February 8, 2015 Mark 1:29-39

As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.


That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

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“Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.”

Its the reason people are willing to pay more for a salon haircut, because the stylist will wash your hair, and despite the awkwardness of leaning back and putting your head into what looks a glorified toilet bowl painted black, the touch alone, on a place, that as an adult, is never touched, hair and scalp, is a decadent, yet necessary, comfort. The same comfort that little girls know, during story-time on the circle carpet floor, when they line up sitting criss-cross applesauce, braiding one another’s hair.

Its the reason that, despite a child’s safety, there is something else tender about reaching down past your arm’s length with the bend of waist, to hold their little hand in the entirety of yours, while you, ‘look both ways,’ and cross the street.

Or how, when I was a toddler, my grandfather made up the game of stealing kisses, that he would bow down and kiss my sister and I on top of the head and proclaim he had stolen a kiss, such that, when he would be reading the paper on the couch, we would crawl up next to him and steal one back, and how even today, after giving him a giant hug upon arrival, I still look for that moment when he is on the couch and I can come up behind him and surprise him with a kiss on head, proclaiming, ‘I stole a kiss,’ and though speechless, he laughter and smile is counterpoint enough. He can no longer physically get me back, but the score is no longer the point, because I know he is too far behind to keep count. I highly doubt, when grandpa lives with my Uncle John, a car guy, in Detroit, they are playing any of these games. I on the other hand live in a world of hugs, and touch, and occasional kisses.

I live in world where just last Sunday, Melissa asked Maddie, “Did you give Katy a hug?” and before I knew it there was a blond head squeezing around my knees, and I leaned over to rub a thank you between those little shoulder blades. Or how Little Kathryn Gentry, who is only person in the world allowed to call me Big Kathryn, also gives great squeeze-your-breath-out hugs.

I live in world of baby showers where I can picture dozens of church women in the fellowship hall passing around little May and watching each grey head coo and rock, and tuck, and gleam at the tininess and sacredness of touch. This is my world,

but I also live in a world of babies who are not touched, of hospitals with the need for volunteers to come in and hold infants and rock them, because if not, the words, “failure to thrive,’ are common, and the lasting psychoses are devastating. I live in a world where children are not the only ones with this need, and I think of Simon’s mother in law.

Described as such, mother-in-law, I think about her, thrice removed. I suppose had her husband been alive, she would have been described as his wife. I think about being called someone’s mother, and I harken back to playgrounds, where parents were not their own names, but named from their relationship to the child who was my friend. I wonder too about the age difference between Simon’s mother and law, and Simon, and Jesus his friend. Finally, I think about in-law, and I know it is yet another step of distance and all of this makes me wonder when was the last time she was touched, that someone leaned down and kissed her forehead, or touched her shoulder, or put their hand on her hair.

Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever. “Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.” It is this moment, it is this act, from which, the fever left her. It is the shampoo of a haircut, or little girls braiding hair in a line, or holding hands crossing the street, or stealing kisses no matter the age. It is baby showers where infants are passed, and volunteers coo in hospitals for the purpose of being present and the healing that is touch. This, this simple act, is what Jesus knew, and what healed the woman.

How many times has a hug changed your day? Maddie’s knee squeeze was the best part of last Sunday for me, and likewise, those who open their arms upon leaving the sanctuary, I am sure to hug, because for some I know this might their only hug that week, or one of few, or just maybe one they need, or perhaps I need as I am a hugger. In our world today, I wonder how hugs or a pat on the back, or the squeeze of a hand or knee, might be healing for our world. I wonder how our foreign policy might change if the pictures we saw where not the power play of a political handshake, turning one over the other and squeezing out authority, but if instead if authority was squeezed out in hugs, Obama embracing Netanyahu, or house speaker Boelner. Can you imagine, what fevers might leave us, and leave us to serve with love, with wholeness, with vision and purpose, with care. ““Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” Just imagine.