In last week's sermon I pointed out
that Mark's ultimate focus is the cross. Mark is a Passion Narrative
with an extended prologue, therefore Mark sees the life of Christ as
sacrificial, as a life to be given over for the sins of humanity.
Reading Mark in this way is sort of like watching Rogue One –
it's a good story, but in the end you know that the good guy dies.
So as we journey through Mark in this Season after Pentecost, we need
to remember that the ultimate focus of the journey is the cross.
We got the first real indication of
this last week during the Sabbath controversies. Remember that on
the Sabbath his disciples picked and ate grain, and Jesus healed a
man with a withered hand. Jesus had the audacity to challenge how
the religious leaders viewed the Sabbath. He had the audacity to
point out that they worshiped the thing over who created the thing.
He had the audacity to make the religious leaders come face-to-face
with their idolization of the Sabbath. And for that they began
plotting on how they might destroy him.
We saw last week that Jesus has a
different agenda than that of the religious leaders and most of the
people. That difference is a focus on doing God's will, not the will
of the human system in which he finds himself. That difference is
perceived as a threat, and that threat must be silenced.
That difference shows up again today.
First, how did we get from there to
here? Between last week's gospel and today's, Jesus goes to the Sea
of Galilee with a crowd following. There are so many people that he
has to get into a boat to avoid being crushed by the crowd.
Eventually he goes up a mountain, appoints the twelve disciples, and
then he goes home. And that brings us to today.
After what we can guess is a teaching
stint from the boat, and after he appoints the twelve disciples, and
after he has been home for a short time, the crowd again comes
together in a crush of humanity, so much so that apparently nobody
has any room to eat. I'm envisioning Jesus in his front yard
surrounded by people not only blocking his entry into the house, but
blocking anyone but those who are closest to reach him. I think our
bulletin cover for today portrays this image nicely.
Mark doesn't tell us what he was doing,
but I'm going to guess that he's healing people physically,
spiritually, and mentally. Maybe he's even feeding some who are
hungry. Mark tells us the crowd was so large and crushed-in that
they couldn't eat. Maybe Jesus managed to get them into some orderly
configuration and he's managed to feed them. Just imagine this for a
moment: Jesus is healing crowds of people on his front lawn while
also providing those in need of food with stuff from his own
refrigerator.
Apparently some people have said that
he has gone out of his mind; so when his family hears this, they go
out to try to restrain him. The word choices here are interesting.
A variety of translations use either restrain, get him, lay hold of
him, take him home, take charge of him, or seize him. These are also
the same words used of the demoniac restrained by chains, of the
servants and son in being seized by the tenants in the parable of the
absentee landlord, and of Jesus at his arrest.
And in talking about being out of his
mind, other translations also use mad and beside himself. Also words
used to describe demoniacs and people with evil spirits.
Mark is making a very clear statement
that any actions deemed not normal, or controversial, or plain
different, are not to be tolerated. People exhibiting those
behaviors are to be seized, bound, and controlled. But Mark is also
making clear that actions based in God's economy, not ours, will
cause people to look at you funny, even to the point of trying to
restrain you and accuse you of being mad, insane, or out of your
mind.
Again, we do not know what Jesus was
actually doing because Mark doesn't tell us. But we can make a good,
theologically educated guess. We know that Jesus doesn't harm, he
heals. We know he doesn't starve, he feeds. We know that Jesus
doesn't withhold, he builds up. We know that Jesus operates from
abundance, not scarcity. With this in mind, I don't think it's a
stretch to imagine Jesus teaching, healing, and feeding a crushing
crowd gathered in his front yard.
What might happen if we operated the
same way? What might happen if we operated by God's rules of
healing, feeding, building up, and general abundance instead of by
society's rules of management, discouragement, and scarcity? We know
what happens when we offer free food once a month; what if we were to
do that weekly, or daily? What would happen if we opened up a free
medical/dental clinic? What would happen if we provided portable
showers, laundry services, and pedicures to the homeless of
Hagerstown? What would happen if we followed one church's example
and built several small shelters for homeless women to be placed in
our parking lot?
Would we have a crush of people as
described in Mark? Would we be seen as mad by those around us?
Would people attempt to restrain us for exhibiting compassion and
serving those in the greatest need? Would people call the
authorities and have us seized?
It's hard to say. But I would be
willing to bet that doing God's will to heal, feed, clothe, and
shelter would be met with some resistance. It is that resistance by
those in power and those who are “normal” that will get Jesus
crucified. It is following God's will and not society's desires that
will get us in trouble. If we're not careful, we just might find
ourselves on the verge of being seized and restrained.
But that's the point of today's story.
How is it that people in both Jesus' day and ours view helping those
in need as a problem to be stopped? Why do we see assisting people,
healing people, feeding people, as a crime? And why is it that those
who try to help are met with resistance?
And there are those who do see these
things as crimes. Churches have been told to stop feeding the
homeless because they don't meet municipal health codes for kitchens,
food, or occupancy restrictions. I had dinner with a friend from
seminary last week and she told me about a proposed joint education
project between two churches that would serve underprivileged
children. A group of (white) neighbors banded together, hired a
lawyer, and got the project stopped on the basis of zoning laws;
never mind that there were other similar programs in the city. And
why did they stop it? Because they didn't want “those people” in
the neighborhood.
I obviously don't have the answers to
all those questions I just spouted off, but I can keep asking the
questions. When will the kingdom of God appear on earth as it is in
heaven? Maybe not until we are willing to be as out of our minds as
Jesus was. Until then, the cross continues to loom in our future.
Amen.
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