Brought to Glory

It was fitting that God, for Whom and through Whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the Pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Hebrews 2.10)

Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. (Mark 10.15)

Huge Burdens

Ethel Covington, my grade-school librarian, remains one of my greatest heroes. She had an impeccable flair that brought great joy to instilling in us the wonders of literature. Her library was the friendliest, safest, most adventurous place on earth and it often rang with her laughter as she roamed its premises to find out what we were reading. Miss Covington adored Dickens and firmly believed he was essential reading for young people, since many of his tales revolved around the plight of children. I trust there are still librarians who share her conviction, although I tend to doubt it. We now live in an age that romanticizes childhood as a blissful state of innocence—a world that bears not the slightest resemblance to Dickens’ universe. Consistently, in Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and other novels, children are at the mercy of a greedy, unstable society that views them as liabilities. They’re tossed from pillar to post, vulnerable to the connivances of vile criminals and callous bureaucrats, forced to hang on by the slenderest of threads. Of course, Dickens’ genius rested on his ability to countermand the evil arrayed against them with improbable twists of fate. But he never let his readers forget these lucky children were exceptions to the rule.

To be a child during England’s Industrial Revolution was to suffer tremendous hardship—to be abandoned, exploited, and ignored, to cause more grief by living than by doing everyone the favor of, in Scrooge’s infamous words, dying and decreasing the surplus population. We find such attitudes appalling now. But when Dickens wrote, less than two centuries ago, not much had changed since the time of Christ. And if we’re to grasp the import of Sunday’s readings, we first must recognize the “children” they mention are not the precious tykes we coo over and coddle. They’re the most useless, needy members of society. Until they’re old enough to pull their weight, they’re huge burdens to their families and communities, and their premature deaths are often greeted with sighs of relief, not inconsolable mourning.

Unlawful Control

While Mark is the slimmest and oldest gospel, in many ways it’s the most “modern.” The writer’s mastery of juxtaposition constantly invites us to read between the lines, detecting richer meaning in the tightly scripted passages by noting how and where they’re placed. In Sunday’s selection (Mark 10.2-16), we revisit one of his most beloved passages and see how this works. When parents bring their children to Jesus, the disciples speak “sternly” to them, the suggestion being that these little ones are unworthy of Jesus’s attention. But Jesus is “indignant” and tells the disciples, “Let the little children come to Me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that kingdom of God belongs.” (v14) By itself, this episode conveys a lovely, atypical sentiment for Jesus’s time. And verse 14 is often used in our day in a sentimental way, e.g., “Jesus loves the little children of the world.” But the power of Jesus’s words can’t be fully extracted without including the text immediately preceding them.

The Pharisees come to Jesus with another of their religiously and politically charged questions—in this case, the legitimacy of divorce. In their culture, marriages are contractual affairs that deed women to men as property by which they ensure the family line. Ideally, love would bind husband and wife together, creating a nurturing environment for marital offspring. But since marriages are typically negotiated long before the partners reach maturity, common assumptions we make about them—romance, sexual attraction, and compatibility—are off the table. Naturally, this leads to a lot of unhappy unions. Jesus cites a loophole given by Moses, permitting “a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” (v4) He instantly rebuts the law, saying Moses allowed it “because of your hardness of heart.”

Jesus isn’t interested in splitting legal hairs. He wants to talk about faithfulness reflected in a lifelong commitment. Later, with the disciples, He’s more frank, saying anyone who divorces a spouse for another commits adultery, a sin punishable by death. These are very strong words, and we’re wise to contemplate the gravity that provokes them. Jesus reviles divorce and remarriage as a disruption of divine order, a sin that effectively creates widows, widowers, and orphans by disowning one household for another. The Greek word He uses for “adultery” carries overtones indicating those who abandon spouses and children for other partners and offspring “usurp unlawful control.” In their neglect, they take it upon themselves to destroy lives entrusted to them. Such decisions are not theirs to make, Jesus says. Then we read on, where the disciples do the very thing that Jesus just told them to avoid: they turn parents and little children away. Is it any wonder Jesus is indignant?

Where Are We?

