Sermon for Sunday,  July 31, 2005  

Jesus: Mystic or Misfit
3rd in a series on Following Jesus Through the Gospel of Mark

by

Rev. Cindy Bates

 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 2 They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man who had the withered hand, "Come forward." 4 Then he said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. 5 He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. 7 Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; 8 hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. 9 He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; 10 for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. 11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, "You are the Son of God!" 12 But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

13 He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, 15 and to have authority to cast out demons. 16 So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18 and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Then he went home; 20 and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. 21 When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind."

22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons." 23 And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 27 But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered. 28 "Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"— 30 for they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."

31 Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you." 33 And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" 34 And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

So, what do you think?  Was Jesus a mystic or a misfit?  What you could say is that there is a certain amount of audacity in even asking this question about the One we endeavor to follow as our most profound revelation of God.  But, if we truly desire to “take on the mind of Christ” as the current sermon series challenges us to do, we have to ask ourselves some important questions.  Who is this Jesus?  Who is this Christ that Mark presents to us?  This is the third sermon in a series where we are looking at Jesus as we read through the Gospel of Mark.  So, here it is in abbreviated form. 

As chapter three opens, Jesus is continuing his ministry of healing by going to the synagogue and healing a man with a paralyzed hand.  But, not everyone in the synagogue had come to worship, for there were some there who came to judge, to catch Jesus in some wrong-doing, so they watched to see if Jesus would cure someone on the Sabbath.  And, when he did, they met with the local authorities to make plans to kill him.  As a parallel, Mark tells us that the common folks, those that did not have a lot of authority or power, followed him and crowded around him.  They came to Jesus with a very different agenda.  They wanted to be healed.  In fact, the crowds were so large Jesus had to get into a boat, so he would not be crushed by those wanting to touch him.

Jesus then went up a hill or a mountainside and there gathered his twelve apostles around him giving them authority to preach and to heal.  After all of that, Jesus was pretty depleted so he went home to get some food and some rest but the crowds continued to press in around him.  And then his family hears about what is happening and they are embarrassed by his actions, thinking he’s gone crazy.  To add to the confusion and mayhem, some teachers of the Law accuse him of being evil, of having Satan within him, a charge whereby someone could be banished or even executed.  Jesus tries to defend himself by explaining it makes no sense to say he is from Satan when he is trying to overcome evil and asks, “How can Satan drive out Satan?”  Then his mother and brothers show up to take him away because now they really are convinced he has gone off the deep end.  And Jesus responds by asking, “Who really is my family?”  He points to his followers and says, “Whomever does God’s will, they are my mother and my brothers.”

In many ways this chapter can be seen as a somewhat troubling portrayal of Jesus…mystic or misfit?  What do you think of when you hear the word mystic or mysticism?  Several of us from St. Andrew had an opportunity to attend a seminar last month at Trinity Cathedral in Portland, Oregon entitled, Mysticism, Empowerment, and Resistance.  We spent three days there hearing some wonderful speakers address what mysticism had to do with our Christian faith.  In particular, Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun who has written dozens of books on Christian spirituality, said it this way… “The mystic sees everything and everyone through the eyes of God.  Mysticism is not an excursion into fantasy and unreality.  It is reality at its rarest and its rawest.  It is the ability to see the difference between what things are and what they are meant to be.”  Wayne Teasdale in his book, The Mystic Heart, speaks of the spirituality of a mystic when he says, “Spirituality is a way of life that affects and includes every moment of existence.  It is at once, a contemplative attitude, a disposition to a life of depth, and the search for ultimate meaning, direction, and belonging.  The spiritual person is committed to growth as an essential, ongoing life goal.  To be spiritual requires us to stand on our own two feet while being nurtured and supported by our tradition, if we are fortunate enough to have one.

I was reminded of a conversation I had just a couple of weeks ago with a former neighbor who had moved away from Denver and was back for a visit. The reason for his departure from Denver had to do with his need to go back home to his parents and find some healing after he had become too over-whelmed by illness and some unresolved guilt over past actions.  He had tried to take his own life.  As we sat in my garden and talked, I saw a very different person than I had seen just a few months ago.  When I asked what had made such a difference, he began to share an experience… he said that in a dream God had given him eyes to see all those things in his life that needed to change and my friend said, “The dream was so real I could hear God speaking to me, I will never see things the same again.”  He went on to say that he had been so convinced of the reality of God and God’s love in his life that he felt compelled to share what he had experienced with his friends but they didn’t understand and he was afraid they thought he was a little crazy for wanting to talk about God.  What do you think?  Mystic or misfit?

