David the Shepherd King
2 Samuel 5: 1-5, 9-10 NRSV text
Psalm 48 NRSV text
2 Corinthians 12: 2-10 NRSV text
Mark 6: 1-13 NRSV text
Jesus’ second call to the disciples
We’re at a key moment in Mark’s discipleship narrative. Mark doesn’t just have Jesus issue a single “call” at the outset of his ministry; there are three stages to it, and represent both the development of the disciples’ relationship to Jesus and a response to events as they unfold. This is the second of the three moments – the involvement of the disciples in Jesus’ mission. The Jesus story is the story of the beginning of it all – “the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. Disciples are not only followers: they are the ones who receive the Good News as Good News! And if that seems a rather obvious point, just look at the first pericope in today’s gospel reading: Jesus’ rejection at Nazareth. This is Jesus’ home town. The hard fact of the matter is that Jesus’ message of the kingdom – the Good News of liberation from the chains of the Strong Man – doesn’t meet with universal enthusiasm! This is no mere narrative device of Mark’s. The opposition was real. Jesus was crucified. Mark, more starkly than any other of the evangelists, portrays Jesus’ mission ultimately as a failure. Jesus dies in bewildered despair – not only is he abandoned by the disciples, but also by the God whom he calls “Abba Father”.
Jesus before the home crowd
Today’s gospel passage, then, comes at a key point: the close of the initial “campaign” based around the Galilee and including a foray into Gentile territory. Having left the Galilee, Jesus returns to his home town. It’s clearly the first time that he’s gone back since he began his ministry. Now, in the synagogue, he’s in front of the “home crowd”. He teaches on the Sabbath and, as elsewhere, “many who heard him were astounded” (6:2). This is not an English World Cup performance: Jesus does not disappoint – he amazes! His teaching is as powerful as elsewhere. All the things they have heard about him are confirmed. His wisdom is astonishing. And that means that any initial scepticism they must have been feeling about the reports circulating so widely has to be revised.
But look at the reaction in vv 2-3: they’re hardly positive! They come as accusation: “Where did he get all this? Where has he acquired this wisdom from so suddenly? And how on earth can he do these incredible things with his hands?” There’s a wonderful irony, isn’t there, in this last one. They know Jesus as an artisan. He’s “the carpenter”! His hands make things out of wood – they don’t heal and deliver! The point is, they know him – or they think they do. That’s why they rush to “place” him: he’s the son of Mary, brother to James, Joses, Judas and Simon, and he’s got sisters (who of course aren’t important enough to be named!). In other words, they’re saying, “Hey, this guy’s not a mystery! He’s not even particularly special!”
They move to contain Jesus – to control him. Calling him “the son of Mary” is a calculated insult. It reflects the question mark that clearly hung over Jesus’ parentage. It resurrects all those old rumours: “That Jesus? Well, he’s not Joseph’s son, is he? Wonder who his father is?” Now of course, Mark is probably smiling to himself as he writes – we know who his father is, because Mark told us at the outset! But the main point here is that their astonishment is not awe, but outrage: “They took offence at him” (v3b). Jesus’ pronouncement in v4 is not so much a rhetorical move to gain the advantage in an argument as it is a statement of his own realisation of what is happening in his ministry: the Good News will not be universally accepted. Jesus is marking his own rejection. His mission means that he will be rejected by his own hometown, his own kin, and his own family. It is part of the cost he has to bear, and in 10:28-30, will tell the disciples that following him is equally costly. It will take “leaving house, brothers, sisters, father, mother and fields for the sake of the Good News”.
Miracles and “believing”
There is another point we should note here: Jesus is unable to perform any “deed of power” there. Except, that is, to lay hands (those hands again!) on a few sick people and heal them! I love that! Most of us would reckon that was pretty powerful, and that we were doing a mite better than average if we could lay hands on a few sick people and heal them! But that’s because we generally manage to get the whole issue of miracles wrong. Mark isn’t trying to tell us that Jesus was some sort of super-magician. We are like the Pharisees in 8:11-12, who ask for a “sign”. “Show me a miracle that can be proven and we’ll believe!” is the idea behind our thinking. Yet Mark is absolutely clear here: miracles don’t “prove” anything! If you were around Jesus, miracles were clearly ten-a-penny – so much so that healing a few sick people is hardly worth a mention! The problem in Nazareth is that they do not “believe” (v6).
