Mark 6: 45-56 Responding to Jesus walking on the water

 

Last time I preached on this passage I found this picture in an article with the heading new age surfing. I think it had to do with the rise of Brazilian surfers on the pro circuit  rather than new age spirituality. However, the image and that heading gave me the illusion that this man maybe surfing the Jesus way; he’s going board less. Now you and I can look at this picture and say yes it does look that way but hey isn’t it just that his board and his feet are on the back of the wave and we can’t see them. Yeah that’s it all right. And as I read the passage from Mark’s gospel we had today  my twenty first century scientific mindset wrestles with Jesus walking on the water. Maybe Jesus was surfing the swells on the lake, or the first ever board sailor or they were in the shallows, but I can’t do that because it is not what the passage tells us, it challenges us to really consider who Jesus is and how we respond to him.

 

 It's not even like the joke about the Pentecostal pastor, the catholic Priest and the Presbyterian minister who go fishing on a lake on their day off. And I’m not a great joke teller like Lorne is. But it goes like this… The Pentecostal pastor wants a coffee so he jumps out of the boat and walks on the water back to shore. Gets a coffee from the near by café. Then comes back out to the boat, gets in sits down and keeps on fishing.  No one bats an eyelid. A little later the catholic priest says he too wants a coffee so he too gets up jumps out of the boat and walks to shore gets a coffee and comes back out to the boat, gets in and sits down as if he hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary and carries on fishing. Now the Presbyterian minister had watched that and just like the disciples in our reading this morning he is totally amazed and freaked out. But also he thinks to himself my faith is just as strong as theirs so why can’t I do that. So he decides he wants a coffee and he’ll try walking on the water. So he steps to the side of the boat and jumps over, only to plunge straight into the water and be sucked down by the weight of this clothes and the catholic priest turns to the Pentecostal pastor and says “ Do you think we should have told him about the stepping-stones.” It’s not like that its about who Jesus is…

We are  S L O W L Y working our way through Mark’s fast paced account of te rongopai O Ihu Karaiti the good news of Jesus Christ. In the reading we had this morning you may have noticed that fast paced-ness coming out with the repetition of immediately and right away as the narrative progresses.  Mark’s gospel also has the feel of a mystery story, right at the start we are let into the secret of who Jesus is… He is the messiah the son of God and as we move through the gospel what that means is revealed to us, quite profoundly in passages like this one. The series is called ‘the way of the cross’ because against the cultural expectations around what the messiah would be like, Mark portrays Jesus as primarily the suffering servant who would give his life as a ransom for many, and we are invited to see that to follow Jesus calls us down the same path of service and self-sacrificial love. It calls us to walk the way of the cross.

 

The reading we had today rounds off Mark’s account of Jesus ministry around the lake, which started in Mark 3:6. We have one last journey across the lake and a summary of Jesus ministry on the northeastern shore, before he moves on to other regions. He sends his disciples before him to Bethsaida in verse 45, which is inland from the lake and they arrive as part of that journey, in verse 53, at Gennesaret which is on the lake shore. 

 In this section we’ve seen In a series of miracles stories that Jesus has authority over all the forces that are arrayed against the kingdom of God and God’s purposes, nature, in a lake crossing where Jesus calmed the storm with a word, the demonic, sickness and death, with the raising of Jarius’ daughter.  We saw that despite this that people still did not believe that Jesus was the messiah, he was rejected by the people of his hometown. He then sends his twelve disciples out to proclaim the same message as he had been preaching, the need to repent because the kingdom of God was at hand and he had delegated his authority to them to heal the sick and over unclean spirits. When they returned to Jesus they had tried to get away in the wilderness by themselves but were followed by a great crowd, and in an event that is directly connected to the one we have today Jesus had miraculously feed the five thousand.

 

So lets look at the passage.

It is in two parts, Jesus walking on the water and the summary of his healing ministry.

It starts with the ending of the feeding narrative, Jesus sends the disciples on ahead of him. They had come away to debrief and rest after their mission trip but had instead had an intense time of teaching with the crowd. Jesus then dismisses the crowd and goes up onto the mountain top to pray. In Mark’s gospel this happens at significant times in Jesus ministry, after his early success in Capernaum, where he reaffirms his mission to go to other villages and towns and other regions, and also as he has to move to the lake shore to minister and he chooses the twelve to be with him. So now Jesus does that as he moves to other regions.

The twelve do what Jesus has told them, get in the boat and head over to the other side of the lake. Like with the story of Jesus calming the storm they find themselves in difficulty. We are told Jesus sees that they are struggling against the wind, they don’t have a sail up but are rather having to strain at the oars to make head way. Again we are reminded that it is not plain sailing following Jesus, in fact the early church was quick to use this image again as they faced difficulty and hardship. Following Jesus can seem very much like going against the tide of the  surrounding culture, for Marks first readers and for us today.

Around about dawn Mark tells us Jesus went walking out on the lake to them. Did you note the phrase ‘he was about to pass them by’, it sort of feels like Jesus wasn’t concerned about their predicament. However in the context of this narrative it gives us a clue from the Old testament about what this story is telling us. In our Old Testament reading from Job, we hear that the God who made the stars and we have a connection here with Aotearoa as Paliedes is specifically mentioned which of course is the Matariki constellation, is the one who treads upon the waves.  And Job talks of God passing by. It is language of theophany, when God turns up in his glory,  in exodus Moses hides in the cave as God passes by and only sees his glory from behind, likewise for Elijah we hear on Mt Sain that God passes by. For Mark’s original Jewish hearers it was like a code that they would understand we are being told something profound about Jesus. This is further reenforced by the words that Jesus uses as he gets into the boat “take courage It is I. That ‘It is I’ , is the same Greek usage as with the I am when Moses encounters God at the burning bush. Jesus is literally saying take courage ‘I am’. With Jesus presence the wind is stilled.

