A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — August 2, 2009
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Mark 6:30-56, 7:1-13

[The disciples] were utterly astounded, for they

hearts were hardened.  — Mark 6:51a-52

Isaiah prophesied… “This people honorsme

precepts as doctrines." — Matthew 14:31

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.”  These are the first words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Mark.  According to Mark, this is the core of what Jesus preaches as he goes from village to village and back and forth across the Sea of Galilee.  But just what is this time that is fulfilled?  And what does this kingdom look like that is now so close at hand, yet still needs to be pointed out and explained by all that Jesus is doing and saying?  To a large extent, that is what Mark is all about—that and how people respond to this good news.

 

Wondrous, mighty works of healing power; puzzling, mind-bending parables; conflicts with the powers-that-be:  these are what Mark shows us.  We see disciples trying and often failing to understand what’s going on.  Bread for 5000, Jesus walking on water, who can grasp such things?  Yet the disciples continue to follow Jesus, trying to take it all in.  We see masses of people with tremendous needs, for whom understanding does not seem to be an issue at all.  They swarm after Jesus seeking healing, wanting just to touch the fringe of his cloak, looking for some kind of guidance for their lives.  Mark calls them “sheep without a shepherd.”  Maybe so, but they know God’s kingdom will bring healing and wholeness.  And then there are the powers-that-be, always challenging Jesus, arguing with him, and, ultimately, plotting his destruction.  They understand full well that this kingdom Jesus is proclaiming is a serious threat to their power and privilege.

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus takes his disciples back and forth across the Sea of Galilee?  They start on the western shore in home territory, and through chapter four of Mark they stay there.  Jesus goes from village to village preaching and healing.  He tells parables, but has to explain them to his followers.  And he gets on the wrong side of the powers-that-be.  At the very end of Chapter 4, it’s off across the sea into the teeth of a great storm.  In the country of the Gerasenes (a foreign place where pigs are herded) Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit.  Then back they go, returning to Galilee—more healings, rejection in his hometown, the feeding of the 5000 (where we began this morning).  Then back to the boats—although Jesus would appear to prefer walking on the water—and off they go to foreign territory on the other side.  Yet more healings.  Then the powers-that-be track him down all the way from Jerusalem to ask why his disciples don’t wash their hands.  Picky, picky.

Yes, I’m being a bit facetious here.  But the crossings continue—of the sea and of various other boundaries.  In Chapters 5-8 of Mark, Jesus and his disciples cross the sea three times back and forth, along with side trips west to the Mediterranean coast at Tyre and Sidon, way southeast to the Decapolis, and then well north to Caesarea Philippi.  Two things are important about Jesus continually taking his followers to foreign places where they are strangers, aliens.  First, the scope of his ministry doesn’t change.  Jesus heals and teaches all alike, be they Galileans or foreigners.  This is revolutionary and risky.  Recall in Luke 4 how the people in Nazareth were so outraged when Jesus preached about Elijah and Elisha healing foreigners that they tried to throw Jesus off a cliff.

But beyond that, (and more important, I think) Jesus is providing his disciples with a personal object lesson of just what it is like to be a stranger, an alien in the land.  Throughout the Old Testament, the most common admonition given to the people—more than 30 times in all—is to care for the widows, orphans, and aliens.  These groups are emblematic of the people at the very bottom of the social structure, the ones who are most vulnerable and least able to fend for themselves.   A primary hallmark of the presence of God’s kingdom is that the basic needs of those at the bottom are met.  Societies and nations are judged by how they care for those at the bottom. The masses of common people flocking to Jesus for healing, like those in Gennesaret, know this.  Here’s the kingdom in action, and that’s all that matters.  No need to understand.  They simply have great need, and the kingdom of God is now at hand for them.

The reality, however, is that compared with widows and orphans the alien is always at the very bottom.  There’s a kind of natural sympathy for widows and orphans.  They’re not responsible for their situation, and villagers would have known the deceased husband or parents as neighbors.  But the alien is an unknown, a stranger in a strange land… hence, a potential threat.  We’re a bit the same in this respect.  Newspaper stories of widows and orphans tug at our heartstrings, but articles about aliens almost always take on a negative tone by including the words “illegal” or “undocumented.”  Most of us can readily cite Leviticus 19:18:  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Pretty words.  How many of us recall the words just 16 verses later (Lev. 19:34):  “You shall love the alien as yourself”?

