Mark 1:29-39 "Another World" Scott Hoezee

Novelist Russell Banks once wrote a short story called "The Fish." In this fanciful tale we are told about a giant fish that lived in a good-sized lake not far from a small Chinese village. For reasons no one was ever clear about, the authorities, led by a Colonel Tung, decided that this giant fish was a menace that had to be removed from the lake. But every time the colonel tried to kill the fish, the creature somehow survived unscathed. They fired automatic weapons at the fish, but no bullet struck it. They placed mines throughout the waters of the lake, and although the fish detonated the mines, it swam on. They hid floatable grenades amidst chunks of bread that were scattered on the water's surface. And although the fish ate the grenades along with the bread, it lived on.

Needless to say, each time Colonel Tung failed to slay the beast, the reputation of the fish grew. People delighted in astonishment that such a creature existed. Tourists began to come to the lake's shores to catch a glimpse of the fish, and soon people in boats trolled the waters to see it, cameras at the ready. But then one day someone began to circulate the idea that it must be the waters of the lake itself that contained the magic. Surely such special water had healing properties, could be an elixir for long life.

Soon, everyone who came to see the fish brought a mason jar, a bucket, or some other vessel with which to cart home some of this magic water. This went on for months. The authorities tried to control it, but under the cover of darkness some were now siphoning water out of the lake into tanker trucks. Before anyone could do much about it, the lake level dropped precipitously. A dry stretch of weather over the next summer depleted the lake still more until finally the terrible day came when there was no longer enough water for the great fish to swim in. One morning, people found the fish lying on its side, flapping its fins on a muddy flat that had once been the lake. They began to bring water back to the lake, dousing the fish as quickly as they could. But by sunset that night, they buried the fish.

I am by no means certain what all Mr. Banks meant to convey via this story. Probably it means lots of things, but among them is surely this idea: there is nothing so wonderful in this life that we humans cannot find a way to ruin as soon as we make our own selves our sole reference point. As soon as something becomes all about me, the moment I spy something that I think I can turn to my private advantage, my perspective becomes narrowed, my horizons contract, and suddenly I discover that by trying to horde something for my own private benefit, I have killed that very thing.

It's a story as old as Adam and Eve. Eve spies something that is profoundly good. It was a beautiful and wonderful object, as was everything the Lord God made. All by itself, the fruit was not an evil thing. But it became evil, a decanter of death, the moment Eve reached out her hand to make the fruit her own private possession, her own private supply of life's elixir. It's a tale that has been re-told so very often. King Midas wanted the golden touch because it would enrich him so, and it did until the day when he thoughtlessly reached out his hand to touch his daughter's face. He wanted this gift so that he could say, "All I have is gold!" Tragically, in the end, it was true: all he had was gold.

If by now you are not wondering what this has to do with Mark 1, I will be vaguely surprised. Granted, the connection between this introduction and the events in Capernaum is not glaringly evident. Yet in the end I think we will see the connection after all even as we come to recognize that hidden in plain sight in this part of Mark 1 are some signs of what would ultimately happen to Jesus, and why.

The story is straightforward: Jesus travels to Capernaum, and wondrous things swiftly follow. We noted a couple weeks ago that Mark's favorite Greek word is euthus, best translated as "immediately." Some of Mark's usage of this word gets lost in translation. So let me point out to you how frequently this word pops up in tonight's passage. Euthus or "immediately" occurs in verses 21, 23, 28, 29, and 30. Everything happens so swiftly here!

And it does appear that Jesus gained quite a reputation very quickly. But we need to notice why. It began with his teaching. Jesus exuded an air of authority that was unmistakable. Certainly it was different from the usual teachers of the law. But what was it about Jesus that was so different? I think we can maybe guess. I suspect we can all tell the difference between someone who is teaching you about something and someone who is speaking from the heart.

A while ago I read a charming anecdote involving the great Pope John XXIII. One day the pontiff was having an audience with a group of people, one of whom was the mother of several children. At one point the pope said to this woman, "Would you please tell me the names of your children. I realize that anyone in this room could tell me their names, but something very special happens when a mother speaks the names of her own children."

