Chains, blood, death, and unworthiness

Perhaps we have lost our way…

I was reading Mark Chapter 5 the other day and I made what seemed to me to be an unusual discovery. Maybe I am mistaken. Perhaps there is nothing at all unusual about it.

When I left home and went to college when I was 18 I was looking for acceptance. In the world of an 18 year old there may be nothing that is more important than that. What I found when I got there was rejection in many forms. The fraternities were not that impressed by me. For the most part they found me to be unworthy of their approval. There was one that wanted me to join but for the most part I did not know the right people, make enough money, or have the right parents. I had a hard time making friends. It seemed that the same qualities that made me desirable (or not) to fraternities were in demand for friendship as well. I did not like my classes either. It seems that I chose poorly and did not realize it until it was too late. Everywhere I turned I found that I was unfit, unworthy, not desired, and not wanted. I was crushed.

This was not my first experience with being rejected. There were girls that I had asked out that had politely refused. There were sports teams that had declined to pick up my option. There were jobs that had found better applicants. Rejection was not an every day experience for me but I was certainly used to it by the time I went to college. Why did my college experience cause me so much more distress than the other rejections?

In retrospect, I think that I had unrealistic expectations of what life would be like when I was in college. I had wanted to go to the school of my choice for a long time before I was accepted there. I had idealized what it would be like and I was (quite simply) wrong. Looking back now it is easy for me to think that I should have adjusted my expectations. It would not have been what I wanted but I could have made due with what it was and got along OK. Rather than doing that I left- never to return and totally disillusioned with the whole experience. The real question is this: should I have had to readjust my expectations at all?

So what does this have to do with Mark Chapter 5?

There is a picture that is painted by the whole chapter that is not evident at first glance. We have the man possessed by demons roaming amongst the dead, the woman plagued by bleeding, and the dead girl. In each case Jesus stepped in and healed someone in a miraculous way. Each one of these people though would have been seen by the first century Jew as unworthy, unfit, unwanted, and unclean. Indeed, perhaps the central message of the Gospel is that each one of us is in our own way much like the central characters in this chapter. We are all unfit but Jesus has reached out to us and made us fit. We are all unwanted but Jesus desires us anyway.

I guess the question I have is why are so many of our churches today so ready to declare people unworthy and unfit and unwanted? This seems more in line with the message of the Pharisees that it does with the message of Christ. It seems to me that today we are still looking for reasons to exclude people from the good news rather than letting Jesus make them worthy. He does not make enough money. She is a liberal. He is a Jeff Gordon fan (joking). He drinks. She smokes. He cusses. Unclean, unfit, unworthy.

I heard a really good message the other day that included an allusion to Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was a crippled man that nevertheless was an heir to the throne of Saul. When David took over as king he called for Mephibosheth and told him that he was always welcome at the King’s table. Here is the reply:

And he paid homage and said, "What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?"
2 Samuel 9:8

Perhaps this is the response of every lost soul who has been found by the King. I know that it captures my sentiments pretty well. How can we so quickly turn from this wonder and astonishment to locking the doors to prevent any other dead dogs from wandering in? I imagine that many people today have an ideal of church that is not unlike my view of college. They would see church as a place where they could be accepted regardless of their flaws. My guess is that many who find this not to be true will likely leave- never to return. Can you imagine the demon possessed man returning to wander amongst the tombs once he had been healed? Somehow I don’t think that happened and yet people today are leaving churches to return the tombs they had escaped. We need to fix this.

What I found unusual about Mark Chapter 5 is that Jesus went to the unclean and made them clean. This was a scandal that eventually got Him killed yet He did it anyway. The church should be doing the same.