Let me begin with a confession of sorts. Like many of our lectionary texts, this readings starts rather abruptly. I have taken the liberty of adding some of the context to verse 30. It actually reads “they went on from there,†but few of us would have remembered where “there†was, though we might have guessed about the “they.†I point this out because details are important, context is important, and I will be starting from a seemingly small detail.
But before I get there, I want to stir up some memories. How many of you remember felt-board Jesus? Of course, there was also a felt-board Pharaoh and Moses, a felt-board Paul. The felt-board was a common Sunday School teaching tool of an earlier age… today its Powerpoint Jesus, DVD Jesus! And how many of you remember the paintings of Jesus that hung on the Sunday School walls? If you were raised in the Roman church the images might have been of the Sacred Heart, scary in its own way. For many Protestants you had either creepy Jesus or wimpy Jesus. Creepy Jesus had long flowing hair that looked like it belonged in a shampoo commercial, and blue eyes, eyes that followed you no matter where you went in the room. Then there was wimpy Jesus, sitting on a hillside surrounded by children and lambs. This Jesus didn’t confront Empire, overturn the human-made systems of oppression. This Jesus clearly ran a daycare and petting zoo! No wonder generations of boys fled from the church at the first opportunity, continue to flee from the church! I have no idea when these tropes worked their way into Christian culture… maybe it was when we went from being the subversive outsiders to being the establishment, though that seems too easy of an answer. But there it is… Jesus with the children… just like in today’s reading.
Now, hold those memories. Let’s really look at the passage. This is what a pastor might call a sermon-rich text. You’ve got the acceleration of Mark’s gospel, the head-long rush to Jerusalem that begins somewhere between the execution of John the Baptizer and Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Messiah. The text points us to death and resurrection. And there’s the fact that the disciples didn’t really understand what Jesus meant by resurrection, a fact we find in verse 10 and echoed in today’s reading. This opens entire theological vistas, a year of sermons! And there’s the “first shall be last†theme. We know that one well… so, a sermon rich text… a short passage in the shortest gospel… infinite possibilities…
So let’s focus a little… let’s tighten in to a single phrase… they came to “the house.†Even in the original Greek it is “the†house… not just any house. When the text was written the author could use the definite article because he or she meant a definite house, a house the first readers would know. Who’s house? Well, they might have known but we don’t know. Peter’s maybe? That makes sense. But, and I’m just saying… but could it have been Jesus’ own house?
Okay, I’m not going all Dan Brown on you, despite the release of his new book, no conspiracy to hide the Messiah’s wife and kids… And it seems unlikely that Jesus would own a home after teaching that everyone should abandon everything and live into the kingdom. But… well, just maybe. You see, Jesus was somewhere between the age of twelve and the age of thirty. Capernaum is the urban hub of Galilee, the hub of the Nazarene’s ministry. There are scholars who argue that Jesus spent some years living in Capernaum, probably practiced his trade, did business with Romans and Greeks and all sorts of pagans. It was a cosmopolitan town, and Jesus was presumably a skilled craftsman, despite the crazy cousin knee-deep in the Jordan river. Jesus probably spoke Greek… it was the language of business, some of the disciples have Greek names, and then there are the two Greek fellows who show up at the door in another story, well and Centurions and Pontius Pilate… well, Jesus spoke Greek…
How does this fit into your image of Jesus? Jesus the householder? Can you see Jesus taking out the trash? What about Jesus the multi-lingual craftsman? You see, we talk about the humanity of Jesus, but the gospels give us few details, and quite frankly, this Jesus scares us. The Jesus who dealt with paying the bills, who wiped snotty kid noses and cursed the fig tree, that Jesus makes us very uncomfortable.
We prefer our Jesus to be sort of flat, like felt-board Jesus. This Jesus in Flatland is stories and lessons and maybe a little humanity on Good Friday, but mainly he’s not like us. This is the Jesus of Paul, an abstraction, an idea… but not a real human.
