Last week - healing… reaffirm…
We’ll see more… but today… what’s driving through Jesus… the CENTRAL POINT
OF CLASH AND CONFLICT…
Mark 1:40-41
A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you
can make me clean."
Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am
willing," he said. "Be clean!"
> In those words we see a driving force that cannot be stopped… compassion…how
God feels towards us.
But we discover just how deeply it confronts another force at work within us…
religious force.
Explain… I’m referring to the human religious nature… that tries to resolve our guilt
and shame in our own way…
Jesus came to break through our ‘religious’ nature … to penetrate our religious
pretense with the reality of the grace that offers the relationship God truly
desires… and we truly long for.
We’ll see several encounters in a row… confrontations with this religious nature.
Any sense of Jesus as some sort passive peace-making religious figure is lost. he
knowingly and deliberately offended people. In fact, he became too hot to handle,
and the "establishment" of that day finally decided that the only way out was to get
rid of him.
This controversy came out of his unceasing opposition to anything which
threatened true humanity.
At one point Jesus makes it clear that what he brings is NEW… and cannot be
merely grafted into their previous religious perspective.
Mark 2:22
“… no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the
skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine
into new wineskins."
He is breaking through with the fulfillment of what God had foretold…
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (cf Ezekiel 11:19, 33:26)
"The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant…
32It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers…
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
… they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
New wine is work of Jesus… said at Lord’s Supper… new wine / new covenant… as well
as what he would unleash with sending of Spirit… also correlated with wine… divine joy.
Wineskins … wine ferments… stretches and hardens… no problem… but then it’s stiffer
and not able to handle the stretching and re-hardening of any new wine.
The point is this: Jesus is not merely another rabbi… nor a new religion… he is the
fulfillment of what had begun in the religious forms of Judaism. He will never be able to
be a simple attachment or appendix to their religious nature. Divine grace is breaking
forth in a new way that the people who understood only the laws and structures could
not have grasped.
Jesus has come to break through our religious limitations by restoring relationship
through a new work of grace – embodied in himself.
From Religion to Relationship….. that is what unfolds as the nature of Jesus’ ministry
unfolds.
Series of confrontations… that capture the breakthrough of a new covenant of
grace at hand…
1. Mark 2:1-12 – Heals paralyzed man
– Upsets ‘some teachers of the law’… because he declared forgiveness of the
man’s sins.
Mark 2:10-12 (CEV)
I will show you that the Son of Man has the right to forgive sins here on earth."
So Jesus said to the man, 11"Get up! Pick up your mat and go on home."
12The man got right up. He picked up his mat and went out while everyone
watched in amazement.
Healing bothered them (as it gave greater notoriety to Jesus)… but forgiving sins
offended them… it seemed inappropriate… unfitting. Perhaps because of what it claimed
about who he was… but perhaps because it just didn’t seem appropriate or fair to
release such a man… to declare a man clean so easily…
> But FORGIVENESS reflects he very depth of our need.
Jesus has come to break through our religious nature with the relational depth of
grace - forgiveness
Christ has come to break through and re-plumb the depths of need with the grace of
forgiveness.
Self righteousness wants rules… standards to meet… sinners want forgiveness first.
Never presume that they can earn a righteous standing with a little sacrifice or good
deed.
Next…
2. Mark 2:13-17 – Calls Levi (tax collector)
Mark 2:13-17 (NIV)
Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he
began to teach them. 14As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at
the tax collector’s booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and
followed him.
15While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and
"sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who
followed him. 16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating
with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat
with tax collectors and ’sinners’?"
17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor,
but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Dramatic story… centered around a tax collector
Hate would be too weak a word. These guys were given carte blanch by the rulers to get
as much money from the people as they could with only the official portion going to
the government. It was sanctioned corruption. This would be bad enough except that
the government that they were collecting taxes for was the occupying forces of
Rome. They were collaborators with the pagans that were controlling God’s
promised land. They were traitors. They would be first against the wall in the
revolution.
You might wonder what was going through the mind of the disciples as Jesus walked
toward the tax-collecting booth. “Is this it? Is this the beginning of the revolution, is
he going to turn over the table, rip down the booth & beat this guy up? … That’d be
good.”
“maybe he is going to call that wicked man to true repentance, I hope he’ll let him know
how low he really is!”
(Source via Jimmy – Sermon Central)
How does Jesus treat this outcast, this corrupt traitor to God’s people?
> He loves him – he calls him out of his destructive lifestyle, and comes to eat at his
house!
