In less than a month, several United Methodist Church pastors will be preaching in front of their newly appointed congregations for the first time. That first Sunday is important because it’s an opportunity for the congregation to get to know their new pastor.
I remember my first Sunday with you around this time six years ago. We had a large attendance. People wanting to check out who this new pastor was. We even ran out of bulletins that Sunday. Getting off to a good start at a new church is so important.
So, I can’t even imagine what Jesus must have been experiencing in our Gospel reading for today. We are only in chapter three of Mark’s Gospel, the beginning stages of Jesus’ ministry, and it looks like the honeymoon is over. You know it’s not good when the people are saying that the preacher has gone out of his mind.
Things started out great at least in chapter one. Jesus began by teaching in the synagogue and we are told that the people were astounded. That’s always a great response for a new preacher to have with his or her first sermon. They were astounded!
Not only were his sermons above average, but Jesus was even healing people. And we are told how the people were amazed. Astounded. Amazed. I would say that Jesus was off to a pretty good start! Crowds started to follow him because people were telling others about this new pastor in town and all the things he was doing.
But then Jesus started doing things that seemed questionable to the religious authorities. Things like forgiving someone of their sins which only God would be able to do. Throwing dinner parties for the wrong crowd. Not encouraging people to follow important religious practices. And they really got upset when Jesus did work on the Sabbath, not once, but twice!
And this brings us to today’s Gospel reading where the crowd tracks down Jesus because they are beginning to wonder if he is possessed by a demon. They are thinking of all of the ways that Jesus isn’t following the rules and how he is demonstrating this great power which leads them to wonder if he was up to more harm than good, like a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
If chapter one is the honeymoon, then chapters two and chapter three are the disillusionment. “Sure, your sermons are great, and we love your pastoral care with all of these healings, but your approach to ministry is very unconventional, blasphemous even.” Reality is starting to set in and the tension is slowly building even by the time we get to the middle of chapter three, our Gospel reading for today.
Now, it’s easy for us to dismiss these religious leaders, but I wonder if Mark is trying to help us think through who Jesus is. I wonder if these religious leaders are voicing some of the questions that we might have about who Jesus is and are just too afraid to ask those same questions out-loud.
And maybe our questions about who Jesus is and what Jesus is doing are different than their questions because we don’t live in the 1st century. We have our own questions about Jesus and maybe more complicated questions since we live in a world that is so different from the time when Mark wrote his Gospel.
The sobering truth is that all of us are susceptible to misunderstanding who Jesus is. And sometimes, the scariest thing of all is when we start thinking that we have Jesus all figured out.
Today is the 77th anniversary of D-Day, the day we remember when allied forces landed on the beaches at Normandy during World War II. That successful and heroic invasion eventually led to the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany.
It can be tragic when an entire political system not only misunderstands a religious faith but when that system uses religion to justify a particular race as superior to others as Nazi Germany did in the 20th century. In order to justify the superiority of Aryan people, German theologians portrayed Jesus as Aryan. And by doing so, they sought to remove Jesus from his Jewish ancestry in order to justify their anti-Semitic beliefs. Some of the worst atrocities are done in the name of religion.
This misrepresentation of Jesus continues to feed into dangerous political ideologies today with the events of this past January’s storming of the Capitol being a recent example. You might recall several of the insurrectionists who were part of that event carrying large red, white, and blue banners that had Jesus name associated with the 2020 presidential election.
The point they were making was that Jesus was endorsing their presidential candidate. Those that attended the events that day also carried large crosses and “Jesus Saves” banners.
Dr. David Watson, a New Testament professor at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio wrote an article a day or two after the storming of the Capitol. His article immediately came to my mind as I have been reflecting on the consequences of when we misunderstand Jesus and especially when we do so in such an irresponsible way.
The title of his article is “A Jesus I Do Not Know: Christians and the Capitol Riot.” David admits up front that he is not one to get into political debates, but he decided to write that article because the name of Jesus was on bold display during the riot as were other symbols of the Christian faith.
