The Gospel of Mark: On the Road With Jesus (10)

"It's a New Day in an Old World"
Mark 2:1-3:6

1. every year I go home to Boise to see my family & relatives. Most of the time I drive; occasionally I fly.

2. If I fly on a clear day I enjoy a breath-taking view of Mt Hood, the Columbia River Gorge & the vast desert plain of central & eastern Oregon. Towns I drive through & stop for gas are specks on the ground. I see the patchwork quilt of farms in the Treasure Valley. I gain a birds-eye view of the Caldwell-Nampa-Meridian-Boise sprawl as these 4 communities grow closer & closer together.

3. if I drive I see the height, width & terrain of the Columbia River Gorge, the fast rushing blue-green water of that monster of a river, the stunning beauty of Multnomah Falls, colorful wind surfers, I feel the heat of a hot summer day & the wind blowing across the desert plain, I see mounds of rock storing nerve gas at the Umatilla Army Depot, road kill, circling hawks…

4. driving is the ‘deep’ view; flying is the ‘wide’ view. As I preach through Mark we will both drive & fly, go deep & wide. Up to this point I’ve mostly been driving, going deep.

5. today we’re going to fly & go wide over a ‘chunk’ of scripture. Mark 2:1-3:6 contains 5 stories of controversy between Jesus & the Pharisees, the religious police of his day:
… 2:1-12: Jesus’ authority to forgive sins (6/25)
… 13-17: his relationship with sinners
… 18-22: his disciple’s lack of fasting
… 2:23-28: issues of Sabbath observance
… 3:1-6: Sabbath observance

6. in these 5 stories Jesus butts heads with the Pharisees – good people, well-intentioned crusaders for holiness, the guardians of the faith. In their zeal to please God they added their own interpretations of the Law to the Law & made them Law.

7. Jesus appears on the scene. He doesn’t fit into their system. He cuts across the grain of their self-imposed, but what they believed was God-imposed, law-keeping. And all hell breaks loose.

2:13-17: Jesus’ relationship to sinners
1. we meet up with Levi the tax collector. Tax collectors were bad guys. Under the guise of the Roman government they gouged their own Jewish people to line their pockets with money.

2. Jesus calls Levi to follow him. And Levi follows. When Jesus called, he dropped everything – instant, unquestioning obedience. (This is the Levi who is also called Matthew who later writes the gospel of Matthew.)

3. Levi the tax collector sinner was closer to God in following Jesus than the Pharisees were in their righteous religious zeal.

4. what do you do when Jesus calls? When he asks for your life? When he asks you to follow him?

5. Levi throws a dinner party for Jesus. He invites his friends. He wants them to meet Jesus. More tax collectors & “sinners.” People who, in the eyes of the Pharisees, were the outcasts of society.

6. they ask Jesus’ disciples why he is eating with the wrong crowd? He overhears them & answers – it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

7. the Pharisees are the so-called healthy & righteous – they don’t view themselves as needy. Jesus is right where he needs to be, with the needy, the sick, the sinners.

8. it’s a startling story.

2:18-22: the issue of fasting
1. fasting was/is part of Jewish piety. Problem – Jesus isn’t teaching his disciples to follow the Law & fast. Why not? Jesus answers with 3 little parables.

2. wedding parable – the wedding guests don’t fast while the bridegroom is still present. This is a time for joyful celebration. Fasting will come later, after the wedding. Jesus is the bridegroom. His presence means joy.

3. cloth – if you have a hole in the knee of your jeans you don’t patch it with a piece of unwashed, un-shrunk cloth. If you do, the new cloth will shrink & create a bigger problem.

4. wine – if you have new wine you don’t pour it into an old wineskin that has already been stretched out. The new wine will expand & ferment & burst the wine skin.

5. what’s the point? We have to go back to 1:15 – the time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent & believe the good news. Jesus is the bridegroom bringing in a new season of joy. The un-shrunk cloth is the in-breaking kingdom of God – the old garment is the old covenant. The new wine is the in-breaking kingdom of God – the old wineskin is the old covenant.

6. the “new” that Jesus brings is not compatible with the “old.” Jesus is not going to reform the old way of law-keeping – he’s going to transform it with grace.

2:23-3:5: Sabbath observance
1. 2 stories about Jesus violating the Pharisees’ legalistic understanding of what it meant to keep the Sabbath.

2. in the 1st, his disciples pick grain to eat on the Sabbath. This was not breaking the Mosaic Law BUT it was breaking the law as the Pharisees interpreted it = harvesting on the Sabbath.