The disciples keep getting first-hand experience of what it’s like being aliens, needing to be on the receiving end of that love.  Back and forth they go—home ground where they’re in the majority and are to love the alien as themselves, and then a foreign place where they are outnumbered, strangers in a strange land.  Jesus is stretching their minds and hearts, broadening their perspective by showing them what it’s like on the other side, teaching them empathy and compassion.  They’re beginning to see the kingdom close at hand, present all around them.  The changes are disorienting.  No wonder they seem to struggle so much trying to understand.

The needy, vulnerable masses and the powers-that-be in Mark’s gospel represent two very different responses to the kingdom’s presence—hope-filled uncritical acceptance on the one hand, denial and resistance on the other.  The disciples keep crossing the boundaries between the two, so they know both responses and face having to choose between them.  Will they decide to be compassionate like Jesus when he looked out on a hungry crowd, or will their hearts be hardened by self-interest like those who come to oppose Jesus?

That’s not so different from much of contemporary experience.  Col. Andrew Bacevich commanded a military base in Kuwait in 1991 and now teaches at Boston University.  As a soldier he saw the army as the most important institution in the U.S. if not the world.  Now he’s written a best-selling book, The Limits of Power, that is starkly critical of U.S. reliance on military power in its foreign policy.  In the latest Christian Century (8/11/09) he says (p. 27), “I regret that it has taken me so long to get where I am… Why did I incline to be oblivious to the suffering of others until I experienced my own kind of suffering?”  The same Christian Century issue has a quote from Carlos Araya, who lost his $200,000-a-year job on Wall St. (p. 9):  “I used to see unemployed people and think they were lazy, that it was all on them.  Now it’s happened to me.”  New experiences, contact with different cultures and peoples, changes in status, crossing boundaries:  such things can expand our horizons, make us more aware of all we share with others and less concerned (hopefully) with self-interest—in short, more empathetic and compassionate. 

Jesus takes his disciples across many boundaries.  These crossings might not seem especially significant to us now.  All their travels barely spanned a distance from here to Cleveland.  So why aren’t we, who travel so extensively, cross boundaries with ease, and come into contact with so very many different people, a more compassionate and empathetic people?  Maybe we have so much we’ve trapped ourselves in self-interest, afraid of what we might lose if the kingdom of God really is at hand.  Mary sings in Luke of the powerful brought down while the lowly are lifted up, of the rich sent away empty while the hungry are fed.

Walls are almost always erected by the powers-that-be seeking to retain firm hold on what they have:  the Great Wall of China, Berlin, the U.S.-Mexican border, Isreal-Palestine.  But it’s not just physical boundaries.  There’s Corban—pledge your assets to God and avoid having to use them to support your parents.  Rules and customs tend to support the status quo.  Laws are crafted by and for those in power.  Histories are written by the winners.  Once dominant majorities are quick to accuse rising minorities of discrimination and racism.  Citigroup looses $18.7 billion and executives get $5.3 billion in bonuses while low-level workers get laid off.  Loud cries of “no new taxes” are raised while desperately needed services—health centers, library hours, recreation centers, welfare benefits, and other social services—are cut over and over again.  Walls, borders, barriers:  all these things are aimed at securing what we have in hand.  But I wonder… could it be that they end up keeping out what is, in fact, our deepest need—namely, the loving care of God?

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.”  Given the low place of kings in our world, maybe we should call it something else, perhaps the “kin-dom of God.”  Didn’t Jesus look around at his followers and say, “Here are my mother and brothers.  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother”?  Kingdom of kin-dom, people in greatest need flocked to it, trusting God to meet their needs.  And the powers-that-be marshaled their forces to resist the whole idea.  Meanwhile Jesus showed his followers the kingdom in action on both sides and asked them to choose, “Who do you say that I am?”

Is the kin-dom of God really real and at hand?  In an old, old story, all the followers of a great Rabbi once gathered around him asking:  “Master, tell us, is there truly a God?”  As Rabbis are wont to do, he answered their question with a question.  “Will my answer—especially if it’s ‘Yes’—make any difference at all in how you live your life?”  Just so with the kin-dom of God.  If it really is real and if it really is at hand, will it make any difference at all in how we live our lives?

May it be so, dear Lord, may it be so!  Amen.