What would they not “believe”? That Jesus could perform miracles? Clearly not, because they’ve already admitted that all the reports of miraculous goings-on were obviously true! They didn’t “believe” in what themiracles showed about Jesus. They didn’t believe in Jesus in the sense that they wouldn’t let him be the Son of God. That isn’t a doctrinal statement in this context! Mark is not suggesting that there are a set of doctrinal boxes to tick here in order to let Jesus’ power loose. He’s pointing us to their refusal to let Jesus be something other than what they’d like him to be – the hometown boy whom they knew, could explain and who represented neither a threat nor a challenge. They were offended at his strangeness – because it sounded like criticism and made them feel that they were being made fools of.
I remember the outrage among South African white Christians when blacks suggested that Jesus might actually be on the side of the poor and the oppressed in their struggle against Apartheid. This couldn’t possibly be! They knew Jesus! They had him tied up neatly in a box so that he couldn’t jump out and challenge them. Therefore the notion that the gospel could have something to say about freedom and justice could only be communist-inspired treason masquerading as theology. These good, God-fearing people who attended Church twice on Sundays shut themselves off from the liberative power of God and became part of that from which South Africa needed saving. The point is that we who think we know Jesus best ought to be especially vigilant that we have not “cut him down to (our) size” and domesticated his message and power.
The good citizens of Nazareth did not “believe” in Jesus’ message of the kingdom. They were so busy taking offence that they were deafened to the Good News that Jesus proclaimed. The point is that they were wilfully deaf. They heard Jesus clearly (hence the astonishment), but heard all too clearly the way in which the Good News of the kingdom demanded change. A new community that was radically inclusive threatened the social order. It disturbed the class hierarchy in which everyone knew their place and could be “located” (as they immediately tried to do with Jesus). And they were having none of it!
Nazareth represents the opposition that Jesus has begun to provoke. At present, it is the exception rather than the rule. But the resistance is unmistakeable, and will gather force as Mark’s narrative proceeds. Rejection will have the last, final say in the cross. The pericope begins with the crowds being astounded at Jesus’ teaching, and ends with Jesus being equally amazed at their unbelief.
The mission of the Twelve
The resistance means that Jesus has to regroup and rethink his strategy. His response is to gather the fledgling messianic community even more closely around him.
This is, as I mentioned earlier, the second stage of Jesus’ call. Jesus appoints the Twelve in 3:14, “to be with him, to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons”. To date (the first stage), the disciples have been with Jesus and learned from him. Now, in 6:7, he sends them out to proclaim the message, cast out demons and heal the sick. The third stage will be a result of the increasing opposition: the call to take up the cross.
It is interesting to note that Jesus “gives his disciples authority over the unclean spirits” and appears to have taught them how to cure the sick. Modern western culture has had little truck with the miraculous, regarding it as primitive superstition. One feature of postmodernity has been a revival of interest in the miraculous and a willingness to take these things with far more seriousness. We are a far more spiritual generation than our immediate forebears, far more aware of the interconnectedness of health and spiritual life. This manifests in a renewed emphasis on holistic approaches to health, both in alternative therapies and in conventional medicine. Similarly, there has been a quiet but importance renewal of interest in the ancient ministry of exorcism, as well as willingness among biblical scholars to take the miraculous in Jesus’ ministry with far more seriousness, rather than dismiss it as myth. I note this because it seems to me that we ought to be open to exploring these ministries as a regular part of Church life.
Repentance, grace and the new world
The apostles (as they now are) proclaim “that all should repent”. In doing so, they echo Mark’s summary statement of Jesus in 1:14: “The time is fulfilled; the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent, and believe in the Good News!” Repentance is the proper response to the gospel of the kingdom, and is clearly what the people of Nazareth fail to do. But what does “repent” mean? At the outset of the story, the Baptist calls on people to repent and be baptised. This is the classic prophetic call to repentance: “Mend your ways! Turn or burn!” In a covenantal framework, it effectively means “Get back into line!”
Jesus’ call is different: “Repent and believe in the Good News!” The Good News is the drawing near of the Kingdom of God in Jesus. Yet the Kingdom comes not as judgement so much as promise: “Here is the possibility of a new world! Repent – leave behind the old ways and ties; the old shackles that bind you to death and despair. Become part of the new world!” It’s a call not to grovel but to reach out and embrace God’s gift – a gift which is entirely gracious. It’s not about “getting back into line” but rather a call to become something new. It’s a summons to God’s new future, rather than a recall to a more blameless past. Its sign isn’t baptism, but healing and liberation.
I find this a welcome and challenging emphasis in light of so much “worthless worm” theology that churches excel in. Jesus’ call is life-giving and freeing, while so much Christian preaching seems to bind people in shackles of guilt and unworthiness – particularly in my own Reformed tradition. That, at least, is the popular perception, and if it’s wrong, it’s because we haven’t communicated the Good News! Here is a message of repentance that is positive. It necessarily means changing and leaving old ways behind – but for positive reasons, rather than beating people over the head with how bad they are. We seem far more scared of being seen to be “soft on sin” than “strong on Life”! Jesus was astoundingly different – and wise!
