Mark 3:13-35
Rev. David A. Davis
June 14, 2015
Two weeks ago our traveling group from Nassau Church gathered for Sunday morning worship at an outdoor chapel on the Mt. of Beatitudes. It was Confirmation Sunday here in the sanctuary. Over there, 7 hours ahead, and just after 8 in the morning, 28 of us were looking out from that elevated point over what is a beautiful scene: the Sea of Galilee spread below with the Golan Heights on the other side, the city of Tiberius to the right, and just below us, where the hill rolls into the water, there along the lakeshore, the ruins of Capernaum. A few days before we were in Capernaum at the water’s edge listening to Shane Berg teach from Mark’s gospel. As Shane spoke with his back to the Sea, you couldn’t help but look around; not just out to the water but up and down the shoreline. Turn and look behind at the ruins. Regardless of whether or not tradition has it right about this spot or that spot, or whether archeologists hypothesize correctly about dates and stones, you look around you can’t help but think about Jesus and the disciples and the crowds and the kingdom.
Some have heard me say before that a visit to the Holy Land will forever change how you read the bible. You can’t read without seeing landscape and topography and places in your imagination. It gives the biblical text a color and a texture and a feel. This trip I found myself attending to verses in the gospel that otherwise seem inconsequential. Transitional phrases about location and movement that the reader tends to just skip over in order to get to the next meaty section of healing or teaching or dialogue. Just here in Mark, these first few chapters: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan…The Spirit drove him immediately out into the wilderness…Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Good News of God….As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea…..They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught….As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew….In the morning, while it was still dark, he got up and went to a deserted place….And he went throughout Galilee proclaiming the message…When he returned to Capernaum after some days , it was reported that he was at home…Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him…” and then this easy to miss one from the New Testament Lesson for this morning “…then he went home.”
I’ve never paid any attention to the phrase that dangles there in Mark just after Jesus completes his disciple roster and before he teaches about Satan and a house divided against itself and the “unforgiveable” sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Then he went home. Such a crowd came that they couldn’t even eat there in the house. He went home. He went into the house. Just a chapter before, when Jesus returned to Capernaum, Mark writes that “It was reported that he was at home.” It’s the Greek word for house, home. One can try to dig a bit more; was he home or just in the house? Was it his house or Simon and Andrew’s house? Is the use of the word here by Mark some sort of literary device intended to set up the teaching which is to come which is about “a house divided against itself? Then he went home. Was he in the house, or was he home? It is so Mark, so uniquely Mark; Jesus at home. It seems pretty clear that when it comes to Mark’s gospel, and Capernaum, and Jesus proclaiming the Good News of God, this was his dwelling place, his abiding place. Then he went home. It’s not just any house, not a random gathering place. No. The domestic connotation must be intended. Good News proclaimed. Unclean spirits sent packing. The sick healed. A leper made clean. Sins forgiven. A crippled man walking. Sinners and tax collectors at the table. Teaching and teaching and more teaching about the kingdom of God. Jesus is in the house. Jesus is home.
So when his family heard it, heard about it, when his family heard? It wasn’t just a house so crowded that they couldn’t break bread that bothered them, his family. It was all of it: what he was saying, what he was doing, who he was with, where he felt so at home. The close reader will see that the New Revised Standard Version tries to defend Jesus’ relatives a bit here; distinguishing the attempt to stop him from the word spreading that he was out of his mind. Distinguishing his family as those who were stopping him and then people were saying, “They went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘he has gone out of his mind’”. But it’s all just pronouns in the Greek. When his family heard it, they went out to apprehend him, to stop him, to restrain him, and they were saying he has gone out of his mind, he is not himself. He is beside himself. He is outside of himself. He is other than himself. When it came to Jesus and all that was going on in and around Capernaum, his family was very clear: THIS is not our home!
His mother Mary and his brothers arrived outside the house and they stood there calling for Jesus, sending for him. The crowd said to Jesus, “your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside asking for you”. Well, that’s a polite way to put it. And Jesus replied to those who relayed the message from his family, “who are my mother and my brothers?” Then Jesus looked around at the crowd that sat around him, the crowd that had been following him, the crowd that was in the house, a crowd that by then that would have included sinners and tax collectors, and those crying out to be healed, and those who brought someone to be healed, and the disciples, and all who found themselves so taken with his teaching, so claimed by his authority, those who found themselves captive to his spirit. It was that same crowd. Jesus looked at those who were around him and he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!” In a move, in a quote, in an affirmation, that should have forever given pause to politicians and pundits and preachers who claim some higher ground on family values and the bible, Jesus says for every generation to hear, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” To put it another way, Jesus looked at all those faces in the crowd gathered around him and he said, “This is my home”.
