Homily at Holy Spirit Catholic Community, 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Beverly Bingle RCWP

We’ve all heard jokes about mothers-in-law,
   and the reason, according to
   Cambridge University psychologist Dr. Terri Apter,
   is the ongoing family battles
   that come from those relationships.
Dr. Apter says that 2/3 of daughters-in-law complain
   that their husband’s mother
   is jealous, demanding, critical, or intrusive.
And the same proportion of mothers-in-law
   complain that their son’s wife
   excludes or isolates her,
   belittles her relationship with her son,
   or sulks over the time she spends with him.
That domestic conflict
   causes long-term unhappiness and stress.
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That’s what’s happening these days, in our time.
Imagine what it would have been like in the first century,
   when the cultural customs were different.
According to Biblical historian Dr. John Pilch,
   Simon Peter and his wife lived with his parents.
According to the customs of the time,
   Peter’s mother-in-law should have been
   living in her husband’s house.
But she wasn’t, and that means she’s a widow.
But widows went to live with their sons.
So she either didn’t have any sons or they had died.
Then she should have returned to live with her family,
   but she’s didn’t.
She’s living with her son-in-law’s family.
That means she must have had no family members alive,
   and in her world that’s a fate worse than death.
Peter’s mother-in-law might well echo Job’s lament:
   My days come to an end without hope.
   My life is like the wind.
   I shall not see happiness again.
She’s ill, in bed with a fever.
Listless.
No energy to get up and be part of the household.
Maybe depressed.
In despair.
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First-century Middle East folks believed
   that there’s a difference
   between disease and illness.
Disease was something you caught,
   like leprosy, and it required a cure.
On the other hand, illness was,
   according to Dr. Pilch,
   “a disvalued human condition
   in which social networks are ruptured
   and life’s meaning is lost.”
Illness required healing,
   not a cure like a disease did.
Jesus, as a healer,
   goes over to Simon Peter’s mother-in-law,
   takes her by the hand, and helps her up.
She is restored to her standing in the family,
   returned to the relationship
   where she finds value and meaning.
She is healed,
   and she rejoins the family circle.
To put it in theological language,
   she experiences salvation.
The Latin root for the word “salvation”
   means healing.
Jesus has given her a healing balm,
   salve for her soul.
____________________________________________
Jesus healed people from illness, cured them from disease,
   but in today’s gospel he says that was not his purpose.
His mission was to go throughout the region
   and preach the good news
   that God’s reign is at hand, here and now.
And he did that by speaking out,
   by praying,
   by reaching out to the poor and marginalized,
   by healing the sick souls of people he met.
____________________________________________
We see lots of this kind of illness in our world,
   people in broken relationships,
   people who have lost hope,
   people who feel their life has no meaning.
As followers of Jesus,
   we are the ones who are called to heal them.
You might not think you’re able to do that,
   but you are.
As St. Francis of Assisi is supposed to have put it,
   our task as followers of Jesus
   is to preach the good news...
   in how we live, in our actions…
   and use words if you have to.
So you go about, like Jesus did,
   preaching the good news
   in the way you take care of your families.
I see your healing in the prayers you lift up
   for people who struggle
   against discrimination and poverty
   and famine and war,
   in your prayers for family and friends and neighbors
   who are in distress or struck by a disease.
Your healing hand reaches out
   when you plant a seedling to heal the earth,
   or show up at Council meetings
   to advocate for a healthy lake,
   or write letters supporting health care for all
   or citizenship for the DREAMers.
And when you get worn down by it all,
   you go off to pray
   and come back refreshed to keep on keeping on.
As Jesus’ followers, that’s what you’re called to do…
   and you do it very well.
Thanks be to God!

Public Domain

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Holy Spirit Catholic Community
Saturdays at 4:30 p.m./Sundays at 5:30 p.m.
at 3925 West Central Avenue
Toledo, OH 43606
(Chapel at Washington Church)

www.holyspirittoledo.org

Rev. Dr. Bev Bingle, Pastor
Mailing address:  3156 Doyle Street, Toledo, OH 43608-2006
419-727-1774