:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

Continuing my series of meditations on the Gospel of Mark…

After healing the man with leprosy, Jesus became very popular because he’d created a new understanding of the law. Rather than becoming defiled by someone with a disease, he made the defiled person whole. This is what happens when God’s Kingdom comes into our lives.

Hinting that Jesus didn’t have a home of his own in Capernaum, Jesus stayed with someone. Word soon spread and visitors flocked to him both out of interest and out of personal need—Jesus preached his message to all who filled the home where he stayed.

Four men brought a paralyzed man into this crowd hoping that Jesus would heal him. These were presumably family or at least close friends since they were so committed to finding Jesus, they took the unexpected course of digging through the roof—something that must have created quite a stir and possibly offended not a few neighbors in this small village. This scenario shows that seeking Jesus may be difficult and requires us to take unusual actions at times, while practicing hospitality for Jesus will come with a significant cost at times. I wouldn’t want to be in charge of the clean up after such a gathering!

After seeing the sincerity of the four men and the paralyzed man, Jesus forgave his sins, which demonstrated for all to see that God in the flesh was among them. Rather than going to the temple to sacrifice an animal, as the scriptures mandated, Jesus showed the people they could come to him by faith to seek forgiveness for their sins. The teachers of the law caught the significance of this and immediately called Jesus a blasphemer in their minds. With this we see the first of a series of oppositions to the ministry of Jesus.

Nevertheless, Jesus validated his ministry of spiritual reconciliation by connecting it with physical restoration. God’s Kingdom manifested in Jesus made the man both spiritually and physically whole. Jesus pointed the people to the ultimate goal of the temple system and the ideal future God planned among his people, the very thing hinted at when Abraham was declared righteous by his faith.

God was establishing a deeper way of meeting with his people, a way that rendered the temple system no longer necessary, even if it had value in teaching God’s people for a season. Everything hinged on whether people would embrace the new way of Jesus over the old temple system. Were the people more connected to God and God’s ways or to the ways they connected with God? Would the experience of God triumph over the form of experiencing God?

Besides stirring the suspicion of his listeners with such bold claims, Jesus also reached out to some very unpopular people at the height of his popularity. It would seem suicidal to his prophetic career to rouse the suspicions of the religious authorities who could validate and stand for his ministry, but Jesus drew them into a conflict by first replacing their temple system with God’s new way and then associating openly with many notorious sinners—those called scum among the religious leaders.

Jesus is straddling two diametrically opposed worlds by siding with Jewish peasants and Roman collaborators. He was certain to anger both sides by calling both kinds of people into his group. Levi didn’t seem to be following Jesus already, but he jumped at the opportunity to leave his lucrative career behind. It seems that Levi, much like the leper in chapter one, thought much of Jesus but didn’t know if he would be accepted among his followers.

As Jesus dined with many “notorious sinners,” the religion scholars called these people scum, though it is their pride that Jesus found truly odious. The scum were the ones who recognized the Messiah and who welcomed him, and in fact, Jesus came for such humble and broken people who didn’t have their acts together because he could work with them. God will do his work in us when we don’t claim the credit, for his salvation must always be his power alone and have nothing to do with human resources or wisdom. Mark notes that many such people flocked to follow Jesus.

Lines were being drawn in the sand at this point. Jesus goes for the outcasts and introduces God’s new way of meeting with his people, fulfilling and putting aside the old conventions that were trusted. God is able to work with those aware of their own brokenness and able to trust in his ongoing revelation without becoming suspicious based on religious practices or theological knowledge. The childlike are able to hold their theology lightly when encountering God’s revelation, learning about God on the fly without rejecting God’s work in the midst of some theological difficulties. Theology is important and helpful at times, but in the case of the religious scholars of Jesus’ ministry, it became a liability at key points.

The radical inclusivity of Jesus should challenge us to welcome those whom we fear or dislike into our fellowship if they are willing to accept the Gospel message. Jesus welcomed a hated collaborator with the Roman authorities. This means that political allegiances must fall when we follow Jesus. Notorious sinners are welcome to seek out God and figure out what it means to have faith, to repent, and to be healed.

Christians today have their suspicions and fears of many today: from abortion doctors to politicians, from criminals to lobbyists, the people we find distasteful are the people who need the Gospel most. They are the kinds of people Jesus came to save, they are the kinds of people he sought out, and they are the kinds of people to whom we are sent. Perhaps we should ask who it is that we despise most and then ask God for the grace to share his Good News with them.