Maybe we can relate to the disciples here who when they saw Jesus didn’t recognise him. In fact they though it was a phantom that they were seeing and so were terrified. While they had didn’t have the laws of physics quantified for them, first century people were no more likely to conceive of someone walking on water as we are today. The narrator explains to us that they were amazed by Jesus but didn’t understand what this meant as they hadn’t understood the miracle of the loaves. In fact it says their hearts were hardened. Now scholars tells us that their hearts were hardened is in the passive tense in Greek, so it was not a deliberate hardening of their hearts and rejecting Jesus, it was that’s something was stopping them from fully comprehending who Jesus is. As we journey through the gospel we will see that there is a gradual process of understanding who Jesus is and putting their trust in him. We have peter’s affirmation ‘you are the Messiah, but even then he is quick to rebuke Jesus as he talks about his coming death. Like the disciples we are on that same journey as we read through the gospel, we are invited to understand what the gospel is telling us about Jesus and have faith. To come to see and understand the totality the good news of Jesus the messiah and the son of God.

It's interesting that in the second section of our reading this morning that as soon as Jesus is seen by the people of Gennesaret they recognise him. Their response is to run throughout the region and carry the sick people to bring them to Jesus. You get this echo of the friends who carry the paraplegic man and lower him through the roof to Jesus. Were ever Jesus goes the sick are placed in front of him hoping just to touch the edge of his garment. And they are healed. I wonder if that touching the hem of his garment comes from the fact they had heard the testimony of the women who Jesus healed of her bleeding. I wonder if this isn’t a case of the power of a testimony to impact others…  The crowd here recognise Jesus and while they do not fully understand who he is, remember in the gospel it is the crowd who one day will cry hosanna hosanna blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord and then just five short days later will chant crucify him crucify him. But here their recognition of Jesus leads them to rush and bring those in need of a healing touch to Jesus and those people are healed.  Recognition of Jesus calls us to compassion and action, for the least and marginalised in society, bring them to Jesus who is able to heal and make whole.

What does this passage say to us today

Firstly we are invited to see who Jesus is… Morna Hooker in her commentary on Mark’ says the miracles of feeding the five thousand and Jesus walking on the water and the healings in the second section of this passage, show the Jews that here is one in their midst that is even greater than their ancestor Moses. Through Moses God provided manna in the wilderness, through Moses God lead the people of Israel through the red sea on dry land, through Moses even though they had sinned against God as Moses raised up a snake and people looked to it they were healed. Here in these miracles were signs for the Jews that the God who had saved them from slavery in Egypt was amongst them in the person of Jesus Christ: Able to feed his people, walking on the water, healing all who looked to him.

Looking back from beyond the crucifixion and resurrection for us we catch a glimpse of how theologians will later describe who Jesus is talking of two natures indivisible that Jesus was totally human and totally divine at the same time…

Secondly, we are invited to respond to Jesus.  I often find myself feeling a little like the disciples, not so much terrified by Jesus but surprised and amazed when I see and sense Jesus act in a way that reflects his sovereignty. It is an ongoing journey of responding to him. In Mark of course we don’t have peter getting out of the boat to try it for himself. But we do have the  response of the crowd as well… that of compassion in action. The going and getting and bringing to Jesus. At a talk by Andrew Katay the CEO of city to city Australia’s revitalization process he spoke of people responding to the love of God shown to us in Jesus dying in our place and brining us into relationship with him as a reordering of the loves in our lives, our response to God first loving us is to love god with all our heart and all our mind and all our strength and to love our neighbour as ourselves.  Recognizing Jesus calls us to compassion and action. 

Lastly, I know we can struggle with Jesus walking on the water. But I also know we need to meet Jesus walking on the water in our lives today.  And I don’t think that Jesus it is as foreign to us as you may think. It is very much part of our culture here in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is an image that has appeared on our stamps a long time ago when we had stamps and that is often in brochures that tourist read about this land of ours. At St Faith’s Anglican Church at Ohinemutu there is that amazing piece of art where as you look out from the church you see etched in the glass and image of  Jesus with moko on his face and a feather cloak draped round his shoulders walking towards you on the steaming waters of Lake Rotorua.  Then there is one of James K Baxter most well known poems that picks this image up 

 

I saw the Maori Jesus

Walking on the waters of Wellington harbour

He wore blue dungarees

His beard and hair were long

His breath smelt of mussels and parāoa (bread) 

When he smiled it looked like the dawn 

Then the poem goes on, like the passage today, to talk about this Jesus walking into the lives of disillusioned railway workers, street walkers, worn out  housewives and even alcoholic priests and bringing new creation and life. In the midst of your struggles and wrestles, that straining on the oars,  may you meet Jesus walking on the water and hear his words ‘take courage It is I’. Allow that to go with you as you encounter those who are in need of knowing the love, grace and power of God to heal and make whole as you respond by following him.

 

1 thessalonians 2:1-12 Paul's ministry as a model for us: An Audience of one and Love for all God's people

 

This message was preached at HopeWhangarei on December 8th 2024. the service was a licensing service of our National Ministry intern Pauline Hamsphire. After her two year internship and completing study through the Knox center for Ministry and Leadership the Presbytery was licensing her as  a Minister of the Gospel... a minister of word and sacrament in the PCANZ. 

here is a recoding of the message.... https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/hope-whangarei/episodes/8-12-24-Howard-Carter---Pauls-ministry-as-a-model-for-ours-e2s1b6d 

Does anyone know who Scott Sinquah is?

Here is a photo of him

When I first saw this photo of him I though he must be an ordinand intern for the PCANZ. Having to jump through so many hoops. When I was down at Knox as an ordinand myself I showed a similar picture and made the same comment… and let’s say the reception wasn’t that good.

Scott Sixkiller Sinquah is not by the way a PCANZ ordinand. He is proud to represent the Gila River Pima, Hopi/Tewa, Cherokee, and Choctaw Nations. Coming from the southwest in Arizona, he is a two-time and the current World Hoop Dance Champion.

Going through the process of applying and training for ministry in the PCANZ can seem like being a hoop dancer, just jumping through hoops. Pre application theological studies, and in my case a year at university studying anything but theology, an assessment by your parish, your presbytery and national assessment. Leaving your job with its sense of identity, certainties and familiarity, to become a student. Move, across the country, put down roots in a new place. Assessments, assignments, reports, block courses, supervision, ministry reflection group, preaching reviews, dealing with a crusty old mentoring minister, colloquiums, readiness for ministry reports, a crit service, being observed taking a church meeting, and an FIE, that’s a final integrated Exercise to go to the presbytery.  Packing up moving again, seeking God’s direction and leading as to where to from here. I guarantee Pauline you could give Scott sixkiller Sinquah a run for his money.

