Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year B-- Once Our Batteries Are Charged, We Can Do Service.

We hear in Mark 1:29 today that “Jesus entered the house of Simon [Peter] and Andrew.” A team of archaeologists have discovered this exact house in Capernaum made up of black basalt walls that are still in very good shape.

It reminds me of a man who hired a carpenter to build a fence. He told the carpenter, "I want it 4 ft. high, but I want you to not only guarantee me that it will be 4 ft. high, but I want you to guarantee me that it will never fall."

The carpenter thought for a minute, "Now to build it 4 ft. high wouldn't be hard, but to guarantee that it will never fall will take some thinking."

So, the carpenter thought about it a few days and then he came and built it. When he was finished and ready to collect his money, the man said, "Is it 4 ft. high?" He said, "Yes, it is." He said, "Well, what assurance do I have that it will not fall down?"

The carpenter said, "Well, I not only built it 4 ft. high, but I also built it 5 ft. thick, so if it falls down it will be a foot higher than it was before it fell."

Our Gospel today takes place at a site known as ‘Peter’s House,” where the largest room was made into a chapel. One hundred years later an octagonal church was built over this chapel portion, which features a large Greek mosaic with glass pieces gilded in gold. The walls in the church had been plastered, re-plastered, and painted with intricate designs. Graffiti appears on the plastered walls—for example, “Lord Jesus Christ help your servant…” (the name is no longer readable) and “Christ have mercy.” Greek predominates, but some Syriac and Hebrew remains. There are many etchings of small crosses or, in one case, a boat. The mosaic is inscribed with a petition that asks for the intercession of St. Peter, who is referred to as “the chief and commander of the heavenly apostles.” Byzantine Christian writers commonly referred to the Apostle Peter by this title.1

The lowest level of Peter’s house was used for daily home life—lamps, coins, cooking pots, and fishhooks were found there.

What portion of your house or estate can you dedicate to the Lord? For most of us it might just be carving out time to sit with the Lord and his Word. We have a need to suspend our thinking mind, silence anxieties, and imagination and sit with the Lord and read Scripture. We talk with God when we pray, we listen to him when we read God’s words.

We hear today that Jesus prayed before dawn in a private, quiet setting and his disciples found him and said, "Everyone is looking for you." Music to a co-dependent’s ears. The Greek word zetein, translated as looking, when used in Mark’s Gospel, is always associated with either an evil intention or a misguided sort of seeking. To avoid this sort of popularity, Jesus heads off to new places.

We are called to sacrifice our desires for another person’s needs, not to sacrifice our needs for another’s desires.

Regular busyness is a state of mind and a habit of the heart rather than merely the result of the number of tasks to be accomplished. Unrealistic expectations, desires to feel important, and the need for security, which will always be present, can drive over-activity. Busyness gets in the way of one’s relationship with God. Our lives may be so filled with activity that we are losing our capacity for and commitment to contemplation and reflection.

Bertram Pollock, the Bishop of Norwich, had to meet with many people as part of the many duties of his office; but every day in life Bertram Pollock, he had his times for prayer inviolably set apart. Once his servant came to announce to him that a very distinguished visitor had come to see him. It was the bishop’s time for prayer. Very gently and very courteously he said: "Put him in an anteroom and ask him if he will please wait. I have an appointment with God." No evangelist can fulfill his task unless he daily keeps his unbreakable appointments with God, but if he enters God's presence by the door that no man can ever shut, then his will be the peace and power he cannot do without.

Our fever is passion, our fever is lust, our fever is anger,” St. Ambrose says.2

St. Ambrose is talking about concupiscence, which unsettles our moral faculties and, (Catechism 2515). Do you find yourself in a season of unsettledness? Like someone or something has hijacked your peace?3 What part of our vocation is bedridden or feverish?

Once our batteries are charged, we can do service. Jesus took Simon Peter's mother-in-law by the hand and lifted her up. She began to serve, says Mark 1:31. Some translations say, “she waited on them.”