Mark 6:6b-13 Traveling light

Jesus is franchising his ministry. He instructs his disciples how they should go and evangelize. They looks pretty different than those of today. The disciples were told to bring nothing with them, except sandals and a walking stick. They were not to bring a change of clothes, money or food. 

Today many evangelists in our culture come with the latest technology gadgets and a well rehearsed words. 

I think what Jesus is attempting to get across is that faith and trust are the key elements that matter. It isn’t a slick program.

He authorized the disciples to be able to cast out unclean spirits and send them on their way. It doesn’t look from the text that he gave them a lot of preparation. Simple instructions, a dose of his power and away they went.

In this way Jesus’ message started spreading.

Prayer: Help me to realize that to serve Jesus I don’t need much, only the power from him and the willingness to do it.

Mark 6: 4-6a A powerful partnership

Jesus is being ridiculed and scoffed at, as the town attempts to bring him down to their level. They are offended that he acts superior to them and they don’t want to believe that he is anything other than a carpenter’s brat. They do not believe he is anything more.

Because they are working hard to bring him down to their level, their faith in his abilities is non-existent. And it says in verse 5 that he couldn’t do much of anything in terms of miracles because of their unbelief.

That would indicate to me that Jesus is dependent on the faith of the recipient to be able to provide a miracle. There is something about connecting that holds an answer. The sick person is connecting with Jesus, and Jesus is connecting with his father, and through that powerful connection, a miracle takes place. All of the participants are working the miracle.

Because the town didn’t believe he could do anything, he was only able to do very little, verse 5 says “except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them”.

God has been gracious enough to set it up so that we become partners with him in performing acts of wonder.

Prayer: Help me to realize how vitally important I am to God, and seek to keep the connection I have with God, intact.

Mark 6:1-3 The limitation of schemas

Jesus comes back home and the town  throngs to hear him. On the road he has been a celebrity. They are amazed to hear his wisdom. Amazed! And then they dismissed him. They are offended by him. They felt threatened. 

I bring up the concept of schemas here. When we come to understand how the world works, we set it into a schema, a pattern of predictable interaction with encountered objects or people.  When we bump up against new thing we measure it according to predetermined schema. It helps us make sense of the world and when we encounter new information.

When Jesus comes into town, the crowds don’t know where to put him in their schema. I’m sure many were frightened because they didn’t understand. Jesus had broken out of their schema. Here was the little boy that the shop clerk had told to go away, and bother someone else!” Here was the little boy that the town talked about as he passed by and pursed their lips when Mary interacted with the town and whispering behind her back about hearing that Jesus is really her bastard son.

Now he comes back into town that they townspeople are amazed at the wisdom in his teaching. They also must have been frightened. If Jesus was this wise then the town had misjudged him. No one likes to admit they are wrong, so it was easier to attempt to pull Jesus back into the schema of the rambunctious  young boy that was running around the town than the articulate voice of wisdom they were seeing. So as a town response they decide to keep the schema they had of him and not update it. They chose being deeply offended. “Who are you to come here and lecture us, you little snot-nosed bastard!”

Instead of forming a new schema that would encompass Jesus the man they were seeing, they chose to stay with their old schema of Jesus the village kid. A good strategy of you didn’t want to admit any wrong-doing on you part.

Schemas are important. They are helpful as we process millions of bits of information every day. But if we are unwilling to upgrade them or renew them when the situation calls for it, when we are unwilling and fearful to say we have made a mistake, those schemas can become a straitjacket, gripping us tight. We might even miss seeing the Son of God.

Prayer: Help me to realize that in order to make room for God, my schemas must change. If they don’t change, I will stop growing and respond badly to the sound of God’s voice in my life.

Mark 5:35-43 The gift of a fool

Jesus is still talking to the woman who had been healed from her bleeding when people from Jarius’ house came to tell him not to bother Jesus any more. It was too late. They had given it their best shot, but it had come to an end. Jarius’ daughter was dead. There were no more options. Let the funeral begin. People are already at the house starting the grieving process.

Jesus overhears, or ignores those people who are saying “it’s over”. His word is to Jarius. It is the same word said over and over throughout Jesus’ life. “Don’t be afraid”.

Jesus, Peter, James, and John proceed to the house alone. The crowds are not there.  He informs the mourners at the house that the little girl is sleeping. They start to laugh and make fun of him. If he wasn’t thought of as a crazy prophet before then, he sure is now. Jesus is willing to suffer ridicule to protect a family.

To the amazement of all, the little girl was raised from the dead.

Jesus cautioned the family not to say what had happened. Jesus not only gave the gift of life and hope to a family that thought it was over. He also allowed the family to stay out of the “freak show”. When Jesus told the crowd that the little girl was only sleeping, he allowed them to laugh at him. When the little girl was up and about and the family wasn’t saying anything the crowd could doubt the original diagnosis of death. This was only a healing, and there had been a lot of them. Why waste time on a little girl that doesn’t know how to explain it anyway. The spotlight would turn towards others more energetic and articulate that could explain the feeling of healing power, and a little girl could live her life out of the limelight.

