Follow: Misadventure (Mark 3) May 19, 2013 – Sunday Morning Message

When J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit opens, Bilbo Baggins is enjoying a comfortable and predictable life at his home in the Shire.[1] But then the wizard Gandalf drops by for a surprise visit.  Gandalf says to Bilbo, “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”  Bilbo replies, “I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.”  Bilbo starts looking through his mail, hoping that Gandalf will leave. But Gandalf continues gazing at Bilbo.  Bilbo angrily exclaims, “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” But Gandalf responds, “I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you and profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it.” “Sorry,” Bilbo concludes, “I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning!” And with that Bilbo slams his door. 

 

Adventures can be costly, can’t they?  So costly we may want nothing to do with them.

 

Something similar to this scene unfolds in the Gospel of Mark.  We’re three chapters into this fast-paced account.  And in each chapter thus far, just like Gandalf approached Bilbo, Jesus approached individuals and invited them on an adventure:

• ¹⁶ Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. ¹⁷ And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” ¹⁸ And immediately they left their nets and followed him.  (Mark 1:16-19 ESV)
• ¹³ He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. ¹⁴ And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. (Mark 2:13-14 ESV)
• ¹³ And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. ¹⁴ And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach ¹⁵ and have authority to cast out demons.  (Mark 3:13-15 ESV)

 

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure” Jesus seems to be saying.  Follow me.  Follow me.  Follow me.

 

And one of the things Mark’s interested in exploring is this: What does it mean to say “yes” to that invitation?  Just what kind of adventure is Jesus inviting us on?

 

In chapter 3, Mark reveals something that may cause us to respond to Jesus’ invitation the way Bilbo Baggins responded to Gandalf’s invitation: We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. I can’t think what anybody sees in them.

 

After all, notice what happens just after Jesus invites the Twelve to follow: ²⁰ Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat.²¹ And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:20-21 ESV)  You sign up for this adventure with Jesus, and suddenly your own family is saying, “You’re out of your mind.”

 

My daughter Jordan is reading a book about a young woman named Katie Davis.  The book is called Kisses from Katie.  Here’s how the back cover summarizes Katie’s story (it seems like it’s ripped straight from Mk. 3): What would cause an eighteen-year-old senior class president and home-coming queen from Nashville, Tennessee, to disobey and disappoint her parents by forgoing college, break her little brother’s heart, lose all but a handful of her friends (because they think she has gone off the deep end), and break up with the love of her life, all so she could move to Uganda, where she knew only one person and didn’t even speak the language?”  Katie started a ministry to orphans in Uganda.  She writes that when she first raised the topic with her parents on her 16^th birthday, they were anything but excited: “I think I will spend a year doing mission work after I finish high school and before I go to college.” The smiles on my parents’ faces gave way to blank stares and looks of confusion.  The happy chatter at the dinner table ceased and my comment seemed stuck in the atmosphere.  Silence.  I might as well have said I wanted to play quarterback in the NFL or fly to the moon.  To them, taking a year to do mission work was about that far-fetched.  It was completely unheard of in the Davis family and, I knew, probably unacceptable.[2]  Katie Davis’ family thought she had gone off the deep end.

 

You accept this invitation to follow Jesus and your own family may think you’re out of your mind.

 

Adventures can be costly.

 

And the cost increases: ²² And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” (Mark 3:22 ESV) The scribes are the official investigators of the religious establishment in Jerusalem.  Word’s been spreading about Jesus.  Rumors are swirling.  Stories are circulating.  Thus the religious police send the scribes from Jerusalem to Capernaum to investigate.

 

And their conclusion is simple: He’s mad!  The charge of being possessed by Beelzebul or by the prince of demons is actually a charge of sorcery.  The scribes are saying, “Jesus is a charlatan.  He’s a sorcerer.  He’s into the dark arts.  He’s a Severus Snape.”  Thus, their recommendation will be that the religious establishment back in Jerusalem shun this Jesus and put this Jesus on their black-list.  Adventures can be costly.

 

In 2008 the Wall Street Journal carried the story of Karolyn Caskey.[3]  A member of the Allen Baptist church in Michigan, Caskey had taught Sunday School and given ten percent of her income to the church for 50 years.  But one morning when she showed up for worship, the preacher dialed 911.  The police arrived, handcuffed and escorted 71 year old Caskey out of the church building.  The preacher said she had questioned his authority and was spreading “a cancer of discord.”  In reality, all she had done was ask the preacher to appoint some deacons.  He refused.  She pressed.  The preacher had her shunned.  Black-listed.  The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Twenty minutes into the service, a sheriff’s officer was at her side, and an hour later, she was in jail. “It was very humiliating,” says Mrs. Caskey… “The other prisoners were surprised to see a little old lady in her church clothes. One of them said, ‘You robbed a church?’ and I said, ‘No, I just attended church.’ “

 

You start following this Jesus and things can get dicey.  You get called a fool.  You get labeled a troublemaker.  It’s easy to see why someone might repeat Bilbo Baggins’ words to Jesus:  We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.

 

But in the midst of all of this, Mark illuminates why should accept Jesus’ invitation to adventure:  ²³ And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. ²⁷ But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. (Mark 3:23-27 ESV).

 

To explain what he’s all about and what following him is all about, Jesus tells two parables.  Parable number one is a tale of a kingdom.  The prince of this kingdom is Satan.  And the implication is that Jesus has come to overthrow that kingdom.  Jesus has planned a coup against that evil king.