It would be easy to dismiss such a dream as coming after a day of too much stress, or from some strange part of reality creeping in upon sleep time.  Dismissing the dream would allow my friend to continue living life as usual, making no changes.  Listening to the dream, on the other hand, challenges him to pay attention, to pay attention to God and to pay attention to the world in which God has placed him.  Listening to the dream changes the dreamer.  And when the dreamer is changed, sometimes he or she becomes a misfit!  A misfit in that the world around them no longer responds in the same way.  And the dreamer, the one who has listened to that still quiet voice of God, the dreamer can no longer live life as “business as usual.”

We think of a misfit as being the one who doesn’t fit in.  The misfit is the quiet red headed guy on the back row of our high school history class.  His head was always somewhere else and he never seemed to be paying attention when the teacher asked him a question and somehow he managed to become the head of an innovative company with the capacity to change the world.

Sometimes the misfit is simply bored with the surroundings.  Other times, like with Jesus, a misfit is counter-cultural.  The misfit is a misfit because he or she doesn’t fit in.  Doesn’t conform.  Doesn’t always see things in the same way as others see things.  Parker Palmer in his book, Let Your Life Speak, talks about persons who have been so faithfully present in this life that they have made tremendous contributions that transform our world, our reality in ways that have affected all of us.  He says, “They decide to no longer act on the outside in a way that contradicts some truth about themselves they hold deeply on the inside.”

Jesus was that kind of misfit.  No matter who was threatening him, no matter who thought he was crazy, he could not hold inside the truth he was here to share.  Something happens to us when God truly gets our attention.  Something happens to us when God’s voice and God’s vision slip into our passion and desire to live in a world that can be different.  When God’s vision and our passion cross paths, we too become misfits, people of faith who do not fit into the expected or accepted ways of being and relating and living in the world.

Jesus was a misfit.  But because he was also a mystic, in Chittister’s words “one who could see everything and everyone through the eyes of God” his misfit ways of absurd thoughts and miracles changed the world in a way no other has been able to do.  He was a misfit because he was a mystic.  He was a mystic because he was willing to see the world with the eyes of God.

Marc Ian Barasch in his newly published book, Field Notes on the Compassionate Life, says, “At the center of all spiritual traditions is the beacon of a truly radical proposal: Open your heart to everybody.  Everybody.”

That is what Jesus did and it was what caused him to be set aside and criticized.  It was what caused authorities and principalities to rise up against him and want to kill him.  Yet, as today’s scripture tells us, even through his anger, Jesus was grieved and felt sorry for them.  He had compassion, even for his enemies.  The simplest of all commandments, the most profound of all New Testament laws… to love your neighbor, as yourself.  Misfit!  That simply did not fit into the culture in which Jesus lived and one has to ask if it fits into our culture today.

I think this idea of mystic and misfit go hand in hand. At our conference in Portland we were issued a challenge as Christians to become “ordinary mystics”. Think of it.  What would it mean for you and for me to most deeply desire a relationship with God that reflects Joan Chittister’s words?  “The mystic sees everything and everyone through the eyes of God.”  Is that possible?  Can you imagine what it would be like to see each and everyone through the eyes of God? Not eyes of judgment or through the eyes of wounds or through the eyes of justification and blame, but to live our lives looking thorough the eyes of God, in all that we do and all that we are and all that we hope to become. Then my friends, then perhaps we too could become a bit of an “ordinary mystic” and have the courage and the faith to be misfits ourselves.

As I was thinking about this sermon the last few days, the words from one of our Spanish hymns in our United Methodist hymnal kept running through my head.

“When we are living, it is in Christ Jesus, and when we’re dying, it is in the Lord.
Both in our living and in our dying, we belong to God, we belong to God.”

No matter what Jesus said or did, no matter the threat or the consequences, no matter who thought he was crazy or perverted, he knew he belonged to God.  Jesus’ relationship to God was the source of all he was and all he accomplished.  As Christians, who Jesus was is clearly who we are called to be.  Are we ready to claim the identity… mystic?  Misfit?

There is a Franciscan Blessing that I wish to be blessed with and I hope it is a blessing that you will want to claim as well.  It goes…

                        May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers,

                        half truths and superficial relationships,

                        so that you may live deep within your heart.

                        May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression,

                                    and exploitation of people,

                        so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

                        May God bless you with tears to shed for those

                        who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and want,

                        so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them,

                        and to turn their pain into joy.

                        May God bless you with enough foolishness

                        to believe that you can make a difference in this world,

                        so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

                        And the blessing of God, and of Jesus and the Holy Spirit,

                        who broods over the world as a mother over her children,

                        be upon you and remain with you always.  Amen

Study Guide

  Sermon Library