I really appreciate the invitation from you all to be here as a guest preacher. It’s a bit odd to be asked to speak…usually everyone else is doing the talking – rushing by loudly on the street outside or they come and push me open without even thinking.
My life is pretty solitary but the benefit is that I get to do a lot of listening. Don’t mistake my wooden demeanor for insensitivity. People often save their most important gestures and words for the fleeting moment of lingering at my threshold. But people usually just notice me when somethings wrong – when my hinges squeak or my latch sticks or when the Roman soldiers kick me open to go and rummage through the house. Anyway, I’m pretty stoked that you all are letting me, a door, preach this evening.
I’m not just any door, but I’m a character in the story you all just heard. I’m the main door at Simon and Andrew’s place. Those brothers are quite the pair. Their family carved marks up the side of my frame to measure their height over the years as they grew. And once Simon and Andrew were old enough to be out on the boats with the others, I wouldn’t see as much of them, except when they’d come back to the house, tired and hungry, smelling like sweat and fish.
I’ve seen a lot less of Simon and Andrew since they started hanging out with this other Galilean guy named Jesus. But one particular weekend they were back in town with Jesus and some of their friends.
It was the Sabbath day – and the whole crew had been at the synagogue down the street. Jesus was teaching in the way only he can – you know that whole roundabout weaving-together of stories from the scrolls and then he’s talking right to you and you feel something creaks open in you? Well…that Sabbath day ended up being quite the ruckus – Jesus called an unclean spirit out of a man, there in the synagogue. You all heard some of this story last week, right?
Well that wasn’t the end of the story. Jesus and the rest of the entourage left the synagogue and showed up and pushed me open and they kind of took over my house. That’s because Simon had been pretty spooked. His wife’s mom had been living with them and she wasn’t looking too good.
We doors have a way of knowing these sorts of things – we hear when the tone of the conversation becomes a little more somber. And Simon’s mother-in-law is usually really busy, out and about doing things, and for the past week she hadn’t left the house…. there were murmurings of a fever and hushed whispers that this might be it for her.
When they told Jesus this, he went straight to her bed there in the corner of the house and he sat down and in silence he held her hand for a while and then he slowly lifted her. Somehow the hot fever that had been burning her up…left.
And right away she began bustling about, making everybody sit down and getting them wine, setting out the special Sabbath plates. She started bringing out lentil soup with bread and those spicy pickles everybody raves about.
Now I know what you’re probably thinking… Oh, we’ve seen this before. The whole crew of guys shows up and who ends up doing all the work? The women.
It’s true – it’s not a great look. How many times have we doors seen the men stride in past us, expecting to be fed. And after eating, they slam us doors shut as they leave, abandoning their big mess for someone else to clean up.
But you all have a word you call each other – for what Simon’s mother-in-law was doing – a word you all stole from the Greeks – deacon – it means servant.
Simon’s mother-in-law recognized who Jesus was, that he came to serve others and that following him meant serving, just like God’s angels served Jesus when he was tempted in the desert.
Simon Peter and Andrew and the rest of the bunch hadn’t quite grasped this yet. They enjoyed the excitement of hanging around Jesus, it felt exhilarating to be close to this man who drew crowds, but they weren’t thinking yet how they could be of service to others.
Once dusk fell that evening and the Sabbath day was over, people started to come out of their own houses, and more and more sick people began to be brought to Jesus. Even folks possessed by demons stopped by, everyone wanting Jesus’ attention.
It felt as if the whole town of Capernaum was gathered outside pressed around me, trying to get inside to Jesus. I was starting to feel pretty claustrophobic.
But I can empathize with why the crowds came to him. Because it’s not easy to talk about sickness or demon possession. These are the kind of conversations that I hear whispered about quietly right as people are leaving the home…it’s just not polite to say out loud to someone’s face how sick or tired they look and who wants to admit that you’re ensnared by demonic powers. Folks don’t know what to say when someone’s body is wearing out or their mind seems to betray them or the same old bad habit can’t be beat.
What is there to say when that heavy blanket of evil feels so thick and suffocating? What can you do but whisper when facing the inhumanity of a world where its so hard to be free, where people claw daily to make a living, and dream of an escape from Roman brutality, and long that their kids’ lives won’t be as grim as their own.
People were drawn to Jesus because they wanted more than whispers. They came for words spoken with authority that things would be different. They came hoping that a new future would open up for them…where they could live without pain or shame or oppression…that demons would be cast out of them, freeing them for a new way of living. These folks came looking not for explanations or for accusations or but for prophetic deliverance.
And some people caught on to what was happening. Simon’s mother-in-law recognized what was going on and she jumped in right alongside Jesus to help serve everyone. And the demons recognized what was going on because Jesus’ words and healing touch threatened their chokehold on peoples’ lives.
And I guess in my own way I recognized what was going on because as a door I was caught right in the middle. Inside the house a new community of compassion was forming and on the streets hopeful crowds kept getting bigger and bigger.
Eventually, Jesus got tired after so much healing, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law got tired after so much hosting, and the rest of the crew was tired from being along for the ride. So they shut me closed and everyone went to bed, lined up side-by-side on the floor sleeping. And the folks in the crowd outside each drifted back to their own corners of the town.
And really early at three or four in the morning, Jesus awoke. He tiptoed gingerly over his sleeping friends. Jesus paused for a moment under me before he headed out – looking up at the niche carved into my wooden frame that holds a small clay vessel containing parchment written on it with words from Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength…” (Deut 6:4-9)
These are words the scriptures say must be taught to children, and talked about on every moment of life’s journeys, these are words that commit the body to the work of love and are inscribed as a blessing on doors like me.
This commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength,” had been placed there to bless my wooden frame and all who passed in and out through me. This call to “love God” seemed to bless all the healing and hospitality and hope of that miraculous day.
And then in the darkness, Jesus unlatched me gently so I wouldn’t creak and wake the others. He slipped out under the silence of early morning, heading for the hills to pray. He left me ajar and when the sun finally rose a crowd was already gathering on the street outside, chattering about what else Jesus might do for them.
The thing about us doors is that people are always passing through us hoping for something. They open us up hoping for belonging and warmth and the healing embrace of community. They stand outside longing to be greeted and welcomed. They depart from us, awakened by dreams of what else God might do, with ideas of other thresholds to which God is calling them. We doors stand here swinging open and shut… open and shut, always listening to the whispers and cries and songs of those who pass by, always listening to the voice of God on the wind.
Through what doors do you find yourself passing these days?
Jesus could have stayed there within the walls of my house, amassing more and more acclaim from Capernaum’s crowds clambering outside, but the love of God carried him onward. What does it look like for your homes and apartments and places of work to be waystations of healing and hope? How do the doors of your lives swing in to welcome and out to send forth the good news of Jesus, a good news that always extends to other villages and the doorways of other folks?
I’m getting a little bit carried away here. I’m only a door. But take it from me – it was a gift to be a silent witness to the healing and freedom that happened that day in Capernaum. Simon’s mother-in-law took her own healing as an opportunity to serve others. And I pray that when you encounter freedom, that you wouldn’t keep it to yourselves, but that you’d open your lives wide enough to participate in the beloved community that comes from serving alongside Jesus.
I pray that this church would be a blessing to those within and without, a structure of living members who have written all over us the call to love God and neighbor with heart and strength and soul.
I’d love to be a door in such a house.