One of the assets—and liabilities—of Mark’s compact style is that it provides enough low-hanging fruit to satisfy every taste. As I studied this weekend’s passage, I easily imagined preachers cherry-picking favorite portions without bothering to shake the whole tree. Many will focus on the wonders of childhood, no matter that ancient childhood—as in Dickens—is far from wonderful. They’ll equate entering God’s kingdom with naïve trust, rather than the suffering and hardships that childhood presents to Jesus’s listeners. Others will capture the vulnerabilities of youth and extrapolate a message of compassion for the “little ones”—the undervalued and oppressed—a note that Mark consistently strikes throughout his gospel. Finally, many will no doubt reach for Jesus’s remarks on marriage with the same enthusiasm that provoked the Pharisees to broach the subject: to validate obsolete laws that promote inequality and the convenience of dismissing anyone who doesn’t meet with their liking. Personally, I struggle with how such a reading is justifiable, as this passage stresses the radical inclusion central to Christ’s Gospel. Nonetheless, it’s there for the taking, if one so chooses.

Yet as I looked at Mark, I kept asking, “Where are we in this passage?” Are we reckless spouses who shirk our responsibilities to pursue something we want so badly we’ll sacrifice anything to get it? Many times we are. Are we spiritual adulterers who usurp unlawful control of God’s kingdom and disrupt God’s plan? It’s possible. Are we disciples who take it upon ourselves to decide who is or isn’t worthy of Christ’s attention? Sadly, we do that too. Still, something inside me wouldn’t settle for quick reduction of so complex a text, or the ready-made guilt of human failure. There had to be more in this than first meets the eye and Sunday’s New Testament offering brought it to light.

In Hebrews 2.10 we read, “It was fitting that God, for Whom and through Whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the Pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” We are God’s children and we will suffer the outrages of abandonment and abuse. People will disown us in favor of others. Some will use archaic laws to legitimize their scorn and neglect. And—if not literally, spiritually—some would prefer we die and decrease the surplus population, rather than burden them with our needs and longings. But each of us, regardless of who we are and how we’re made, are being brought to glory through Christ, the Pioneer Who made perfect our salvation through taking on our sufferings. He is our Leader, faithful beyond measure and wedded to us for life. It’s not about the villains. It’s all about the Victor Who says, “Let the little children come to Me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that kingdom of God belongs,” adding this assurance: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” (v15) The Child Who is the Christ welcomes us to God’s kingdom. May we receive this divine invitation with a whole-hearted “I do!”

Despite our frailties and liabilities, the ever faithful and true Christ welcomes us to God’s kingdom.

Too Much

“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell.” (Mark 9.43)

Centipede

I left college brimming with lofty ambitions and no earthly idea how to make them happen. I kept falling into low-paying positions—private high school English teacher, church music director, freelance movie critic, among others—that required taking odd jobs to stay afloat. After writing a Christmas pageant for my church, a gospel theater troupe engaged me to write a contemporary musical they could produce in Los Angeles and hopefully tour the country performing. They gave me the premise: three talented sisters get famous singing for their local congregation and must deal with tensions between faithfulness and worldly success. I thought it smacked a little too much of Dreamgirls. (The L.A. Times critic agreed in his unflattering review). But it was good money. So I threw myself into cranking out a script worth every cent I’d been paid. In my original version, every imaginable gospel stereotype turned up to, as the Bard put it, “strut his hour upon the stage.”

As we began assembling scenes we’d rehearsed separately, it was all too apparent I’d written too much by half. The first complete run-through timed out at nearly four hours. The producer and director sat down with me to discuss drastic cuts needed to trim the show’s length. They gently assured me they loved everything I’d written. Yet as good as it was, it wasn’t good enough to fasten an audience to its seats until midnight. “Folks will start walking out at 10:30 and by the time it’s over there won’t be a soul in the place,” the producer said, reminding me one or two nights of that would hasten the show’s untimely end. The problem was, I’d fallen in love with every character, every scene and song, every point I wanted the play to make. 

Once it became clear I would push back on the cuts they suggested, the director threw up his hands. “If you had a baby that with 10 arms and legs, would you force it live like a centipede? Or would you have its extra limbs removed so it could succeed?” he asked. Then he said, “These kids have worked really hard to get this play up on its feet. Are you ready to destroy that just so you can hang on to ideas you love so much?” I took out my red pen on the spot and hacked away, sadly—yet firmly—accepting losses that, not five minutes before, seemed too terrible to contemplate. Despite the Times’ reservations, The High Life was hit in L.A. and enjoyed a profitable East Coast tour that helped pay my rent for a couple of years.