Its sort of ironic actually. Part of us is perfectly ready to accept the humanity of Jesus… as a concept. We compare ourselves to the completely transcendent otherness of God in Islam, to the abstraction of God in Hellenism, to God defined as reason in the age of modernism, and we feel pretty good. At least we have a God that is accessible! But we don’t really…
You see, God empties God’s self and becomes one of us, and in so doing transforms both God and humankind. Theologians can weave palaces of artifice, but the fact remains God became one of us in the person of Jesus, the Jesus who came to “the†house, the Jesus who said “What are you guys bickering over?†then grabbed one of the kids to use as an example…
We don’t like this Jesus, this God… because if Jesus leaves Flatland and becomes real, then we are challenged to become real, to really live out the radical love and hospitality of the good news, to be just as Christian on Monday morning as we are right now. And that would be to transgress all that is polite and socially acceptable.
Of course, it would also be life changing, maybe even world changing. Imagine a Christianity that lived, as Jesus so radically did, the message of the prophets. Do justice, walk humbly with your God! Imagine a Christianity that was not about prosperity or self-righteousness, that wasn’t about American exceptionalism, but was about transformation. If Jesus steps off of the felt-board and into our lives, what would that mean?
A couple of years ago an Episcopal bishop in Pennsylvania had the audacity to speak out on an issue of public policy. His opinion was discounted by a local politician, who asked what a minister could know about real life. The bishop’s reply? When you’ve been at as many deathbeds as I’ve been at, when you have been there at the start of life and at so many turning points, good and bad, in peoples lives, when you have done that, come back and tell me about real life.
Jesus, at “the†house, Jesus with bickering disciples and kids running around… Jesus with Joseph. I’ve particularly been thinking about Jesus and Joseph. Tradition has it that Joseph is dead by the time Jesus’ ministry begins… Did Jesus help take care of the dying Joseph, like I am helping care for my dying father? Did he get as angry and as frustrated as I do? Did he not have the power to heal?
I must have asked for more experience in pastoral care or something, because I am certainly getting a lesson in real life, in trying to live out God’s call in the middle of mess. Daddy’s a big man and an independent hard-headed man, and in the past weeks he has fallen and broken a leg, broken family heirlooms, put his head through the wall, broken a toilet. And I’ve been there to pick up and clean up and patch up. And oh, can he make me mad. No one knows how to push my buttons better than my father, after all, he installed most of them…
So, easier for me not to think about Jesus as too real, Jesus with stinky poopy crazy bloody people who needed healing, needed care. Because if I think about that real Jesus, I need to step up to the plate, to do better…
Jesus in Flatland is easy, a miracle in December, an Easter surprise. Jesus the Real is a challenge, a threat, dragging us out of our comfort zones, dragging me out of my comfort zone.
Of course, the gospels challenge us to see Christ in the poor and the sick. We’re used to this. But I’m actually suggesting something closer to the rallying cry of the Evangelicals, What would Jesus do? This question was first asked by Charles Sheldon in his novel “In His Steps,†written in 1896. But “In His Steps†was not, and let me put a little emphasis here, “In His Steps†was absolutely not a conservative tract filled with moral superiority. The novel was part of the social gospel movement, it was a progressive document, a loud cry for an America where we did justice, helped the poor, cared for the sick, where we would walk humbly with our God. How ironic that today the question “What would Jesus do?†is most closely associated with conservative Christians, judgmental and preaching a message of personal wealth. What we should be asking is “what would Jesus do†about health care reform? What would Jesus do about the Palestinian conflict?
And for that matter, what would Jesus do when the ref makes a bad call during your little girl’s soccer game? What would Jesus do in the aisles of Target when trying to decide what products to buy? Would Jesus boycott bad companies? Would Jesus turn off the television?
Paul speaks of the scandal of the Cross. The real scandal to me is the scandal of Jesus’ life, of Jesus challenge. The Jesus in the house in Capernaum with bickering disciples and rugrats afoot and still calling us to God, still challenging human-made systems of control and oppression, still moving boldly to Jerusalem knowing how that would end. The real scandal is Real Jesus, Jesus who steps out of Flatland, off of the feltboard and out of the bucolic Jesus the babysitter paintings.
Real Jesus is calling. Dude, believe in me, give your life to me, and we will become one body, we will be transformed, will transform the world. You will know life in full, and when this body is no more, you will still know life. But its not going to be an abstraction. Life in full is now, is smelly and hard and oh so amazingly beautiful. Forget the Jesus of Flatland, felt-board Jesus, creepy Jesus. Jesus is you, is me, because he was what we are. Jesus is that jerk that just cut you off on the expressway. Jesus, God with us… thanks be to God!