First Presbyterian Church of Watertown
Mark 6
“He Intended to Pass Them By”
The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry
July 23, 2006
First let me say it was a lot of fun, but it was in the end really dumb. My first car, the car I bought to commute to college each day in the heady traffic of San Diego was a 1949 Ford truck; I bought a vehicle that was almost twenty years older than I was. It was terrible, a mess, a kind of mistake of massive proportion. In years to come when I read of the cultural revolution of China’s Chairman Mao or the decision of Coca Cola to do away with their signature product in the mid-eighties and introduce a new formula, I had a place from which to compare. I understood what really stupid meant.
This was a truck that didn’t start for a day or two after it rained. The floor boards were rusted out to the point that you could clearly see the road rushing beneath your feet. The one windshield wiper worked off a c-clamp; in the first six months, before I learned to open the grip of the clamp just right it was necessary to pull off to the side of the road to get the lone wiper working at the right speed (just as an aside if you opened it too little it was hypnotic; if you opened it too much it seemed possessed).
Part of this story is about being stubborn. My father likes to give advice, yet rarely does he give a direction. So as I pondered the purchase he peppered me with interesting factoids that would seem to suggest that purchasing a car that got 8 miles to the gallon, had no seat belts or paint, and given that I had little to no mechanical ability, may not be the right car for me, right now- maybe. So many of these clues were given that I finally bought the truck more out of spite than desire.
Having said this I need to reiterate that I loved this truck. I loved that it only had three gears and the breaks really didn’t work all that well and the heater was a kind of small door that opened to the engine and the vent was an opening on the hood. It did lack a tail gate, but it did have a cow catcher instead of front fender just in case I need to round up some livestock. The ’49 Ford convinced our neighbors that their property values were plummeting as long as it was parked on the street and Kathy’s grand parents just figured she was dating some hick from the sticks given my vehicle of choice. How much fun is that?
There were also the down sides. It took me many trips to a puzzled mechanic before we realized that five dollars worth of leaded fuel was what was needed to ignite the engine; it would take far more gasoline, also known as money, if you wanted to drive it from place to place. During this phase of discovery, as a part of this revelation I felt the need to pull the battery out. Lifting it over the tall fenders I noticed my clothes were wet after. I put the battery back in and didn’t think twice till I reached my part-time job and my clothes began to dissolve. It turns out battery acid is rather destructive.
The battery episode really drove home to me that I had done something really stupid. The truck, no matter how much I enjoyed it, was dumb. It was the absolute worst commuter car; it was something with which a wealthy person with a lot of time and money could find amusement, but a poor college student, not so much. And here is the crazy thing, if I could, if I could buy another ’49 Ford truck, I would! I know it’s crazy, and dumb, but there it is.
Over the centuries writers and commentator have all noted that the disciples in the Gospel of Mark come out looking like dullards, they don’t really shine shall we say. Modern commentators have tried to present this as a rhetorical device. The disciples are cast in an unflattering light to suggest the truth is not found, but given. The disciples look silly because Mark wanted to challenge the confidence of the early church, shake them up a bit. Contemporary writers have, though, never just said, these fellas were not the sharpest tools in the shed.
John Calvin, in his comments, was not so timid. He said, in effect, the disciples were idiots. Their “stupidity” as he calls it was too much to bear. They just didn’t get it. Now, again, most modern commentators looking at our reading will remark on the disparaging light in which the disciples were cast in Mark. They will describe the Gospel of Mark as a kind of a diatribe, or dressing down, for the church. Yet in this story, the lack of understanding, the failure, seems to reach a whole new level. This story is not washed away with literary device. The failure of the disciples is on so many levels that I am more inclined to follow Calvin on this one.
The real evidence of this is that Jesus sends them away. He dismisses the disciples. It says, Jesus sent them ahead and stayed with the crowd. It was as if he had had enough and needed sometime alone to just figure this whole thing out. For after finishing with the crowd he went up to pray, alone.
