Mark: Reactions To Jesus

Jesus came to set us free from our past, not to encourage us to wallow in it.

I am a pedant: it irks me when people who should know better mix up repentance and penitence. Penitence is about being sorry and remorseful - a reasonable thing to do, perhaps, but on its own it doesn't take you anywhere much. Repentance, in the Bible, is about change: a change of heart, a change of attitude, a change of direction. I have a theory that religious people muddle the two up because they really don't like change.

We're already nearing the half-way point of Mark in the CTM sermon series. Covering the sixteen chapters of Mark in only seven weeks means we get through it awfully quickly! The title/outline that Mark gives at the very beginning tells us that this first half is about the good news of Jesus leading up to the recognition that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ.

I hope you are also seeing Mark's focus on different people's responses to Jesus and his good news - that the Kingdom of God has come near and we are to repent and believe the good news. As I said above repentance is about a change of direction: turning away from the ways of the world and turning to God; whilst believing is mostly about trusting.

The final reading for this week has Jesus winding up the religious leaders again. As usual it starts with them being critical and judgemental, then escalates when Jesus puts them right. The trouble is that they are sure of their own rightness and do not want to change. But Jesus calls everybody to repentance - to change - whether religious or not.

Actually, it seems to me that the religious leaders have three big objections to his teaching. One is on the surface - that what Jesus says and does doesn't fit in with their interpretation of Scripture. The other two are more visceral, it seems: firstly that Jesus is demanding that they must change to enter into God's Kingdom; and secondly that Jesus is encouraging all sorts of people whom they exclude to change and so enter into God's Kingdom - law-breakers, collaborators, the 'unclean' and the disreputable, all are invited to turn and enter into the Kingdom of God.

Maybe that's why reactions to Jesus are so different: those who feel entitled are threatened by what he says, whilst those who feel lost and hopeless respond to the new hope that Jesus brings.

The question for us is to see Jesus' challenge to our favourite beliefs, our views of who is in and who is out, and see how we react to that.

Churches are in an odd position. On the one hand we are called to proclaim grace: God’s forgiveness and acceptance of anyone (even an unclean woman deliberately contaminating Jesus ... even an immigrant, a tax-dodger, a paedophile, a politician?). On the other hand, organisations (and societies) need rules to live by.

Church history is littered with examples of this going wrong: churches seeking social control, power and influence – just like the scribes and Pharisees. But it is also full of those who step out in faith to serve others, to call unexpected people to Jesus, to shine Grace into the darkness. It’s just that the latter, being less self-serving, are often less-noticed.

Who in Caversham (or wherever your community may be) needs, really needs, to know that God loves them, warts and all? Who needs to know that they are a beloved child of God, whatever their past? How can we help them to understand this? And how can we really understand this for ourselves?

Mark: Provoking A Reaction

Click to see the original by Gun Legler

In chapter 1 of Mark we saw Jesus starting his ministry: moving quickly, urgently to tell people good news about God and about his kingdom, and illustrating that in his actions. He called disciples and they followed, he healed people and set them free, and multitudes came out to see him. But as the story unfolds we see other reactions.

Soon the grumbling starts.

Jesus doesn't just heal a paralysed man, he tells him his sins are forgiven: he has been set free of more than just his physical need. The religious leaders see that as blasphemy.

Jesus calls a tax collector - not just a collaborator but also unclean, a sinner under Jewish Law - who follows him, and invites his friends to meet Jesus. The religious people complain.

Jesus' disciples collect grains of wheat as they walk through a field and eat them. It was a Sabbath so the religious leaders object.

Then Jesus heals a man with a withered hand ... on the Sabbath ... in a synagogue! He challenges his critics' toxic views on religious duty, then shows what is right by healing the man in need. Jesus is angry and upset at their callousness; the religious leaders are incandescent and start to conspire with those in power to destroy Jesus.

Jesus and his message provoked reaction, but not always a good reaction. Jesus seems to have set out to bring people's deeper selves to the surface, whether that is a deep need of healing and acceptance, or a deep antagonism to anything which disrupts or challenges a set worldview.

