Have you
ever been misunderstood? There have been
numerous times in my life when close friends and relatives have said to me,
“Are you crazy?!” Or “What were you
thinking?” I am almost always puzzled by
their reaction to my words or actions, especially when I feel that they just
didn’t understand why I would say or do what I said or did.
When I
reflect on the sufferings of Jesus, there are of course, the physical
sufferings: the scourging, the crown of thorns, and most of all, the cross. Then there’s the emotional pain: the agony in
the garden, the denial by Peter, the betrayal by Judas, and the feeling distant
from the Father.
But even
before the events leading up to His Passion, death, and Resurrection, Jesus
encountered various trials that many of us encounter. And one of those trials is being
misunderstood. In all four of the
Gospels, we see how often Jesus came into conflict with the Pharisees and the
scribes and the elders of the people. But
in the Gospel that I’m reflecting on this week, Jesus was misunderstood by His
relatives! They had heard that the crowd
following Jesus had gotten so large that He didn’t even have time to eat, and
their response was not one of awe about the size of the crowd, or about what
might be happening. Instead, they
concluded that "He is out of his mind;" (Mark 3:20-21), and they set out to “seize
him,” presumably to
bring Him home.
Jesus’
response comes a little later in the Gospel. But for now, I think the challenge for us is
to think if there are times when we misunderstand Jesus, especially when
we might be tempted to use our faith to justify our prejudices and attitudes
toward other individuals or groups of people. While there are times when Jesus’ words and
actions are most comforting and reassuring, there are times when Jesus’ words
and actions still have the power to make us uncomfortable.
At those
times we need to examine whether our attitudes towards others are taking us
further from God. We’ve seen the effects
of bigotry and discrimination not only on those who are the recipients, so to
speak, but also on the perpetrators. Persisting
in prejudice, I think, is part of the “dead works” mentioned in the Letter to the
Hebrews (Hebrews 9:2-14). And if we’re willing
to allow the love of Jesus to completely permeate our hearts and lives, we can
better understand what Jesus is calling us to, and we can be “cleansed,” in order to “worship
the living God” in
all we say or do.
To proclaim
the Gospel of Jesus Christ can make us seem to be out of our minds, or fools,
or hopeless innocents, in the eyes of the world. As I write this, the memory of our recent
celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his advocacy of nonviolence is fresh
in my mind. For many in our country today,
practicing nonviolence would indicate that one has gone out of his mind. Nonviolence seems so impractical in today’s
world. But Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross
indicates that He didn’t return violence with more violence. Instead, He chose to forgive, even from the
Cross (Luke 23:24).
Jesus also
told us to look to give, rather than to take (Acts 20:35), and still we’re
tempted to rationalize that greed is good. Our world is still struggling with coming
together to alleviate poverty in so many places, even in our own ‘backyard’.
Perhaps it’s
time for each of us to be "out of our minds," or "fools,"
for the Gospel (1 Corinthians 4:10). Violence
and greed may lead to some worldly results, but they won’t lead us to where we
need to go. What’s needed is to share the
love and grace we have in Jesus Christ, no matter how crazy and foolish it
makes us appear.
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