Familiarity (Mark 6:1-13)
Familiarity
Mark 6:1-13
Introduction
· When a couple gets married, they aren’t really familiar with each other.
· However great the effort is to familiarize themselves with each other during engagement, there is an inevitable learning curve that comes once you move into the same space and start sharing the same bed, bathroom, credit card, etc.
· As familiarity grows, one of two things tend to happen (sometimes at the same time):
· On the one hand, their familiarity begins to irritate them—he leaves his plate on the table, her hair is in the drain, he chews too loud, she is a morning person, he is too rash with his words, she is too free with her emotions.
o The person we once put on a pedestal now seems all-too-human and imperfect. We used to stare googly-eyed at those limpid pools and were thrilled by the very opportunity to hold their hand. Now, because we have become familiar with them, we find ourselves wishing they’d scoot over a little farther in the bed and stop hogging the covers.
o As familiarity grows, it is easy to grow in contempt. But this happens because the one we once saw as amazing and divine and unique is not human and imperfect and flawed.
· On the other hand, their familiarity begins to foster deep affection in them—he sees how she bears up under trials, how she cares for him and takes care of his needs, how she is frugal with her money and discreet with her tongue. She sees how he works hard to provide for her, how he diligently studies his Bible, how he takes care of their home and leads their family.
o Although we are not ignorant of their flaws, our familiarity with them builds affection. And while we might still not stare into each others’ eyes, swept away by a cocktail of hormones, the frivolity of emotional attraction slowly gives way to the deep currents of a familiar love.
o This familiarity then informs how a married couple serves one another. He shapes his leadership of her to conform to the contours of her specific needs, personality, desires, goals, and weaknesses. She shapes her helping of him to hold him up and promote his work and make his life a blessing rather than a curse.
· What makes the difference between these two different kinds of familiarity?
o On the one hand, there is the familiarity which breeds contempt. This is a familiarity which is based upon pride, assumptions, selfishness, and shortsightedness. It is quick to see flaws and compare them our own perceived rightness. But most of all, this kind of familiarity flows from a lack of trust—there is no sense of good faith.
o On the other hand, there is the familiarity which breeds affection. This is based upon humility, mutual understanding, believing the best, sacrifice, and patience. But most of all, it is built on trust.
· In this story we see a very similar kind of dynamic.
o On the one hand, there is the familiarity which breeds contempt, and therefore strife and rejection.
§ Nazareth—the town that knew Jesus.
§ Because they were familiar with him, they rejected him and refused to believe in him, and so Jesus could not help them.
o On the other hand, there is the familiarity which breeds affection and therefore sacrifice.
§ The disciples—those that knew Jesus, who were with him, who sat at his feet, who loved him.
§ Because of their familiarity, they learned from him, modeled him, and were sent on mission by him trusting that he would provide.
· In this way, this story also provides us with a warning on the one hand and an encouragement on the other.
o The warning is this: Beware the kind of familiarity with Jesus that would lead you to question and doubt him.
o The encouragement is this: Pursue the kind of familiarity with Jesus that leads you into trusting discipleship for the purpose of furthering his kingdom.
· Let us look at two kinds of familiarity which teach us how to trust in him.
I. Proud Familiarity Breeds Contempt (6:1-6)
· Jesus, after an undetermined time, returns home to Nazareth (1:9) with his disciples in tow. He has yet one more thing to show them before sending them out two by two.
· As was his practice, he began to teach as he always had—the fulfilled time, the imminent kingdom, the call of repentance and faith in the gospel.
· But there is a snag: they know who Jesus is. These were his family. His community. Those who knew him as a boy, as a worker, as a craftsman, as an ordinary man. His teachers, Rabbis, elders, childhood friends, customers.
· To hear someone they knew, someone they thought so ordinary speaking with such knowledge, wisdom, power, authority, was difficult to swallow.
· So, they question him with incredulity:
o “Where did this man get these things?” Source. Who taught him these things? Did he train at Jerusalem? He’s just one of us. He’s a simple craftsman. Where did he get these things? Who is he to say…
o “What is the wisdom given to him?” Nature. What are these things that he is saying? What wisdom does he have that we don’t also have access to? He’s just one of us, another Nazarene, another Galilean.
o “How are such mighty works done by his hands?” Means. We’ve heard the reports about Jesus, about the miracles he’s done. How can it be that one so ordinary as we are could do such mighty works? How implausible!
o “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?” In other words, his identity
§ Carpenter—a lowly trade. Not a “woodworker” in our understanding but a “craftsman” of man kinds of things. Probably wood. Made plows, doors, tables, wagons, and anything else. Would have made Jesus quite burly and strong. It would have also put him beyond the pale of a wise Rabbi—teachers did not arise from such humble origins, contrary to our modern American expectations.