One of the big challenges for any who wish to follow Jesus is how to balance humility with conviction, how to listen respectfully to others whilst challenging what is wrong and sharing hope with those in need, especially with the excluded and the disregarded. Part of doing that, it seems to me, is being aware of who Jesus helped and affirmed and who he challenged.

Jesus consistently reaches out to the excluded and the powerless, those who are despised. He equally consistently attacks those who would exclude, those who would delay healing, and those would highlight their own importance by putting others down.

In today's UK, especially after recent elections, popular attitudes to immigrants and to Muslims spring to mind. In much of the church, although less so perhaps in the UK as a whole, exclusion based on gender and sexuality remains an issue.

By the end of chapter 3, even Jesus’ own family have turned against him, as they say that he's out of his mind, and they come to take him away. Jesus responds by saying that those who follow him are his true family: “whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” The rule of God overrides even ties of family.

At the time Mark was writing terrible persecution of Christians in Rome had divided families, both by setting them against one another, and by people having family members murdered. Mark is quoting Jesus's words as comfort to those who are bereaved or estranged: one of the roles of the church, Jesus' body, is to be family to those who have lost their families, to be brother, sister, mother to the lost and the alone. It is not just physical healing that Jesus brought then, and wants to bring now through his followers.

You can find the chapters of Mark I have been talking about on the Bible Gateway: Mark 2 and Mark 3 (in the occasionally idiosyncratic NRSV translation).

What is your reaction to these stories? What impression do they give you of Jesus? How would you feel if you heard and saw these things?

Note: A quick mention of the "unforgivable sin" referred to in Mark 3:28-29, as people sometimes get worried. Imagine you are lost at sea in stormy weather, about to drown, when the air-sea rescue helicopter comes out to rescue you. If you are so convinced that all helicopters are instruments of the devil, out to do you terrible harm, that you desperately and successfully fight off your rescuer, you will drown. So it can be with those whom the Spirit would save.

There Will Be A Judgement

An accounting for all that a person has and hasn't done. A time, I believe, when each will come face to face with the consequences of their actions, and inaction. Not just in a cerebral, abstract way, but actually feeling the joys and pains they have caused. For terrorists and child-abusers it is hard to see how this could be borne.

Churches often obsess about sexual preferences and social control, bringing the idea of 'sin' into disrepute. Yet there are actions and activities which are clearly evil and for which judgement and an accounting is all too necessary. In recent weeks such actions have been seen in Boston, London and Paris. Less seen are the shadowy figures behind the scenes who fill vulnerable young men with hatred, priming them to cause harm. Seen but often ignored are the media, and the troublemakers, who blame many for the actions of a few, creating a climate of hatred where those who are different live in fear. Evil has consequences and needs to be dealt with.

A distinctively Christian view of judgement emphasises that grace, an opportunity to change, is available to all. We all face the accounting, but we all have the opportunity to turn away from what has been wrong and turn to God, through Jesus, who can make all things right. Jesus once said that we are to be perfect, just as God is perfect. This can be seen as a threat, or an impossible demand, but it can also be seen as a promise. Good will last forever, whilst evil is to be eternally destroyed, and we can become part of the good. Or we can refuse to change and be lost forever, what the Bible calls the 'second death'.

Forgiveness is important but it is taking the opportunity for change which is key to life.

I do think it's important that if God is going to sort out the world, to remake things the way they were supposed to be, then terrorism and abuse, along with the attitudes that lie behind them, have to be dealt with. There is a great deal in this world which is beautiful and good, but there is also much that is ugly and evil. It needs sorting out ... sooner rather than later.

I am told that at one of Caversham's churches yesterday the minister used the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby as an excuse to attack all Muslims: to encourage prejudice, fear and hatred amongst that congregation. There will be a judgement.

Do To Others

A few years back UK TV station Channel 4 ran a poll looking for a new set of ten commandments*. Top of the list they came up with was "Treat others as you would have them treat you".

This is, of course, familiar, not from the old ten commandments, but from Jesus' 'Golden Rule', expressed in the NIV translation as "In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you" (another translation, the NASB, has almost the same words as C4 came up with: "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you").

