What is a disciple, Part One
Mark 6:1-43
If nothing else, this has been a season where we’ve had to learn some new definitions. There are words and phrases that were absolutely meaningless two months ago, and now they are part of our everyday vocabulary. For example: social distancing. If you had asked me two months ago what social distancing was, I would have said “Easy—middle school.” Or “The night of senior prom.”
PPE: there’s another one. Personal Protective Equipment. Who knew what that was before this crisis.
Six weeks ago, how many of you knew what a Zoom call was? Me neither.
Other terms have completely changed their meanings in the last six weeks:
Televangelist. All of a sudden, every pastor is a televangelist. And by the same token, every parent is now a homeschooler.
Another word that has changed its meaning is church. As that video pointed out “Go to church” has been replaced by “Go BE the church.” And “discipleship” is no longer one more program on a church calendar of events. It’s not what happens on Sunday nights before the evening worship service.
And I want to suggest during our time together today that that’s a good thing. The truth is, church was never supposed to be something we went to. Instead, it was supposed to be something we were.
Discipleship was never supposed to be a program. It was supposed to be a process. And so today, we are going to look at Mark chapter 6, and drill down on what it says about what it means to be a disciple. Everything we talk about today, everything we look at in Mark 6, is going to be based on this definition of the word disciple. If you printed off today’s talking points you can fill in the blanks, or you can just write it down, but this definition is the sermon. Are you ready? What is a disciple?
A disciple is someone who imitates the example of Jesus and follows the instructions of Jesus without getting disrupted by the world.
And so let’s look at how Mark fleshes this out in chapter 6. I’m not going to read the entire chapter, because there’s so many things that happen in this chapter. But I’d like us to focus in on verses 1-13. So please read this with me:
6 He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” 5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he marveled because of their unbelief.
And he went about among the villages teaching.
7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts— 9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.[a] 10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 11 And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. 13 And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.
Pray…
There are lots and lots of things that happen in Mark 6. Just a quick glance at the paragraph heading shows us what a packed chapter this is:
• Jesus gets rejected (v. 1-6)
• The disciples get sent out (v. 7-13)
• John the Baptist gets beheaded (vs. 14-29)
• 5000 people get fed (v. 30-43)
• The disciples get in a boat, and Jesus walks on water (45-51) [we’ll talk about this next week]
• Gentiles in Gennesaret get healed (53-56)
And you might be wondering, ok, cool stories, bro, but what does this have to do with being a disciple?
One of the incredible benefits of teaching through a single book of the Bible, and especially one of the four gospels, is that it forces you to pay attention to what that gospel writer emphasizes. What makes his account different from the other three? What does he include? What does he leave out? If you’ve been studying God’s word for awhile, you may know the phrase “synoptic gospels,” which is a scholars term for Matthew, Mark, and Luke: “synoptic” means “one view” and Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell pretty much the same story of the events of Jesus’ life in the same order. John is very different, so you have the “synoptic” or “one view” gospels, and then you have John. So in the case of Mark 6, every All three synoptic gospels include all the events of Mark 6 in one place or another.
But only Mark has the sending out of the disciples in the middle of it all. Matthew has it a good bit before, and Luke has it a good bit after.
So why does Mark put it in the middle? I think its so we can make the connection between And in so doing Mark makes a clearer connection between our example and our instructions.
Remember: A disciple is someone who imitates the example of Jesus and follows the instructions of Jesus.
1. Imitation: Jesus gives us an example to follow
• Here’s what it looks like to get rejected (v. 1-4). Jesus goes to his hometown of Nazareth, where maybe you would expect people to be proud of the hometown boy that made good. Instead, v 3 says they “took offense at him.” “Isn’t this the carpenter?” He’s not a rabbi! Notice they call him the “Son of Mary.” That may be because Joseph died some time ago. Or, it could be that this is a not-so-subtle reminder that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock. Whatever it is, Jesus looks at his disciples and says, in verse 4, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And they leave.
It’s interesting to me that Luke tells this part of Jesus’ story before Jesus has called any of the disciples, but Mark has Jesus’ 12 disciples with him when his own hometown rejects him. If I had been Jesus, and I was trying to establish my credibility with my new disciples, I would have gone to Nazareth by myself if I knew I was going to be rejected there.
But I think Jesus wanted to show the disciples what it looked like to be rejected. I think he wanted to let them know that not everyone was going to welcome them with open arms. Because right after that, he sends them out two by two, and he tells them, straight up in verse 11, that not everyone is going to welcome them. When that happens, you move on.