The meaning between the lines is that Jesus seems to be lamenting the whole “twelve” who follow. Earlier in the story Jesus does this when it seems that the miracles are causing more confusion than faith. He withdrew and prayed and came out determined to preach instead of heal. In our reading, again, he dismisses the disciples, mulls over the way his ministry is going, and comes out with a decision, “he intended to pass them by.”
It could be he would just rather walk, but I believe there is more here. Jesus decided to change course, to go it alone. He tried the whole discipleship, having the twelve, but it wasn’t working how he wanted. “He intended to pass them by” meant he was going to try something else.
This is a risky interpretation. The idea being that Jesus was willing to jettison the church as a kind of interesting notion that didn’t pan out. It is also risky because it makes Jesus really, really human. I don’t know about you but there is a lot of trial and error to my day. See if it works: keep it if does; discard it if it doesn’t. Could Jesus be that human? Could he look to the disciples after a night of prayer and say, “well, fellas, it was a good thought, but it doesn’t seem to be panning out?” He intended to pass them by.
On its own, if we stop reading here, there is not a lot of good news in this passage. Yet, there is good news. In spite of their foolishness and lack of understanding, in spite of his most likely deciding to go ahead without them, it says “he got into the boat with them.” I don’t know why but that means a lot to me. For what if God took a look at our lives and had to make a decision regarding the salvation of the world, what if God asked are they really what we had in mind? What if God looked at our church or our denomination or Protestantism and had to decide keep going or not? Should we cut and run or stay with them?
I believe Jesus reached a decision to go it alone or try again with another twelve or one or two or something. He prayed through the night and reached a decision, he intended to pass them by, and then they called out to him. Life happened and he got into the boat with them. When I think of the ’49 Ford, and I wonder what if God had looked at me at that moment and had to decide, fish or cut bait, I have to say he should have cut bait, would have had good reasons to try another. But, in essence, he got into the truck and after a few disparaging glances laughed. It was really funny in the end.
This is not the simplest picture of Jesus. The idea that the incarnate Christ changes his mind can be rather unsettling. Yet, for reasons I am not quite sure, I find great comfort in it. It makes me wonder how many times my good intensions have caused Jesus to pray through the night. I don’t know if God ever decided to pass me by, only to hear me pray and say, alright, don’t be afraid; it’s me.
I don’t know if Jesus really decided to let go of the whole church idea, but I do know he got in the boat. And that, that is the real good news. He could have passed them by, intended to pass them by, but instead he got in the boat. He put aside the ease of going alone, doing salvation without our foolishness and moments of idiocy; he put it aside and got in the boat.
I don’t believe we are church because we are more brilliant than others. I don’t believe the church is here because we had better answers or lived better lives than others. I believe we are a church because Jesus got in the boat.
I had lunch with an Episcopalian priest a few months ago. She is the daughter of a Watertown family. It was at a Rotary meeting. After the introductions and a few exchanges I thanked her. I said, on behalf of the entire Presbyterian Church let me say thank you for taking the gaze of the press from us and our foolishness so they could write about yours. She laughed. For as a pastor of a congregation she knew the real pain our denominational debates have on members and the way reading about your church’s divisiveness in the paper can be deflating.
Mark makes clear the disciples didn’t get the miracle of the loaves and fishes. They didn’t understand the power of God and their place in it. The disciples, while in the boat, where in effect, missing the boat. I think that is irony. The point is that the church, while trying its best, was way off course. And, yet, Jesus, who intended to pass them by, got in the boat.
What if our worship, what we are praising and giving thanks for, is just that simple? Jesus has gotten in the boat with us. We don’t fully understand. Rarely if ever does it seem we make real headway against the storms of life, yet our God is with us. What if our lives are really that blessed? Instead of God redeeming creation around us, what if he has said, alright, I’m here with you? Let’s try this again. I don’t know why, but I find such great peace knowing, he’s in the boat. Amen.