Faith Suicide

Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 9.38-50) resounds with echoes of my backstage episode. The disciples come to Jesus in alarm. Someone outside Jesus’s tight-knit circle has been touched by the gospel flame and is now working wonders in His name. The disciples try to stop the impostor, no doubt believing Jesus will appreciate their efforts to control His message. But Jesus’s response surprises them. Rather than acknowledge their good intentions, He praises the outsider for reaching people He might never meet. “No one who does a deed of power in My name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me,” Jesus explains. “Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives a you cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” (Mark 9.39-41) In other words, this person the disciples are so eager to shut down is a true friend—a partner whose efforts advance Christ’s mission. Instead of taking offense at him, they should be grateful and support him!

The warning that arises from this situation is issued not to the outsider, but to the insiders. In attempting to control Christ’s message and discredit the witness of another, they put the outsider’s faith at risk. “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in Me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea,” Jesus says. (v43) To ancient minds, the Sea is the most fearsome, deadly place there is. To die at sea is to be lost forever, completely erased from memory, unburied, leaving no proof you existed. Intentionally throwing oneself into the Sea is utter madness. Yet Jesus tells us it’s by far a saner alternative than what we do to ourselves when we contest another Christian's witness. Believers whose faith doesn’t fully square with our own are not against us. They’re for us. And when we try to censure and obstruct their belief, we end up committing a thing worse than faith suicide. Better we should vanish entirely than cause them to stumble, Jesus says. The question concealed in His statement asks us, Are we willing to destroy others just so we can hang on to ideas we love? It’s a big question we all have to answer.

The Trash Heap

As dramatic as this suicidal image is, Jesus isn’t content to stop there. He goes on to summon a series of shocking visuals that remind me of the director’s centipede analogy. When we answer Christ’s call and our faith begins to grow it assumes a life of its own. We easily become fond of certain characteristics, behaviors, and rituals that support the points we want to make with our lives. If we’re not keenly aware of the shape our faith takes, it can become grotesquely deformed and inept. Too much of a good thing is never good. “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell,” Jesus advises in verse 43. He says the same of clumsy feet and shortsighted eyes that result in tripping over our good intentions. Better to be lame or blind than land in hell, Jesus says.

The mere mention of “hell” makes a lot of people uncomfortable—which is exactly what Jesus means to do. If we’re to fully appreciate what He’s saying, we have to account for His terminology. Jesus uses Jewish slang here, a metaphorical reference to Gehenna, a valley southwest of Jerusalem where residents burn their rubbish. It’s a foul, suffocating, constantly smoldering trash heap—the most oppressive of all places to live, and hence a common term first-century Jews used to imagine eternal punishment for evildoing. Like drowning, it is a fate worse than death. And we can’t escape Jesus’s implications of what comes of our determination to hang onto ideas and behaviors that cause harm to others and us. It’s not our deficits that send us to the trash heap. It’s our insistence on placing too much value on debilitating ideas and practices that turn us into centipedes stumbling over our faith and tripping up other sincere believers. We mean well, but it’s too much.

Sunday’s Gospel expects us to examine how we live out our faith, to recognize detriments we create by refusing to let go of notions that create divisions and undermine the “little ones” Jesus loves so dearly. It’s not our show. God, our Producer, and Jesus, our Director, warn us that assuming everything we hold dear is vital to their story is a deadly proposition. Our brothers and sisters will suffer. We will suffer. Perhaps it’s time for all of us to reach for our red pens, prayerfully evaluate how much is too much, and start hacking away—not for our sake, but to protect those who stand with us on the Lord’s side, whether we agree with them or not.

Stubbornly hanging on to personal beliefs and philosophies can turn us into faith centipedes. We easily wind up tripping over ourselves and, worse still, risk causing other believers to stumble.

