By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Third Sunday of Advent C, December 13th, 2015
“When his family heard
what was happening, they came to take control of him. They were saying. “He’s out of his mind!” (Mark 3.21).
“Life isn't meant to be easy, its meant to be lived; sometimes happy, other
times rough. But with every up and down you learn lessons that make you strong.” ---Author Unknown
No one should ever say that the Christian life is easy nor that it ever gets
any easier to try to live it. Being a "Christian" wasn’t easy for Jesus
either. He was not immediately called Lord and Savior, but he was
declared by the authorities to be ‘possessed by Beelzebul, ruler of the demons” (Mk.
3:22). And not only were the legal and
religious experts calling him names, some of the negativity about him was also coming
from his own family, who said “He’s out
of his mind” (3:21).
I don’t often talk about this. I
don’t really like too, but it must be mentioned. When Teresa and I
announced that we were going to be commissioned as missionaries in Germany,
there was quite a lot of resistance.
Surprisingly, most of it was coming from our own families.
The members of our families had several different ways of dealing with
it. Some were silent. Others were obviously unexcited. My mother said, “Joey, you don’t want to do this to me!” My father was overheard telling someone, “I don’t know why Joey wants to go there!” Teresa’s family were not very happy about it
either. When, at the commissioning service at Richmond, Dr. Keith Parks spoke to her parents, speaking about how proud they must be, they stood their frozen in silence. Coming family of seven siblings, there were even
more of them to make unhappy, and at one time, they even thought we were ‘breaking up the family!’
From all those experiences and surprises, I learned one thing. It’s one thing to go to church all your life and
to call yourself a Christian, but it’s quite another to start being a Christian by being who we say we are.
In the opening pages of the gospel of Mark, Jesus begins to practice the
things he believes in. It will
eventually get him killed. Within the
first three chapters of Mark’s gospel, we encounter 5 different stories of
conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities of his day. Jesus touches and heals a leper, he should
not have touched (1:40). Jesus offers
forgiveness to someone, as only a priest should do (2:1-12). Jesus eats with sinners, even calling one
to be his disciple (2: 13-17). Jesus
refuses to require that his disciples publically ‘fast’ like others do (2:
18-28). Worst of all, Jesus heals
someone on the Sabbath day, considering the needs of people more important than
the demands of religion (3: 1-6). These 'conflict stories' are proof that was not easy to be Jesus and
won’t be easy for us to follow Jesus either.
Nothing that is worth anything will be easy, but it can be worth
it.
ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE
Today’s bible lesson helps us realize why we should follow Jesus, even when, as the gospel songs says, “It’s not an easy road!” Recently in the news, a judge told that two thirteen year-old- children, who tried to murder their friend, that they would be prosecuted as adults. They said that they were going to kill their friend, because the ‘slender man’ would hurt them if they didn’t. (http://news.yahoo.com/two-wisconsin-girls-tried-adults-slenderman-case-report-193515028.html).
Though their was
something outlandish about their crime, there is also something very common
about it. Too often, people
will try to take, what they see as the ‘easier’ way through a situation,
but as a result, they find themselves having to face life in an even more
difficult way. Only had these girls resolved to deal with
their problems with this girl in a much healthier way? Where were their parents? Were the parents also taking the easy way by
not being involved enough in their lives?
What may have seemed hard in that moment, could have turned out much
better in the long run, if they all had only accepted the challenges in better
ways.
Jesus, certainly could
have taken an easy way too. Mark’s gospel doesn’t tell us much about Jesus' ‘testing’ in the wilderness, but the same victory over ‘temptation’ comes out in Mark's opening stories about Jesus' conflict with authorities. But Jesus doesn’t give in, nor does he give
up, when people were turning against him.
He accepted the challenge of what it meant to live and bring the message
of God’s goodness and grace into the world.
Even if it meant that he would have to
‘suffer’ and ‘to die’ doing it, which of course, he did.
Who would ever want to
accept a challenge that can mean death?
Well, doesn’t living also mean that one day you will have to die? And will you fall for everything and live for
nothing, or will you live for something and die for something? Isn’t this the right mantra of the Christian
life? In Jesus Christ, we are called
not just to be forgiven, but we are also called to live, not to live above sin,
but to live and to die for something; toi always be working against our
shortcomings, with our struggles, even when we know our own failures and
sin. This is what it means to be human,
does it not? We are to answer the call
to both understand our limits, but also to reach to discover our God-given
potential, which is rooted, less in us, than it is rooted in the goodness and
grace of God.
