Tax Collectors and Sinners Mark 2: 11-17

         So the passage for our worship service next Sunday is Mark 2: 11-17. What we have here are some reflections of parts of that passage, to clarify, to illustrate, or simply to develop. The first one this week is a consideration of people Mark refers to collectively as "tax collectors and sinners". 

          The gospel writers are often very deliberate about identifying groups of people when they interact with Jesus. We know this chiefly among the leadership of the Jews, the scribes of the Pharisees, the lawyers, the Sadducees, the high priests, the Pharisees in particular. We have come to know them generally as the opponents of Jesus, but there are subtle distinctions that can fulfill our understanding of the gospel when we take time to sort them out.

          But on the other side, there are our ‘tax collectors and sinners’, a group of individuals that Jesus has chosen to sit down to dinner with at the house of his latest disciple, the tax collector Levi. What do we know about these people? We know that they are segmented out of polite society by the scribes of the Pharisees. They ask how Jesus could be eating with them.

          Understanding the ‘tax collector’ is more straightforward. These were local individuals employed by the Romans to collect taxes. To my understanding, the Roman system of taxation was not complicated. A census would be taken, enumerating a certain population level. Taxes were based on the headcount. That is what Rome collected. Easiest to find those who wanted to get rich quick to collect it for them, for a percentage.

          Tax collectors were the ‘face of the government’ to the people, a place where Jew and Roman approximately intersected. It was the position of a turncoat, someone more interested in money than loyalty to their people subjected to Roman tyranny.

          But what about ‘sinners’? It is a named, therefore more precise category. We can surmise that their presence is also unwelcome to the scribes of the Pharisees, that they see Jesus as wrong in daring to eat with them, that they are, in Jesus’ words, in need of the physician.

          So, there is another passage where Jesus heals a blind man. The leadership, hoping to disprove the miracle, call not only upon the man but also upon his parents. And his parents, for fear of being put out of the synagogue, deflect the questions back onto their son.

          I am taking a leap, I recognize that, but I hope it is an educated one. In the Jewish community, there is the leadership, scribes and so on, there are those who go to synagogue, those whom Jesus has been preaching to on the Sabbaths, and those put out of the synagogue. I think tax collectors and other ‘unsavory’ types branded generally as ‘sinners’.

People know who those excluded from the synagogues are. They are not related to by ‘polite’ company. There is a list kept by the leadership, formally or informally. But it is known that Jesus should not be sharing time or a meal with them.

But that’s not who Jesus is. These are the people whom he has precisely come to.

Dr. Strange and the Choices Jesus Makes

           The opening to Dr. Strange is a powerful one. We meet a gifted and arrogant surgeon who can save lives where others fail. If you have not seen the movie or heard of the origin story of the character, SPOILERS.

          Dr. Stephen Strange, in his arrogance, gets into a terrible car accident, his hands are crushed, all fine motor skills lost, and his ability to perform surgery is terminated. So he goes on a quest. He blows all his money and, from the movie, chases every fantasy, goes after every possible treatment that could help, insulting anyone he sees fit along the way, all to get his hands back, which will give him his life back (in his own mind).

          He gets so desperate, he even pursues a fairy tale of miraculous healing out to Nepal.

          He is willing to stake everything on getting healed.

          That’s my point of connection.

          Jesus was out preaching and teaching and healing and casting out demons. In Mark 1:40, a leper comes to him with a rather unique challenge.

          “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Another version puts it “If you choose…” Jesus’ response is “I am willing” or “I do choose”, and he cures the man of his leprosy.

          This is not the ten lepers crying out from a distance for mercy. This is not the woman who was so shy she only dared to touch Jesus’ cloak to be healed. This is not someone to whom Jesus has said, “Your sins are forgiven” to demonstrate the healing power of God to the spirit as well as to the body.

          If You Choose. So the man was prepared for both failure, if the healing skills of Jesus were not up to challenge, and for rejection. Jesus could have rejected him, calling him ‘unclean’ and driving him off.

          The life of the leper was on the margins. We know about social distancing, but that’s a mutual undertaking for the prevention of Covid. The leper was required to maintain distance, at the risk of being driven off with rocks or worse. There is a reason that Gregory Peck, playing Brigadier Frank Savage in the World War 2 film “Twelve O’clock High”, put all the worst elements of his bomber crews together into one plane called “The Leper Colony”. It is the place of the undesirables.

          In the movie, he did not care if they got killed. He put the losers together so they would not get other airmen killed. Neither did society at large in the time of Jesus care if lepers were killed. It kept the disease from spreading.

          "If you choose", the man said. I think he said it because he was beyond caring. He no longer carried the desperation of a Stephen Strange trying to get his life back. One did not get their life back after leprosy. So here came another faith healer who seemed to be getting popular reviews. What is the worst that could happen to the leper? Jesus rejects him and turns the crowd on him for ‘daring’ to infect the Teacher? If they stoned him to death, that’s another way out of his miserable existence.

          But Jesus chose to heal him, and the man received his life back in joy and thanksgiving.

          So am I saying that if Stephen Strange found his way to Jesus that he might have been healed? No. The franchise is about Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, not Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord. Besides, how much arrogance would Dr. Strange have to swallow before coming to our Lord?