Inverting the Totem Pole

He took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in His arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes not Me but the One Who sent Me.” (Mark 9.36-37)

Jesus: The Documentary

We’ve all seen at least one Hollywood treatment of the Jesus story, and despite variances, they all boil down to scene upon scene of cinematic spectacle: multitudes and miracles and meaningful encounters of tremendous narrative import. Knowing the Gospels’ grittier side, however, deflates these epics. By and large, Jesus runs a small-time operation and spends much of His time (especially in the early stages of His ministry) avoiding the spotlight. He and His disciples mostly work the villages and countryside. They never establish a headquarters, as John the Baptist does when he sets up shop on the Jordan. They don’t settle down for extended periods in one place. Jesus’s reputation as a healer and teacher precedes Him, which enables Him to attract big crowds wherever He goes, yet also allows Him to move on once He finishes whatever He came to do. Unlike the big-budget movies—in which an invisible cathedral, complete with choir and orchestra, seems to float above Jesus’s head at all times—the Gospels portray a lot of scrambling and improvising and figuring things out on the fly. They read more like a low-budget road picture than The Greatest Story Ever Told.

This prompts me to wonder what a behind-the-scenes film might look like. Shot with a hand-held camera, Jesus: The Documentary focuses on conversations and logistics that keep things moving, rather than the epic events Hollywood memorializes. Mark 9.30-37 (Sunday’s Gospel) gives us a snippet of this reality. It catches up with Jesus on the heels of two spectacular sequences: the Transfiguration and healing of a profoundly troubled boy. As often happens, Jesus whisks His followers away to teach them privately. He tells them He’ll be betrayed, executed, and rise from the dead after three days. The first half of His prediction perplexes them, as it seems highly improbable that anyone would conspire to destroy Him. Even if that were so, it’s unthinkable His public would allow it. Add to that His mention of resurrection and the disciples are totally befuddled. “They did not understand what He was saying and were afraid to ask Him,” verse 32 says. Their worried looks are pure documentary gold.

Redefining Greatness

But their confusion isn’t the half of it. As they proceed through the provinces, the filmmakers capture an argument brewing among the disciples. If, as Jesus says, they’re headed for serious trouble, it stands to reason their character and loyalty will be tried. A contest for bragging rights breaks out. To this point, they’ve functioned as a company of equals. Now they splinter, with each insisting he has the right stuff to be named the greatest among them. Mark doesn’t record their comments, but we can fill in the blanks. Peter, Andrew, James, and John pull rank as Jesus’s first followers. Thomas prides himself on keeping a cool head that insists on rational proof to understand what’s going on. Matthew points to his political savvy as a tax collector. Judas boasts of his commitment to the poor and disenfranchised. Every disciple’s claim to greatness rests on the presumption that he’s indispensible to Jesus in ways the others are not.

Evidently the disciples haven’t been as discrete as they hoped. When they arrive at their next stop, Jesus asks, “What were you arguing about?” (v33) They clam up. Jesus doesn’t condemn their position-jockeying outright. Instead, He turns their debate upside down. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all,” He says. (v35) It’s not about who will take charge when things fall apart. It’s about who will honor Christ’s charge to serve others in humility and self-sacrifice. Jesus inverts the totem pole and in the process forever redefines greatness. He draws a little child into His arms and tells the disciples, “Whoever welcomes one such child in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes the One Who sent Me.” (v37) Returning to our imaginary film, the camera slowly pans around the room, resting momentarily on each disciple’s blank stare. This is not what they want to hear.

Willingness to Welcome

Now, as then, we define greatness by a person’s following—not only in number, but also in the quality and status of those in one’s camp. The pastor with the biggest church filled with the most influential members must be the greatest. The politician with the most votes and powerful allies must be the greatest. The neighbor with the most friends and enviable success must be the greatest. While these achievements may be admirable, Jesus makes it clear there’s more to it than popularity and impressiveness. He defines greatness by a single, completely unexpected trait: willingness to welcome the least attractive, impressive, and powerful into our ranks.

Jesus: The Documentary ends. The theater lights come up. And the image of the little one nestled in Jesus’s arms is seared into memory. This child isn’t the freshly scrubbed, angelic tyke from Central Casting. It’s a frail, grungy kid who’s constantly begging for attention and complaining of hunger and getting in our way. By extension, it’s the maligned adult and starving believer and inconvenient interloper. It’s everyone who doesn’t fit our romanticized picture of what religion looks like. Jesus’s greatness paradigm turns the worldly success adage on its head: it’s not who you know, but what you know. And what Jesus wants us to know is opening our arms to everyone—embracing the most vulnerable and naïve among us without restraint—results in greatness. It is what makes us indispensible to Him, to God, and one another.

In redefining greatness, Jesus turns the worldly success adage on its head: it’s not who you know, but what you know.

