Our Sunday Message

What is Your Jesus Like?: Mark 1:29-39
Rev. Dr. Kenneth A. Corr
February 5, 2006
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

  Think for a minute about your Jesus. What is your Jesus like? Is your Jesus a Republican or a Democrat? Is your Jesus patriotic or a little rebellious? Is your Jesus middle class, lower class, or upper class? I was recently invited to read the script for a Terrence McNally play entitled, Corpus Christi, in which Jesus is portrayed as a gay man named Joshua living in Corpus Christi, Texas. My friend Rev. Freddie Moore is the pastor of the Holy Community Methodist Church in the Uptown area. Freddie has a picture of the Lord’s Supper in his office. In the picture, Jesus and all the disciples are black and, I suspect, Methodist. What is your Jesus like? Is your Jesus gay or straight, white or black, liberal or conservative, Methodist or Baptist?
  The preacher was preaching what he thought was one of his most eloquent sermons. But he noticed one of the deacons on the front row getting red in the face. Soon the deacon’s arms were crossed. Before long, he was shaking his head with an emphatic, No. When the sermon was over, this deacon was the first to reach the preacher. With a voice trembling with anger, he said, “I don’t know who you were talking about in your sermon today, but that’s not my Jesus.”
  What is your Jesus like?
Epiphany means “revealed” or “unveiled.” Jesus came into our world to make very plain what God is like. But sometimes it is hard for us to see if it does not fit our image. We want a God who fits our purposes, our beliefs, our lifestyle, and our agenda. I saw a bumper sticker on a large SUV that said, “God gave it to me.” That is what we all want: a God who wants us to have the things that we want, who loves the same things that we love, who thinks the way we think. But God cannot be manipulated for our purposes.
Jesus came to reveal God to us and a part of our task when we come to church each Sunday is to examine our thoughts, beliefs, agendas in light of that revelation. At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, there were those who wanted to manipulate him for their own needs. But he refused and he still does. The story is found in Mark 1.
Mark is narrating one day in the life of Jesus. The day begins in verse 21 with Jesus coming to the synagogue. This was the text that Ann Philips preached so well last Sunday. But don’t read this as though Mark’s intent is to show us a glimpse of life with Jesus. Do you remember the old gospel hymn, “Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before”? That is not what Mark is doing. One commentator says that this day in the life of Jesus is, “. . . a segment that illustrates the whole. In it we will see in a general way what Jesus will be about in his life.”1
I should warn you that one of Mark’s favorite words is “immediately.” To follow a day in the life of Jesus, you must be ready to move quickly. So hold on, put on your crash helmet and life jacket, we are about to take a wild ride.
The day begins with Jesus coming to the temple and teaching. Isn’t that sweet? “Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.” But wait a minute. Mark doesn’t say that it was sweet. Mark says that it was unauthorized. Jesus taught, “as one having authority, but not as the scribes.” It means that the scribes were certified, legitimized, and authorized. And Jesus came into their space, sacred space, symbolic space, and began to teach without their authority. The teaching may have been sweet, helpful, and insightful, but it was unauthorized. “Who is this who dares to teach without authority from the scribes? Who gave him permission to speak? Someone shut him up.”
Then something happened that no one expected. Do you remember Ann’s sermon from last week? How could you forget? Someone there in the Sunday school class dared to speak the truth. “Don’t think I don’t know who you are, Jesus, and what you are about. You have come to destroy us.” And Jesus cast out the demon.
Whoa! He had authority after all. But it was not like the scribes’ authority. He wasn’t credentialed, licensed, or certified. He didn’t have that kind of authority. But there was some kind of authority. And so the day begins with this question, “What is this?” Is this God? Is this the devil? Is this a new kind of scribe with authority? Is this a new kind of magician that wants to deceive? Is this the real thing, what Walter Brueggemann calls, “The really Real”? What is this? Something that is new and wonderful and different is among them and they don’t get it. The religious crowd doesn’t get it. The disciples don’t get it. In fact, go all the way over to Mark 8:21. That is the halfway point in the gospel. Part 1 ends with Jesus saying to the disciples, “You don’t get it yet, do you.” What is this?
But Mark doesn’t stay with this question long. “Immediately,” they leave the synagogue and go to Peter and Andrew’s home. It is the same day. What day is this? It is the Sabbath day. Are there any laws about healing on the Sabbath day? Don’t do it, Jesus! But he heals Peter’s mother-in-law on the Sabbath. What is Mark wanting us to understand with this story?
But Mark is in a hurry and “immediately” it is sundown. The Sabbath is over and the place is crowded with people. They came to get relief.
I was in the Methodist Hospital ER last week and the place was crowded with people. They lined up in the hallway. They lined up in the doorway. They came to get relief. I was at MIFA last week and the people were lined up out the door. They came to get relief. Go to the Memphis Union Mission on Poplar any day of the week and see the people lined up. They have come to get relief. Jesus offers relief.
But Mark does not stay with this idea long. “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’”
The text doesn’t say it, but I imagine that Simon was thinking, “Everyone is searching for you . . . because we have scheduled a press conference at ten. At eleven, there will be more demonstrations of power. At noon, we will lunch with the Mayor and then at two, I have a little ache in my neck that I would like for you to see.” Even without knowing “What this is”, everyone around Jesus is ready to manipulate him for their own agenda. But Jesus refused and said, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim there the message also; for that is what I came out to do.”
And this is the end of the first day: twenty-four hours in the life of Jesus. What just happened? I told you we were going to take a wild ride. I told you to hold on. If I have preached this text well, you should be feeling a little confused, uncertain. You may be asking, “What is this about? What is the preacher saying?”
At the end of this first day, no one knew what this was, but they came to Jesus because they wanted to use him for their own purposes. No one got it. No one, that is, except the demons. How did they get it? Maybe they got it because they were not under any kind of religious authority, they were not attached to a particular doctrine or denomination, they didn’t worry about what others were thinking or saying, they were not trying to please anybody, they were completely free from all this religious baggage. They understood that Jesus came to destroy all this religious baggage that prevents us from seeing the kingdom of God in our very midst.
Do you remember my opening question, “What is your Jesus like?” Where do we get those ideas about Jesus? We learn them in church. Sometimes we have to give our precious ideas up in order to see who God really is in our midst. Sometimes we have to admit that “We see through a glass dimly.”
“Lord, teach us to see clearly what you really want us to see and not just what we want to see.”

1 Diarmuid McGann, The Journeying Self, p. 34.