 

Parable number two is a tale of a house.  The house is owned by a strong man.  But in the parable, Jesus imagines someone binding that strong man and entering the house and plundering his goods.  The implication is that Satan is the strong man.  Jesus is the one binding him.  And Jesus’ ministry is one of taking those goods and reclaiming them for their original purpose.

 

Let’s focus on parable number one—the one about the kingdom.  Against the family members who think him foolish and the scribes who think him fraudulent, Jesus summarizes his adventure as “kingdom.” “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. (Mk. 3:24-26 ESV)

 

Mark’s readers would remember that he started his account in Chapter 1 with similar language: ¹The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mk. 1:1 ESV)… ¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mk. 1:14-15 ESV).

 

Three words are important here.  First, Mark describes Jesus as “Christ”—meaning “anointed one”—that’s a word used in the Old Testament for kings.  Second, he speaks of Jesus’ message as a message about the “kingdom” of God. Third, calls his story a “gospel” about Jesus. He describes Jesus’ preaching as “gospel.”  The term “gospel” was not originally a Christian word.[4]  It was a political word.  In the world of Mark’s readers, the word “gospel” meant “joyful tidings.”  It was associated with the Roman emperor.  The emperor’s birthday and ascension to power were celebrated as festival occasions. The reports of these festivals were called “gospels.”  A calendar inscription from about 9 B.C., says of the emperor Octavian (Augustus): “the birthday of the god was for the world the beginning of joyful tidings [gospel] which have been proclaimed on his account.”  The word “gospel” was used in the ancient world to describe a king coming to power.

 

Can you see how significant it is that Mark begins his account by speaking of Jesus as the Christ (anointed king), speaking about the “kingdom” and the gospel (good news about his ascension to power)?  Can you see how significant it is in Chapter 3 that Jesus returns to the image of kingdom and kingdoms classing when trying to settle disputes about what he’s all about?  Mark and Jesus are telling us that this not just the story of some do-gooder who helped people and died an unfortunate death.  This is the story of a king bent of overthrowing the greatest evil in all of human history.  This is the story of a revolution, a coup, an insurgency, a rebellion that will remove from power one who means to do only evil and place in power one who means to do only good.

 

And to demonstrate just what kind of King Jesus is and what king of kingdom Jesus brings, Mark rushes through Mark 1 and Mark 2 with story after story.  Jesus is a king who can use salty fisherman to change the world (Mk. 1:20).  Jesus is a king who heals the fever of an ailing mother-in-law (Mk. 1:29).  Jesus is a king who touches the untouchable—the leper (Mk. 1:40).  Jesus’ kingdom is one where people get more than they ever imagined—even forgiveness (Mk. 2:1).  Jesus’ kingdom is one where tradition gives way to celebration (Mk. 2:18).  Jesus is a king who cares for the hungry even when it means violating protocol (Mk. 2:23).  Jesus is ushering in a revolution of love, an invasion of compassion, an uprising of justice.  Jesus means to change the world.  And he invites us to be a part of it.

 

Somehow people have gotten the idea that Jesus just came to get us to heaven.  Somehow people have gotten the idea that Christianity is just about learning how to be a more kind person.  Somehow people have gotten the impression that Christianity is just about doing some religious rituals one day a week.  But what Mark presents is so much more.  Following Jesus is about following a king in overturning suffering, injustice, ignorance, pain and poverty from north to south and from east to west.  It’s about building a kingdom where those on the margins are championed, where barriers are removed between people and God, and where skin color, income and education no longer serve as the means by which we evaluate a person’s worth and value.  It’s about following Jesus into a revolution against the greatest source of evil in the world—the kingdom of Satan.  Jesus is inviting us to an adventure greater than we can imagine.

 

My daughter Jordan and I recently spent some time in Los Angeles.  One morning we walked the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  But amidst the stars chronicling the names of celebrities, the Chinese Theatre, and the Dolby Theater was one wild-eyed man.  He was standing at a street corner.  He wore ragged clothes.  He had several signs.  They were handwritten blue ink on pieces of cardboard that he’d probably fished out of a dumpster.  And one of the signs, the one he was holding above his head, made references to J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.  There’s a powerful and evil group in The Hobbit called the “orcs.”  They serve the Dark Lord Sauron and are bent on the destruction of all that is good.  And this wild-eyed man in Hollywood held up a sign that said something like this: “The orcs are real.  The government is sending them to destroy us all.”  And Jordan and I shook our heads.  “That guy is out of his mind,” we thought.

 

But what if he wasn’t?  What if, just like the day the good wizard Gandalf visited Bilbo Baggins to tell him there was so much more than his home on the Shire—there was an epic battle between good and evil raging, what if this man on the corner knew the truth?  What if, just like the day Jesus stopped by and said “Follow me, and I’ll make something great of you so you can participate in something greater than you can fathom” this man on the corner knew the truth?  What if there really were powers of darkness out there beyond our comprehension?  What if we were being enlisted into a revolution to dethrone those powers?  What if this faith is so much more than just learning to be a better citizen, or maintaining a certain way of doing church, or just waiting until heaven?  What if we were being invited into an adventure in which we’d get to participate in the overthrow of all that’s wrong on the earth and the enthronement of a new king who will totally change the earth?  That is what Jesus is doing here in Mark 3.

 

And we can respond by saying, “No adventure for me, please.  I can’t think what anybody sees in them.”  After all, it will be costly.  We may be called fools.  Or frauds.  Or we may respond as Simon, Andrew, Levi and the rest of the Twelve responded.  After all, this isn’t just a club or hobby.  This is kingdom building, life-altering, and world changing stuff.  “I’m looking for someone to share in an adventure,” Jesus is saying.  What’s your response?  Will you follow?