Linda M. Maloney
2 Kings 4:8-37
Psalm 142
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39
A bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp.
The prophet Elisha came her way, and came again, and again, until the Shunemite said: Let's build a room for the prophet, and put there a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. And so it was. And the prophet's presence blessed the house: with a son-with a son twice over, for Elisha prayed for the life to begin and gave it back again when it was lost. And all for a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. The furnishings of a guestroom in any house, and all that is needed for a permanent stay. A bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp.
A bed for security. If you can't feel safe in bed, then where? You can't sleep unless you feel secure. If you offer someone a bed, and he or she accepts, a relationship of trust exists between you. The two of you can sleep securely under one roof, trusting that neither is a threat to the other, and knowing that the host will not allow the guest to be threatened from outside.
A table and a chair for community. Even a chair by itself orients the one who sits in it to something or someone-nowadays too often just the TV set. But add a table and you can work-again not only for yourself-preparing food to share, writing a letter to a friend, cutting out a garment. Add another chair and the sharing really begins-playing a game, looking at pictures, breaking bread.
A lamp against darkness. Even the tiny flicker of an oil lamp gives a point of orientation, shows us a friendly face across the table, glows on the food and drink we share.
A bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. Have we received any less in the house of God? Do we feel safe here, welcome and secure? Is there a place for us in the circle, bread for us on the table, a light to open our eyes and our minds, to show us the faces of our beloved friends? If anyone has found any less here, then we, the inhabitants of the house, had better look to our housekeeping.
When Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew he found the woman of the house, the counterpart of the woman of Shunem, sick in her room. The gospel doesn't tell us whether this was Jesus' first visit to that house, and we usually take it for granted that it was. But I don't think so. Once he began his public mission, Jesus made his base in Capernaum, and where was he more likely to stay than in the house of his chief disciple, Simon Peter? Probably, then, this woman householder, like the woman of Shunem, had made a place for the prophet in her house, had provided him with a room: a room with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp.
And now, like the woman of Shunem, she was in need: in need of healing not for her son, but for herself. One thing we can notice about this story is that here the woman is valued not as the mother of someone, or even as the mother-in-law of someone, but for herself. It is she who needs healing, and receives it. It is she who then enters upon service, diakonia, ministry among the disciples of Jesus.
Jesus knows this house well. He goes to the room where this woman is lying sick; he lifts her up and restores her to health, restores her to the dignity that belongs to her as mistress of the house. She takes up her role again: she sets the table, lights, the lamps, and breaks the bread for her guests.
Churches are not the only places that can offer shelter, hospitality, friendship, and even the knowledge of God and of all that is most important-churches are not the only places that can give a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. But churches are, or should be, places where the prophets find a home. They are, or should be, places where Jesus Christ is at home, the honored and permanent guest present in every person at the table and every person who comes knocking at the door.
The Rule of Benedict says: "All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ." If Christ is our permanent guest, no one can ever be a stranger in our midst. Looking around us, we see Jesus Christ present in his living body, ready to heal us of all that hurts or harms us, so that we may gather at the table to break the bread of life with all comers. They come to us for safety, for light, for community, and for food-but above all and before all, for the healing touch of the one who gives life-more life, more abundant life than the prophet Elisha gave-and asks in return only to be always with us, in our hearts and hands, in our lives. Amen.