Some sort of principle of 'reciprocity' is common to many belief systems, religious and otherwise, but Jesus' version is actually rather odd, when you think about it. Consider three different variations of 'reciprocity':

 "In everything, do to others what they have previously done to you."

 "In everything, do to others what you expect they would do to you."

"In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you."

The latter, Jesus' version, isn't really reciprocal at all: you're not called to treat others as they actually do treat you, but as you would want them to. The first two could be termed 'enlightened human nature' - really just a development of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" - but the Golden Rule is different.

The challenge of Jesus' version is that it shows grace:  you treat everyone well, not just those whom you feel deserve it, nor just those you feel can reciprocate. The call is to love the haters, be kind to the unkind, and to help people who would happily leave you helpless. The good Samaritan springs to mind.

There is an issue of boundaries when it comes to applying this. Does it mean battered wives should love their husbands, and abused children their abusive parent? Possibly so, although this may be only a long term aspiration for many. But the point of grace is not about being 'nice', nor about pretending things haven't happened.

Grace is active. If my head got so messed up that I was abusing others, would I really just want to be left to get on with it? To repeat the abuse, again and again? Surely not! Surely the gracious thing to do is to stop the behaviour, to get help for abuser and abused, to protect both. Some relationships are simply toxic and separation is best for all; others maybe just need time, space and commitment. There may be few hard and fast rules, but abuse should be challenged, confronted and, if necessary, physically prevented - whether by separation or confinement of the abuser. Consider what you "would have them do to you": in that circumstance and for all involved.

The most immediate application of the Golden Rule for most of us, though, is how we treat people who we don't like, and who don't like us. If we see someone in need, do we first weigh up their race and their creed and how those groupings have treated people like us, or do we simply see someone who needs our help and treat them as we would want to be treated ourselves?

* Channel 4's top ten 'new commandments' were as follows:-

1. Treat others as you would have them treat you.
2. Take responsibility for your actions
3. Do not kill.
4. Be honest.
5. Do not steal.
6. Protect and nurture children.
7. Protect the environment.
8. Look after the vulnerable.
9. Never be violent.
10. Protect your family.

Churches Against Jesus

It is depressing when a church takes a stand against Jesus, against the Bible, and against common courtesy and hospitality. Yet that is exactly what Caversham Baptist Church did a couple of Sundays ago.

The Bible tells a story of Jesus going to have dinner with a guy named Simon, an important religious man. While Jesus was there a 'sinful woman' comes along and washes and anoints his feet. Simon sneers at her, and by association at Jesus. So whose side does Jesus take: the righteous Bible-believing man, in his position of strength, or the sinful woman, in her position of weakness? Jesus, of course, sides with the weaker, with the sinful, scorned woman. He does this a lot in the Gospels: sides with the bullied against the bullies, and with the scorned against the proud.

I was reminded of this story the Sunday before last, when someone plugged an anti-gay petition at the end of the morning service at Caversham Baptist Church. The petition is from a group calling itself C4M, Campaign for Marriage, and says "I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it."

It sounds fairly innocuous, except for the context that the government is currently considering whether to legalise 'gay marriage'. So this looks like a petition aimed at homosexuality; this is confirmed by looking more deeply at C4M. Their website is rather reticent about their background, but a few seconds googling shows that they are controlled by a group calling themselves 'The Christian Institute', an anti-gay pressure group.


In the UK (and around the world) homophobic hate crime is on the rise, it seems, whilst suicides as a result of homophobic bullying continue to be reported. Yet some churches still ignore this reality, and continue to condone, even encourage, such behaviour by their continued attacks on homosexuality, on gay people, and on equal rights for all, regardless of sexuality. Too many churches are standing with the bullies; Jesus, as ever, stands with the bullied. Caversham Baptist Church, amongst too many other so-called 'evangelical' churches, stands against Jesus.

