July 12, 2009
Ephesians 1: 1-14
Mark 6: 14-29
The Unfettered Jesus
If I were to make one statement to sum up Jesus, he who cannot be summed up in ten thousand statements, I would say: "Jesus is the one who keeps everyone off balance."
Everyone from Mary on was kept off balance by Jesus. Gentle Jesus smashed the temple tables. Proper Jesus ate and hung out with sinners and reprobates. Meek Jesus went face to Herod and Pilate. Dreamer Jesus out foxed every political and religious leader he encountered. Kindly Jesus told the Phoenician woman he did not come to feed the dogs and then, Perfect Jesus changed his mind when she persisted.
No one ever knew what Jesus was going to do next, how he would act or what he would say. No one was able to predict his next move or to anticipate his next moment. Those closest to him, the disciples, were constantly clueless. They spend their time bewildered, always trying to catch up with Jesus. No one could pin down or tie down Jesus. He was completely free, completely unfettered.
Jesus kept everyone off balance. And he continues to this day to do the same. He keeps us off balance as well.
The simplistic notion that all we need do is ask, "What would Jesus do?" and the correct answer will pop up has no basis in the Gospel. No one ever knew what he would do. Jesus followed no program, no predictable order. In the middle of a storm, with every one around him terrified, what would Jesus do? Well, we know what he did: He went to sleep. Jesus keeps us off balance.
Mark's Gospel keeps us off balance. It does not flow from one beautiful narrative to another. Rather, it is rough, it jumps around and it is filled with sudden and unexpected encounters. Mark's Gospel keeps us off balance.
Consider the reading this morning. Just after Jesus sends his small band of disciples into the world to cast out demons and finally get down to the glorious work of being real disciples, we the readers are suddenly thrust into a backward look at the beheading of John the Baptist.
Why the interruption? Why the sudden change in direction from going out to looking back? Perhaps this break is intended to make us pay attention, to throw us off balance and to keep us alert to what being a follower of Jesus is really all about.
We know John is the one who came to tell the world about Jesus, to foreshadow Jesus. Mark told us in the beginning that John is the messenger, the one to make the way for Jesus. We know John is the messenger and Jesus is the Message.
And we know that when we see John, we get a hint of Jesus. That is John's role. What do we see? We see Herod the mighty King who imprisoned John because John spoke the truth to Herod telling him that his marriage to his brother's wife was sinful. We see Herod as someone who keeps John in prison because he his afraid of John and at the same time we are told Herod enjoys listening to John. John is nothing more than a dangerous pet to Herod.
And we see Herod trapped, trapped into doing what he does not want to do because he makes a reckless, arrogant promise and is afraid of appearing weak in front of his friends and his court. Somehow we see that John the Baptist, even in death, is more powerful than Herod the King. We see that in the presence of John the Baptist the messenger, King Herod is thrown off balance and exposed as far less than he would pretend to be.
Jesus will do the same. He will stand in front of Herod and Pilate in all his weakness and will deeply confound both men. He will throw them completely off balance. Jesus the beaten will force Pilate the mighty to act out of fear to placate the mob and protect his reputation.
And in death Jesus will be so much more powerful that Pilate or Herod ever imagined. Pilate and Herod went to bed after Jesus' crucifixion believing all was done and yet all was just beginning. That is how Jesus keeps the world off balance to this very day.
In front of Jesus, Pilate and Herod are exposed as little more than pawns, captives of their own power and fear, and their desperate need to maintain control by keeping the balancing act of power running smoothly. At the end of the day only Jesus is truly alive, only Jesus is truly free and only Jesus is truly in control. It is the same today.
It has always been this way. Jesus keeps everyone off balance; especially those who pride themselves on enforcing perfect balance, who believe they can impose perfect balance through force and coercion, through resort to tradition or to the way things have always been done. Jesus seems to take special delight in throwing such as these off balance.
But, being off balance is not all bad. When we are off balance, when we feel the rug being pulled out from under us, we are alert, and we are attentive. Even if only for a moment we are fully aware of our situation and our need for help right now.
I remember being told that walking is nothing more than a series of movements going from being off balance to regaining balance to being off balance again. Watch an infant learning to walk and see if this is not so. If we are not willing to risk being off balance, we cannot walk, we cannot move forward. To be perfectly balanced is to be still, to be dead. To be off balance is to be alert, aware and ready to move.
Perhaps we who are clearly off balance are the perfect match for the One who keeps us off balance. Perhaps we who seem to lurch about, who are unsteady and unsure of our next step, uncertain of the path we are to take, perhaps we who are learning to walk together are a perfect fit for Jesus.
Jesus must love those who are willing to admit they are off balance, who are willing to ask for a hand to hold them up. Perhaps Jesus sees us as the little girl I knew who, when walking on the edge of a curb, reached out her hand and told her mother who was walking next to her, "It's good to have a hand to hold when you walk on the edge." Jesus must love us.
Let me share an image of us with you. We are off balance and unsteady and therefore we are just right for Jesus, just right for God. We are wonderfully caught in the middle: On one side is the sudden unexpectness of Jesus' grace and the quick reach of his hand to help us move forward. On the other side is the eternal glory and certainty of God and the risen Christ.
We are in the middle learning to walk slightly off balance with Jesus while being held forever in the love of God's eternal arms, caught up in God's eternal plan. There is no better place for us to be.
Being off balance with Jesus and God is just fine.
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