Yet in the midst of all that God has been at work, the spirit is at work, Christ has been moulding and shaping , and here we are and we’ve come today to acknowledge what Paul talked of in the reading this morning… ‘we speak as one who has been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.’ In the midst of all those hoops God has bought you to a place whereas a church we confirm your call… Pauline as a church we acknowledge you are approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are licensing you as a minister of that Gospel, a minister of word and sacrament.

The reading we had this morning from 1 Thessalonians 2 acts like a recap from the start of an episode in a Netflix serial. Streaming has kind of bought back the old cliffhanger serials from the early days of motion pictures, telling long form stories, over many episodes. Each episode leaving you wanting to know more. Except now you don’t have to wait a week or go to the cinema, you can binge watch wherever you are. Paul in defending his ministry against criticism that had sprung up after he left Thessalonica reminds the church of his ministry with them. You can read it up in Acts 16 and 17. Recaps how he and his team had worked in their midst. Despite what people were now saying it hadn’t been an empty time. They come to the city after being treated badly in Philippi and despite opposition had proclaimed the gospel, and people had responded. Paul reminds the church of that their motives, actions and relationships had reflected their commitment to that Gospel. In this recapping we get insight into Pauls model of ministry, insight that is helpful for us today. Important for you Pauline as you continue in your journey as a minister of word and sacrament, important for all of us as we are all called to ministry, mission and witness in the places, roles, relationships, communities and world, the storylines God places us in.

I just want to focus on two things from this passage for us. That Paul sees Ministry as primarily about an audience of one, and out of that as love for all Gods people.

That audience of one speaks of the vertical relationship at the heart of Christian ministry. The relationship with God. there are reasons for that that come out of the text.

Firstly, the message that Paul bought is from God. Paul calls the gospel the gospel of God. it is not his own words but rather Paul and his team have been intrusted with this good news. The word gospel in roman society would have been a proclamation of the benefits of a new king who had come to power. The good news of God is that the kingdom, the reign of God had broken into the realms of humanity. It is the fact that in Jesus Christ, God stepped into his world, and through Jesus life, death and resurrection has made it possible for humanity to be forgiven and reconciled to God, as our loving Father. It is this Good News that had transformed Paul’s life. He had met the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus and it had totally turned him around. Our ministry our witness our way of ,living as Christian springs out of this good news and experiences it in our own lives.

Secondly, Paul is very clear that his doing ministry is based on the help of God. in verse 2 Paul speaks of the fact that in the face of all this opposition and hardship he was able to proclaim the good news of Jesus because of God’s help. Because we are put right with God through what Jesus Christ has done for us, God dwells within us by his Holy Spirit, and it is that that enables and inspires and gifts us to witness to, and ministry, serve in both a faithful and fruitful way. In ministry we are dependent on God’s help.  

In response to that grace shown by God, Paul says that everything he does is motivated by a love for God…for an audience of one… He contrasts his motives with the motives of the wandering philosophers of his time, who would use flattery and cater to wishes of their audiences to make a living off there devotees. Paul says he’s in in it for God not wealth. The people could see that through their hard work, Paul was supporting himself by being a tent maker, in his trade as well as preaching and teaching. Paul says his team could have come and expected honour and position as apostles of Christ, but rather they came as a small child. In geeco-roman society status and position were very important and children did not have any of that status or position in society. Paul is saying they came with humility, one of Paul’s favourite titles for himself is as a servant or slave of Jesus Christ, again someone seeking to serve not looking for status or power or prestige.

Paul says that in his teaching they did not use gimmicks or trickery or words of flattery, rather they told the gospel straight. Not wanting to please people but to please God. So when then taught and preached it was for that audience of one. Now that does not mean that Paul didn’t consider his human audience and context when he spoke and wrote. We know that he was very apt at contextualising his gospel presentation with out compromising the content of his message. In Athen’s he was able to quote Athenian poets and use the sculptures of the people to speak of Christ. I’d love to say that I came up with the line  an audience of one but it comes from Ben Witherington III who talks of Paul’s use of  the arts of persuasion and being  flexible in his rhetorical approach to different audiences. Then says “Paul claims he is playing to an audience of one, however, in the sense, that it is only from God, the tester of human hearts, that he seeks validation.”

When I came to Christ way back in the 1970’s Bill Bright of campus crusade for Christ’s discipleship material was very popular. I found it really helpful as Bill bright had a way of putting things visually. He had an illustration of the Christian life like a train with faith being the engine, fueled by the facts of the gospel and emotions being like the carriage that the train pulled. But also this wonderful illustration of what a Christ-centred life looked like. A circle with Christ on the thorn and everything else ordered round it. Pauline if I may one of the applications of this passage and challenges of ministry is the need to constantly be making sure that we have our lives centered on Christ. If I may its like this… (At this stage i stripped off my jacket and shirt to reveal a t-shirt on which I had printed the  illustration of  Bill Brights Christ centered life if you listen on the recording there is much laughter at this stage

) )...checking our heart is in the right place… a willingness trusting in God’s love and forgiveness and adoption of us to say with the psalmist ‘search me O God’.

While Paul talks of ministry being for an audience of One, that is lived out in a love for God’s people.

Paul speaks of the fact that the people at Thessalonica had become so dear to them that they chose not only to share the gospel with them but their lives as well. Right from the start of Paul’s letter you see this in his prayers for the churches he has started and ministered in, his writing to comfort and confront, to encourage and equip. Paul uses two metaphors to express this love. That of a mother and a father. Its highly appropriate to have that feminine image today as we license a woman minister, to be reminded that it takes both those roles to understand ministry. In roman society parental roles were very well defined: A mother’s role with their children was that of a nurturer, one who cared for their needs, feed them and guide them to maturity. The Father’s role was to teach and train their children in their moral responsibilities. In our culture we tend to see both parents involved in those two roles, they are not so gender defined. But its good to be reminded of the need for both the feminine and masculine in leadership.  

