Being Neighbors
Witnessing God at Work: Art and Media
ABOUT SILKROAD
Being Neighbors
It’s You I Like
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Many Ways to Say I Love You
You’ve Got to Do It
It’s Such a Good Feeling
A powerful illustration of the integrity and balance between “doing” the word and “speaking” the word was offered by one Hugh Thompson at the commencement exercises at Emory University several years ago. Honorary degrees were being awarded; the recipients made the requisite speeches. As is often the case, the students chatted through the whole ceremony. In fact, there was only one moment when they actually listened. “It was when a man named Hugh Thompson was speaking. Thompson was probably the least educated man on the platform.… He … did not finish college, choosing instead to enlist in the Army, where he became a helicopter pilot.
“On March 16, 1968, he was flying a routine patrol in Vietnam when he happened to fly over the village of Mai Lai just as American troops, under the command of Lieutenant William Calley, were slaughtering dozens of unarmed … villagers—old men, women, and children. Thompson set his helicopter down between the troops and the remaining … civilians. He ordered his tail-gunner to train the helicopter guns on the American soldiers, and he ordered the gunmen to stop killing the villagers.… Hugh Thompson’s actions saved the lives of dozens of people … he was almost court-martialed.… It was thirty years before the Army … awarded him the Soldier’s Medal.
“As he stood at the microphone, the … rowdy student body grew still.” And then Thompson talked about his faith. Simple words. Speaking of what his parents taught him as a child Thompson said, “they taught me, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do onto you.’ ” The students were amazed at these “words of Jesus, words from Sunday school, words from worship, words of Christian testimony … they leapt to their feet and gave him a standing ovation.”1
Thompson’s words about his faith had weight because the man had obviously “walked the talk.” In the same way, the church will not be heard if what we do as Christians is incongruous with what we say about our faith.
Learning to hear a passage like this and to respond obediently involves learning to listen to the prophetic call of God, and to the pain of the present world, and to live at the point of intersection between the two. And when the call comes, there’s no time to lose.
Movie Theaters in Pittsburgh showing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
Where to purchase or rent “The Music of Strangers”
“Hidden Brain” Podcast
God-talk outside the walls of the church makes many Christians anxious. We don’t want to be pushy or to offend, and we are not sure we know the right words. Many Christians would sooner talk about anything else: sex, their salary, anything but what they believe about God.
But this text insists that, in spite of the potential for rejection (or at least anxiety or embarrassment), telling the story with words is part of the claim that Christ lays upon his disciples
the human capacity for investing in social norms, for believing in one’s own preferences, is greater than the human capacity for faith.
The theological assertion beneath this vignette is uncomfortable, but plain: the human capacity for investing in social norms, for believing in one’s own preferences, is greater than the human capacity for faith. In Mark’s Gospel the person who acts beyond social norms through faith in God is rare. No socially constructed categories serve predictively: they may be rich and powerful (Jairus), poor and marginalized (the hemorrhaging woman), or acting selflessly on behalf of others (the paralytic’s friends). Even the demons that afflict the Gerasene are quicker in their faith than Jesus’ own neighbors: immediately they acknowledge his kingly authority (“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” [5:7]). The evil spirits are not bound by the social conventions that blind Jesus’ own people—and us.
we tend to see what we expect to see and are slow to accept challenges to our preconceived assumptions.
Jesus’ powerlessness is not primarily about him but about us: about those who are unwilling to believe the great things God can do.
This glimpse of Jesus’ family reminds us that he had many blood-relatives who continued to be important in the life of the early church. Indeed, two of his great-nephews (grandsons, presumably, of one of the brothers or sisters mentioned here) were hauled up before the Emperor Domitian in the 90s of the first century on a charge of being part of a royal family. They got off by showing Domitian their hands; they were farm labourers. But clearly this kind of notoriety was something the family was not wanting or considering during Jesus’ public career. Jesus seems to have come from a large family, most of whom had names associated in Jewish tradition with zealous godly revolution against paganism.
The most famous of these brothers is James, to whom Jesus appeared after the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:7) and who became the great leader in the Jerusalem church, the anchorman of early Christianity while Peter and Paul were off on their travels around the world.
‘No time for coffee this morning,’ I told my teenage son today. ‘You’ve got a train to catch. You need to be at that meeting.’
He had emerged, sleepily, half an hour before his train left; it takes at least 20 minutes to get to the station. Pull on a pair of shoes, grab a bag, here’s some money, off you go. I hope he makes it.
Jesus didn’t even let them take a bag, or money. These are emergency instructions for a swift and dangerous mission, not a programme for the continuing life of the church after Easter. There have been a few brave souls who have tried to live like this in later times, but the church has usually, and in my view rightly, recognized that these commands are specific to Jesus’ own day and the setting of his mission in first-century Palestine.
when they come to one place, they are to stay in the first home that receives them (v. 10). There should be no appearance of looking for the best meals or the most comfortable bed in town!
That’s why it was so urgent, and why they had to take minimum extra bits and pieces, rely on local hospitality, and focus entirely on the task in hand. They were kingdom-heralds, outriders warning people that something was about to happen (the Cynics didn’t think anything new was going to happen, just that the present world was an unredeemable mess), and that everyone should get ready for it. Getting ready would mean repenting: not just feeling sorry for particular sins, but changing one’s entire outlook and aims. Jesus’ agenda left no room for compromise, and no time to waste.
Jesus anticipated that some places wouldn’t welcome the message. There are always some who would rather stay sick than face the bracing challenge of a new way of life, a new outlook. But the disciples are to respond with a solemn symbolic action, wiping the dust of the place off their feet. How easy it would be, we naturally think, for this to become an act of pique or petulance. Yet in the context of Jesus’ mission nothing else would do. There was no time to waste. Mark’s breathless gospel focuses here on the disciples’ breathless mission: and if people won’t have it, there’s no time to lose. On to the next place, and woe to those who have missed their chance.
Jesus delegates kingly authority to those who come in faith. Christology here is a case study in servant leadership. Jesus, deriving his authority (the “what”) from absolute and obedient faith in God (the “why”), shares his authority willingly (the “how”) with those who share in his faith.
Learning to hear a passage like this and to respond obediently involves learning to listen to the prophetic call of God, and to the pain of the present world, and to live at the point of intersection between the two. And when the call comes, there’s no time to lose.
There is a theology of discipleship here that brings Bonhoeffer to mind. The preacher is warned against construing Mark’s brief report of the disciples’ initial foray as missioners (v. 13) as a reward for their growing faith. It is rather a sign that faith brings authority—and authority brings responsibility. We respond to the gift of faith by accepting our authority alongside the sovereign to whom we answer, and we take up the responsibility of disciples to proclaim, to heal, and to claim victory over evil.
Many Christian congregations have made sharp distinctions between “mission” and “evangelism”—between outreach in deeds and outreach in words—sometimes gravitating toward the former out of anxiety about doing the latter. In such a pastoral context, a pastor might explore the false “either/or” dichotomy between mission and evangelism. It is clear that both Jesus’ ministry in Nazareth and that of the Twelve to “the villages” was unitary, encompassing both healing—“mission”—and proclamation—“evangelism.”