§ Son of Mary—said with a sneer, no doubt carrying with it the sordid path of a pre-mature pregnancy. Not only is he a carpenter, but according to human understanding he was a bastard child, and so an outcast.
§ Brother… — we know his family too!
o The common denominator of these questions is that their familiarity with Jesus led them to a merely human evaluation of his person, life, and ministry. The saw him only as another man, no different than them.
§ Such familiarity with Jesus is born from a stubborn unbelief.
§ John 1:46—can anything good come out of Nazareth?
· Many today evaluate Jesus on the same basis.
o Jesus and his Word come from a merely human source—ancient writings on par with the Aeneid, the Koran, the Talmud.
o Jesus and his Word are simply human wisdom, not bearing any credentialed believability. His word is simple, lowly, scattered, disunified, contradictory and must be tamed and civilized by scholarship according to principles which are higher, better, more evolved than those which Jesus teaches us.
o Jesus and his Word, however purported they may be to change lives and heal relationships and save sinners, is really no more powerful than the writings of Freud, Rogers, and Skinner. The transformations are nothing more than hearsay, easily explainable by psychological and physiological changes effected by human means—not the indwelling Spirit of God.
o Jesus is nothing more than an ancient Palestinian Jew arising from humble origins and preaching a subversive message that got him killed.
o Such is the world’s evaluation of Jesus—merely human.
· Embedded in this is Jesus’ claim to authority. We are perfectly comfortable knowing Jesus as the humble carpenter from Nazareth. We are much less comfortable knowing him as the all-powerful God of the universe who demands our trust and obedience.
· To the eyes of faith, however, Jesus appears quite different.
· The irony in these questions is that faith provides the true answer to all these questions!
o “Where did this man get these things?” From his Father, God, who sent him into the world to preach. He is not human, but divine!
o “What is the wisdom give to him?” Divine wisdom, given from his Father, consonant with the Scriptures, and brimming with love and grace.
o “How are such mighty works done by his hands?” Because he is God, and because he is man endowed with the Holy Spirit.
o “Is he not a carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of so and so?” Yes, but he is also the Christ, the Son of God, Brother to those who believe in him.
· Faith does not ask different questions of Jesus. Rather, because faith sees who Jesus truly is, it arrives and different conclusions.
· When he comes to speak to us as a man, we hear his teaching and conclude, he is God. When the world hears him speak, it hears him as an overly-excitable man, off his rocker, seeking to make trouble.
· So, v3 — “They took offense at him.”
o If you preach the true gospel, the world will take offence at you.
· Jesus’ response is a proverb: “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”
o I don’t think any of you would be tempted to give me a noogie.
o My brother, on the other hand…
o Jesus was heard gladly everywhere else in Galilee except here. Why? They knew him. The had become familiar with him.
· Familiarity doesn’t just breed contempt. When we get familiar, we get comfortable. The comfortability creates carelessness. Carelessness creates recklessness. Recklessness creates pride. Pride creates contempt.
· So, Jesus could do no mighty work there. What does this mean?
o Certainly it does not mean that a lack of faith limits Jesus’ power, or that the presence of faith enables Jesus’ power.
§ Prosperity gospel preachers cannot twist this verse justly.
§ Human will does not determine the exercise of God’s power. God remains free in the exercise of his power.
§ Not all those Jesus healed are said to believe (the demoniacs)
§ Not all those who believe today are healed.
§ There is no necessary correlation between saving faith and healing.