These opening pages of Mark’s gospel, from one angle, can look insane. These first few stories come at us, one by
one, with extreme rapidity. Jesus
touches the untouchable. Jesus forgives
sin without a priest. Jesus eats with
sinners. Jesus doesn’t require his
disciples to fast. Jesus breaks
religious laws, even the most important of all to a Jew---observing
Sabbath.
We can understand can’t we, where Jesus’ family is coming from when they
come to their sibling and son to ‘take
control of him’, saying “He’s out of
his mind!” Genius, whether it has
been in spiritual contemplation, or even in scientific discovery, has often
been misjudged, at least at first, as being extreme, ridiculous and very
unreasonable. Nothing that Jesus seemed
to be doing appeared to be very traditional, conservative nor
conventional. Where do you think this
kind of ‘politic’ will take him? Is
Jesus really being smart?
But Jesus isn’t trying to be smart, but he’s trying to do the right
thing. Jesus is trying bring the
medical, religious, legal and political world back into line with common sense
and compassion. We can see this
now. He was reaching out to an outcast
leper, even if he is a leper. He was
offering forgiveness as a priority because it is our greatest healing human power. Jesus eats with sinners, because in reality,
in this world there is anyone better to eat with, especially when you want to
help people. Jesus does not require his
disciples to fast, because they’ve got better things to do and much more to
rejoice about in this moment. Finally,
Jesus does not require legalistic observances of the Sabbath, not because he’s
against it, but because he knows what the Sabbath is about---to meet human need,
not the needs of God. God is God, and is
in need of nothing, compared to what we need from God or from each other. While all that Jesus was doing seemed crazy
and even demonic to those around him, it was really, Jesus was the only ‘sane’
person in his very ‘insane’ world, but they couldn’t see it. We seldom ever do.
I’ll never forget receiving the call from a lady in the church who wanted
to talk to me about a problem she was having with her daughter. As I was driving to her house, I knew that
her daughter was attending one of secular, worldly schools, (at Chapel Hill, by
the way, but it could just as well been Wake Forest or Duke) and I wondered
what she had happened. After I arrived
and we got into the discussion, the mother told me that her daughter revealed
her plans of finishing her studies upon graduation, and instead advancing
herself with more degrees, perhaps in medicine, she was going to marry a man,
become episcopal, and then go to work helping unprivileged children in
California. The mother looked at me, and
frantically asked, “Pastor, how could
she do such a thing? How could she give
up her studies so soon and start working in such a low paying job? What’s gotten into her?
I thought for a moment, remembering a story Will Willimon once shared about
a similar situation. There was only one
answer: “Sunday School!” “What do you mean, pastor, she asked. “I mean that there is always the possibility
of trouble when someone gets serious about those things their parents and
Sunday school teachers are teaching them about love, compassion, about denying
yourself and taking up the cross and about being your brothers (or sister’s
keeper). We should have known, that
when people really get serious about this stuff, it could really spell
‘trouble’.
OVERCOME THE EVIL
Jesus was serious about the ‘things of God’ and he was willing to ‘go to
bat’ for the causes of the compassionate, coming kingdom of God. He was willing to say what needed to be
said, and he was willing to do what needed to be done. He was even willing, as the book of Hebrews
dares to say, to be willing to ‘learn
obedience through the things he would
suffer’ (Heb. 5:8). You don’t accept a challenge like this
unless something beyond the norm of this world has gotten into you. And this something does not have to be bad,
it can be very, very good.
We can see this ‘good’ that was in Jesus even reflected in those who began
to oppose him and wanted him dead.
While Jesus’ own family were confused about him, they really were trying
to protect Jesus and bring him home for his own good. But the legal experts and religious leaders
of Jesus’ day were not out to send Jesus home, they were so quickly offended by
Jesus’ who challenged their own authority, that even after they realized a
man’s crippled, withered hand, had been healed on the Sabbath, they got
together with people they didn’t normally like to ‘plan how to destroy’ (CEB) or ‘to
kill’ (NIV) Jesus (Mark 3:6).
There are all kinds of other ‘threats’ that come out against Jesus’
ministry, right from the very beginning.