This is the radical thing about God’s love – he doesn’t love us because we are
good – he just loves us. Sees value to be redeemed...
Levi evidently was Matthew’s given name. It is likely that Jesus is the one who
changed his name to Matthew. He renamed several disciples. He said to Simon the son
of Jonas, "You shall be called Peter," i.e., "rock". He nicknamed James and John, the
sons of Zebedee, "sons of thunder." So it is very likely (although Scripture does not
say so) that it was Jesus who changed Levi’s name to Matthew, which means "gift
of God." Perhaps that is how Jesus thought of him.
He doesn’t just call this Tax collector to be his follower, but Matthew becomes one of the
12 “inside circle” disciples and he is an author of one of the Gospels! Jesus doesn’t
call him into a life of penance for his terrible sins, but a life of living for God his savior!
You might start your faith journey in the gutter, but Jesus will lift you up as high as you
will let him!
Jesus invites him to join this little group of His – the group that would include
Simon the Zealot. The Zealots were the resistance movement against Rome.
It would be like having Ossama Bin Ladden & George Bush in the same Bible study
group.
Jesus invites them both to follow him.
One thing that we can be sure of… he wasn’t afraid to have his friends meet Jesus…
nor Jesus to meet his friends.
> Invites everyone over for dinner together.
This evidently was a farewell dinner Matthew gave for his friends, his tax-collecting
buddies. He was saying farewell to his work and friends, and leaving to follow One who
would travel from place to place. It was also an opportunity to introduce them to his new
found Lord. It was therefore a normal, natural occasion of festivity and joy as they
gathered together for this feast.
What a collection of marginalized lives must have been there that day! All the tax
collectors of the city, all the sinners, all the despised social outcasts were sitting there.
In that culture eating together was a very big deal
As the scribes of the Pharisees passed by, they saw that right in the midst of it all,
among the beer bottles and the poker chips, sat Jesus. And they were absolutely
scandalized! It was obvious that he was the friend of these men. He was not lecturing
them. He was sitting among them, and eating and drinking with them. The scribes were
simply appalled at this, and called the disciples aside: "Why does he do things like that?
Doesn’t he know who these people are? Why does he allow himself to be seen in the
company of such men?"
Jesus’ answer is very revealing. He actually agrees with their remarks. He says, in
effect, "You’re right, these are sick, hurting, troubled men. Their style of life has
damaged them deeply. They don’t see life rightly; they are covering up many evils;
they are false in many ways. You’re right, these are sick men. But where else would
a doctor be?" That is his argument. "I’ve come to heal men, and therefore where
they are hurting is where I’m needed."
Jesus was saying to them, "To those who think they’re righteous, I have absolutely
nothing to say. But to these who know they’re sick, and are open for help, I am fully
available as a minister to their souls." (Above adapted from Ray C. Stedman)
This is a freedom that they had never known… it’s the first reflection into the their
nature… a religious nature that can be at work in us all.
As Brennan Manning describes…
“The pharisee within is the religious face of the impostor. The idealistic,
perfectionist, and neurotic self is oppressed … a vague uneasiness about
ever being in right relationship with God haunts the pharisee’s conscience.
The compulsion to feel safe with God fuels this neurotic desire for
perfection. This compulsive endless moralistic self-evaluation makes it
impossible to feel accepted before God. His perception of personal failure
leads to a precipitous loss of self-esteem and triggers anxiety, fear, and
depression.
The pharisee within usurps my true self whenever I prefer
appearances to reality, whenever I am afraid of God, whenever I surrender
the control of my soul to rules rather than risk living in union with Jesus,
when I choose to look good and not be good, when I prefer appearances to
reality. “
-Brennan Manning, "Abba’s Child"
Jesus has come to break through our religious nature with the relational
REQUIREMENT of grace – RESPONSIVENESS
1 Samuel 15:22 (NLT)
But Samuel replied, "What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and
sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice.
God is not looking for the best stock…the perfect person… but the responsive heart.
Illustration - WELL BRED DOG VERSES RESPONSIVE DOG
David Needham, "Close To His Majesty
When I was a boy, our family moved to a ranch in southern California, where we had
acres of rolling hills to explore. My big dream was to get a dog. But not just any dog. I had
my heart set on an English setter.
I can’t begin to calculate all the time I spent reading about English setters--
studying their pictures down to the smallest detail. To me, there was no dog like a setter
anywhere in the world.
One day my dad gave me the word I’d been waiting for: "Okay, son," he said, "you
can get your setter."