· The most satisfying explanation for what this means is as follows: they did not trust that he either could or would heal them because of their offense at him, and so they did not seek him out to be healed. On a human level, this is the most reasonable explanation.
o Normally, all those who wanted to be healed came to him. So, even if their faith was not saving, they nonetheless had a human kind of faith which believed that he had the power to heal them.
o Even today, we know something of this. It is possible to come to Jesus in order to receive merely human benefits without receiving salvation. This was much of the crowd—in it for the benefits without the benefactor.
o Thus let us learn: faith is the only path of blessing. Trusting in Christ is living. As Paul says, we walk [live] by faith. Which means that we must seek him so that we might find him and gain him.
o Even our obedience to his will is an act of faith, not of willpower. We fail to obey him not because our wills are weak, but because our faith is weak. We fail to obey because our wills are too strong and need to be made weaker so that we would trust in him and throw ourselves on his mercy. We will not do that with a merely human estimation of Jesus.
· So, Jesus marvels. The only thing that Jesus ever marvels at his faith, or its absence. Jesus cares most about faith.
· But most importantly, we must shun the kind of familiarity with Jesus that would lead us to questioning his identity, character, message, and power.
II. Affectionate Familiarity Breeds Discipleship (6:7-13)
· 6:7 links us back to the end of this section. Began in 3:13 – “He went up on the mountain and called to him those he desired, so that they might be with him.” 6:7 – “He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two.”
· Jesus has been forming the foundation of his church.
· Like ducklings, Jesus has had the 12 in tow.
o They hear the denouncement of the Pharisees as unforgivable.
o They have privileged audience with Jesus re: the parables.
o They are in the boat with him when he stills the storm.
o They see him overpower a legion of demons.
o They are with him in the crowd when a chronically bleeding woman was healed by her faith.
o They were in the room when he raised the dead girl to life.
o They followed him to Nazareth and saw their marvelous unbelief.
o All Jesus does, he does for the benefit of his disciples.
· Now they have sufficient training.
o He has shown them that he is here to plunder Satan’s house;
o Has revealed to them what it means to hear his word and how the kingdom grows.
o He has shown them his true identity in the stilling of the storm
o He has demonstrated his power to restore people in Gerasa.
o He has demonstrated his power over death and the necessity of faith.
o He has shown them how they will be received by those who know them best.
· So, now he sends them—not yet complete in their training, but as part of their training. Almost like an internship.
· Through these experiences, they have been “with him” and have learned at his feet as his disciples. Now, it is time to take what they have known—the familiarity they have gained—and put it to work in the mission of the kingdom.
o A lesson to state here and enlarge later: He trains us in the church that we might set about his work. We are not here for ourselves. If we have walked with him, his purpose is to send him out and get to work. If we don’t get to work, how can we say that we have walked with him? We are here for the purpose of extending his kingdom throughout the world through the preaching of the gospel.
· Through their mission, he has yet more to teach them: depend on my power.
o Only allowed to take a walking staff, sandals, and the clothes on their back—only the necessities for travel.
o Not allowed to take bread—Christ will feed them along the way.
o Not allowed to take a bag—in which to put money they might be tempted with, and in which they could keep traveling supplies.
o Not allowed to take money—with which they might be tempted to provide for their own needs.
o Not allowed to put on two tunics—through which they might be tempted to “rough it” and sleep under the stars.
· Instead, they were charged to rely upon the hospitality of those who were committed to the message and kingdom of Christ.
o “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.” That means, don’t bounce around as nicer accommodations become available. Enter the house I give you, stay there contentedly until you are finished.
o Are we content to work in the fields in which God has placed us? Or are we always pining after more? Better? Bigger? Different? New?
o Pastors/elders must guard against this. Pastors climb ladders too. Always looking for bigger salaries, larger churches, more vacation time, nicer homes, etc. This demonstrates a discontent in the field God has placed us. We must work here, now, where there is work to be done.
o Church members also must guard against vagrant Christianity—a kind of spiritual couch-surfing that flits from spiritual family to spiritual family. In our context, this is church hopping—always looking for a new home because of some surface-level reason: children’s ministry isn’t good enough, the preaching not interesting enough, the building not nice enough, the care not compassionate enough. We might be wise to heed the word of Jesus, “Stay there until you depart from there.” This also demonstrates discontent in the field God has given us and a lust for more than what he has given.
o Of course, this does not mean that pastors must forever stay in their churches or that members cannot move to another church. It is to call attention to motives. The question is why?
§ Why would the apostles move from house to house unless they were seeking earthly comfort? If they were concentrated on the mission of Christ, it would not matter where they stayed—they were not in that town for that purpose.