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. Whoever does…and somewhere in the kingdom of heaven James is shouting “amen”. You remember James, the epistle of James; “faith without works is dead.” James who always makes the Reformed, grace alone, hairs on our neck stand up. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers….Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith”. Jesus said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” And of course, we hold Paul and James in tension. “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans) “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians) And of course Jesus in John’s Gospel; “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have everlasting life.” But here in Mark, when it comes to kinship, and family, and home; it’s not belief or faith that Jesus cites. It’s doing the will of God, living the will of God, serving the will of God. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. Our salvation in Christ comes by grace alone, the gift of faith and his righteousness. But our kinship, our family tie, it comes through servanthood. A life of serving in God’s kingdom. The life to which, like Paige Gwendolyn, to which we were ordained at our baptism.
As you can imagine, a visit to Galilee and Nazareth and Jerusalem includes visiting church after church after church. Christians have been coming from around the world for centuries to visit the Church of the Annunciation, the Church of the Nativity, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and all the others. And it doesn’t take long for folks to realize that the churches hire men to help with the crowd, to work the door, to make sure there is appropriate dress, and the holiness of the site is observed. Let’s just say their primary role is not that of hospitality. Not a lot of smiling going on. Some even use long sticks to get the attention of a wayward pilgrim who is talking too much. When the psalmist wrote about being a “doorkeeper in the house of God”, I don’t think these bouncers were what the psalmist had in mind. At one particular church that wasn’t crowded, our group was heading down a flight of stairs to see the tomb of St. Jerome. The church attendant just kept “shushing” us. He “shushed” us all the way down the flight of stairs. Taking his responsibility very seriously, he followed us all the way down and kept “shushing” us.
When it comes to Jesus and what Mark calls in his gospel the “Good News of God”, maybe it is obvious to all but it is worth being said, there’s a big difference between “shushing” and serving. There is no shortage of politicians and pundits and preachers and people who with the most sincere yearning to be faithful, think the Christian calling is to “shush” the world. But when you look around, just in the first few chapters of Mark, when you look around, you can’t help thinking about Jesus and the disciples and that crowd and the kingdom; when you find yourself so taken with his teaching, so claimed by his authority, and drawn to his spirit, when you are so moved, inspired, transformed by what and who and where he considered home? You realize once again that Jesus of Nazareth, the man of Galilee, he calls you and I to serve the world not to “shush” it.
You might have seen that there was a protest on campus. and in town, this week. We have a good relationship with the police and so the police called my office to tell me that the next day there was going to be a protest. And that the folks would be protesting on the campus and entering the campus next to our parking lot using the sidewalk next to Holder Hall. And that they just wanted us to know. So one day this week I’m in my office and I’m suddenly aware of all this ruckus that is going on outside of the office. And I look out my office and realize that the plaza outside of the church was the staging ground for the protest. I looked out and there were 30, 40, 50 people, and they were making signs, getting ready for their protest. And then I read some of their signs. And then in my office, looking out the window, my fear was that everyone walking by would think they were protesting the church! So my first reaction was to walk out and “shush” them.
When the police called, they didn’t tell me the nature of the demonstration. It was a group of differently-abled folks who were gathering from all around Mercer County to protest Professor Peter Singer and some of the provocative and disturbing things he says routinely about the value of human life. And so I went out and talked to the folks who were gathered. And then you stop and realize that most of them were in wheelchairs, wheelchairs can’t stage on the sidewalk – they were all over the plaza. And because of the morning sun, now afternoon sun, the front steps of the church were providing shadow so there were 10-20 folks sitting on the steps of the church to get out of the sun. The plaza and the front steps of the church were just packed with folks. Making signs, cheering, getting ready for their march on the university campus. So they stayed.
A little while longer I went out to get lunch. And as I came back I was on the other side of Palmer Square looking back at the church. Still 40, 50, 60 folks full on the plaza, all kinds of wheelchairs and other things, folks filling out signs, there was a coffin there. I looked above and there was our banner, “Serving God’s Kingdom” – and I smiled to myself the rest of the way to my office. Never, ever, has the front of Nassau Church looked more like the Kingdom of God. And I smiled because I’m pretty sure that somewhere, on the front steps of the church, just this week I saw the face of Jesus.
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