness. Next Sunday, Mark will tell us about Jesus healing a leper, perhaps the most dreaded sickness of Jesus’ day.
In between, today, Mark tells us that Jesus also can and does heal more ordinary sicknesses—”a fever,” “various diseases,” and “many demons.” He did this from sunset (the end of the Sabbath) well into the night. He healed the ordinary people of ordinary things that troubled them.
Then he prayed before going on to do it some more.
Why is this exciting? In part, for me, it is the beginning of Jesus’ active ministry, and I love the beginning of new, good things. But a deeper reason for excitement is that God was doing something new. While there are many events in the Hebrew scriptures of God healing people, mass healings were very rare. Moses healed, but ordinary judges or prophets did not. The general belief of the time was that if you were sick or had an unclean spirit, God was angry with you. You deserved to be sick. Maybe you deserved to die. It is exciting that now Jesus is God saying something different.
Job 7:1-4, 6-7
The name of Job and the subject of suffering are synonymous. Job is the book in Hebrew scripture that explores the problems of evil and suffering. In this snippet, Job is describing his suffering to three friends who have come to visit him. The friends are of the opinion that Job has done something very wrong, and God is punishing him. Job, in this passage and throughout many chapters, explores the questions of guilt and punishment. No matter how hard he digs into his conscience, he can’t see what he did wrong. The book of Job does not come to a full understanding of suffering, but it forms a solid foundation for understanding the role of suffering in the spiritual life.
Combined with today’s Gospel, this selection from Job provides a logic for the new thing that God was doing through this mega-healing night Jesus had. Job says, “So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted me.”
Through Jesus’ healing that long Saturday night in Capernaum, God enters the troubled nights of many people and brings healing through the touch and words of Jesus. God IS doing something very new. He is making healing an ordinary event.
I Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23
At first glance, this selection from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians seems off topic. The first chapters of I Corinthians confront problems and moral abuses among the members of the Corinthian Christian community. Later chapters answer questions and offer solutions. Chapter 9 is about Paul’s rights and responsibilities as an apostle. How does that fit with today’s general theme of healing?
Perhaps these words are key: “Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible. To the weak, I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.”
Those words of how Paul practiced his Christian calling also can shed light on Jesus’ healing so many ordinary problems in the village. God noticed that when we are weak from troubles and weakness, we are more OPEN to God’s intervention in our life. We have this problem or that. It is beyond us. So we seek help. God helps, and thus bonds us closer to Himself—and “saves at least some.”
Which Side of Healing Are We On?
As I have kept reading these scriptures, I have noticed something else new to me in these scriptures: a sense of obligation to accept suffering as part of life in Job and a sense of obligation to heal suffering in Jesus and Paul.
Job’s view from the midst of suffering: “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?…My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.”
Sometimes suffering must first be accepted. We all know people who are currently suffering much who would know exactly how Job feels and who often feel and think through Job’s mind and heart: People with cancer or other serious disease, people with family troubles, people grieving the death of someone very close, people deeply worried about an adult child, people who are alone for days on end, people with demons of doubt in their souls.
Or maybe Job is describing you–or me. When troubles immerse us in pain, Job’s lament serves as God understanding where we are–of God seeing us and being with us.
We also see news stories of people on our borders who seek refuge, people in our cities sleeping in bitter cold because the shelters are full, people at war or living in the path of war. Or maybe the news stories are happening in your community.
How do these stories affect us? What is our response to this suffering around us? Jesus, after pausing for some prayer says, “Let US GO on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose I have come.”
Paul says, “If I preach the Gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been placed on me, and woe to me if I do the not preach it!”
This helps me remember that I have a responsibility to be healing to others. I have no gift for miraculous physical healing, nor skills as medical professional to do it in an ordinary way. I do have a gift of empathy and skills for listening, problem solving, and teaching that are healing in ordinary ways for family difficulties and emotional troubles–in my work as a counselor, and in conversations with friends.
Having those skills means I have an obligation to use them to do what I can in the circumstances life gives me.
If I did not have those skills, still, I have the ability to go to lunch with a recent widow, to cook supper for a young mother who just had serious surgery, to send a birthday card to person at odds with his family, to make eye contact, smile, and say “Good morning,” to anyone and everyone I meet walking down the street. ALL of those ordinary actions are healing actions because they let a person know she has been seen–and that she matters.
Then there is the line in the Gospel that now stands out to me, “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.”
This week, through conversation with a friend, I re-realized how very important prayer is to me to manage my own wounds and sufferings, to fill me with capacity to be healing for others, and to bring the others I work with and pray for to Jesus for healing beyond my gifts. Various circumstances (in myself and in the world around me) have interfered with my spending time in prayer with no purpose other than to be in the presence of God.
As Lent approaches, I realize that is where I need to work. I need to look at some new ways to create time, solitude, and focus to protect my prayer relationship with God. I meditate…but these busy days my lectio revolves around writing for A Catholic Moment. I used to do that 3 days a week and work from other scripture or church documents the other 3 days just to see what God might say to me, with a flex day for preparation or penance after confession. I do the Liturgy of the Hours, but often with an eye on the clock. I pray for others, but I mostly just say, “Help, God, help!” In fact, I’ve noted that God and I tend to have our best conversations while I drive to Lexington–and am more likely to LISTEN than talk.
Hmm. Yes. I am not doing what Jesus did in today’s Gospel. He slept some, to care for his body, but then he created the solitude he needed to refresh his soul, to make ready to heal and teach some more. He connected with his Father, like I need to connect with Jesus. I need to give myself permission and space to protect some of my prayer as just time to BE with God. My prayer needs healing.
Prayer
Thank you, Lord, for all the guidance you are giving me. Lead me now to look carefully at what in my prayer life needs healing. Thank you for the discernment you are giving me. Thank you for prayer itself. Most of all, thank you for seeking me out, gently correcting me through conversation with a friend and through this prayer and writing.
