Scandalous (02/05/12)

Epiphany 5A – Mark 1:22-39

Before we address today’s text, we need to speak a bit about miracles and what Mark may have intended to convey by sharing these stories.  Most probably, he means restoring people to wholeness; it’s a large part of the kingdom of heaven being at hand.

What oftentimes happens with stories such as these is that we tend to miss important details; not only are we overwhelmed by the “miracles” but we’re also not accustomed to putting ourselves back in first century Palestine.  We forget the setting — that is, if we ever knew it.  We overlook the fact that “health and sickness are always culturally defined and, in the ancient Mediterranean, one’s state of being was more important than one’s ability to act or function.  The healers in that ancient world focused on restoring a person to a valued state of being rather than an ability to function.

“Anthropologists carefully distinguish between disease — a biomedical malfunction afflicting an organism — and illness — a disvalued state of being in which social networks have been disrupted and meaning lost.  Illness is not so much a biomedical matter as it is a social one.  It is attributed to social, not physical, causes.  Thus, sin and sickness were seen as going together.  Illness was a matter of deviance from cultural norms and values.”[1]

Jesus restored people to wholeness, to a “valued state of being.”  No one was beyond his scope of concern, regardless of how they were viewed by others, and especially by the religious leaders.  That’s one reason his actions were considered scandalous.

So what about these “miracles” Jesus performed?  Some scholars have this to say:[2] Quote:  “Since much of the lore about Jesus was created and transmitted by word of mouth FOR A FEW DECADES before it was written down, it is folklore….  In the manufacture and maintenance of folklore, memory does not function like a videotape.  It is not possible to rewind and replay one’s memories.  On the contrary, memories are constantly edited, deleted, augmented, and combined with other memories as persons call them to mind.  And when one adds the element of fear, or paranoia, or conviction, or nostalgia, those memories can become more vivid and powerful than everyday life….  A bumper sticker reads:  ‘The older I get, the better I was.’  Nostalgia is a great editorial assistant….

“Scholars of the gospels are faced with a similar problem:  Much of the lore recorded in the gospels and elsewhere in the Bible is folklore, which means that it is wrapped in memories….  Sorting out the fact from the fiction is a task for the well-informed and patient sleuth.

“For many readers of the Bible, it is incomprehensible that the evangelists would have recorded stories that were the product of the Christian imagination, that well-intentioned believers would have invented tales about Jesus.  Yet they seem to have done so.  (But) under what circumstances would this have happened?

“There are at least five conditions that might have prompted them to employ their imaginations.  They might have created stories to fulfill a prophesy….  They might have invented stories to assist in marketing the messiah to the larger world.  They might have made up tales to give expression to their own convictions about who Jesus was and what he did and said.  They might have imagined scenes to justify practices adopted by themselves or their communities.  And they might have put into a fictive story form claims that they were making on their own behalf or on behalf of their leaders.  In so doing, they (didn’t)…willfully distort the historical truth; rather, they were merely indulging the human proclivity to adjust oral traditions to their own controlling perceptions born of faith.”[3]

Some people find this highly problematic, yet we do the very same thing with our own memories — and, in most cases, we have at least SOME supporting data for those memories.  But more than that, we also know that the same incident — relayed by various members of the same family — can sound vastly different due to perspective.  Yet despite knowing the human tendency to make adjustments for memory and perspective, many people still find it problematic relative to Biblical stories — and perhaps especially so when it comes to the gospels.  But it is what it is.

So with that background, let’s return to Mark’s story.  We already know that it starts out with a bang!  Jesus calls some disciples and he’s up and running.  No time to stop; things must get done and NOW is as good a time as any to get going!  If you recall, Mark is all about now, immediately.  And so miracles abound; nothing like good miracle stories to get the juices flowing.

Except there’s way more to these stories than miracles, so let’s put first things first.  Remember that the setting of these stories is first-century Palestine, so we need to travel back in time.  Oftentimes, we fail to do that because we’re unfamiliar with the period.  So let’s see what clues some of the details might reveal.

To begin, Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath.  That’s a critical detail.  And it seems the people were so mesmerized by his teachings that it never dawned on them to criticize him for breaking the Sabbath by casting out an unclean spirit — which was considered WORK.  But make no mistake, it was scandalous — so much so that it eventually became the “straw that broke the camel’s back” — the straw being that WORK was absolutely forbidden on the Sabbath by the laws of Judaism.  And when Jesus’ fame spread, so undoubtedly did the details of what he had done.  If there’s one thing that competes with the Internet for effective communication, it’s the grapevine.  So eventually, the wrong people heard about it.  Scandalous!