It's not even as if the petition is Biblical: the Bible clearly contradicts such a restrictive definition of marriage. Actually Scripture nowhere provides a clear definition of what marriage is, although with a bit of reading between the lines one can combine part of chapter 19 of Matthew's Gospel with part of Genesis chapter 1 to deduce that in the beginning, before the Fall, the plan was that a man and a woman should be united into 'one flesh'. After the Fall, when people's 'hearts are hard', there is more flexibility and other arrangements can be recognised as 'marriage' - see the divorce rules in Deuteronomy, for example, and the sad story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel. These arrangements may not be recommended by the Bible, but they are recognised. The petition, in seeking to restrict legal recognition of marriage, goes way beyond the Bible, in a way that is directly contradicted by the Scriptures.

Finally, consider what it would have been like for a gay visitor to Caversham Baptist Church that morning. To hear songs and sermon about God's grace and care then, like a slap in the face, to hear that many (most) of the churchgoers there support gay-bashing and oppose gay people having equal rights under civil law. What sort of hospitality is that? What sort of witness?

Irrespective of what people think the Bible says about homosexuality, irrespective of their prejudices about what civil marriage is about, I find it deeply disturbing that a church body can think it appropriate to promote a petition like this, and even more disturbing that so many of the churchgoers actually signed it. It is no wonder that the church is becoming increasingly marginalised in the UK, and increasingly seen as a social club for the intolerant.

How did we come to this; how did the Pharisees win?

Fostering, Faith & Fear

According to the BBC, last Monday, the High Court upheld Derby City Council's right to refuse to allow a couple, Mr & Mrs Johns, to foster children "because of their traditional religious views":-

A Christian couple opposed to homosexuality have lost a battle over their right to become foster carers. Eunice and Owen Johns, 62 and 65, from Derby, said the city council did not want them to look after children because of their traditional views. The pair, who are Pentecostal Christians, say they were "doomed not to be approved". The High Court ruled that laws protecting people from sexual discrimination should take precedence.

Irritatingly, the BBC reports did not contain a link to the text of the High Court judgement itself; in my view sloppy reporting.

On his blog, Gavin Drake - who says of himself "I’m not a lawyer, but I have sat through many court cases in the Magistrates, Crown, County and High Courts" - says the media take on this is nonsense:-

A Christian couple have lost their High Court bid to overturn Derby City Council’s ban on them fostering children because of their orthodox Judaeo-Christian views on homosexuality.

It’s a story you’ll be hearing a lot about.  But it didn’t happen.  That is not what happened in the High Court today.

For a start, the couple had not been banned from adopting or fostering – the City Council’s social services and children’s panel hadn’t made a decision about whether or not Eunice and Owen Johns would make suitable foster parents.  But, after social workers asked questions about how their Christian views would affect their response to a child who said they were gay; the couple and the council decided to make a joint application to the High Court for guidance.

 He continues:-

So, what did the court decide?  Well, it decided not to make any declaration and there is no order ... It isn’t a landmark judgement.  It will have a serious impact for nobody – not least for Owen or Eunice Johns who could still be allowed to foster by Derby City Council if they proceed with their application ... That’s the decision of the High Court today – to not make a decision on what appears to be a badly thought out, badly argued, badly presented case.

 Meanwhile, the Christian Legal Centre had this to say, in a press release:-

In a landmark judgment, which will have a serious impact on the future of fostering and adoption in the UK, the High Court has suggested that Christians with traditional views on sexual ethics are unsuitable as foster carers, and that homosexual ‘rights’ trump freedom of conscience in the UK. The Judges stated that Christian beliefs on sexual ethics may be ‘inimical’ to children, and they implicitly upheld an Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) submission that children risk being ‘infected’ by Christian moral beliefs.

The Christian Legal Centre is a pressure group, who have brought several of these "Christians persecuted for their beliefs" cases. Their report does have a link which allows you to download the text of the High Court judgement, for some reason in Microsoft Word format. Gavin Drake's blog entry gives an easier to use link direct to the case summary on the BAILII (British And Irish Legal Information Institute) website, http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/375.html.

I'm not a lawyer either, but this case summary seems to me to be clear and well-written: whilst Gavin Drake overstates his case somewhat, it is obvious that he is essentially correct. This is not a landmark judgement, the judges declined to make any order at all:-

1. We have stated our misgivings about the exercise of the jurisdiction to consider whether to grant any (and if so what) declaratory relief. The defendant has taken no decision and there is likely to be a broad range of factual contexts for reaching a particular decision, the legality of which will be highly fact-sensitive. Moreover, the parties have: (a) been unable to agree on an appropriately focused question for the court to address, (b) each identified questions that do not raise a question of law that can be answered with anything approaching a simple 'yes' or 'no', and (c) furnished the court with no evidence.