Jesus was willing to be thought the fool to give the gift of life to a family, and allow a little girl to just be a little girl.

Prayer: Let me understand the depths of your love, and what you are willing to do to heal me and save my life.

Mark 5:24-34 No formula required

Jesus is on the way to honor Jairus’ request, to heal his daughter. Everyone is pressed up against Jesus. Everyone wants to see what happens here. Perhaps they are amazed that after the negative comments coming from the leadership of the synagogue, one of their own now needs help and so is a beggar just like the rest of them.

In all the jostling to be closest to the person of the hour a woman pushes her way through the crowd. She has had a vaginal discharge that has been going on for a long time and there was no evidence that it would be ending anytime soon. Her position in the town was trashed. She was an outcast. Perhaps the reason she could get so close to Jesus was that when people saw who was pushing them, they stepped away, maybe even cursed her because she had mad them unclean, much like stepping on gum in a parking lot.

She had a belief that if she was able to get close to Jesus and touched him, she would be healed. The woman made up an idea of how she could get what she needed from Jesus and implemented it. And it worked! Her self devised scheme paid off. She was healed!

Jesus stopped and wanted to know who touched him. That in itself must have looked like he was eccentric. He had been buoyed by the crowd who were single-mindedly focused on getting him to Jairus’ house to see what would happen. 

“Who touched me?”

The woman sniveled up to Jesus. Perhaps she was pushed up in front of Jesus by the recently unclean people who had touched her. Jesus rewards her for her faith and tells her that her faith has been rewarded. In her own quirky way she discovered healing, not because she came to Jesus in a prescribed way, but because she had faith in his power.

Jesus could have just smiled when he felt his healing power leave him, but he didn’t. He made a spectacle of her act. And in doing so, he points out to all that she is to be accepted back into community with the town. I wonder what happened with all the “unclean” people who had just touched her. With her healing, were they all healed now?

She was!

Prayer: Help me to realize that coming to Jesus and finding healing does not require a formula or a specific ritual. It can be as powerful as just pushing your way in, possibly upsetting a few along the way, and grabbing hold of his robe.

Mark 5:21-23 What tips the scales of belief

Jesus gets back in the boat and heads back to the other side of the lake. When he gets there the crowd is still there.  The crowd must have puzzled over the storm and how it ended.

Out of the large crown the leader of the synagogue came up to him with a desperate plea.  There had to be risk involved for him to ask Jesus for a favor. After all Jesus had had a lot of conflict with the religious leaders in the areas

His daughter’s life is on the line. A good parent will do ANYTHING for their child. ANYTHING! As his daughter has gotten worse, he has become more desperate. As his daughter gets sicker, power, position, prestige, vestiges that kept his status in the community intact have melted away. All that is left in it’s place is a progressive hopelessness that the one that he cares about is not only in pain, but may be lost to him. All that is left to him is standing in the water waiting the arrival of the boat carrying Jesus and begging for intervention.

“Jesus, come quickly, my daughter is dying! I don’t care anymore what happens other than healing for my daughter. I don’t care anymore if I am letting others down. I don’t care about my status in the community or the synagogue. I don’t care anymore if the whole town thinks I have lost my mind! I am desperate! Please Jesus, please come quickly. Please come and save one that I care deeply about!”

Perhaps it is easier to see Jesus and what he can do, if we are delivered from our illusion of the meaning of success.

Prayer: Help me gain perspective of the meaning of things in my life. Let me not be afraid to continue to seek your face, even if it goes against the grain.

Mark 5:13b-20 Processing new information

Upon Jesus’ permission for the demons to enter the pigs, they do. The pigs appear so troubled, and following the same self destructive thinking, commit mass suicide.

In the book “Who moved my Cheese” the idea of managing change is reflected in the thinking of two mice, and two little people. The two mice were able to adapt to change quicker, because there no emotional responses other than move and explore. 

Perhaps that explains the pigs’ response as opposed to the man’s when exposed to the self destructive motivation. The man moves away from people, is tormented, and cuts himself. With his emotions, it might have kept him from killing himself quickly. The pigs, feeling the same pressure, know nothing but fright and those possessed rushed headlong. It is unclear whether the demons inhabited the whole herd, or the possessed provoked a stampede response.

The townspeople see the man sitting quietly before Jesus. Off in the distance they could see the carcasses of pigs bumping up against each other in the tidewaters. What do they think when confronted by this information? Their paradigm is being pushed past the red line. In an effort to attain equilibrium, they beg Jesus to go. They don’t know how to process it. And when people don’t know how to process it all, they resort to wanting things the way they were. It just feels safer. 

The man who was demon possessed begs to go with Jesus. Perhaps he was fearful of their return with his new deliverer gone. He apparently obeys. He tells everyone the story of his deliverance and it says the townspeople are amazed at the story.

And the story helps them to incorporate a bigger picture into their lives. As they increase their understanding, they are able to see a bigger world than they knew existed

Prayer: There is fear in my life. Much of it comes from not understanding what I am seeing. May I give myself permission to take the time to absorb information, and the freedom to enlarge my schemata to encompass a much bigger God than I knew existed.