11 June 2023 Pentecost 2
I invite you to come on a walk of imagination with me. Picture your child, your precious child who has talents and abilities which he has only recently been revealing. One day, he goes to see his cousin and after that, he goes out on his own journey through the wider community. While on this ‘walkabout’ he does some amazing things, talks with people no one else will talk with, dines with people ‘normal’ people will not consider associating with, touches people others consider ‘unclean’ and then he heals them, and gradually he starts to attract a crowd of followers and groupies. In his travels, some of the things he has been doing and saying have ‘ruffled the feathers’ of the authorities and law keepers and rumour of all this has gradually filtered back to you. One day you hear he has returned, but you also hear a great crowd has come with him and the ‘authorities’ are ‘gunning for him’; they would like to put a stop to all he is doing ‘one way or another’. So you decide you need to ‘rescue’ him ‘for his own good’, so you round up the rest of the family and go to find him. When you do, you find you can’t get near him because of the crowd, you also see him ‘debating’ with the authorities and the debate does not appear to be a conciliatory one. Finally you ask someone in the crowd to tell your son you are here and you would like to see him ‘outside’. But then he tells you ‘you don’t own me’; ‘I have others who need me’; ‘I have a bigger community than just you and my siblings and they need me too’.
This is sort of where we find Jesus this morning. We are only in the third chapter of Mark’s gospel, but already Jesus is clearly upsetting the powers that be. He has also gathered a large group of followers, as well as his chosen disciples, and the community wants all of what he is offering. Healing, exorcism, welcome, hospitality, friendship, teachings, …
But, for me, that response from Jesus to his mother is troubling, on many levels. What does he mean “Who are my mother and my brothers”, and then, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother”. I don’t think Jesus is actually disowning his mother and siblings; I think what he is saying is that he has priorities in his life, and his number one priority is to do the will of God. Loyalty to God was his first priority, then comes family, friends, and other things. Jesus is simply telling his mother, and others, following God and doing God’s will is the reason he is there, and it is the reason he is doing what he is doing.
The authorities said that Jesus was crazy, Was he? By our standards, yes. By the standards of Jesus’ society, definitely. But there is nothing wrong with being crazy some of the time. There are times when I would love to ‘throw the rules out’ and ‘do what I feel led to do’. But often, those rules keep hemming me in. Jesus did not let rules hem him in, he did what he felt, what he ‘knew’ he should be doing and ‘to hell with the consequences’. He continued to do what was needed, even to the point of not stopping the person he knew would betray him from doing it; of allowing himself to be arrested; of not offering responses to accusations which were false; of allowing himself to be nailed to a cross. Jesus was crazy, but, in the very best way.
The younger generation put a different meaning to the word crazy. They use it to signify something really amazing, really good, or mind-blowing. For them ‘like crazy’ does not signify lunacy, but supremely good. And in that sense Jesus was crazy; to all the fortunate people who have come to love, serve and adore him, he is crazy. Jesus loves us ‘like crazy’, and we can also rise above our superficial desires of life so that we can love God ‘like crazy’. And when we do that, we will find that doing the will of God is not so much something we ‘have to do’ or ‘should do’ but something we are privileged to do. And living the Christian life will be a fantastic celebration.
We have just prayed our Commitment Prayer and asked God to ‘disturb us’, when the draw of life becomes so inviting that we no longer hear God in our lives. We have asked God to ‘stir us’ to be willing to walk on unfamiliar paths; to venture on wider seas; so that we can see the wonder of God around us. We have asked God to push us into the future. Are we crazy? Maybe, but only in the very best of ways.
So when others call us crazy, we can take it as a compliment. When we ourselves think ourselves crazy, we can reassure ourselves that as long as God is our focus, we can continue to act ‘like crazy’ because God is with us in our craziness.