Together, Dad and I went down to the kennel. I spent the better part of an hour
examining a litter of fine English setter pups. I tried to be objective--to look for all the
qualities the books tell you to look for in a champion setter. The right ears and eyes and
bones and tail and all that.
(Names him Mike… brings home… but never responded to him… wouldn’t come when
called… eventually killed chickens and couldn’t keep him.)
Undaunted, a few days later--it didn’t take me long--I asked, "Dad, can I try again?" Dad
said yes. Off we went to the kennel to look at a new litter of setter puppies. But this time
I didn’t look for the finest pup. Instead, I waited for one of them to come running to
me. And one did. I picked him up--a little ball of silky speckled black and white fur,
his heart racing like a motor--and he slobbered all over my face.
I took him home with me and named him Mike. (I was stubborn!)
Maybe you can guess the rest of the story. Mike became everything I had
ever dreamed of in a dog. He wanted my love. He lived for my love. I wanted Mike,
and Mike wanted me.
3. Mark 2:23-27 – Allows disciples to pick grain on Sabbath
Mark 2:23-28 (NIV)
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked
along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why
are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were
hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God
and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave
some to his companions."
Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So
the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
Now, his disciples were doing what would have been perfectly proper on any
weekday. They were not stealing from this farmer as they went through his grainfields,
for the law said that as long as they did not put a sickle or a scythe to the grain, any
passing travelers who were hungry could thresh out a few heads of grain in their hands
and eat the wheat. The problem was that this was the Sabbath, and by this time the
Sabbath had had a thousand and one restrictions built into it by the Pharisees.
The Sabbath originally was given to restore man, to give him rest and recreation.
Properly observed, it would be a joy. But the Pharisees had so ringed it about with
their thousands of interpretations of what it meant to cease work that they had
made it a terrible burden to bear. For instance, they held that it was perfectly all right to
spit on a rock on the Sabbath -- that presented no problem. But if you spit on the
ground, that made mud; mud was mortar; therefore you were working on the
Sabbath. So it was absolutely wrong to spit on the ground! That was the nature of the
restrictions they devised. So it is not surprising that they considered it wrong to thresh a
head of grain on the Sabbath day, even though you were hungry, because that was
working on the Sabbath. (Above adapted from Ray C. Stedman)
HOW SABBATH WAS KILLED BY LEGALISM
Initially, the Sabbath was first and foremost a memorial of creation. As the
memorial day of creation, the Sabbath meant a worship of adoration and
thanksgiving for all God’s goodness, for all the Jews were and had. The rest from
work was secondary.
The joyous celebration of creation and covenant stressed by the prophets
disappeared. The Sabbath became a day of legalism. The means had become the
end. (Herein lies the genius of legalistic religion--making primary matters
secondary and secondary matters primary.)
Instead of a love story, the Bible is viewed as a detailed manual of directions.
-Brennan Manning, "Abba’s Child" pp 79-83+
Religious nature is at work whenever the letter of the law violates the spirit of the
law.
And whenever the means become an end.
Jesus has come to break through our religious nature by restoring the relational
PURPOSE OF GOD’S INSTRUCTIONS - as a MEANS OF GRACE
All of this is embodied in one final story…
Mark 3:1-6 (NIV)
Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there.
2Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely
to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3Jesus said to the man with the shriveled
hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."
4Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to
save life or to kill?" But they remained silent.
5He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn
hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was
completely restored. 6Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians
how they might kill Jesus.
Here we sense the depth of tragedy …. The driving force of compassion comes
into the ultimate confrontation with insecurity / shame that loses all love for
people… and hatred towards Christ. Religiousness that no longer sees people…
with a grace that must act on their behalf.
Jesus reaches the depths of emotion… “anger… distressed at their hardened
hearts.”
Grand conflict is called into play… relationship is going to confront religion
“Come forward.... stretch out your withered hand.”
Imagine that man…
To each of us he says… “Come forward.... stretch out your withered hand.”
We all have withered hands… all are deformed in the trust sense of the word…. The
question is whether we’ll hide behind our self created constructs that proclaim our
goodness…or whether we’ll come forward and stretch out our withered hands… our
wounded souls… in need of Jesus.
Communion…. Ultimate symbol of relationship being sought… intimate in that it is the
very life of another given for you… but it allows no pretense… as it’s the life of a Savior
for sinners… and only sinners can receive it.
Grace made manifest… grace in personal expression… grace in a body that can be
broken…. And bleed.
It’s a choice to surrender and fall into the arms of love.