Even the demons that were being exorcised out of people, would come out
declaring him to be “God’s son! (Mark 3:11) which could get him convicted of
blasphemy by Jerusalem or of treason by Rome.
Now, in the text before us, the
‘legal experts’ charge him with being in a league with “Satan” himself, only able to cast out devils because he has
the ‘power’ and ‘authority’ of the supreme demon within himself (3:22). Here, Jesus must defend himself, asking,
“How can Satan throw out Satan?” If a
kingdom is involved in a civil war, it will eventually collapse. It can’t endure. Then, Jesus reveals the heart of the matter. If they go against the ‘good’ that He is
doing, all in the name of God’s goodness and grace, then they are ‘insulting
the Holy Spirit’. This is the one sin
that can never be forgiven. If you call
good evil, and evil good, how can God save you when there is nothing left to
save? This is his point (Mk. 23-30).
When we read such an intense, dark, and difficult passage as this, it can
be very disheartening. Who can live the
Christian life when there is so much negative that will attempt to stand against
us? Who wants to follow Jesus, when it
will only get negative, hurtful things hurled at you? Who would, in their right mind, want to go
this difficult, hard and narrow way, when there is already so much stacked
against you? It doesn’t make sense does
it? It didn’t make sense being Jesus,
and it still doesn’t make much sense to get serious about following Jesus when
it can get you in so much trouble.
Our text from Mark does not yet fully answer, why Jesus had to be Jesus,
nor does it answer why we should follow Jesus, even when it can be hard. But we can see something already. There were people who did follow Jesus, even
when it was hard. There were already
disciples who wanted to learn from him (Mk 1: 16-20), leaving their fishing
nets to go with him to ‘catch people’.
There were also apostles who wanted him to ‘send’ them out into the harsh
world to ‘preach’ this good news (3: 13-19).
Even as some turned against him, and more would too, there were those
few who understood that Jesus had an ‘authority’,
or a ‘power’ and a ‘message’ over
the ‘evil’ they already knew too well in that world, which they had never observed in anyone else
(Mk 1: 27-28).
Later on, in interpreting the Christian life and what it means to follow
Jesus to the Romans, Paul writes that to
the same Romans the gospel of Mark was probably written to, explaining to these
Roman Christians, that if they really want to follow Jesus, and to find the
grace and goodness God has for them, then they must learn not to ‘pay back evil actions with more evil
actions’ (12: 17), but they must learn to ‘defeat evil with good’ and not ‘be defeated with evil’ (Rom 12:21). It’s certainly not an easy thing ‘live at
peace’ and not to ‘try to get revenge for ourselves’. But if we really believe in God, then we must
live like we do, and let ‘revenge belong to God’. Our task as Christians is not to solve all
the world’s problems, but to be a solution to the problems right in front of
us. “If your enemy is hungry, feed
him. If he is thirsty, give him a
drink. By doing this, you will put purifying
fires on and in his head. In this way,
good can overcome the evil, but you must join in this fight in this way.
REDEFINE YOUR FAMILY
So far, so good, right. The
Christian life is hard, but life is never that easy. Even if you try to make life easy, you’ll
just make it harder, so accept the challenge.
And the challenge you should accept is to overcome the evil by doing
good, even when others call you names for doing it. People don’t like someone who reminds them of
what they should be doing, but aren’t.
Get used to it. If you will keep
doing the good, sowing good seeds, a good harvest will grow and you will find
the good reward, even if you don’t please everybody. This is part of what it means to be
Christian as we accept the challenge to overcome the evil that still arises in
our own world.
But perhaps the hardest part of receiving the goodness and grace of God,
which may go against the grain of the world around us, is not what happens that
is hard for us, nor is it when people start to call us names. But perhaps the hardest thing that ever
happens in life is when our own family, friends, or church don’t fully understand
what we are doing, what we are saying especially when we are convinced that
what we are doing is right and is good. That
is when the pain of the cross, really comes home. It’s not when our enemies rise up against us,
but it’s when our friends and family desert us, rejects us, or can’t simply go
with us. This is what can and does often
bring the deepest human pain---the fear of rejection, being alone, or being
misunderstood.
