Seeds for 07/12/2023 - Matthew 8:14-15
Scripture: 14 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on Him.
Observation: Knowing that Peter had a mother-in-law makes him more concrete, earth-bound, and real for me. These are not mythological figures. The Twelve are ordinary men with hometowns, parents, siblings, wives, and probably children. Throughout the Gospels (and Acts), we find small, specific details that provide an eyewitness fingerprint on the narrative and lend an element of authenticity. This is a great example of a detail that grounds the story in a vivid, imaginable reality.
Verse 15 is what stands out to me in terms of spiritual insight and meaning. Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, then “she got up and began to wait on Him.”
What is going on here?
Traditional cultures (most if not all ancient cultures, plus non-Western modern cultures) have strong community ethics around offering hospitality to guests. Here’s a case in point. When I went on a church Holy Land tour about 12 years ago, we included a Bedouin experience. Many Bedouin people preserve their traditional culture in that region today. Their culture has traditions and ways of life that are among the closest modern approximations of the culture of the Genesis patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob). So, we were able to learn and experience aspects of their culture that provide insight into how the ancient figures in the Hebrew Scriptures would have lived. The whole experience was held at a staged location at least in part because if we had gone to their actual homes they would have been obligated to host us for three days and if we had refused it would have been an insult. They had to create a separate physical setting in order to work around their ethic of hospitality!
The hospitality ethic facilitated community relationships and built a fabric of life that assured everyone had a place. Peter’s mother-in-law would have wanted to offer hospitality to Jesus in order to uphold her responsibility as a faithful member of her community.
Therefore, her physical healing also accomplishes relational restoration in her community. This is something we often miss. We typically see Jesus’ healing as only physical. But His concern is for her (and our) whole self, not just one aspect. In the act of healing bodily sickness, Jesus was also repairing the fabric of relationship in her community and restoring her dignity as a person capable of offering hospitality in accordance with her cultural community ethic.
For Jesus, healing is multifaceted. Restoration of body, relationship, dignity.
Application:
How might we better see ourselves and others as whole persons and not only collections of particular needs and wants?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, teach me to see the whole person and to work for healing and restoration whenever I have the opportunity. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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