Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, January 14, 2024
by Madison Johnston, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Because he is uniquely human and divine, Jesus has the unique ability to help us reframe and reprioritize so that we don’t miss the forest for the trees.
Jesus is asked a lot of questions about his behavior in this passage from Mark. First Jesus is surrounded by a crowd so large and in such need of his healing that a handful of men drop their paralyzed friend through the roof in order to skip the line. Jesus is moved by their faith—their hunger for his ministry—and proclaims God’s forgiveness for everyone to hear. A group of scribes in the crowd wonders aloud how he could do such a thing. A little later, when Jesus eats at Levi’s house alongside tax collectors and sinners, another group of scribes asks why he would do such a thing. And finally, when the Pharisees and John’s disciples enter a period of fasting, but Jesus and his disciples do not, everyday people flock to Jesus pushing him for an explanation.
These questions about Jesus’s behavior are more rhetorical than genuine—more judgmental than curious. The scribes and the crowd are challenging Jesus because they have assumptions about what he should be doing and how he should be doing it, and he is not playing by their rules. We could read the “how?” and the “why?” in this passage as, “Jesus, stop!”
This is a story all about how Jesus helps us (re)focus day to day; how Jesus pulls us aways from those assumptions we carry—those judgments we spew—to take a minute to consider whether we are asking the right questions. Lots of things are important, but are we focused on what matters? The two are not always the same.
For example (taking a cue from Jesus physician metaphor here), if you were admitted to the ER with a gun wound, would you want your nurses and your doctors to sit you down and ask for your height and your weight? How many times your exercise a day, and whether or not you smoke? Absolutely not! You would want them to get you on the operating table. Getting information might be important to your overall care, but getting to the gun wound is what matters in the moment.
Jesus’s authority and the mechanics behind it might be important, but what matters is that Jesus’s authority and the mechanics behind it empowered a man to walk when he could not walk before. Jesus’s attention and presence is important, but what matters is that Jesus’s attention and presence are for everyone—even people you might not like or expect to be worthy of it. Adherence to the law is important, but what matters is the living Word of God that brings gospel in the midst of it.
OurGod is a God who doesn’t want us to miss the forest for the trees. Our God is a God who helps us in matters of triage. We hear this morning that Jesus is a new, unshrunk piece of fabric. A patch that can’t be forced onto an old coat. We hear this morning that Jesus is a fresh wine that threatens to burst any used skins at the seams. Our promise as we continue in this liturgical season is that Jesus will help us break free from old (and sometimes limited) ways of thinking and focus on what matters.