          What I am saying is that there is One who will always choose to heal, always choose to forgive, always choose to love us. The leper opened a choice for Jesus, but for Jesus, there is no choice. This is what He does-for us. When we come to Jesus to be cleansed from our sins, when we lift up our illnesses and failings to His healing power, when we seek His grace, Jesus will always choose to heal us.

          But as the journey of healing for Dr. Stephen Strange, brilliant but now broken surgeon, went down a very different path, so could our journeys in Christ. It could turn into quite a ride.

Peter Hofstra

Why Jesus Casting Out Demons Is Still So Important to Understand.

Began preaching in the book of Mark. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is a good parallel for the beginning of the Christian faith in the weeks after Easter. It sets the tone for Jesus’ ministry.

This ministry is marked by the sharing of the word, casting out demons and evil spirits, healing the sick, and taking time away from the crowds to be spent in meditative prayer His Father. The turning point of these passages is the driving power of the Holy Spirit. It came down upon Jesus as His baptism. What is in it for us as Christians? What are the gifts of the spirit? How do we discern what we have in Jesus to do?

 So, if I am doing my job, the sermon should be an exposition of God’s Word to inspire worship in the faithful. In response to a sermon, we share an Affirmation of Faith, usually drawn from our Book of Confessions or Scripture. I draw on denominational resources for that, to connect with other churches as they draw together their own orders of worship. But I noticed that in our affirmation from the PCUSA’s “Brief Statement of Faith”, it gave a more comprehensive list of what it is that Jesus does among us, but did not specify the casting out of demons.

Not sure if that was an editing choice for the affirmation or something that points to a ‘kinder, gentler’ rendition of the faith. But it is difficult.

Finished a novel where the father of the main character was called a coward. It was at the beginning of the Second World War in Canada. This father mounted a campaign in Quebec designed to keep Canada out of the war. He did not believe in violence or that the nation, especially the French Canadian portion, should engage. In the plot of the novel, he managed to delay the entry as the two cultures in Canada negotiated things out.

To be against THAT war in any circumstances was unpopular. To be politically active about it was far worse. The gentleman does not enter the Army but joins the Red Cross instead, seeking to help that way. Which he does until British and Canadian troops liberate Bergen Belsen concentration camp, at which he is present. Where he admits that he was wrong. That there is evil to be fought against.

Was watching Daredevil, the Netflix adaptation now on Disney+. Matt Murdock was talking to his priest, when he asked the priest if he believed in the devil. The priest related a story of how he was in Rwanda during the genocide. Knew a good man in a village who helped everyone. The militia were seeking to get one tribe to murder the other, but they would not harm this good man. So the commander sent soldiers to do it. They went, met the good man, heard the stories, and they did not want to carry out the orders. So the commander himself came. Spoke to the good man for hours in his home. Finally, the commander brought him out and murdered him brutally in front of everyone. The point of the story? The priest had seen the devil in that commander.

So, okay pastor, these stories are fiction. No, they are real enough, but told within a fictionalized setting. That is what good fiction does. 

I want to believe in a kinder, gentler world, one where the devil can be relegated to myth or to the role of the boogyman. But I cannot. The world is not a kind, gentle place. Evil exists, the devil is embodied in human beings. And what the Bible tells us is that Jesus tossed demons and evil spirits out of people, AND THAT THOSE BEINGS FEARED HIM. They feared for their very existence.

Jesus saves us from our sin. I think it is good to be reminded exactly what He is saving us from. And what the Spirit did for Him can be done for us. 

Peter Hofstra

When They Mobbed the House Where Jesus Stayed

         From Mark 1: That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. vss. 32-22

          Can you imagine? Jesus was in church (okay, synagogue, the Jewish version of church) on a Sunday (okay, Saturday, the Jewish version of the Lord’s Day and, yes, the original one that we changed to Sunday because of Jesus’ resurrection), and he was teaching (okay, we pay ministers who need a Masters in Divinity, but Jesus was, lets face it, the true Master of the Divine, so we’ll give it to him) and there is a congregant possessed by an evil spirit.

          It might be argued that there are a lot more people like that in church than we have ever really thought about, but that is another blog post.

          In this case, the evil spirit knows Jesus, and reacts. Goes into the whole mover and shaker thing we associate with movies and shows. It seems to fear its own demise at the hands of God's Holy One.

          To make a long story short (and it is probably too late for that), Jesus tosses out the evil spirit in front of the whole congregation. And our verses at the lead of this post are the result.

          Now, the people follow the rules of Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples travel ‘a sabbath’s journey’, as far as Simon’s house. The rest of the city waits until sunset, as days are measured sunset to sunset, and then they move-when the day of rest is over.

          For us, it might be like gathering the collected persons on our prayer list, those whose names we lift in our time of concerns, those among our family and friends who are in hospital, rehab, nursing home, homebound, ill and infirmed, and carry them all to the door of the house where Jesus is staying, but this time physically instead of (I hope) prayerfully.

          We carry them in and they walk away, dancing and singing and praising God. When was the last time we prayed to our Lord Jesus in the sure and certain knowledge that this is what power he holds?

Peter Hofstra