Paul shows that this love for God’s people was played out in the fact that they nurtured them and in the use of three phrases we encouraged you… we comforted you… by the way the word in the Greek here is from the same word paraclete that we have the Holy Spirit as the comforter, and it can mean more to come alongside and advise like a legal advocate than the  therapeutic idea of comforting… and to charge. Moving people to the goal of living the kind of life that pleases God. the life God has called us all into as we have come into his kingdom and are invited to share in his Glory.

In ministry and ministering to one another we do it out of love, a love that realises the best thing for the other person is to grow in their relationship with God, earlier in his letter Paul had talked of the believers imitating Paul and his ministry team and so becoming imitators of Christ. It’s one of the challenges and callings of ministry to both set an example for others, encouraging them, advising from alongside and even charging, spurring on. The great thing is that being church together means that we also get the same love and encouragement from those we serve as well.  

Pauline as you are being licensed today as a minister of the gospel. Can I your crusty old mentoring minister encourage comfort  and charge you to remember because of the Gospel of God and God’s enabling that while ministry just like being an ordinand, seem like hoop dancing that ‘you play to an audience of one’… the one who loves you, saved you, called you, strengthens, gifted and approved you and because of that great Love that you love the people you are called to ministry amongst. Love them so much you not only share the gospel with them but your life as well, and nurture, encourage, comfort and charge them to live a life worthy of the kingdom and glory God has called them to. And people can I encourage all of you to serve Christ in the places roles relationships and story lines God has placed you. In that  play to an audience of one and  love all God’s people.

Mark 2: 18-22 A conflict narrative... ginger beer, patching clothes, new wine and coffee!

 

At home we have a solid metal steamer trunk. It was Kris’ before we got married and she and then we have carted it all around the country. At present I think its full of wool, knitting needles and patterns. Leftovers from favourite jumpers long worn to death or no longer fitting, and supplies for projects which just never quite got gotten round to… But its more than just a convenient storage box, for Kris it’s a container for family memories from her childhood. It’s in pretty good condition, although the original steamer labels from the 1890’s have long since disappeared,  but the lid is rather battered and covered in mysterious bumps. Not just because it’s been used as a seat at times, or because of rough handling as we’ve moved. Those bumps are part of the treasured childhood memories.

Kris’ family used to brew ginger beer. They made it the old way fermenting it with a bacteria and yeast combination. The trunk was used to store the bottles during the fermentation process. Occasionally from the trunk there would be a loud bang followed by a clunk and a new bump would appear in the lid. The energy built up by the fermentation process would shatter the glass or warp and throw the top off any plastic bottle used. Maybe you’ve got similar memories. But the new life bubbling up in the ginger beer couldn’t be contained.

 NT Wright also brewed ginger beer when he was a child and had the same issue with bottles, he connected it to this passage today writing

 “ that image of the ginger beer remains with me when I read what Jesus says about new wine needing new wineskins. He is talking about that shatteringly new thing that is happening through his ministry. Something quite different was coming to birth from anything that had happened before. Something powerful and explosive.” 

With Jesus the kingdom of God had stepped into the realms of humanity and with that presence the old ways could not contain it.

And we are on a major journey through the gospel according to Mark, ‘the beginning of the good news of Jesus the messiah, Son of God’. The series is called The Way of the cross as in Mark Jesus is portrayed primarily as the suffering servant, who came to give his life for many. The gospel invites us to strip away many of the cultural expectations we have of Jesus and what it means to follow him and realise as one commentator puts it we are an army whose only weapons are service and self-sacrificial love. That to be a flourishing Christian community is ironically to follow Jesus on the way of the cross.

So far in the gospel we have been introduced to Jesus at his baptism and as he starts his ministry in galilee, calling people to repent and believe the good news because the kingdom of God was at hand, and showing its presence through healing the sick and freeing people from evil spirits. At the same time gathering a group to follow him and become fishers of men. While Jesus ministry meets with initial acceptance and success, we see that very quickly there is push back and opposition from the religious authorities of the day. The reading this morning is the middle of three conflict narratives. The first was around dining with Levi and his friends, where Jesus is challenged about associating with such outcasts and speaks of his mission as being to call such people back into relationship with God. The conflict narratives finish in 3:6 with the Pharisees starting to plot his death… right at the start of the gospel story the cross comes clearly into focus.

The conflict in the reading this morning revolves around fasting. It may not seem like a likely point of conflict or a huge thing, but for the religious people of Jesus day fasting had become a sign of piety and devotion. The only fast regulated in the Old Testament was the day of atonement, yom Kippur, as a sign of Israels deep remorse for their sin, right before the offer of forgiveness. Other times in scripture it is associated with deep sorrow and remorse, David when he is confronted by Nathan, You may remember it was Nehemiah’s response to the news about the condition of Jerusalem, he mourned, fasted and prayed. But by the first century it has become a ritual observed by the Pharisees, they would fast two times a week, mourning and praying for the coming of God’s messiah. But it had become a public show of personal piety. In the sermon on the mount in Matthew’s gospel Jesus warns against emulating those who would make a big show of fasting, whitening their faces, wearing ashes on their clothes and not combing their hair as a sign to all around that they were piously fasting. John the Baptists disciples also fasted, which fits into their longing for the coming messiah and also the fact that they were simply a reformation group within Judaism.

Some people we are not given any other information about who these people are, asked why Jesus disciples did not fast. If this was an expression of piety and religiousness, why didn’t Jesus disciples act in the same way? Jesus responds by talking about his presence and how this presence changes everything.

In verse 19 as Jesus often does he answers with a question of his own. Is it right that the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is present?’ In Jewish culture the marriage feast time was a time of great joy and feasting. Instead of heading off on a honeymoon the day after the ceremony, the couple would remain at home and people would come and greet the them as a new family unit and it would be a time of great festivities and celebration. Often in the hard subsistence lives of the people it would be the highlight of their lives. The attendants of the bridegroom were even exempt from any religious observances that would lessen the joy of the occasion. 

