A Good Crazy
Pentecost 2b, June 10, 2012 (Mark 3:20-35 with I Samuel 8:4-20 in the b.g.
This is a strange and powerful text. Jesus has been helping people. No, more than that – Jesus has been delivering people – delivering them from illnesses which separated them from each other, from their means of making a living, from being able to worship God with others. Jesus has more than given them back their life. He has actually given them life – a life which before they did not and could not know. So many are deliriously thankful. Others are hungering for the same. So a crowd is literally crushing around Jesus in Mark's gospel. At one point Jesus needs to get into a boat to escape the crush. At another time he seeks refuge in a house. Even then they keep coming. People are desperate to hear him, to see him, to touch him. Many are being healed, receiving new life, a freedom that they had never known before. And others, those who realize that they also need new life, to be freed from the powers that hold them down and in, they also are pressing around Jesus.
Have you ever noticed such realities about Jesus and yourself?
I remember Howard. When I met Howard he had been an active member of the church for over 20 years. I do mean ACTIVE. Howard worked around and for the congregation. He cared for many different people in the community. He rarely if ever missed studies at the church. Both he and his wife whom he called Swede, were vital members of that congregation. But it hadn't always been that way. Howard had been a large cat operator in his early days. Listening to others, he had been pretty wild too. Much of his wildness in those days came out of his drinking. As he told me – "You know Pastor Tim I used to go into the bar when the wind started to blow and I didn't come out until the wind had stopped." And then he would smile, a wistful smile. You see, Howard lived in Southern Saskatchewan where the wind almost never stops blowing.
But then one day, something different began to happen to Howard. In his words, "God got hold of him – and everything began to change." He no longer went to the bar. He stopped fighting with other men. He came home every night to be with his wife. He began to experience and realize in profound ways that God in Jesus Christ loved and forgave him. This was wonderful! So, he wanted everyone to know and experience this love and forgiveness of God. He, Howard, in his own unique way, had a responsibility and privilege to share this love and forgiveness with others.
When I first met him he hadn't had a drink in over 20 years. To be sure, some people thought Howard was a little crazy. Yet, if he was, he said that "It was a good 'crazy'."
I also remember "Mike" (a fictional name- to protect his identity). Mike had been involved with the Hell's Angels since he was a teenager. If there was anything good about that, it was that Mike always had money. That was "good" because Mike didn't have a trade nor any education past about Grade 10. However there were also many things about being in the Hell's Angels that weren't good. As he grew older Mike became increasingly violent. He wasn't sure if he could trust anyone, including himself. Mike was estranged from his own family. His life was broken in so many ways, like a number of the bones in his body had been. Mike did time – for murder. But one day, after he "got out" – Mike met a young woman who really needed help – his help: to care for her, to provide some stability in her life. And gradually together, they attempted to begin a new life. Now you just don't quit or retire from the Hell's Angels. You have to "relocate". You need to find a new identity and disappear. As they did so Mike and his young lady began to come to church. Amazingly that congregation, which sometimes was uptight, afraid, even judgmental, embraced Mike and his lady. I never knew who was better for whom. A newer member of the congregation found Mike a job. Together the congregation provided Mike and his lady an opportunity to get married. They were "showered" with lots of practical gifts. The people truly loved Mike and his lady. They even trusted them. For the first time in Mike's life, he could glimpse light, hope and love. Some thought Mike was crazy: to go from a relatively lucrative life – where he had first rate accommodation, to living on welfare for a long time and asking even for handouts. But Mike, said that even though it wasn't easy, it was a good crazy. Others thought that the congregation was crazy to trust Mike and his lady. But if you asked most of them, they thought that it was a good "crazy".
Do you ever think that you might be crazy? Crazy to trust God – to believe, really be convinced that in Jesus, God actually loves us and accepts us unconditionally. Crazy to believe that God even loves the world! To know that such love of God is the essential, the core part of Jesus' life, suffering, crucifixion and ultimate resurrection?
I ask because Jesus while walking upon the face of the earth, encountered all kinds of opposition. This was strong, occasionally horrible opposition. Although Jesus reached out to the social "outcasts" of his day, those who had been excluded by many due to their physical, mental or sexual behavior, many of those people welcomed Jesus and were often transformed in such encounters so that they were no longer viewed as "outcasts". Yet, it was and too often is those who are "inside", who are convinced not only that they "belong" but that they deserve to belong, who consistently resist Jesus.
In fact, some of the religious leaders accuse Jesus of having a demon, of being in league with the powers of evil. That is their rationalization of how Jesus can get rid of the powers that had captivated the outcasts. The religious leaders cannot stand Jesus. Many of them refuse to accept that in and through Jesus God is doing a radically new thing. The religious leaders have their traditions, their understanding of how God has worked in the past. Despite many being excluded because of their religious traditions, the religious leaders are convinced that's just the way life is, the way it has to be. But Jesus works and lives to show them that they are mistaken.
Nor are they these the only ones who oppose Jesus. Even his own family resists his work! Now we hear that they come to restrain him, thinking that he has lost his mind. But Jesus will not be restrained. He continues the work that God calls him to: to free people from the power of death, hatred, and even expulsion so that others can have a sense of importance. Jesus works to free people from being cut off from each other and from God. As he does so Jesus makes a profound statement: "Who is my family? Those who do the will of God – they are my mother, my brothers and sisters." WOW!
This is important for we who sometimes elevate family to the status of God. Not that we shouldn't love our families. The commandments exhort us to honour our parents: to love and not hurt each other. But as important as our families are, they are not God. Sometimes our families are incapable of loving unconditionally.
So where are we today? Are we inside that house with Jesus – aware of OUR ONGOING NEED to be helped and healed – OUR ONGOING NEED to be helping and healing? Or, are we gossiping with the scribes who have come down from Jerusalem, saying that this Jesus who is doing inexplicable things: Howard has stopped drinking and actually cares about us even though we had written him off; Mike and his girl although they live in tenement housing and scratch out a living from one day to the next now actually care about us, their mail man, and their neighbors in ways that often put us to shame.
Do we believe and trust in this Jesus that He actually loves us and this world? Are we convinced that this risen One can free us to love and forgive? Or is that just so much hooey? And if we live that way, trusting Him, what might others think of us? Might they think that we are SO NAIVE, literally crazy, at best deluded?
Could it be that Howard was right, that such trusting is "a good crazy!"?
May we be so possessed by God's Spirit, so moved beyond ourselves, our fear, our prejudice, our never ending analysis and rationalization that we too do "crazy" things. Crazy things like loving and forgiving, trusting beyond proof that God is God, that we and this often insane world are loved by God and that we are invited, even "commanded" to be an active part of that unfolding love. Amen and Amen.