"Healed & Cooking"

So, 

When you think of celebrating what comes to mind?

Let’s say, a baptism. You are going to do a bunch of things, including getting your self and the baby to church. 

But you also might do some other things, like invite family, take pictures, maybe some folks will bring gifts, and…

There will be food!

I don’t know if you’ve had a change to watch it on the Magnolia Network or on Discovery +. 

It stars Andrew Zimmerman who goes and has dinner with families all over the U.S. Last week I watched as he cooked and ate with a blended family where the father is Samoan, and mother is Anglo. 

Together with their kids and his mother and Andrew they cooked some traditional Samoan dishes as well as a dish from her family’s tradition. And then they ate and told stories.

Then I watched as Andrew visited a family in Vermont that makes maple syrup. At dinner every recipe had some maple syrup in it. And they sat and they ate and they talked.

It’s what we do when we get together for special occasions. We sit, we talk, and we eat!
So it should come as no surprise that when Jesus performed his healings, and even after his resurrection, what the disciples and the healed folks, and the community did is eat and talk!

Remember, Jesus was accused of eating with sinners!

Seriously, take a good look at the folks around your table the next time you have a celebration, and if there aren’t a bunch of sinners there, well then, maybe you need to import some!

Because when the Christian community - when the church - gathers, sinners are always present, or at least they should be. 

As Jesus pointed out so many times that while the Pharisees may have thought they were all good, Jesus wasn’t there to hang out with them.

They thought they had their stuff together, that they were a good bit holier that the folks around them that weren’t working on holiness.

But Jesus wasn’t interested in them so much. He was looking for Prodigal sons, for lost sheep, and if you heard the sermon from two weeks ago, k, for lost coins.

His disciples were sinners! Tax collectors, shepherds, fishermen, demoniacs, lepers, prostitutes, and women from all walks of life followed him.

And when they gathered to listen to Jesus they ate!

Jesus had been in the synagogue where he had been teaching on the Sabbath, when he was confronted by a man who was possessed by a demon. I am not at all sure what that was like, but Jesus handled it in stride and told the demon to leave!

And then, when Jesus finished teaching in the Synagogue and he went to Peter’s house, and Peter’s mother-in-law was sick.

She had a fever and one surmises from the text was incapacitated.

So Jesus did what Jesus always seemed to do when confronted by illness, he healed her!

But it is what happens next that is so cool! 

She gets up and starts cooking a meal! Why?

Because when family gathers, we eat!

Amen.