Certainty and Its Dangers

How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? (Proverbs 1.22)

Black-and-White

What makes certainty dangerous is that we seek—and find—it in all the wrong places. Wherever we encounter a patch of gray, our hard-wired survival instinct immediately compels us to transpose it into black-and-white. We formulate an opinion and block out any possibilities there might be another answer, or many answers, to help us decipher what we’re looking at. We crave certainty, because certainty makes complexity simple and simplicity aids decisiveness. And after we distill complex challenges and situations down to a chosen response, we underscore our certainty by claiming it’s “the right thing.” Put that way, craving the reliability and comfort of certainty sounds foolish. Laughing at other possibilities seems reckless and unwise. And in Proverbs 1.20-33 (Sunday’s Old Testament reading), we’re explicitly told such stratagems are indeed foolish, reckless, and unwise. 

In my own life, the tension between craving certainty and living with uncertainty has been most strongly felt in my faith. I come from a tradition that prides itself on iron-clad certainty based on a literal reading of sacred texts and a definitive theology that orders everything in life, from the workings of the cosmos down to minute moral dilemmas. When the need to find community among accepting, supportive believers drew me to the Reformed tradition, I experienced genuine culture shock. I’d never heard ministers and theologians confess they didn’t have all the answers. I wasn’t accustomed to people questioning the validity of Iron Age concepts and customs. Where I came from, one didn’t complicate matters by asking questions. You accepted everything the Bible says as written (based on your reading of it) and you called that “the truth”. Such an approach raises a really big question, however, and introduces an elephant to the room that one must choose to ignore.

When we rely on certainty that reduces everything to black-and-white, we remove faith from the equation entirely and settle for human religion. It’s taken me years to detect the inherent contradiction in professions like, “I know without a shadow of a doubt.” Removing doubt’s shadows—or refusing to acknowledge them—erases any need for faith’s light, a dangerous proposition by any measure, as it diminishes the Holy Spirit’s power to speak to us in new and relevant ways through God’s Word. We must be unwavering in what we believe, but we must never confuse faith for certainty. That’s when we find ourselves reflected in Proverbs 1.22: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?”

A Cautionary Tale

Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 8.27-38) spins a cautionary tale about certainty’s pitfalls. Jesus and the disciples are in the region of Caesarea Philippi, a Roman outpost not far from Galilee. Everywhere they look they see temples and altars erected to pagan deities, and the sight of such religious diversity may be what prompts Jesus to raise a question out of the blue: “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples rattle off a list of names they’ve heard associated with Jesus: John the Baptist, Elijah, and other famous prophets. Then Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” All of them, save one, don’t know what to say. Only Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.” (v30) In Matthew’s version, his certainty is rewarded. Jesus ordains Peter as the founder of His Church. But we see something very different in Mark. There is no praise for Peter’s certainty. Jesus tells the disciples not to tell anyone about Him. And in short order, we see why this is.

Jesus explains what being the Messiah will entail—and it’s nothing like the picture Jewish teachers have conjured up based on literal reading of the Prophets. There is no divinely ordered coronation in Jesus’s version, no overthrow of oppressive regimes, no end to violence and political strife. In fact, what Jesus describes is the exact opposite of what the disciples expect. Verse 31 says, “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” This rocks Peter’s world. His black-and-white certainty is suddenly blanketed in shades of gray. He pulls Jesus aside and rebukes Him! Jesus turns and looks at His followers, as if to say, “Watch this,” and blasts Peter in return. “Get behind me, Satan!” He hisses. “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (v33) In a mere three verses, certainty downgrades Peter from a divinely inspired confessor of Christ to a foolish simpleton. He scoffs at the idea of Jesus’s death at the hands of the very people who, according to his understanding of Scripture, should hail Him as the Messiah. He rejects the knowledge Jesus lays before him, that death is not the end of the story. Christ’s power will be revealed in bodily resurrection—a concept so alien to Peter that he finds it intolerable.