Jesus is saying that his presence with his disciples makes that difference. Because he is there, there should be joy and rejoicing. It fits well with the understanding of the church as the bride of Christ in the epistles, and the scriptures of the Old Testament speak of God as Israels bridegroom, and the coming of God is likened to a wedding feast. Jesusbeing with his disciples is the fulfilment of what the Pharisees and John’s disciples are fasting and looking for.

In verse 20 Jesus does point towards a time when the disciples will fast, when the bridgegroom is taken from them. Even this early in his ministry Jesus is mindful of the cross. Then the disciples will experience pain, suffering, mourning and sorrow. Fasting will be more in line with how it was used in scripture rather than what it has become as simply an observance and religious expression.

Then Jesus goes on to expand on that and talk about how his coming changes everything. That the kingdom of God will not simply be a reformation of the old Jewish system. It will outgrow it and expand and be something totally different. He uses two parable sayings. The first, in verse 21, is that you don’t use a new piece of cloth to patch an old garment. We maybe used to non-shrinking synthetic material, but in Jesus day new cloth would shrink when it was washed, and so a small repair would end up with a larger hole as it pulled against the stitches. Old sailing boats used to have spare weathered sails to use for patches for their sails to avoid that. By trying to patch the old with the new both would end up being destroyed.

The other was that you can’t put new wine in old wineskins. In the first century a goat skin would be used to store new wine as it fermented. The skin would be taken off almost a whole and only partially tanned. AS the wine fermented the skins natural elasticity would accommodate the growth and the expansion of the wine. But with age the wineskin would become rigid and brittle, and so if new wine was put into it would cause the skin to break and the wine and the container to be wasted. Jesus lets his opponents know that Judaism isn’t going to be able to contain the new life that his coming is bringing. To Mark’s original audience this would have been obvious as they sat in a church full of both jew and gentiles. Maybe it was important to be reminded of that newness if they like many other churches being written to were struggling with the judieisers who were trying to rewrap the good news in Jewish religious observance. Of course we also know that early on the church actually adopted the practise of fasting two day a week, but simply changed the days.

What is there for us from this passage today.

Firstly, the presence of the bridegroom with us. While with Jesus crucifixion Jesus was taken away from his disciples, and there was great mourning, with the resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirt, Jesus is present with his people. The continuing good news of Jesus Christ… Our lives, our services our faith should be full of joy because of that presence. Unlike the religious of Jesus days we also do not long and wait for God’s salvation, Christ it has come. However we also live in the tension of the fact that we await the final consummation of God’s kingdom with Christ’s return, so the mourning over sin and the brokenness of the world and longing for God to come and renew and save are also relevant. We live in the tension of the already (Christ has come) and the not yet (Christ will come again). We mourn over the hurt in this world, we also face opposition as we are about the kingdom of God, and cry out to God, but we do so with the assurance that Christ is with us, knowing that part of the answer to our prayers is the Holy Spirit leading us to be ambassadors of the Kingdom. But we also face those issues those problems with joy, because of Jesus and what Jesus has done for us, and his continued presence with and within us.

Lorne asked folk to give the ‘jerusalema’ dance a go at the combined service last week as an expression of that joy. A south African gospel song which the dance to it has gone viral, and one of the videos Lorne showed me was a law firm in Zimbabwe doing it. They were defending a couple of people who were criticising the government and were under immense pressure from the government to stop. But they dance with joy in the face of that, acknowledging that the kingdom of God has come in Christ and they have a home in the new Jerusalem. I’m sure they lament and pray but there is joy from the presence of Christ as well.

Secondly, with the coming of Christ we need to deal with new wine in new wineskins. The focus was on how following Jesus not going to fit into the Jewish way of doing things. This was something new and would need fresh expressions of faith fresh structures to hold the new life that was fermenting with it. In church history there have been times when there has been a fresh revelation and pouring out of God’s spirit and when those times happen there are new expressions new ways of doing things and it is easy for us to get caught up in the old container, the old structures and expressions and hold onto them and miss what God is doing… sadly it usually leads to both diminishing and ending. We need to be aware that the continued presence and ministry and mission of Christ in this world is going to continually push us out and cause new and fresh things to happen.

Having said that there are a couple of dangers we need to be aware of. The first is the danger of being a neophile… a neophile is someone who is in love with the new, for whom innovation, new ways and new structures can almost be an idol. An example of that is the line of customers waiting round the block each time a new iphone is released, they can’t wait to get the new one. Sadly when new things have happened in the church, some will simply throw out the old with the new. The other is that often people can cherish the container and forget the life giving liquid it contains, we can hold on to the expression and rituals and forms of faith and not long for or even notice that the new wine has gone.

Leonard Sweet tells a parable which helps us with the everyday wisdom we need to navigate our way through seeing what needs the new wineskins and what is a worthy vessel to carry that new life forward. He likens it not to wine but to another wonderful life giving liquid… Coffee.

He says that people just love coffee but that the way they consume their coffee differs greatly. Some like to drink it from bone China cups, the ones that are likely to be passed on down through the family. We bought a coffee machine at a church fair many years ago and it came with these very stylish new York coffee cups, very fashionable café style cups. Or maybe you are a mug kind of person… you love to drink coffee out of mug that you can wrap your hands around and feel the heat on a cold morning. Earthen ware or a tin one in the outdoors, or you really enjoy the glass or bowl of a latte. Recently people have taken to disposable cups to get their coffee, it fits with their busy lives, and our mobility, we get petrol and coffee at the same time and place. Or stop at a hole in the wall place on the way to work. Of course we’ve realised that has an environmental impact, so many people now have reusable coffee containers to take with. Metal with screw lids or pottery with rubber tippy cup like covers. The danger of course is we can disparage other people for the container they prefer.. they are not real coffee people. We can put our preferred one up on a shelf or the China cabinet admire it but never fill it with the life giving liquid… or we can hold onto the container and fill it with other things… a sort of weird herbal tea mix. 

This photo maybe lets you know how I like to drink my coffee. But in conclusion, we need the life giving substance, we need the Good News and presence of Christ by the holy spirit in our lives and be willing to allow that presence with its fizz and explosive nature to bring change and renewal and transformation… and have the wisdom to be open to new wineskins for the new wine.