§ Transient service exposes greedy motives—sometimes here, sometimes there, never really content, slowly evidencing a discontented heart in the service to the church that he has given to us. Are you content to “stay” and do the work he has placed here, or are you eager to seek another house? Are you content?
· Yet not all would receive them gladly. Some, like Nazareth, would stumble at their message. To them, Jesus instructs the 12 to “shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them,”—a symbolic gesture of abandonment and judgment, a cutting off of fellowship. In context, a weighty symbol of being on the wrong side of Christ’s coming kingdom.
o Not all will receive us. Just as not all received Jesus. The world hates the message of Christ—it is nonsense or scandalous. So, the world also hates those who bring Christ’s message.
o We should not expect universal acceptance.
· Appreciate the differences in context—this doesn’t mean we write someone off after the first rejection of the gospel. But there does come a point when someone has decisively rejected us that we should no longer cast our pearls before pigs—waste the treasure on the gospel on those who have demonstrated no capacity to appreciate it.
· So, they went. And they preached repentance.
o It should be noted that this is not precisely the same message as what Jesus preached.
o The apostles’ full understanding of the gospel would wait until after Christ’s death and resurrection. Even now, they still have to confess who he truly is in Mark (this happens in ch. 8).
o Yet, even a partial obedience and a partial message, so long as it is honest and well-meant and in submission to Jesus and done in faith, is acceptable service to the Lord.
o Once there was a story of a preacher who was so skilled at preaching the law that he brought everyone to a deep conviction of sin. They would cry out to him for relief from their burdens. But he was less skilled in preaching the gospel, so he brought in another preacher who was and brought great relief to the people.
§ The first preacher, impartial as his understanding was, still pleased God through his service.
§ You don’t need to comprehensively understand the gospel to preach it. Just preach what you know!
· And they cast out demons and anointed the sick with oil to heal them.
o The point is clear—Jesus’ authority rests on them.
o This is also why they are so comfortable doing this in Acts—they had already been trained in the model of Jesus.
o But it is also clear that their authority is derivative. Jesus never anointed with oil, but the Apostles did.
o Perhaps this is the basis of James 5 calling the elders to anoint with oil.
· We must pursue the kind of familiarity with Jesus that leads us to trusting discipleship for the purpose of furthering his kingdom.
Conclusion
· The warning is this: Beware the kind of familiarity with Jesus that would lead you to question and doubt him.
o There is a kind of familiarity with Jesus that dulls our spiritual senses.
§ “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
§ “Why do we need to hear the gospel again? Let’s move on to the ‘meat.’”
o The reason we do this is a universal human impulse: we begin to treat God as though he is just like we are.
§ The irony is that, in Jesus, he is just like we are except with out sin!
§ But the danger is that Jesus, even though he is like us in every way except for sin, he is still Yahweh God and requires that we treat him as such.
o Be careful in your prayers, in your Bible reading, in your church attendance that you do not become so familiar with the things of God that you begin to treat them with contempt.
o Always work to foster a soft and responsive heart to the word.
o Do not only aim at learning about the Bible, but through your learning that you might know and gain Jesus.
o Do not aim only at praying regularly, but through your prayers that you might grow in you love and affection for Jesus.
o Do not aim only at coming to church regularly, but through coming to church that you might meet with Jesus uniquely and serve him.
o If we do not aim at these goals, we are slowly conditioning our souls to treat him—and therefore his people—with contempt.
· The encouragement is this: Pursue the kind of familiarity with Jesus that leads you into trusting discipleship for the purpose of furthering his kingdom.
o There is a kind of familiarity with Jesus that deepens our love and affection for him.
o Seek to be with him. We live here! It is good to be there!
o The most mature Christians are those most quickly smitten over their sin and most quick to respond joyfully to the promise of forgiveness. They never tire of hearing with it. Why? They are with Jesus.
o So, when you pray, read, come to church, seek to know him. To be his disciple.
o Then, get to work. We are not here for ourselves. This isn’t a club. We aren’t messing around here as a nice thing to do. Church is what we’re about. Why? Because it’s the mission!
o Go about the mission here. Work in these fields that God has provided. Busy yourself with the ministry. Show compassion to the hurting. Care for the suffering. Go get the wandering. Evangelize the lost and the children. Pour out your life as a daily offering to Christ in his mission. Those walking with Jesus will be about his Father’s business.