But Jesus also has been showing the disciples all along what it looks like to do ministry. Look at what the disciples do on their preaching mission.
• Verse 12: they proclaim that people should repent. What were Jesus’ first recorded words in Mark’s gospel: “Repent and believe the gospel: (Mark 1:15).
• Verse 13, they cast out demons and heal sick people. They’ve already seen Jesus do both of those things multiple times. So when Jesus gives them an assignment to fulfill, He’s already given them the example to imitate!
And one more thing about the example we are supposed to imitate. We’ve talked the past couple of weeks about the “Markan sandwich,” where Mark interrupts one story with another story, and we’re supposed to make a connection between the outer stories and the inner stories. Here’s another one: the two slices of bread—the outer story—is the sending out of the disciples in verses 7-12 and the disciples returning in verse 30. And in between you have the story of the beheading of John the Baptist. [briefly tell the story].
Why does Mark do this? I believe it’s to show us that when we are following Jesus, here’s what it looks like to pay the ultimate price. If you are following me, it’s not always going to be sunshine and rainbows. Eventually, all but one of the faithful disciples would die by execution. So the example Jesus calls us to imitate isn’t just how to do ministry. It’s also how to face rejection or even martyrdom.
So the first part of the definition of a disciple: A disciple is someone who imitates the example of Jesus. Now let’s look at the second part: A disciple is someone who follows the instructions of Jesus.
We’ve already looked at one of these—Jesus sends them out to preach and teach and heal and cast out demons. But just as important as the first assignment—go out and preach—was the second assignment: Come back and rest. Look at verse 30-32
30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.
Isn’t it refreshing to know that “come and rest” is just as important to the life of the disciple as “go and do.” [illustration of driving around a gas station yelling “fill me up”]. Jesus calls us to get away with him. That may be easier to do during the quarantine, or you may feel like its impossible. But it is so necessary. In fact, it could be that God is going to use this time of quarantine and self-isolation to force all of us to rest for awhile. Because Jesus knows that the times when we are most shaped for service is when we are in the desert. God’s people were in the desert for forty years. I’ve heard it said it only took a couple of days to get Israel out of Egypt, but it took forty years to get Egypt out of Israel. Jesus himself spent forty days in the desert before he began His public ministry. And not for nothin’, but did you know that we get our word “quarantine” from the Italian word for 40? A quarantine was literally a 40 day period of isolation. So maybe God is calling us to be quarantined because he has something to teach us. Are you listening?
And this really brings us to the third part of the definition of a disciple. A disciple is someone who imitates the example of Jesus. He follows the instruction of Jesus. And he (or she) does this without getting disrupted by the world.
There is a difference between getting interrupted and getting disrupted. The disciples are about to get interrupted by the demands of the people. Because while they are enjoying their time of R and R with Jesus, verse 33-35 says that the crowd who had been following them ran on ahead of them and met him. And at first, the disciples see this as a disruption. They want Jesus to send the crowd away when it gets to be supper time so the disciples can get back to their spiritual retreat with Jesus. But Jesus says, in verse 37, “No… You give them something to eat.”
You see, Jesus didn’t let the interruption be a disruption. He was used to getting interrupted. In Mark 2, he gets interrupted by a paralytic being lowered through the roof while he is teaching. Last week, we talked about how he got interrupted on the way to Jairus’ house by a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. And now, Jesus gets interrupted from his time to get some rest with his disciples by the crowd.
But here’s the difference: a disciple never lets an interruption become a disruption. Jesus saw this as one more opportunity for his disciples to put into practice what He had been teaching them. So he directed the disciples to divide the people into groups of fifties and hundreds. He has them all sit down on the “green grass” (another eyewitness detail unique to Mark).
And then Jesus takes the limited resources they had—five loaves and two fish—gives thanks for them, and multiplies them. And when he does, not only is there enough for 5000 people not including the women and children, but also 12 baskets full of leftovers—one for each of the disciples. (v. 42-43)
And that tells us that when we are imitating Jesus, when we are obeying Jesus, no matter the interruptions and often even in the midst of them, we come away blessed ourselves.
Friends, this interruption doesn’t have to be a disruption. You may feel like you are at the absolute end of your resources, your patience, your faith. But what this teaches us is that when we put what little we have in the hands of Jesus, not only will we find out that it is enough, but we will realize that we have more than enough.
A disciple is someone who imitates the example of Jesus and follows the instructions of Jesus without getting disrupted by the world.
Closing: what comes out when you are squeezed?
