Focus! Mark 1-4

May the mumbling commence!

Focus!  We need focus in our ministry to our Lord.  We need a focus when we seem to be drifting aimlessly along.  We need focus when we seem to be utterly failing.  In these cases, a focus will keep us going.  We also need focus when things are going well.  It is far too easy to become hijacked by the needs and concerns of others.  A focus will help prevent this hijacking from happening.  Success is equally as dangerous as aimlessness and failure. 

Sometimes, success is even more dangerous.  Look at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as recorded in Mark to find this danger.  In Mark chapter one, Jesus announces his message – the Good News of God.  That message is Jesus’ focus.  Jesus clearly states in verse fifteen, “The time has come.  The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"  Jesus wanted to usher the people into the kingdom of God.  All the other things that Jesus did and said were geared toward this announcement.

Jesus began to call disciples.  Jesus taught in synagogues.  And Jesus began a healing ministry.  People were amazed.  "What is this? A new teaching – and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him (1:27b)."  Word got around.  But it was like the game of telephone.  The central message of Jesus – the coming kingdom of God – was distorted.  People flocked to Jesus not to hear his teaching but to be healed. 

What did Jesus do?  How de he respond?  He created time to pray and re-focus.  Read from Mark chapter one:

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.  Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: "Everyone is looking for you!" 

Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come."  So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. (Verses 35-39)

We will find our focus when we concentrate on our relationship with God.  We do not do ministry.  It is God working through us.  God deserves all the credit when things go well.  And it is God we depend upon when things do not go well.  So, who better to go to redefine or to be reminded of our focus? 

Even with our prayers, there will be interruption after interruption.  Directly following this passage, Jesus is on his way to preach to the surrounding villages and is interrupted by a man with leprosy.  Jesus did take time to heal him by touch.  And that touch delayed his preaching ministry in the villages, because he was thought to be unclean until the time of purification was completed.

Yet, still the focus of Jesus was not lost.  He called another disciple and taught another lesson through his choice.  Read from Mark chapter two:

Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.  As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. 

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.  When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Verses 13-17)

By his choice of Levi, Jesus was defining his ministry and the message of the coming kingdom of God in a new light.  Jesus was not leaving the weak and lost behind.  Jesus, unlike the Pharisees, was spending time to heal relationships with people who were being ostracized. 

Jesus ate with them to restore fellowship so that the way to God’s kingdom might be opened for them.  Before this effort of outreach, the tax collectors and “sinners” had little choice.  Now, Jesus was opening that choice up to them again.  Jesus was correcting the sin of omission that the teachers of the law and the Pharisees were guilty of. 

Help us, O God, to keep our focus on you so that we may announce the coming kingdom of God with our own set of gifts.  Help us to do the work of relationship restoration. 

Enough mumbling for now… 

Peace Out