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.”
Serving after recovering is “restored discipleship.” The verb is diekonei. It is the word from which we get the English word deacon. Whenever ministry is spoken of as being rendered directly to the Lord Jesus, it is the ministry of angels or of women. E.g., After Jesus’ temptations angels came and ministered to Him (Matt. 4:11; Mark 1:13).
Of no man is it recorded that he waited, served, or ministered to Jesus, but on two occasions it is recorded of Martha that she served Jesus; mention is made of a band of women who ministered to Him of their substance for material needs. Peter’s mother-in-law is only person who is healed by Jesus and then does something for him.
Jesus could preach because they provided.4
Note that Mark 1:29-39 says that Simon Peter's mother-in-law was healed on a Sabbath. Jewish woman would have been particularly attentive about serving a Sabbath meal, which was the first-century equivalent of Sunday dinner. Jewish custom made the Sabbath not only a day of rest but also a day of joy, not the least reason for which was the festive meal. Christians are inclined to call to mind only the thirty-nine kinds of work forbidden on the Sabbath by the Mishna and thus to forget the fact that it was expected to be a day of delight (cf. Isa. 58:13 and Prov. 10:22, which were applied to the Sabbath. Three meals of the choicest available food were prescribed for it along with regulations as to how that food could be kept warm, since no fire could be kindled on the Sabbath.5
To illustrate a modern example, one Pastor that that “every summer [some parish] matriarchs would help to put on a church dinner. Another woman couldn’t help out one year, having just had a hip replacement. I went to check on her a day before the dinner.
“They’re not using boxed potatoes, are they?” she demanded. “The people who come expect potatoes made from scratch.”
“They’re planning to peel potatoes all morning,” I said.
“And the ham? Did they get a good dry ham, or the watery kind?”
Honestly, I didn’t know. It was probably the same ham as always. I asked if she had always enjoyed cooking, and to my surprise, she adamantly said no, that cooking was a big chore.
“Really? I thought you enjoyed doing this.”
“I don’t love the potatoes,” she said. “Really, young man, you should know I love Christ, and there are only so many ways a body can do that.”6
God restores the house of our soul (Psalm 23:3,) by making time to rest and renew in Him.
1. St. Peter’s house believed to have been found on shore of Sea of Galilee, catholicnewsagency.com. Note that some say that Peter’s house is in lost city of Bethsaida instead of nearby Capernaum, six miles away.
2. (St. Ambrose, Expositio evangelii sec. Lucam, in loc.).
3. Wendy Blight, An Invitation To Settle Your Unsettled Soul, blog.
Jesus preached because they provided.
4. Jeremy Myers, Jesus was a Feminist (Luke 8:1-3), blog.
5. Charles C. Ryrie, An Act of Divine Healing, Bibliotheca sacra; January 1, 1956
6. Lawrence Wood, The first deacon; Christian Century, 01/27/2009