Nothing’s as Simple as We’d Like

After this decidedly uncomfortable exchange, Jesus calls the crowd around Him and issues a startling edict: “If you want to become My followers, you must deny yourselves and take up your cross and follow Me.” The context is plain. Self-denial in pursuit of discipleship begins by letting certainty go and following Christ by faith. It’s simply not essential that we know the workings of our faith without a doubt. Indeed, from Peter’s example, we learn that certainty is faith’s enemy. It can only entertain possibilities that agree with its limited understanding. It wants to simplify everything so that every detail in life is predictable and clear-cut. And that’s not how God works in the world or our lives. Peter is right to proclaim Jesus as Christ. Where he goes wrong is to confuse faith for certainty, to embrace a set of human expectations of how things should be at the expense of trusting God’s supreme knowledge of how things are.

We can’t know everything for certain and we won’t. All we need to know is that nothing’s as simple as we’d like it to be. What seems laughably absurd to us is serious business to God. And, as Proverbs says, we hate knowing that, because it jettisons us into gray patches that resist black-and-white reasoning. Not having answers is the cross that we, as followers of Christ, must bear. But thanks be to God for all of life’s gray areas and the myriad questions we can’t definitively resolve. Without them, we’d have no need for faith and the wisdom to accept what we can’t possibly understand or explain.

Without questions and doubts, faith cannot exist. 

Be Opened

Then looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. (Mark 7.34-35)

Fragmented

One of the worst sicknesses I’ve ever endured occurred a few years ago, when I contracted a sinus infection that spread to my left inner ear. Pressure built up behind my eardrum, creating unbearable pain that left me in yowling in agony. I was stranded in a Dallas hotel, in the care of a local physician who called on me once a day for nearly a week and room service staff who brought me juice to wash down an arsenal of high-power antibiotics and painkillers. Before the doctor would release me to fly back to Chicago, he wanted to be certain the infection hadn’t spread to my right ear and hinted it might also affect brain tissue. Although my partner, Walt, called constantly, I was totally alone, in a strange place, facing the possibility of being hospitalized far from home. Inability to hear in my left ear compounded my sense of isolation. I lay there, in insufferable pain, helpless, contemplating terrible outcomes. Deafness. Brain damage. Very possibly waiting for Walt to get to me while strangers herded me through the ER and hospital admissions.

My condition’s most awful aspect, however, was how I sounded to myself when I spoke. The voice that came out of my mouth no longer matched the one in my head. It seemed to belong to someone else and, after a while I became unsure I could trust it. (This was partly due to the haze of medication, I’m sure.) But as my condition dragged on, I began to feel less and less in control of my situation. There was the Tim in dire pain and the Tim trying to put words around his pain, and they weren’t the same Tim. I was fragmented.

Astounded Beyond Measure

The deaf man in Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 7.24-37) is in a similar situation. Inability to hear has impeded his ability to speak clearly. The voice behind his clogged ears bears little resemblance to the one he utters. My brief experience with his type of affliction drives home how fragmented his daily existence must be. Obviously his neighbors feel for him. When Jesus passes through their region, they bring their deaf friend to Him, begging Him to touch the man. What happens next is most irregular. Rather than curing the deaf man on the spot, Jesus pulls him to the side, out of the crowd’s sight. As though diagnosing his illness, Jesus puts His fingers in the man’s ears, spits—an odd gesture Mark doesn’t explain—and touches the man’s tongue. He looks up to heaven, lets go a deep sigh (we’re not sure what to make of that, either), and, in the man’s native Aramaic, Jesus says, “Ephphatha,” or, “Be opened.” Immediately, the obstructions in the man’s ears dissolve, his tongue is released, and he’s able to speak plainly. All of the disjointed pieces inside his head come together. Suddenly being able to hear again is a miracle all its own. But being able to hear himself—having his speech reunited with his inner voice—is what makes him whole.

Even more than that, the deaf man’s restored speech brings healing to his entire community. Family, friends, and neighbors who couldn’t understand him now hear him clearly. They no longer have to compensate for his disability. They’re free from the guesswork and stress of parsing his inarticulate self-expression. Freeing the man’s ability to hear and speak is how Jesus makes the community whole. One whom they’d lost has been returned. And that miracle loosens their tongues. Jesus orders them not to tell anyone about the miracle, but they can’t keep quiet. Verses 36 and 37 read, “The more He ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.'” Astounded beyond measure—I so love that! It is exactly what happens when we approach Christ on others’ behalf. What Jesus does for them somehow spills over into us. We can’t possibly contain ourselves, because the wholeness Christ imparts to others inevitably makes us whole as well. We can’t help ourselves from proclaiming, “He has done everything well!”