I suspect we know what the pope meant. Have you ever sat close to the stage during a performance of Handel's Messiah in December? If you sit close enough to see the faces of the soloists, sometimes you can sense which of the soloists are giving a technically great performance of the music and which ones are intoning those glorious words of Scripture right out of the depths of their own devotion to Christ. You could be wrong about that, of course--not all musicians wear their hearts on their sleeves. Still, some singers perform the music, others incarnate the text. Sometimes you can tell.

The teachers of the law were good at teaching about God. They drew off their book learning and seminary training, they employed their various gifts of oratory and enunciation. And good though they were at this, there always seemed to be a bit of a remove between a given scribe and the God he was talking about. But not so with Jesus. There was an intimacy to his knowledge about God. He spoke as though he had spent a long time personally being with God. Oddly enough, it almost seemed at times like he was speaking as God. Probably no one in Capernaum that day went quite so far as to conclude this was God in the flesh, but when this Jesus fellow talked about God, it was like hearing a mother intone the names of her own children--the love and the personal involvement Jesus had with his subject matter made it clear that this was not coming out of his head so much as his heart.

Long about the time people were sorting this all out, a crazy man started shrieking at Jesus, sputtering something about his being the Holy One of God and pretty well asking Jesus to leave. Jesus silenced the man and then said, "Come out of him!" For about three seconds the people in the crowd started to think to themselves, "Well, that's not going to work . . ." until the man did three somersaults, a pirouette, turned three shades of purple, gurgled and shouted like he was choking on a chicken bone, and then flopped to the ground as whole and sound of mind as anyone else there.

The people were amazed all over again, and Jesus' fame spread. Next thing you know, the crowds followed Jesus to where he was staying. Quietly and out of the public's line of sight, Jesus restored Simon's mother-in-law. She felt so good that she whipped up supper but they hadn't gotten to dessert yet when a knock came on the front door. Opening the door, Simon noticed a line of people stretching around the block, most of them looking two sheets to the wind with various diseases. You could have built a good-sized fishing boat with the wood you could have collected from all the crutches these people were using, and there were just enough twitchy folks out there to let Simon know that the man at the synagogue was not the only demon-plagued soul in Capernaum. "It's for you, Lord" Peter said, calling into the dining room. It would be many hours later before Jesus was able to close the front door again, having ministered to so very many dear souls in distress.

So far so good, but I'd wager you still can't connect any of this to my opening illustrations. The hook for that comes in what takes place next. Early the next day, Jesus finds a quiet, remote place to pray. Apparently he didn't leave a note saying where he was going because the disciples spent a good deal of time looking for Jesus, mainly because the crowd had re-formed in front of Simon's front door. Finally they locate Jesus and they scold him. "Where have you been? Everyone has been looking for you!" With so much work to do, what in the world was their Master doing praying! But if the disciples had been surprised to find Jesus holing up far from the madding crowd, what he said next must have really taken them aback. "Let's leave here. I need to go preach in other places, too."

Now the surprise is doubly big: first Jesus leaves town without a word, leaving a big throng of needy people in the lurch. But now that he has been told that everyone is wanting Jesus' help, Jesus says it's time to go. I don't know if any of the disciples said it or not, but surely they must have wanted to ask, "What about all those people back at Simon's place!?" Whether or not they asked it, it was clear Jesus was moving on. So Capernaum still had its fair share of needy people when Jesus left even as it had had before he arrived.

The only explanation for that is the idea that Jesus came to do more, much more, than make everything OK in the short term. He came primarily to preach a very distinct message, and it would take time for people to hear it. That's part of the reason why Jesus always silenced the demons. Jesus had to keep his true identity as God's Messiah quiet for a while. If people seized on Jesus too quickly, they would never take the time needed to learn the deeper truths of what it meant for Jesus to be God's Suffering Servant, the man born to die as the only sacrifice that would, in the longest possible run, make all things new.

But when you have the ability to do miracles, you always tap dance on a very fine line. Jesus could not fail to heal when he had the chance, but every time he performed a miracle, he ran the risk of people grabbing him all for themselves. You can be well assured that had Jesus decided to set up a permanent Miracle Clinic right there in Capernaum, the people would have loved it, would have donated all the money he needed to set up shop right there so that they could have him all to themselves.