The reason people might not have criticized Jesus is that they had just heard his teaching, and HIS teaching was radically different than that to which they were accustomed.  He taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes.  So, what does that mean?  Scribes — those who spoke in the synagogues — were accustomed to regurgitating what they read about passages.  Rabbi so-and-so says this; Rabbi So-and-so says that.  They had nothing new under the sun to say; they weren’t scholars so much as regurgitators of previous writings.  Now that’s not to say that prior writings have no validity; but they’re a beginning point, not an ending one.  So, unlike the scribes who simply relayed texts and interpretations, Jesus touched people’s hearts with what seemed to be pure, simple, un-debatable truths about God.  And people were impressed.

Yet into this captivating scene stepped a man with an “unclean spirit.”  And this spirit seems shaken by Jesus, so much so that he cries out:  “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”  Now the first question we should probably ask is:  WHY was this man in the synagogue?  Anyone considered “unclean” would normally have been barred from entry.  But maybe this man’s “unclean spirit” wasn’t some medical affliction; maybe he was little more than a person with a negative attitude, someone who worked behind the scenes to disrupt everything positive that people were trying to accomplish.

Some of you might be thinking:  “Glad there’s no one in THIS church who’s like that.”  Yet, just this week, I heard from someone who’s attended church here.  They’re hesitant to return because they don’t like the negative “comments and undertone in the church that’s…caused by… (those who) feel the need to control the pulpit” — and that’s a direct quote.  I was surprised that someone noticed this and SAID it.  And I wonder if that negativity surprises any of you….

But returning to Mark, one of my colleagues had this to say about the scene:  “Jesus speaks truth to power.  He has come to change the status quo.  The…unclean, afflicting spirit — up to this point — has not been confronted by what goes on in the synagogue, has not been exorcised by the religious leaders.  Jesus brings a new kind of authority, a TRUTH that this unclean spirit cannot deal with; now suddenly the demon is out of step….  This was a person who certainly was known — and perhaps feared — by the congregation, or they would have tried to shush him.  This was a person who was, on any other Sabbath, a regular person in the pew.  But on this Shabbat, the unclean spirit showed itself….  Jesus understood what was going on.  He was not afraid to name the situation for what it was: an unclean, afflicting spirit; an unhealthy and misguided religious setting….  Jesus saw the whole picture.”[4]

My colleague was preaching from her own experience, but many other pastors quickly expressed understanding; I’ve also experienced something similar.  Yet we rarely acknowledge that there are “unclean spirits” in our churches because no one wants to confront them.  Fortunately, Jesus handled it — even though, as a visitor, it wasn’t HIS job!  Luckily, for him, he headed out of town the next day; if he hadn’t, it may have created a brouhaha!  Scandalous!  How dare he?

But before Jesus heads out, Simon invites him home.  Why he did — knowing his mother-in-law was ill — isn’t something we can say.  But maybe Simon didn’t have a clue; after all, Simon and Andrew had been with Jesus and may not have known; maybe all they intended was to be hospitable.  But when they discover the woman ill with a fever, Jesus is quick to “set things right.”  He took her by the hand and lifted her up.

Doesn’t seem terribly “scandalous,” does it?  But it is.  There’s no evidence that rabbis ever did such a thing for a woman, and especially not for a woman who was not a member of the healer’s family.  In addition, we can’t forget that this was the Sabbath.  So, while touching a non-related woman was, in itself, an offense, and touching one that was sick and therefore unclean was doubly so, performing this act on the Sabbath only compounded the social offense.  But that wasn’t all.  The service of Peter’s mother-in-law to Jesus and the others — if food was prepared — would also have constituted work on the Sabbath.  (And) later Jewish traditions suggest that women should not serve meals to male strangers.  Yet the critical issue is that Jesus doesn’t seem disturbed about any of these “breaches of convention” nor do he see the touch of a woman, even a sick woman, as defiling.[5]  Scandalous!

Others, however, seem only too aware of these social and religious conventions because they wait until sundown — when the Sabbath is over — to bring others to Jesus.  And mind you:  it’s not only the sick who showed up; Mark tells us the whole city was gathered around the door.  If Jesus was trying to be low key, it wasn’t working!  But he did his best to help everyone who came to him.  As Mark suggested in his opening lines, THIS is the Kingdom of heaven AT HAND!

Regardless of whether you believe in miracle stories or not, one FACT seems absolutely undeniable:  Mark — as well as the other gospel writers — presents us with a SCANDALOUS Jesus who shattered religious mandates and chose to operate outside the status quo.  Which makes me wonder: if he were to come and preach in our churches today, would we drive HIM out and accuse HIM of being the “unclean spirit?”  Amen.

This sermon was written by the Rev. Janet Weiblen, Intentional Interim Minister at Weston Christian Church.  It can only be used with permission of the author.  revj@kc.rr.com.