Voluntary Deaf-Mutes

In the wake of the US political conventions, I’ve also been astounded beyond measure—though not in the good way witnessed in Mark. I’ve been thoroughly astonished, in some cases disgusted, by the prevalence of clogged ears and twisted tongues in our community. From the highest podiums of power to running commentaries flooding social networks, we are encompassed with people whose hearing and speech are severely hampered. Their ears are clogged with inflammatory rhetoric that impedes their ability to express themselves clearly and effectively. Hearing and reading what they say, I think, “Surely that’s not what they believe.” Surely their inner voices cry out for an end to poverty, violence, and injustice. Surely they hear a booming call for righteousness in the depths of their being—a resounding declaration that callous indifference for the least among us must cease. Surely something within them wants to convey concern for others beyond themselves. But the deafening roar of tyrants and charlatans has robbed their freedom to express their faith and humanity in understandable ways. And, all contrary evidence aside, I must believe this is true, lest my ears also become infected and clogged, lest my own speech also becomes harsh and nonsensical, lest I too become a burden to my community, a liability that makes those I live with less than whole.

At the same time, I’m convinced the political deafness and jabber polluting current discourse are merely magnified symptoms—an outbreak, if you will—of a more invidious contagion. We no longer care to listen to one another, let alone the voice of God that calls to us from deep within. We’re no longer concerned about what we say, let alone how we say it. We have become a culture of voluntary deaf-mutes, purposefully closing our ears to anything we don’t want to hear and disregarding the confusion and harm our words create.

We’re becoming increasingly fragmented as people, with the holy person inside us bearing little resemblance to the vain, self-serving one portrayed in our words. We need to find Jesus and beg Him to touch us. We need Him to diagnose our sickness, penetrating the garbage cluttering our ears with His pristine fingers, loosening our twisted tongues with His mighty hand. We need Him to speak to us in language we understand, commanding us to be opened. When our ability to hear and speak clearly is restored, we will be made whole. Our communities will be made whole. Peace, justice, and compassion will be restored. We will be astounded beyond measure and say, “He has done everything well!”

Lord Jesus, if ever we needed healing it’s now. We beg You, come to us, pull us aside, lay Your hand on us, and command us to be opened. Amen.

We have become a culture plagued by clogged ears and slurred speech. We need Christ's healing to be made whole.

Watching the Detectives

So the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7.5)

Clinging to the Past

Now and then someone who knows me casually will say something like, “You’ll love this, since you were raised in the South,” or, “Can you explain such-and-such to me? I didn’t grow up down South.” They’re always surprised when I say I grew up in Chicago, raised by Alabamians who viewed their Southern heritage as a sort of ethnicity. When my brother and I were very young, our parents pointed to our neighbors—the Hogans and Leonardis and Borkowskis—and told us that, just as they followed certain customs passed down from their elders, we too behaved certain ways and believed certain things because of where we came from. We talked differently than our neighbors, not only in accent, but also in terms of what was and wasn’t said. Our family dynamic was different. Our sense of hospitality and social obligation was different. And, most obvious, our religious life was different. Nobody went to church more often than the Wolfes—twice on Sunday, twice during the week, with nearly every Saturday consumed by some sort of outreach or fellowship event. So I am a Southerner through and through with remarkably little experience of what living “down South” is actually like.

Although my parents were grateful to serve Chicago congregations and adapted very well to their urban surroundings, they mourned the slower, more genteel life they left behind. And they kept their Southern identity alive by transmitting its values and practices to us. Common courtesies—saying “please” and “thank you,” “ma’am” and “sir”—were drilled into us, along with very specific shows of gallantry and refined table manners. (To this day, I walk nearest the curb when accompanying a lady down the street.) This is not to say our neighbors didn’t raise their children do likewise. The difference was we weren’t taught to be mannerly because it was polite. Our manners grew out of who we were—or perhaps more accurately, out of the past my parents were clinging to.

In Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 7.1-8,14-15,21-23), we see a very similar situation, as a few Pharisees and scribes, desperately clinging to the past, confront Jesus about His followers’ poor table manners. The disciples don’t wash up before dinner. That deeply offends the Pharisees. To understand why they’re offended and why Jesus responds to their complaint as He does, we need to understand what they’re trying keep alive by perpetuating ancient traditions.

