Mark 3: The Life of Following Jesus

Last month there was a great celebration in Seattle, when 700,000 of the football team's closest friends filled the streets with shouts at a joyful parade.

How many were true football fans, and how many were there because of civic pride, and how many just because it was an unusual event, and how many because it would be a great time for pickpockets and petty theft?

We could apply the same sort of divisions to the crowd around Jesus.

How many truly wanted to listen to Jesus, how many were there because it was the only circus in town, how many were there to try to catch Jesus in some offense that could be prosecuted, and how many wanted to fleece the crowd?

Do you think that such a conflicted situation may be going on inside each of us as we gather today? Our conscious or unconscious motivations for being here may range widely!

The Good News is that Jesus does not chase the impure away, but is willing to work with them, and us!

He is in the transformation business.

The second group is those who have been healed.

They should be the greatest fans of Jesus, yet it is not the case that they understand fully what is happening with them.

“Lord I believe; help my unbelief” is what one man says later in the Gospel, and it is an apt description of the heart and mind of persons touched by Jesus, then and now.

The healings are to be signs of the in-breaking Kingdom of God.

This is what it will be like when the kingdom is fully revealed.

All those persons and situations which are in utter disarray now will be put right.

All the connections with God will be clear and strong.

And now, as we await that time, Jesus heals some to point the way for us all, to give us confidence that the whatever sort of healing that we need will be forthcoming, in God's good time.

This fits with the third part of the covenant with Abraham.

Remember that he was to get land and descendants, and then also he was to be a blessing to the nations, to let the world know about the Lord God Almighty by everything that he said and did.

That is the task of the healed yet today.

The third group is the disciples.

Most of the time, they do not come off well in the Gospel.

Here they are, the ones closest to Jesus, day after day, and yet they catch on so very slowly.

They will run away as the crucifixion nears, and in the meantime misunderstand much of the time.

There is an old line which nonetheless seems to be true: Jesus doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

It does seem to be true with the disciples, a rag-tag bunch of very ordinary folks.

Isn't that Good News for us!

Jesus can accomplish something with us, too.

We need to quit wasting time telling ourselves how limited we are, and look around us at the ways in which Jesus has given opportunities and tools for us to be transformed into effective servants in the kingdom of God.

The fourth group is Jesus' family.

How many times have we seen the story on television about a peaceful protest that all of a sudden became violent.

All it takes is to forget about the persons and slap a label on them.

One side is scum and the other are pigs, and these dehumanized labels then permit any sort of action on either side.

Brutality is easy to occur when people are labeled “scum” or “pigs.”

So we hear that Jesus' own family labels him crazy, a disgrace to the family, who needs to be put away and silenced.

Everything that he says or does is a challenge to “the way things have always been.”

The charge of blasphemy is close at hand, with the religious authorities anxious to act on it.

Some whisper that he is using the power of evil to do his work, which Jesus points out is a ridiculous charge.

And Jesus gives a radically new definition of family.

It is not blood-relation which is most important: Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

It is setting up the nature of the church of the future.

It will not be based on linear descent from certain northern European countries, but on the actual doing of the work of proclamation.

Even as we waste time sniping at each other, the most dynamic and effective Lutheran voice for Jesus' mission is a man from Ethiopia who has suffered much in oppression, and yet has the joy of the Gospel in his words and actions.

The church in Africa is growing by leaps and bounds, even as the ELCA and other side-line groups disintegrate.

It is not just about money, but about the Spirit busily forming the family of the church.

The fifth group consists of the scribes and Pharisees.

Yes, they are there too, tagging along and looking for an opportunity to do Jesus harm.

But an interesting thing happens from time to time.

Occasionally one of them will turn from his antagonism and become a disciple!

In John's gospel we hear about this in the case of Nicodemus who first comes to Jesus at night, and then at the end joins Joseph of Arimathea in the burial of Jesus.

We wish we had more biographical details about such things, but it clearly happened.

It should be enough for us to realize that we should not write-off anyone, even the most virulent critic of the faith.

We don't know what wonders the Spirit might have in mind for such a one.

C.S. Lewis and Gilbert Chesterton were both well-educated English agnostics or atheists when Jesus finally caught hold of them and transformed them into two of the most articulate defenders of the faith in the past century.

Surprise! What does the Spirit have in mind for you and me?

It cannot be predicted solely on what has happened in our past.

New things, great things, holy things are possible by the grace of God.

There are the five groups that we encounter around Jesus in Mark 3.

Jesus will find ways to challenge and transform each of them, and us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.