David gave his article the title, “A Jesus I Do Not Know” because these are the words that Christian author and speaker, Beth Moore shared in a tweet the day of the riot in which David agreed with her assessment of the situation. David’s response to her tweet was, “I agree, Sister Moore, I don’t know that Jesus either.”
David goes on to write in his article these words, “The Jesus given to us in Scripture is no political pawn. He is the very incarnation of God who has come to call us to repentance and teach us to live rightly. He defeated sin, Satan, and death, and he offers us the opportunity to live with him forever in a peaceable Kingdom. The Jesus of Scripture has given us the Sermon on the Mount. He has taught us to live with humility, meekness, kindness, and most of all love. He has taught us that if we want to be his disciples, we must take up the cross and follow him. He has commanded us to care for the poor. He has warned us against the danger of riches. He has taught us that whoever wants to be first in the kingdom of God must be last of all and servant of all. He has taught us that the world will hate us, but that God will love and honor us nonetheless. And he has taught us that no one can serve two masters. We will invariably hate one and love the other. God and mammon is the example he uses, but we could insert ay other master and the result would be the same. God and fame. God and sex. God and ego. God and power. God and politics.”
David concludes his article with these words, “I care about the spread of the Christian faith. I want everyone – everyone – to know and love Jesus. But we do not draw people to Jesus by presenting that Jesus who is given to us in Scripture – the Christ who taught us to love our neighbors, love our enemies, act justly, care for the poor, and humble ourselves that he might one day exalt us. There is no other Jesus.”
Dr. Watson is reminding us of how important it is to not mischaracterize or misrepresent who Jesus is especially for personal, political, or selfish motives. When the crowd in Mark’s Gospel accused Jesus of being out of his mind and being possessed by a demon, they were reacting out of their own fears and limited understandings of who he truly was.
We too can misunderstand who Jesus is. We don’t always get it right in how we think Jesus should act or who Jesus should include or not include. We all are susceptible in forming Jesus into our own image.
Penny and I were watching a movie in which a man befriended the young boy of a widow. The boy was worried about his mother who was dying of an illness. This boy shared with the man how he felt that he hadn’t been a good son to his mom and that he had somehow failed her.
And this wise and kind man comforted this little boy by saying to him, “The truth is that we fail everyday. All of us do.” This line in the movie has stuck with me because this little boy needed to hear that we all come up short. We all fail. That’s what it means to be human. We give our best and we don’t always get things right. But, we keep on living. We keep on trying. And we keep on trusting.
I think that’s true of how we approach our faith. We don’t always get it right. And sometimes we misunderstand who Jesus is. And that’s why we are here for each other, to help each other grow more and more in our understanding of who Jesus is and in our love for him.
Notice at the end of our Gospel reading. Jesus gives us a hint at how we can know when we are on the right track in trying to figure out who he is. The crowd tells him that his mother, brothers, and sisters are looking for him, and Jesus points to people in the crowd and he says, “These are my mother and brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
And Jesus has shown us in these first few chapters of Mark that the will of God is to bring healing to those who are hurting and to humbly serve the needs of those around him. If we are seeking those things, then we aren’t too far off in understanding who Jesus really is.
And maybe the best way we seek to understand who Jesus is besides reading and studying the Bible is when we receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion. It’s in the bread and the cup that we encounter the Risen Christ who humbled himself even to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Every time that we receive this holy meal, it reminds us once again, “This is the Jesus that I do know.”
The Misunderstood Jesus
Lord Jesus, you have come into the world to offer healing, hope, forgiveness, and new life. Through your life, death, and resurrection, you have shown us that you truly are the One sent by God. May all that we do and say reflect your saving and redemptive love for the world. Forgive us for whenever we have strayed from living out who you have called us to be. Thank you for calling us your sisters and brothers who seek to do your will in all that we say and do. Amen.
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