Ferreting Out Scofflaws

Palestine is unique among Roman conquests in that the Jews are permitted to practice their faith and customs without interference. While other conquered nations must swear allegiance to Caesar and adopt imperial beliefs, the Jews’ willingness to die for their faith tradition has resulted in a somewhat schizoid way of life. First-century Jews live under two governments and legal codes: their own religious law and Roman occupation. On the surface, life is not much changed under Caesar: temples and synagogues stay open, social customs remain intact, and civil justice is administered in Jewish courts. At the same time, however, Roman presence in Palestine is undeniable and the Jews recognize that any bold move outside the status quo could bring down Caesar’s fist. In next to no time, Israel and Judea—the Jewish twin kingdoms—could become like their neighbors: impoverished replicas of Rome. The largest Jewish sect, the Pharisees, are obsessed with preventing such a fate by safeguarding traditions of their past. Jewish identity is everything to them, and they make it their lives’ work to preserve it. In many ways, they operate like detectives, ferreting out scofflaws and confronting their non-compliance to Jewish law in public.

Word of a new, radical Rabbi’s success in the provinces compels a group of Pharisees and scribes—i.e., Temple academics—to leave Jerusalem and investigate. As a rule, people clean up their acts when they see the Pharisees coming. Jesus and His followers don’t do that. The Pharisees arrive and are appalled that this rough-and-tumble bunch ignores one of their most basic traditions: they don’t wash their hands before they eat. They challenge Jesus: “Why do Your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7.5) Ordinarily, that would be enough for any leader to apologize and promise to do better. Not Jesus. He disregards their complaint, and challenges their obsession: “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’” (v6-7)

Accommodating the Pharisees' tendency to feign obtuseness when it’s convenient, He breaks it down further. “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition,” He says. (v8) He does a bit of legal gymnastics to prove He’s as fit as they in manipulating the law to find fault with others. Then He addresses the crowd collecting around this brouhaha. “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand,” He says. “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” (v14-15) And what might those “things that come out” be? In this context, they’re self-righteousness, slavish observance of archaic customs, and myopic judgment of others’ behavior.

Reach for the Future

Throughout His ministry, Jesus’s problem with the Pharisees springs from disgust with the political motives behind their holiness. They’ve transformed spiritual law and religious custom into a nationalist agenda and appointed themselves the keepers of all things Jewish. Their unforgiving scrutiny of others is basic to their intentions to homogenize Jewish identity in such a way that past traditions are preserved. On one level, this is a noble effort. But on a deeper one, it results in the diminution of those who don’t abide by every letter of the law and excludes anyone who doesn’t fit the Pharisees’ idealized profile. I like to think that even as Jesus challenges His Pharisee accusers, He glances around at His followers. Their hands are dirty. Their lives don’t stack up. But their hearts are close to God. They are the first fruits of God’s kingdom, a new ideal that will survive centuries of political tumult and regime change. While the Pharisees cling to their past, Jesus and His disciples reach for their future. That’s why Jesus keeps such a close eye on the Pharisees, even as they watch Him closely. His Shepherd’s heart will not permit the rude comingling of faith with a political agenda to endanger His flock. Yes, in the current circumstance, Jewish identity is important—but not to the extent that its traditions sacrifice justice and acceptance for the sake of preserving it.

In the current political climate, we can expect challenges from self-appointed keepers of Christianity. They function like a band of detectives, scrutinizing everything we do and say, eagerly hoping to catch us diverging from traditional norms. This text is particularly illuminating for faithful Americans striving to build God’s kingdom amid cries of “taking back” the nation—restoring old values and traditions that no longer promote justice and inclusion, protecting a “Christian” identity that is no longer relevant in a rapidly changing world. We cannot live in the past. We must reach for the future, looking to God to lead us to peace and compassion and equity for all. 

Watching the detectives is vital. When we see them coming, the last thing we should do is tidy up and be polite. We must own our identity as Christ's followers and demonstrate discipleship by removing all rancor and hostility from our lips, even when our non-conformity to the mythic Christian past triggers rancor and hostility. “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come,” Jesus says in verse 21. Live from your heart. Speak peace and justice. Know that you’re being watched and use that as an opportunity to embody God’s kingdom in a culture overrun with self-appointed detectives. Leave their past behind. Reach for your future.

When we see self-appointed “faith detectives” coming our way, the last thing we should do is tidy up and be polite.