If you follow your faith, and if you try to be true to your heart, you
always run this risk. Jesus himself
said that ‘foxes have holes, and the bird’s have nests, but the Son of man has
no place to rest his head’. That’s the
difficulty of rejection. We read it all
over the New Testament when Jesus is rejected as he announces his call to
preach, or when Jesus is run out of his own hometown, or finally, when Jesus’
own disciples desert him or when his people, some who may have never really
heard of him, are shouting out, crucify
him, crucify him! This was taking place
in the same Jerusalem who early in that same week received him like royalty,
but that was short-lived.
What will you do when you follow your faith or stay true to your
heart? Some, of course, are afraid too,
because they know what it might mean, and they love their family and friends so
very much. But I don’t think following
Jesus means that we have to abandon or reject our family, even if they don’t
always understand us. I do, however,
think that sometimes our family, will be like Jesus’ own family and at they
will not always understand us. But even
this should only be seen as only a ‘test’ of their love for us. Jesus’ family didn’t understand him, but they
didn’t reject him forever. Mary was with
him at the cross. One of Jesus’ brothers
became a leader in the early church.
In this text, as Jesus is misunderstood and rejected by his own family,
this is not the end of his relationship with them, but it is the beginning of redefinition. If Jesus is going to be who he knew he is,
then his relationship with his own family does not have to end, but it does
have to change. And so it will be when
we get serious about following Jesus too.
Our family may not always understand, nor go where we go, or know what
we know, but if they are truly family, who have the capacity to love, one day
they will understand and love us. Until
that day comes, we must let them know where our heart is, just like Jesus does,
when he says, “Look here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God’s will is my brother,
sister, and mother.” (3:35).
Several years ago, a young man came to be and wanted to be baptized. But he had grown up in a communist country,
and his parents where against him coming to church and being in my Bible study
group. He asked me to baptize him. I told him that I believed his faith was
real, and I was ready and willing to baptize him, but I also told him that
since he was still a minor and living at home, that he should not go against
the will of his parents. Someday that
time would come, but he had to decide when that time was. I would not force it upon him, nor did I
think God would either. As he became an
adult, and was able to leave home, then, he could redefine who he was, on his
own terms, and on the terms that he understood to be the will of God.
What decision did he make? He
decided to wait. I took a lot of heat
for this advice from some missionary colleagues
who thought I should have at least baptized him in secret. But Jesus did not call us to be ‘secret’
disciples, but he did call us to have our own minds, to be our own persons, as
we understand and interpret the will of God in our own lives. I don’t think a parent nor a missionary
should violate or even force the heart of a person who is sincerely seeking God’s
will. I think freedom of conscious and
religion is the most wonderful thing, and does much more good than harm. But I also think Jesus shows us just how ‘serious’
this is, and calls us to ‘count the cost’ before we follow and walk the
narrowest way. The costs can be high,
but they will always pay high the highest dividends. Someday we will have to walk. Just like everyone must grow up and decide
their own lives, we should only accept
the challenge to overcome the evil around us, when we are ready to receive all
the goodness and grace of God which still means paying the costs that will be
incurred.
I think I just told you this story a few weeks back, but it’s worth telling you again, just in case you missed it. Will Willimon, former dean of divinity and pastor at Duke Divinity School, tells of a speaker he once invited to speak to some of his students at Duke. The speaker began his message by telling the students they would not like what he was going to say and they would not want to do what he was going to ask them to do. He was going to ask them to give up all their luxuries and go to some far off place, to some nobody, forgotten people, who were poor, obnoxious and maybe underserving, and to give up their comforts to serve their needs, and maybe not ever be thanked for it. He said he knew they wouldn’t do that, so he closed the message he was going to share and said, he would leave the application forms up front just in case, somebody wanted to see what he knew they wouldn’t be interested in doing.
As the speaker closed the session, and in great surprise to him, just about all those rich, spoiled, kids came down and wanted to go and do what they shouldn’t have wanted to go and do. And do you know why they said they wanted to sign up for it? They said that they were tired of having everything and really having nothing. They wanted their lives to count for something! And they were ready to go nowhere and even to suffer if they could have what they never had but wanted more than anything else.
Do you know what they wanted? They wanted challenge, they wanted a greater good than 'goods' in life, and they wanted a family they could really call ‘family. Who would have thought it would have ended like that? We wouldn't, but maybe Jesus would. Amen
No comments :
Post a Comment