“… and Dr. Doolittle is in great demand as a speaker...”

Reading the Bible is a mystical thing. You never really know what will grab hold of you once you start reflecting. When I have read Mark 1:35 and the following verses, my first impulse is to notice that Jesus was hiding from the crowds. Peter sought him out and says, “Everyone is looking for you.” Jesus responds in a way that offends many opinionated readers, “We must go on to other towns as well, and I will preach to them, too. That is why I came.”

Instead of giving the people what they wanted, he left them and moved on to other towns because he knew his mission and understood the hierarchy of need. People needed the message more than they needed a temporary physical need met. This creates a penetrating rebuke to those who want their pastors to primarily be chaplains who operate based on felt need rather than a deeper real need. It opens the discussion in churches between a few clergy doing pastoral care and actually having better, churchwide pastoral care.

Ok. Good point, but that is not what jumped off the page and grabbed me by the throat this morning. It was a more sobering thought; “Why did Jesus have a demanding crowd of people looking for him and I don’t?” You have read those biographic paragraphs about a speaker or leader who is headlining a conference, haven’t you?  It usually includes the following line, “Dr. Doolittle is in great demand as a speaker and consultant. He has spoken in over 50 countries around the world and in 49 of the 50 states.”

As you read on in Mark, Jesus continues to have this problem of people following him and showing up when he is trying to do normal things. He goes to the synagogue and ends up casting out demons - which just made matters worse. Then, he went home with James and John and found himself in Simon and Andrew’s home. He healed Simon’s mother-in-law, then she got up and cooked. Word got around, and by evening the entire town had gathered at the door to watch. Watch what?  Jesus doing miracles and to hear his authoritative teaching. He goes on to heal a leper who blabbed about it everywhere and Jesus found himself surrounded (Mark 1:40-45). “He couldn’t publicly enter a town anywhere. He had to stay out in the secluded places, but people from everywhere kept coming to him.”

Then, for some reason, the first verse of chapter 2 got me, “When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door.” This led to the famous scene where four men took their paralyzed friend up on the roof, dug through it, and lowered him down in front of Jesus.

So, I had to ask myself, “What happens in my neighborhood when I return home from a trip?” You guessed it! A bit of extra mail, some packages, and some work waiting on my desk. Apart from that, solitude and silence. The very thing Jesus sought; I have in abundance. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my solitude and silence until I start wondering, “Why do I have so much of it?” It doesn’t seem like Bill Hull is as in demand as his bio says.

This has led me to a thought - The disciple making first community and movement seems to lack the same authority and power at the retail level. Retail level meaning where the disciple making process meets the average Christian and average non-Christian in our culture.

There is a reason everyone seems to be focused on programs and coming up with better ideas on how to interest Christians themselves in helping others. The church is for discipleship, and disciples are the delivery system to the world - to love the world like Jesus loved the world. It seems like we lack that spiritual power that people clamored for and crammed themselves into small spaces to see. They came to watch. Again, I ask, watch what?  The miracles backed up by powerful teaching that matched the miracles. We often hammer the church’s miracle workers (especially those on TV), but let’s give them some credit. They are giving it a go. They are laying it on the line. They are willing to get egg on their faces to be like Jesus. They sometimes end up looking like a jackass instead, but I can think of some other people to hammer on. Those of us who never try and play it safe, who close the door of our homes and pull down the shades, because we know no one is coming.

I don’t think starting a TV show is the necessary corrective. It could be as simple as a prayer.  

“Lord, I’m not afraid of any change you want to make in my life. I am willing to open myself up to all forms of your power. I am willing to take some chances in praying for others, in standing up in public forums, to speak out when it will cost me, and even pull up my shades and pray for somebody to care about when I arrive home.”