Our small group is reading through the book of Mark. We are reading it not to pick apart words and assign meanings to them based upon the original language. We are reading it as a story. This was how it was originally intended to be read. And truly (as with most people) it is the stories themselves that grip me, not picking them apart into individual words. Most people discover themselves in one or more of the characters in a story, bringing them a deeper understanding and a point from which to take their own story. And ultimately, we can learn how to play out our own life narratives based upon the ones we read. (Enough of my ramblings based upon various narrative theories of counseling. I’ll save that for another entry.)
But I’m having some trouble with Mark. Not because it’s fast-paced, action-packed, and big picture-oriented. No, I love these aspects of Mark. If it’s a little sparse on the details, it gives us a feel for the author’s personality and perspective. He shows himself as a doer and gives us a picture of what he thought was important about the Messiah. (Read it yourself to discover just what the author thought this was.)
My trouble comes from the Pharisees, Disciples, and Outcasts. Toward the beginning of the book, Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath. The Pharisees are cheesed to the back teeth!  Although he has just shown his ability to act out the prophecies about the Messiah, they are so mad about this man destroying their system and threatening their power that they are willing to make a deal with the devil. They go to their oppressors, to Herod’s men, to strike an agreement with them to bring down Jesus. They will do whatever it takes to bring down this man who makes faith look different than theirs and threatens their way of life. They are willing to go to the very ones from whom they want the Messiah to free them to insure that Jesus gets a pair of cement boots.
The Pharisees either don’t get Jesus and his way of messiahship, or if they do, they don’t want it. Maybe it’s a little (or a lot!) of both. Because Jesus saved his harshest words for them, I suspect there is a good deal of willful blindness and rebellion on the part of the Pharisees.
Enter the Disciples. The Disciples don’t get Jesus either. They know he’s something special, but they really don’t get him. They still can’t figure him out when he uses his power to calm a storm and save them from drowning. They are expecting power, yes, but more in the way of political power: the overthrowing of Rome and such. But Jesus gives the Disciples themselves the power to do all of the amazing stuff that acts as a sign of the Messiah bringing in the new kingdom: healing, casting out demons, and other things that should leave the average Joe speechless. Jesus gives the Disciples the power of partner status, and they don’t even understand who he is! But they are willing to join his team and work hard at doing the good that they do know.
Another set of cast members stand out: the Outcasts, or the people the Pharisees thought had sinned and brought about all of Israel’s trouble. These are the people that Jesus healed, forgave, and brought into fellowship with God and man. They have a better idea of who Jesus is than either the Pharisees or the Disciples but little or no influence.  Many of them understand Jesus better than the Pharisees and even the Disciples. But their stories are less than complete in all of the gospels, just snippets of scenes, really. So we don’t know much about most of them, except that Mark makes them seem like the kind of people we ought to be in Christ’s mixed-up, head-over-heels kingdom.
The Mark story portrays the most scripturally-educated individuals (Pharisees) as willfully blind or rebellious, the ones closest to Jesus as too dumb to get it (Disciples), and the ones who have limited (but powerful) contact with Christ (Outcasts) as the ones who understand the best. So where does that put me? my church? the impoverished people around the church? those that can only see one way to work out their faith? the hyper-educated types that inhabit my college town?
My response in the past would have been to say that we should all just try to be like the Disciples. But now I’m not so sure. Obviously, I don’t want to be a Pharisee. They were Jesus’ enemies through and through. But it also seems apparent that the Pharisees had blind spots so big a fleet of ships could have been steered through them with ample blue space on either side. And it seems that inherent in the definition of a blind spot is the idea that one can’t know one’s own blind spots. But maybe it is also that one doesn’t want to see one’s own blind spots.
To be like a Disciple, however, means that I might not “get it” even though I want to. Jesus may be in a state of awe over my lack of understanding and faith. But for some strange reason, as a Disciple, I have decided to be on Christ’s side, to join his mission whether I completely understand or not.
In direct contrast to the Disciples who spent so much time with Jesus, the Outcasts didn’t really have a whole lot of contact with Jesus. Yet they saw one thing: that he was their only hope for help. They threw themselves upon his mercy for healing and deliverance, and he did not disappoint. I’m sure they had not worked out a detailed theology of messiahship or a doctrinal statement that would meet the stringent standards of the Pharisee’s theology of Messiah. Their theology was simple: Jesus has what I need, and I will go to him at any cost.
But maybe, after all, the Disciples weren’t so different from the Outcasts, for it is Mark that records the story of an Outcast who says, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!” while the Disciples lived this very statement out event after event. And perhaps the presence and obedience of the Disciples spoke of a kind of flinging of all things ordinary and precious at the feet of Christ as the Outcasts did. The Disciples left home, career, and family at great cost to labor alongside Jesus although they could understand only the simplest things about Jesus.
In the gospel of John the Disciple Peter says, “Lord, to whom else shall we go? Who else has the words of life?” (my paraphrase). That sounds to my ear like the desperation of the Outcast, and I find that perhaps, after all, I can be the Outcast and Disciple who loved Jesus well. For this is also my heart’s cry.