MArk 6:16a Home town boy... Who does he think he is?

 

New Zealand is resplendent with stories of pride in small town locals who make it big.

Here is an example from the Otago Daily Times in 2015 about the town of Kurow…

There is no statue of Richard Hugh McCaw in Kurow.

You won't find a street named after him.

There is no McCaw Domain, McCaw Park, McCaw Square, McCaw Hospital or McCaw School.

But you are never far away from a reminder that this is McCaw country.

In Kurow, a rural service town about 65km inland from Oamaru, and in the neighbouring Hakataramea Valley, the All Black captain - who grew up on a farm and had his formative rugby years in this district - is a constant presence, providing both a deep source of pride to the 350 or so residents and an inspiration to a generation of kids dreaming of following in his giant footsteps.

By the way I think there are moves afoot at the moment to build a statue of Ritchie in Kurow. Likewise, there were TV cameras and a media scrum and record crowds when another  All Black great Dan Carter turned out for his childhood rugby club southbridge, in rural canterbury.

And from the previous generation there is an amazing bronze statue of Sir Colin Meads in the main street of Te Kuiti.

Maybe its easier to have such affection and respect for sporting people who make it rather that religious leaders. But in first century Judaism being a rabbi and teacher would have been seen as the same sort of pinnacle for locals to aspire to, maybe we might get a glimpse of that with rugby almost having religious status in our country.

So the passage we had read out to us today kind of flips that local boy makes good narrative on its head and comes across as rather shocking. It’s quite a challenging passage as the people who are most familiar with Jesus don’t believe in him. It also brings up that uncomfortable linkage between the activity of God, like healing and miracles, and faith.

We are working our way s l o w l y through Mark’s fast paced account of the beginning of the te rongopai O Ihu Karaiti, the good news of Jesus Christ. The series is called ‘the way of the cross’ because in Mark Jesus is portrayed primarily as the suffering servant, who came to lay down his life as a ransom for many… with the passage we are looking at today we are reminded that Mark  invites us to strip away many of the cultural expectations we have of Jesus as messiah and what it means to follow him and again realise as one commentator puts it we are an army whose only weapons are service and self-sacrificial love. To be a flourish Christian community is to walk the way of the cross.

The passage we are reading marks a transition point in Jesus ministry. In mark 1-3:6 we had a record of Jesus early ministry In Galilee, that finished with his rejection by the religious leaders who plot to kill him. Then after 3that we have Jesus being rejected by his family and bringing together a new family, a new people of God, starting with the twelve, but also People who maybe we wouldn’t expect, the gentile demoniac on the far side of the lake, a women who was ritually unclean, healed welcomed back into God’s people, a dead girl restored to life. But Mark still focuses us on the fact that people will reject Jesus as well. His ministry in galilee finishes with him being rejected by his hometown. It points us forward to a greater rejection when Jesus the messiah, the chosen king comes to Jerusalem and is rejected by the people and crucified.  After this passage Jesus sends out his disciples and moves to different regions, and there is a focus on ministry to gentiles.

Let’s have a look at the passage. Jesus comes to his home town. It’s not named here in Mark, but we know from the other gospels and  other passages that we have that Nazareth in mind. In mark 1:24 the unclean spirits refer to Jesus, as Jesus of Nazareth, and in Mark’s  resurrection narrative the angel proclaims ‘ you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified. he is not here he is risen.” From the narrative we get the idea that Jesus grew up in this place. His family is there, and he is known as the local carpenter, a tradie in the town. You get the feel that this is a small town where everyone knows everyone else.

Jesus has his disciples with him. Jesus comes like any religious teacher or figure with his students. His new family. He is asked to speak at the synagogue on the sabbath and it tells us many were amazed at his teaching. Gordon fee in his summary of Marks gospel comments about this passage says “Wonder and awe come easy but true faith does not.”

The challenge now comes as the people start to ask appropriate questions about what is  the source of his teaching, wisdom and the miracles he had performed. They are  the right questions to ask… all through the gospel… we are being invited to look at Jesus and what he says and does and ask who is Jesus?  How do we respond, are we like the disciples struggling to understand, like those who come and put their faith in him or will we stand with the crowd.  

For the people of Jesus hometown they cannot get past, Jesus past. Jesu grew up there. He was the carpenter, a builder or a labourer. In Jewish society there was a very regimented class system, and tradies didn’t really rate highly on the ladder, they wouldn’t be seen as being religious teachers. In our Old Testament reading this morning, we see that they had hd prophets who were from different professions, Amos in a very kiwi way was from a rural town, Tekoa who farmed using a mixed model of sheep and fig trees.  In commentary I read it  quoted  a couple of passages in the book of Sirach, which is part of the apocrypha, the books that are included in the catholic canon, but not seen as canonical by jews or the protestant church, where tradies are described as  simply eking out a living so they won’t be hungry, no one looks to them for wisdom of judgement and that they are not found amongst the rulers’ . Where as those who were scribes attain wisdom and focus of God’s word. And in their very regimented world the two did not mix. You couldn’t move from one to another. They look at Jesus through that lens.

Likewise, Jesus family was there as well. Joseph is not mentioned although a later reading of the passage was that Jesus was the son of the carpenter and Mary.  But it was derogatory to only refer to someone by their mother rather than their father. It maybe that while Mark does not record a birth narrative for Jesus that some of the questions about his birth were known to people. But also we have his brothers and sisters mentioned. His brothers by name. James is important as we know from acts that Jesus appeared to him after the resurrection and he became a key leader in the church in Jerusalem. Jude is also seen as the writer of the letter of Jude.  This of course is the only mention of Jesus sisters, and not by name. The town folk can’t see past this to comprehend Jesus being anything other than what they are used to, what they expect.

Their response to Jesus then is to be offended by him. They are scandalised by Jesus and stumble over him. They reject that there is anything special about Jesus. Could God do something through someone who just seems so ordinary.