3. Jesus sets them straight – 1st, the Sabbath is for man’s well-being. Sabbath is to serve man – man is not to serve the Sabbath. 2nd, he is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus transcends the Sabbath, is greater than the Sabbath.

4. in the 2nd, the Pharisees wanted to trap Jesus. If he healed on the Sabbath that would break the Sabbath to their mind.

5. he heals the man – compassion triumphs over legalism. While the man’s hand was shriveled, the Pharisees’ hearts & understanding were shriveled. They missed the point entirely!

6. the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus (3:6). 5 stories – 5 incidents of controversy:
… can Jesus forgive sin?
… is Jesus befriending the wrong people?
… is Jesus wrong on fasting?
… is Jesus breaking the Sabbath?

7. we see here hints of Jesus’ future. The bridegroom IS going to be taken away. He IS going to be killed. The shadow of the cross is already falling across the beginning chapters of Mark’s gospel story.

I want to close with 3 comments
1st to be a follower of Jesus Christ is to follow him as Lord
1. following Jesus – discipleship – is about what Jesus wants to do in our lives NOT what we want Jesus to do for our lives. His agenda trumps ours. He invites us to follow him – he does not ask to follow us. He calls us to live in step with him in his cross & resurrection.

2. I’m struck & laid low by Levi’s immediate & unreserved commitment to Christ.

3. it all comes down to Lordship – who is Lord – Master – Sovereign of your life? You or Jesus?

2nd to be a follower of Jesus is to befriend sinners (those who have not confessed faith in Christ)
1. 1981 Joe Aldrich wrote a book called Lifestyle Evangelism. Haddon Robinson wrote these words in the Foreword:

...if Jesus appeared on earth today as He did 2000 years ago, many churches would not elect Him to their official boards. He would have disqualified Himself because He ran with the wrong crowd. The historian Luke comments that tax collectors and sinners – folks shunned by religious types because they had made a mess of life – kept seeking Him out to hear what He had to say. When they came to Him, Jesus gave them a hearty welcome and often enjoyed dinner with them. Socializing with people like that ruined His testimony. The Pharisees and Bible teachers who observed Him wrote off His association with that element of society as a secret sympathy with sin. Yet the fact remains Jesus went out of His way to cultivate those relationships, and if we are serious about following Him, we must do the same thing...

2. in 1974 a world conference on mission & evangelism was convened in Lausanne, Switzerland. Participants made a personal commitment to the 15 article Lausanne Covenant. Article 6 on The Church and Evangelism reads like this –
we affirm that Christ sends his redeemed people into the world as the Father sent him, and that this calls for a similar deep and costly penetration of the world. We need to break out of our ecclesiastical ghettos and permeate non-Christian society. In the church’s mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary. The church is at the very center of God’s cosmic purpose and is his appointed means of spreading the Gospel.

3. spending time with the Levi-types of our world is a huge part of what it means to be like Jesus. When’s the last time you befriended a Levi on his/her turf, entered their world, listened to their concerns, and loved them just as they are?

4. I believe with all my heart that if Christ showed up in Canby a large part of the church would be scandalized by where he would go, who he would spend time with & the individuals he would choose to pour his life into.

3rd to be a follower of Jesus is to be on the lookout for new wineskins.
1. the new wine of the in-breaking kingdom of God is always being poured out upon the church. Martin Luther’s phrase during the Reformation was ecclesia simper reformanda – the church always being reformed. Luther called the church to constantly reform itself in order to remain faithful to the mission of Jesus in changing cultures.
2. to reach people outside the church in his day Luther took popular bar tunes & put the words of hymns to them.

3. the functions of the church never change – worship, prayer, teaching, community, mission/outreach. The forms those functions take change over & over again.

4. what new wine might God be wanting to pour into our church (1st church of Canby) to reach our changing culture?
… Postmodern & pluralistic
… Church marginalized in culture
… Does not appear to be any noticeable difference in the lifestyles of those in the church from those outside – equal divorce rates, sex outside of marriage, addictive behaviors
… Church attendance in the US is at an all-time low & continues to slip

Last Words
1. is Jesus Lord of your life? Are you truly & whole-heartedly following him?

2. does your lifestyle speak of isolating yourself from the world OR penetrating it for the cause of Christ & those he loves? Do you have a Levi or 2 or 3 in your life?

3. do you desire the new wine of the kingdom of God to be poured out upon our church & community?