WADING RIVER CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

SERMONS IN PRINT

Peter Vibert September 25, 2005

Mark 3:1-35 “Is He Crazy?”

To meet Jesus when he walked the earth in Galilee was to be confronted with a choice; what to make of him? Jesus was confrontational: he did not leave room for indifference, and he often provoked people openly about their allegiances and attitudes. It was not long before clear divisions appeared between the crowds, who saw him as a wonder-working healer – almost a magician; his critics, who saw his as a menace or worse; and his disciples, who were increasingly devoted to him – even if they did not altogether understand him. But he was a charismatic figure and the attractions of being with him were clear to those who had eyes to see. In many senses, not much has changed. Jesus remains a figure who confronts us with choices, and there are many “interpretations” of him to choose from.

1) Jesus Has Authority

Jesus’ authority grows as he travels around Galilee and back to his base in Capernaum. The crowds are overwhelming, and Jesus and his friends struggle to get away for rest or prayer or even for a meal. But in the house, by the lake, or up in the hills, the crowds find him. They have seen healing, and there are many more diseased, crippled,

possessed and needy people among the peasant classes of Galilee. As his fame spreads, people from Judea, from the deep south in Idumea, from east across the Jordan in Peraea, from the Phoenician coastal towns to the west, all come looking for Jesus.

His power is not in doubt; the reality of the healings is never questioned. Jesus shows he has authority over sickness and over evil spirits. When he is criticized, he speaks with authority about his actions: who can accuse him of wrong-doing when he heals on the Sabbath? Work may be forbidden, but the Torah says you can save life on the Sabbath. Can Jesus not also give new health? Jesus is angered and saddened at his critics’ hard hearts; they were more concerned with keeping their rules than with showing compassion to someone in need.

But it was not just the nit-pickers. Jesus’ own family are now among his critics. They come over from Nazareth to “take charge of him” because they think he is “out of his mind.” His own mother, his brothers, his sisters, cannot relate to what they see him doing now. What has become of him? Is he crazy? They want to take him home – indeed they are ready to do it by force - but before they can act, the worst of Jesus’ critics show up. These are the Scribes, the official teachers and interpreters of the Torah, who have come from Jerusalem to Galilee to check up on the reports of a healer who attracts huge crowds.

They cannot deny the reality of his powers, but they have their own interpretation of where the power comes from. He is demonic, they say; he is in league with Satan! Jesus is of course equal to their challenge. How can Satan battle Satan, he asks? It makes no sense. If Satan is in a battle, it is with the power of God which is in Jesus through the Holy Spirit. He turns on the scribes with the most serious charge he will make to anyone: they are guilty of the unforgivable sin – of seeing the work of God and calling it the work of the devil; of calling good, evil; of calling white, black. For people who view things this way, there is no way into fellowship with God, no possibility of forgiveness.

The conflict is now set. The scribes, the Pharisees, the Herodians are all against Jesus. The crowds may grow for a while yet, but so will the opposition, and they are already plotting how to get rid of him. But Jesus not only challenges the authorities, he challenges the ordinary people. Soon he will confront the crowds over their pursuit of him in search of healing and food. But now he confronts the sacred subject of family. “Who are my mother and brother and sisters? Anyone who obeys the will of God.” In a patriarchal society where tribe and family and honor and history are all mixed together, Jesus rejects family in favor of the people of faith who are gathering around him. He has now “gone too far.” No wonder his family thinks he is “out of his mind.”

2) The Disciples

What about Jesus’ disciples? They are few in number at this point. But they are clearly different from the crowds, even if in themselves they are nobodies in particular.

Firstly, they are chosen by Jesus. They do not come to him asking to be his disciples; he calls them to follow him and they obey. They are chosen and called so that they can be with him: not simply as pupils, as some teachers called followers, but as companions, friends, learners, and fellow-workers. Jesus has assignments for them: from him they will learn to speak the word, and to heal and cast out evil spirits. They will be sent out on mission to the villages of Galilee. They will extend his ministry, and although he has yet to tell them this, they will continue it after he has gone – because he will not be with them for very long.