The story finishes with Jesus summing up the situation in a proverb ‘that a prophet is without honour in his home town’ a truism  and he is unable to do any miracles in the town. He does lay hands on a few people and heal them, maybe this is an example of individual faith in Jesus. The passage which started with the people being amazed at Jesus finishes with Jesus being amazed at them for their lack of faith.

Ok what does that have to say to us today.

Firstly, can I say that from my own experience God has used this passage to guide me in my own life. More specifically the parallel passage in Luke, where Jesus goes on from the truism that a prophet is without honour in their own town to give two Old Testament example, Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and Elisha and Naaman the leper. God sent those prophets to people outside of Israel. I was working as the youth coordinator for Auckland presbytery, training youth leaders, coordinating activities. The conditions of my employment changed and I was asked to reapply for my job. But as that was happening  Jim Wallace the minister at St Johns in Rotorua was speaking at a camp I was running and told me they were looking for a youth pastor/assistant minister and I should apply. Which I did, as a safety net, but the people in Rotorua wanted an answer from me before the interview process was complete for my Auckland job, my first choice. So I had to make a decision. I went up into the Waitakere rangers with my bible and a panoramic view of Auckland and spent the afternoon praying. The passage that was bought to my attention was this one. I believe God used it to tell me it was time to move from my hometown, I’m an Aucklander.  Which we did and it resulted in a very fruitful six years of ministry and also six years of mentorship from Jim Wallace. So this passage means a lot to me. It’s one time when God used a passage to speak so clearly into my life…  an example of how by his spirit God can speak as we seek him and seek to do his will.  Even in a passage about Jesus rejection.

Secondly, there is that uneasy connection here between the activity of God and faith. Un easy because I’ve heard individuals accused of not being healed not being helped because they  lack faith… maybe you’ve heard that too… or experienced it… there was a period in my life when I kept getting bronchitis, it just would not go away, so at a prayer meeting these wonderful people prayed for me to get better, but of course I kept getting sick, so they started to pray against a spirit of unbelief like my faith wasn’t strong enough… I felt abused… turned out at that stage I was an undiagnosed diabetic and with my blood sugar out of kilter my whole immune system was out of wack. It was  case of that wonderful word we learned during covid comorbidity.

In scripture there is a correlation between the presence and power of God and faith “When there is a glad reception and hearty embrace of God’s commands, God dwells there in power. Where there is resistance and rejection, God’s presence is marginalized and muted.”  but that faith is in the people turning to Jesus for help… that faith turns us to Jesus, trusting that Jesus cares for us and is able to answer our prayers. Faith is a willingness to put it in Jesus hands. In Jesus hometown there wasn’t the willingness to do that. Possibly the best example I’ve heard about the link between healing and faith is John Wimber who when asked if everyone gets healed responded by saying “ this is all I know, I’ve seen more people healed since I started believing Jesus heals and so started to pray for people, that when I didn’t believe in healing and so didn’t pray’.

Lastly, there is the danger we can find ourselves like the crowd in Jesus hometown and be offended by Jesus. We sort of get used to the Jesus we see through our own lens and not really grasp the full understanding of who Jesus is.

We maybe comfortable at looking at Jesus through the lens of modernity with its focus on materialism.  We are happy to see Jesus as a good teacher and a good example, but we struggle and are almost offended by his miracles as they step outside the realm of our world view that is suspicious of anything that is not explainable by science and reason. A view that downplays the divine nature of Jesus to preserve a certain understanding of his humanity. The church in the west has been influenced by that.

Or we can find ourselves almost viewing Jesus through the lens of an over spiritualisation which disconnects Jesus from the world as it is.  We can see Jesus through a super-hero lens. We can see that in the growth and popularity of the prosperity gospel, a name it and claim it mentality, full of triumphalism that emphasises the glory of Christ over the humanity of Jesus.

Timothy Gombis sums it up by saying often “God’s own people are the ones offended by God’s upside down way of working”.

He goes on to express this in a way I want to leave you with this morning. That emphasises both the wonder of what god has done through Jesus and the very humanness of Jesus.

“It is utterly unexpected for God to save his people, to free his creation from the grip of sin and death, and to unleash his own resurrection life through a common labourer who was misunderstood by his own family-rejected by his hometown, abandoned by his followers, and ultimately put to death as a criminal. In the eyes of the world, it is completely backward.

The challenge for us in the contemporary world is being conformed to this divine wisdom in our orientation rather than being conformed to the wisdom of this world. A community of self-giving love ans service that looks out for the broken and marginalised and that is uninterested in social prestige is one that makes little sense in our world. We might say that joining such a community and making it the centre of our lives is scandalous… But this is the life that the son of God calls us.”

I want to add one thing… a word of encouragement for us

“God does the extra ordinary through ordinary people who put their trust in him.”

'Mark 15:39 'Surely this is the Son of God'

 

this is a message Preached at HopeWhangarei on November 24th 2024. It acts as a final message in a year long series on Mark... You can listen to the audio recording on this link. https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/hope-whangarei/episodes/Surely-this-is-the-Son-of-God---Howard-Carter-e2rdhjp 

Over the past year and a bit we’ve been S L O W L Y working our way through Mark’s fast paced gospel what Mark calls ‘the beginning of the Good News of Jesus the messiah, the Son of God. the series has been called ‘the way of the Cross’ as against all the expectations of Jewish society in Jesus day as to what the messiah would be like, Mark portrays Jesus primarily as the suffering servant, the son of man came not to be  served  but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. This is God’s upside down kingdom, which would not be achieved by earthly might or political and military power, but through loving self-sacrifice. And Mark invites those who would follow Jesus to walk the same way the way of the cross. As one commentator put it… to be an army who realizes our only weapons are service and self-sacrificing love.

It may seem strange as Mark’s gospel now slows down its pace from a quick-fire journey through Jesus ministry, to a slower walk through his last week and then as we come to the crucifixion down to three hourly blocks: they crucified him at nine o’clock, at midday the sky turns dark, for three hours then Jesus cries out and dies, with the resurrection forming a epilogue, that we are skimming over much of this material. While it may not be ideal, we’ve done it because we used Mark’s gospel as the basis of our Good Friday and easter Sunday celebrations this year.

