Service includes caring for those in need as Jesus does with those who are sick. It is Jesus’ encounters with those who are sick that shapes this Sunday’s Gospel. One of the sick people Jesus heals is Peter’s mother-in-law. Upon being healed she was then of service to the people gathered in their home. Jesus “raised her up by gently taking her hand. Then the fever left her and she began to serve them.”
The author of the Gospel, Mark, used the Greek word for service, diakonos, when describing the woman’s action. In English the Greek word translates as deacon. Peter’s mother-in-law was thus part of a long tradition of service. It preceded Jesus and also flows from his witness. It includes innumerable deacons who have served people in need independent of institutional christianity. It is a willingness to be in touch with people, literally so, and thus a willingness to transform experiences of pain and suffering into experiences of love and joy. Rabindranath Tagore understood the transformation: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
The greatest service is perhaps the very typical service exemplified by Peter’s mother-in-law; the service of mothers and fathers who, usually in the background, serve others every day, day after day. It is service that does not always receive much notice or perhaps much gratitude from we who are its recipients. Yet, day after day, mothers and fathers across the world are of service and thus raise us all up gently by the hand.
Prayer: Dear Parents, thank you for your care of children, especially those beyond your immediate family.
Question: When was the last time I thanked my parents for their life of service?
February 8, 2015 Gospel Mk 1:29-39 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time