They will learn from him the ways of the new Kingdom, and although they are slow learners, in time they will receive new revelations about him that they cannot guess at this moment. But they will learn to seek and to obey the will of God, and that will make them more than family to Jesus. In time others will join the Twelve, including his mother among the several other women who will accompany the group when they move from Galilee to Judea.

3) We the Disciples

So what about us as disciples of Jesus? Are we part of the crowd that watches with interest? Do we think that Jesus has something we want, and that there is an advantage to us in following him? There have always been people who want to use Jesus for their own ends, and they are around today. In a culture like ours where being a Christian is still in many ways counted as a social plus, there are always those who will try to recruit Jesus for their cause, who use his name to advance their own interests.

The critics are also still around. There are plenty of ways of “explaining” Jesus, of putting him into a box we can handle. He is a fine moral teacher. He is a model of love and passive resistance. He is a revolutionary hero who stands against the principalities and powers. He was an apocalyptic 1^st C. Jewish preacher who started a new sect that people have now turned into a behemoth worldwide institution. He is the friend who can heal you and make you healthy and wealthy.

There are those who cannot find a good word to say about Jesus. What his followers call good, they call evil. “His followers,” they say, “are religious fanatics who are responsible for centuries of war and bloodshed. Today many of them are part of a world-wide surge in fundamentalism, which will wreck modern society with its absolutist claims and its readiness to use force to achieve them. What’s more, his teachings have only oppressed non-Christians, slaves, women.” There will never, we can be sure, be a shortage of people who will call God the Devil; describe good as evil; swear that white is black and black is white. Such people, according to Jesus, put themselves in danger of being irretrievably lost in sin.

Then there are the rule-keepers caught up in, for example, Sabbath observance. Small stuff, you my say, but Christian churches and communities have wrestled for centuries with how to observe Sunday, the “Christian Sabbath.” What is allowed, what is not? What is good to do and what is not? The Sabbath, Jesus said, was God’s gift to humanity for rest, for restoration, for relief of suffering. Implicit was always that worshipping God would be part of that day. If “Sabbath” is even the right category to think of Sunday – which itself needs some thought – is it right to work on things that help others? Is exercise a proper means of restoration? Is sports? Are all these things good gifts of God to enjoy, as long as they don’t take the place of worship?

And what about family? That is something as “sacred” today as it was in the 1^st C. – especially in an area like LI where everyone seems to have family an hour’s drive away. Can family be a hindrance to following Jesus? Yes, at times. If yours ridicules you for your faith or your church-going, at times you may need to let them know that faith is more important than family: that “blood is not thicker than water,” despite what the old proverb claims.

What do you do when your family thinks you’re “out of your mind” in your career choices or your relationships? Is their opinion as important as the call of Jesus? And by the way – please let us be careful about the language we use about “being crazy” or being “out of your mind.” Mental illness or handicap is no joke. If your kids call others “retards,” tell them not to. If “crazy” is still part of your vocabulary, get rid of it. There are people who live with deep depression or anxiety, or who have panic attacks or phobias, who fear that they may become too mentally ill to function in a job or a family, and that they will spend their lives in institutions or on major medications. If you have had anything to do with mental illness - especially depression - in your family, you know the fear, the stigma, the guilt that weighs on people who think they ought to be able to act more like “normal people.” Those of us who have lived with depression can tell you that it is more real and has more power than you can imagine, and it has been well said that healing the body is easy compared to the mind. So be very careful about making joking references to “being crazy” or “out of his mind.”

Are you and I disciples of Jesus? Or are we in the crowd, or with the critics, or just confused? Do we see ourselves as people graciously chosen and called to spend time with Jesus and to learn from him, and then to be sent out in his service? The word “apostle” referred to someone who was sent out as a representative of his master. Jesus’ disciples are called and - after being with him for while – are “sent” to do specific things. Don’t be surprised, then, if after you have been in this church 6 months or more, someone asks you to work as a volunteer in some area. Jesus sends us all to do his ministry in the world.

But maybe you are still unclear about Jesus. Don’t let “somebody else’s view” of Jesus blind you to the truth about him. Let me leave you with a famous paragraph from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Some call Jesus merely a great teacher, but that, says Lewis, won’t work: “A man who was merely a man and said the things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But no patronising nonsense about his being a great moral teacher – he has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Let us pray...