1. ... 

1. For the reasons given in [107] we have concluded that we should make no order.

Essentially Mr Paul Diamond, from the Christian Legal Centre, on behalf of the Johns, was criticised by the judges for not bringing a clear statement of issue for resolution, for trying to use legal arguments that had already been rejected in previous judgements, and for "extravagent rhetoric":-

Mr Diamond lays much emphasis upon various arguments, many of them couched in extravagant rhetoric, which, to speak plainly, are for the greater part, in our judgment, simply wrong as to the factual premises on which they are based and at best tendentious in their analysis of the issues.

Which, as legal language goes, is about as damning as you can get.

Much was made in the BBC report of the claim that in general rights over sexual orientation took precedence over rights of religion. Presumably the BBC reporter only skimmed the text of the judgement itself:-

While as between the protected rights concerning religion and sexual orientation there is no hierarchy of rights, there may, as this case shows, be a tension between equality provisions concerning religious discrimination and those concerning sexual orientation. Where this is so, Standard 7 of the National Minimum Standards for Fostering and the Statutory Guidance indicate that it must be taken into account and in this limited sense the equality provisions concerning sexual orientation should take precedence.

In other words, no one right is more important than another, only the legal context (various required standards, etc) determines which takes precedence in law in a particular case.

My reading of the judgement is that the key point in law is about what a person does, and whether that is lawful, not why they do it. Thus, if a couple show evidence that they would not follow the legal framework required for foster carers, then it makes no difference whether the reason for that was simple prejudice or was religious belief. So long as the couple's behaviour can be shown to be unsuitable for fosterers then the reason for that behaviour isn't the point. There is no religious discrimination in law because an atheist or agnostic who behaved the same would be treated the same.

If members of a religious group don't like a particular law then, in the British system of democracy, they are at liberty to campaign for a change in that law. But in the meantime, they cannot expect to be exempted from it.

In their evaluation of the suitability of the Johns, Derby City Council asked about their response to a number of hypothetical (but realistic) situations. For example, would they be able to support a young person who was confused about their sexuality; would they feel able to take a young person from a Muslim background to a mosque; how would they support a young person who was being bullied over their sexuality; how would they deal with one who was bullying others regarding the above; and how they would support someone in their care whose parents were gay (or whose future adoptive parents were gay).

Law or no law, statutory guidelines or no, it seems to me that these are situations where there is a response which is about caring for and supporting people, or there is a response which is about being judgemental. Jesus famously pulled up the Pharisees again and again because they set their rules above the people for whose benefit they had been given.

If a teenager is confused about their own sexuality then hammering them with your views about homosexuality's 'sinfulness' is not going to help anybody. They need to know that they are valued and cared for, and they need the time and space and support to work things through for themselves. They matter, and other people matter, for themselves, not because of their possible sexual orientation. You don't bully other people, and if others bully you then you are entitled to action to have it stopped - that is simple justice.

This is not to say that I don't think Christians, or anyone else for that matter, aren't entitled to opinions on such matters. But the rule in fostering (and, I believe, in raising our own kids) is that the needs of the young person come first. That's what they/we sign up to.

My beliefs about marriage are fairly orthodox, and based around Genesis 2:20-24 (modified by 1 Corinthians 7:25-28). I am all too aware that I fall short myself, so I see no justification for pointing fingers at those who fall short in a different way. My kids are teenagers and I have not, and will not, knowingly compromise their right to make their own choices (and to mess things up in their own ways, not mine). My job, I think, is to help them to know that their parents love them, and that God loves them, for themselves, and to have the sense of worth (and hopefully the closeness to God) which allows them to make thoughtful decisions in their own way and their own time.

Fosterers usually have a lot less time to make a difference than parents, natural or adoptive, so that is all the more reason for them to focus on what is really important: building the young person up to cope with the stress and change of their lives, not running them down.