But Jesus came to bear witness to another world. Jesus came from heaven, from the right hand of his Father, and that's why the demons shrieked in his presence. Here was a man who could not be tamed or domesticated, a man who possessed nothing short of the divine might of the Almighty God. Jesus came to point us to another world, to the larger realities of heaven and hell that exist just beyond the reach of our ordinary sight. Jesus came to declare that ultimately the things that ail us in this sorry and sad old world of ours would require an infusion of something that is beyond this world's ability to produce. Salvation would come not because we could somehow make or get "more" of anything we've ever known. That is how our minds usually operate, though. What is the solution to most any problem you could name? More. More money. More medicine. More chemotherapy. More choices. More consumer goods. More time. Look at how many advertisers hawk their product under the slogan, "You deserve more out of life."

And so the moment we see Jesus as a potential source of more, we grab him. But the moment Jesus becomes a commodity, a way to promote this or that cause or endorse this or that point of view, we lose sight of that other world whose reality Jesus came to bring into this world. Jesus didn't lose sight of the big picture. That's why he took time to pray. But the disciples were stymied by his prayer time--when there is so much work to do right here, right now, why waste time praying?

Yes, Jesus came to give life but he knew it would come through the rather unpopular route of death. Yes, Jesus came to deliver us from evil, but he had bigger foes to take on than the puny Caesar sitting in his Roman palace. Jesus came to incarnate the life of another world, and prayer was one major part of his own connection to that kingdom of his Father. That's also why he couldn't stay in Capernaum. Like the fish in Russell Banks' quirky fable, Jesus would have become the private possession of people who wanted something from him. And in the end, such a narrow focus would have killed Jesus--or at least it would have killed the reason he came to this planet.

That's why even today, even as Christians, we have to guard against any and all tendencies that we and the wider culture may have of making our Lord Jesus Christ about mostly just this or that one thing. Jesus does not live in our hearts necessarily to make us richer, more beautiful, more successful, or more healthy. He is not here merely to endorse this or that viewpoint or become the spokesperson for this or that cause like some Hollywood actor making TV ads for Celebrex or Pizza Hut. Jesus is not anyone's mascot, he is our Lord and he is with us by his Holy Spirit now to help us live out the reality of another world right in the midst of this world.

But the moment we associate Jesus less with humble prayer and more with invoking his name as a way to win an argument, we show that we, too, are trying to make Jesus mostly all about the ins and outs of the way life goes in this world and not about the very different world that is God's kingdom. Of course, living out the kingdom will still lead us to act differently than others, and what's more, we will do it in Jesus' name. But ever and always, in the end, working in Jesus' name means pointing people to the cross.

You see, in Mark's gospel, the more Jesus talked about self-denial, sacrifice, and the need to die on a cross, the smaller the crowds got. So long as Jesus looked to be "useful" in taking care of the nitty-gritty in the here and now, people flocked to him. But death on a cross looked like the precise opposite of a useful prospect and so Jesus, the very man who had been so popular once upon a time, died utterly alone. But those who know about that other world, that kingdom of God, to which Jesus had all along been bearing witness recognize that it was precisely that cross that made the universe turn the corner from darkness into light. It's not the kind of thing you would let Jesus do so long as you seized on him as your own private source of health and wealth. In fact, about the only reason Jesus was able to get crucified at all was because by that point, everyone had already let go of him.

Thanks be to God, though, that the world did not pin Jesus down to some tidy little domestic agenda. So also today: the only way Jesus, and we as Jesus' people, can keep doing the work of the Lord everywhere is never to lose sight of that other world, that coming kingdom, whose compassion and mercy and grace we incarnate every day. Many times, it may well be the case that the more we bring Jesus' grace and compassion to bear on those around us, the less "effective" we will appear to be by the world's standards. Maybe we will even lose certain battles, have our voices shouted down in certain discussions. But if the reason for such apparent setbacks is because we honor, serve, and seek to incarnate the Christ of God's kingdom, then we have to be content with being faithful.

After all, never did anyone do something so apparently inane and ineffective as when a certain man from Nazareth let himself get nailed to a cross. Surely on that day the disciples wanted to ask, as they had long before in Capernaum, "What are you doing here, Lord! Everyone is looking for you." Had Jesus been able to answer such a question from the cross, surely he would have said, "I know. But trust me: this is exactly the place where those who are looking for me must find me." Amen.