“It started out so nice” (2 Samuel 5: 1-5; 9-10/Pslam 48)
“It started out so nice” is the title of a song by Sixto Rodriguez, which I first heard as a teenager and have never forgotten. What struck me listening to it was a Dylanesque sarcasm and irony about a relationship that had begun so well and had then gone so horribly wrong. That is the dynamic in the gospel passage today and is echoed in the story of David uniting the tribes of Israel and conquering Jerusalem.
David’s kingdom was good news, full of promise. It begins with a momentous event: the uniting of the tribes. They recognise David as a man anointed by Yahweh. He is the “shepherd of Israel” and so they make him the “ruler of Israel”. After seven and a half years as king, ruling from Hebron, David marches against Jerusalem and takes it against the odds. At the time of its capture, Jerusalem was a “stronghold” – a tiny, fortified village. Under David, the city spreads (2 Samuel 5:9) as David’s own fame spreads. The stronghold taken in war becomes the city of Peace.
Davidic kingship and the city of Jerusalem will become part of a covenant (chapter 7). David the Shepherd King and Jerusalem the City of God will become symbols of Yahweh’s salvation and grace. This is what is celebrated in Psalm 48. Jerusalem will become the symbolic and theological centre of the world – the place where Yahweh’s presence and salvation will shine like a light and eventually draw all nations in homage to Yahweh. Then the peace will spread throughout the world under the messianic king, the son of David.
Yet David’s reign will end in tears, and later Jerusalem will be destroyed and its people taken into exile. Exile is the second great pole (the first is Exodus) around which Judaism will develop and the people’s understanding of who Yahweh is will be hammered out. Its New Testament counterpart is, if you like, incarnation and crucifixion. What starts out so well ends in tragedy – because of resistance. Human opposition will bring Yahweh’s purposes for Life to a halt in the barren wastes of desolation and exile. It will take “resurrection” in the form of the return from exile to give birth to a new, transformed faith and understanding of Israel’s God.
The persistence of opposition (2 Corinthians 12: 2-10)
The bible does not allow us to retreat into some sort of naïve optimism. The hard fact of human sinfulness – determined opposition to the most gracious and wonderful actions of God to save us – is powerful, intractable and often appears to have the final word. Paul discovered that at firsthand in the Corinthians! This chapter is Paul’s “boast” – a boast begun at 11:16.
Like Jesus in today’s gospel passage, Paul is realistic about opposition. Like Jesus, he regroups and works out a strategy to deal with it. Just as Jesus does not waste his time trying to fight battles he can’t win (at Nazareth, and in telling the disciples to “shake the dust off their feet” when villages respond as Nazareth did), so Paul measures the opposition and acts strategically. Paul defends his ministry against ridicule and denigration. Other “super-apostles” (or probably, their supporters) have accused him of being inferior. He is less eloquent, they say; less effective, and less spiritual.
There are two ways of reading Paul’s defence, and it all seems to boil down to how charitably you view him! For many, his is the response of outraged dignity and a piqued ego. Certainly, for all Paul’s protestations of weakness and foolishness, we need to recognise a skilled rhetorician employing powerful arguments that drip with rhetorical irony! Yet that is to do him an injustice. There is a winsome humility in his obvious embarrassment at being forced to lay out his “spiritual credentials”. This is evident in his use of the third person (“I know a person in Christ …”) to talk about himself, and in his honest confession of the “thorn in the flesh” that troubled him so, but kept him humble! Most significantly, though, is the way in which he uses christological and theological arguments (as we have seen previously) to talk about what really counts in these matters. And, in his constant reiteration of his “compassion” for the Corinthians, we ought to understand him as a man who is “boasting”, not because he wants to for his own sake, but because he knows that God has called him and he needs to be allowed space to be who he is in order to exercise his ministry faithfully.
How do we deal with opposition? It can be incredibly powerful and destructive. Of course, the constant temptation is to see honest criticism as the sort of “opposition” that simply affirms that we are right and all opinions to the contrary as sinful resistance to God! Yet here in this week’s passages, we are reminded – and encouraged – to recognise that effective, faithful mission will breed opposition, misunderstanding and incredibly destructive responses. Human resistance to God – sin – is deeply, deeply part of what has become “human nature”. Yet here is the Good News: the God whom we meet in Jesus is infinitely compassionate and determined to save. This is the God of resurrection. And, to use Paul’s phrase, “Wherever sin abounds, God’s grace abounds even more!” Hallelujah!
Amen.
