{"id":3350,"date":"2014-09-24T01:29:01","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T01:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/?p=3350"},"modified":"2014-09-24T01:29:01","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T01:29:01","slug":"burning-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/burning-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Burning Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"burning<\/a><\/h5>\n
February 5, 2012<\/h5>\n

Mark 1: 29 – 39<\/h3>\n

Today\u2019s gospel includes what is probably the shortest miracle of Jesus\u2019s ministry. It is only two verses. Jesus comes to Peter\u2019s house and hears that Peter\u2019s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. He goes to her, grasps her by the hand, and lifts her up. She is cured and waits on them. This miracle is noteworthy because of its brevity.<\/p>\n

But, there is also something else that sets it apart. The miracle does not tell us the disease from which Peter\u2019s mother-in-law suffers. This is unusual. Usually miracle stories point out the problem quite specifically: a person is blind or lame or is a leper. But this story does not describe the disease, but only the symptom: she has a fever. What is the cause of the fever?\u00a0 Does Peter\u2019s mother-in-law have the flu? Is she fighting an infection? Does she have malaria? The text does not say.<\/p>\n

This peculiarity becomes even more interesting when we examine the word which the Greek text uses for the fever. It is not a noun but a participle, a verbal form. It literally means she was in bed \u201cburning up,\u201d or she was in bed \u201con fire.\u201d The question is in what sense was she on fire? Translators conclude that she was \u201con fire\u201d because she had a fever. This is a logical and responsible translation. But what if we went in another direction. What if Peter\u2019s mother-in-law was \u201cburning up\u201d not physically but emotionally? What if she was \u201con fire\u201d not medically but personally? In other words, what if Peter\u2019s mother-in-law was really upset about something?<\/p>\n

What could she be upset about? You do not have to look far in Mark\u2019s Gospel to discover a reason. Ten verses before Jesus comes to her house, her son-in law, Peter, together with his brother Andrew are catching fish at the sea of Galilee. Jesus comes along and says, \u201cFollow me.\u201d They leave their nets and follow him. Now, how do you imagine Peter\u2019s decision would play out in the mind of his mother-in-law?\u00a0\u201cHe did what! You know that the only reason that I agreed that my daughter could marry that guy was that he had a job. He knew how to catch fish. Now you are telling me he has left his nets and is going around Galilee with Jesus catching people! Good luck with that! How are you going to put food on the table catching people? How is he going to pay for my grandchildren\u2019s education?\u201d\u00a0You could see how Peter\u2019s mother-in-law could begin \u201cto burn.\u201d Even more so when after a few days she hears that at last Peter is at last returning home and is bringing this new Jesus friend with him, it would make sense for her to say, \u201cI\u2019m going to my room to lie down, and I don\u2019t want to talk to anyone. I don\u2019t want to face Peter or his new friend. They\u2019re all out of their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now if we imagine that Peter\u2019s mother-in-law is \u201con fire\u201d because of Peter\u2019s decision to follow Jesus. The whole meaning of this story shifts. Peter\u2019s mother-in-law becomes an example of those times in our lives when people we care for disappointed us. When a family member or a friend makes a decision that we do not understand, a decision that we think is foolish. Such a decision perplexes us, depresses us, and, sometimes enrages us. It sets us on fire. \u201cHe was always a boy with a head on his shoulders. Whatever moved him to invest his life savings with that crook?\u201d \u201cShe was a girl with good judgment. What would move her to fall in love with that looser?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhy is my son so preoccupied with his job?\u201d \u201cWhy does my friend drink so much?\u201d \u201cWhy won\u2019t my daughter just talk to me?\u201d<\/p>\n

When people we care for make decisions that disappoint us, it causes us pain. That can make this story of Peter\u2019s mother-in-law a very important story for us. In this story Jesus becomes our healer. Look at what he does. As soon as he enters his house they tell him about Peter\u2019s mother-in-law: \u201cShe\u2019s gone to her room, and she\u2019s not happy. She\u2019s burning up.\u201d What does Jesus do? He does not judge the woman. He does not become angry himself. He goes to her, takes her by the hand, and lifts her up. She changes. She begins to serve them.\u00a0How does Jesus bring about this change? We are not told. But, it probably included him reminding her that as much as she loved her family, she could not run other people\u2019s lives, that everyone had to make their own decisions. He probably also told her that God had a plan, and we cannot see that whole plan at once. It certainly involved the power of his presence. When she touched his hand and heard his words, she must have realized, \u201cThere\u2019s something about this man that I trust. Maybe my son-in-law is not so crazy after all.\u201d When people in our life disappoint us, we too must trust in Jesus. We must turn to him, take his hand, and ask him to remove our judgment and our anger.<\/p>\n

Now, some people might not like this interpretation of the story of Peter\u2019s mother-in-law. They might think that by seeing her fever as something emotional and personal rather than something physical, the significance of the miracle is reduced. But, I am not sure that is true. After all, aspirin can relieve a fever, but only the power of God can change a human heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What if Peter\u2019s mother-in-law was \u201cburning up\u201d not with a fever but emotionally? If she was really upset about something, it would change the nature of Jesus’ miracle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5879,"featured_media":3352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homilies","infinite-scroll-item","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33","resize-featured-image"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/files\/2015\/02\/burning-fever-2.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5879"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}