I want to just focus for a few minutes on what is seen as the climax of the gospel narrative. As Jesus dies accompanied by  signs of Divine judgement, the sky being dark from noon to three, as if the light had gone out, and the curtain in the temple being ripped in two from top to bottom, like divine hands have wrenched it asunder, the last word, the summing up, is left to  a roman centurion who when he sees how Jesus dies says  “surely this is the Son of God”.

I want to look at that in three way and then like Mark finish with a resurrection epilogue.

The first is how this fits with the whole of the Gospel narrative.

We are not told what it is about the way Jesus died that made this centurion reflect in such a way. A centurion was a low-level military officer, possibly more like an NCO in the roman army, he was in charge of the crucifixion detail, he was an expert in crucifixion, hardened to the cursing and pleading and cries of anguish from those he executed in this slow vicious cruel way. But there is something here something in Jesus, which impacts him in a profound way. Mark is silent as to what it is. We have no way of knowing if his understanding of what the Son of God means was as fully developed as you and I with an understanding of the nature of Jesus as totally divine and totally human, as the second person of the trinity. We don’t know who he is speaking to either all we know is that he says “surely this is the son of God’.

It's as if at this very moment this most unlikely of characters, looks out from the pages of the gospel, looks the reader in the eye, and invites us to come to the same conclusion. If we were talking of in cinematic terms. The camera would pan down from Jesus last breath on the cross with the brooding dark clouds behind, to a close up of the centurion, and he would break the fourth wall and look and speak to us directly as those viewing the scene. Surely this is the Son of God.

In Mark scholar talk of the messianic secret, Mark reads like a mystery. It is a mystery which you and I are let in right at the beginning in the tile “this is the beginning of the good news of Jesus the Messiah, the son of God. We are allowed to eaves drop at Jesus baptism to God speaking ‘this is my son, in who I am pleased’. Then we are left along with the crowd and the religious authorities and the disciples to realise who is  Jesus? The one who heals, the lame, the deaf, the blind, who has authority to forgive sin, who commands the waves and wind to be still, who feed the multitude in the wilderness, who has authority over unclean spirits, speaks in parables, overturns the tables in the temple. Along the way we are given hints, the unclean spirits know that Jesus is the son of God, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. But he and the disciples really don’t understand what that means. They rebuke him when he talks of his death and resurrection, they focus on their own status and position. But now as the whole story has unfolded. The centurion, the first human to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, looks at us and says ‘surely this is the son of God’. This is what Mark has been leading us to all along. Calling us to be convinced. Jesus is God’s own son and he that he died for us… to bring us to repentance and reconcile us to God, the Father,  as we put our trust in Jesus and his death as a ransom for us.

The second thing is that the centurion is an outsider and it is this outsider that asks the question surely this is the son of God, to Mark’s original audience which would have been believers probably in Rome.

At the cross we see all the insiders, the people who should know, not realise what is going on, not realise who is on the cross. The disciples had fled and left him, peter had even denied knowing Jesu three times. Others come and mock Jesus. The Jewish people “ He said he was going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. He can’t even save himself”.  The teachers of the law mock him… he saved other but he couldn’t save himself. There is real ironey in what they say even Pilates sign which reads ‘king of the Jews’ speak real truth about who Jesus is and what he had done, Mark as well as painting Jesus as the suffering servant, also paints his crucifixion as a coronation, as a victory . However it’s shows they are blind and deaf to God’s messiah. Mark writing to his original audience wants them to come to realise that following Jesus is about the cross, the cruciform lifestyle. We want Jesus, we want new life, but are we prepared for the cross.

We started off this series with a quote from Timothy Gombis. I don’t expect you to remember it but he said

 “Mark is a subversive Gospel because it overturns expectations and assumptions. His narrative addresses Christian audiences who know Jesus’ teaching and who have made Christian confession but who are failing to grasp the character of the gospel as thoroughly shaped by the cross of Christ…”.

Thirdly, this series has been called the way of the cross. I can’t help but think that the centurion words ‘surely this is the son of God’ as he saw how Jesus died don’t also apply to us. To follow Jesus feels a whole lot like death. People will see Jesus as the son of God, in our lives as we to are prepared to lay down our lives.

In two ways. Jesus first words his core message is for people to repent because the kingdom of God is at hand. We often see that as a one of thing as we come to faith in Christ. However it is an on going process, of turning away from our own sinful lives, our own sinful heart desires as tim Keller puts it the idols in our lives, that fight for dominance of our time and worship and priority with Jesus and allow those things to die, as we hand them over to Jesus, ask for his forgiveness and receive new life. The theological word for that process is mortification, dying to self… the upside is sanctification, becoming more like Christ. It’s a willingness to be open to God changing and transforming us, convicting us and then also of allowing us to know that Jesus’ death means we are forgiven and we stand in his righteousness not ours. As people see that process they will see Jesus the Son of God revealed in us.

But it is also as we die to ourselves and learn to serve not to be served and to give our life for others, in service that Jesus will also be seen as the son of God. In John Jesus says they will know you are my disciples if you have love one for another.

That’s quite heavy and I want to finish with a resurrection epilogue. The crucifixion finishes beyond our reading today with the women watching from a distance, going and seeing where Jesus was buried, and going to tend to his body after the sabbath. They find the amazing truth that he is not there he is risen, and they are given the privilege of going and telling the disciples. That Jesus will meet with them. In Mark the resurrection serves as a vindication of Jesus as the Son of God. It confirms what the centurion is telling us asking us to know believe and trust. Surely this is the son of God.

But it is also the hope we have as we are willing to die to ourselves that as we share in Jesus suffering and his crucifixion that we will also share in his resurrection. As we allow the Spirit to put to death those things within us that are opposed to the gospel of Jesus, he replaces that with resurrection life. As we die to ourselves and give ourselves in  service and love we do so knowing that we will receive the resurrection to eternal life in and with Christ.

Scholars believe the gospel of Mark originally finished at verse 8 of chapter 16 with the women not telling anyone as they were afraid. It leaves us with our cross shaped lives to assume the role of the centurion and point to Jesus and his death, to assume the role of the women and proclaim ‘ he is risen’… with the assurance of the resurrection and say ‘surely this is the son of God’.