Lessons from the Jesus Trail, Part III

Mark 3:31-35

The trail from Nazareth down to the Sea of Galilee winds downward through small villages and gentle valleys dotted with dairy farms and groves of olive and banana trees. We don’t know for sure what route Jesus took when he left his childhood home and went down to Capernaum on the north end of the Sea, but he might have used the Roman road known as the Via Maris (the way to the sea) for at least part of the journey before taking a shortcut through the Valley of the Doves, which cuts below Mount Arbel, one of the tallest peaks of the region.

Though we saw a section of the Via Maris on the second day of the hike, the Jesus Trail doesn’t generally follow the easiest route. In fact, it skirts the Valley of the Doves and goes over Mount Arbel which the founders of the trail no doubt included for its beautiful view of the Sea of Galilee. From the top of the peak you can see virtually all of the area where Jesus conducted most of his ministry over a three year period—a small triangle between the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.

What’s curious about this is that it’s so far away from the center of power in Jerusalem, some 90 miles away. The Galilee region in Jesus’ day, as today, is largely a rural area where people still make their living by farming and fishing. It doesn’t seem like the kind of place where a movement would get started—more like a sleepy place where people simply go about their business from day to day.

And yet, here in this little triangle of villages, Jesus of Nazareth started a revolution. With a pair of thin sandals on his feet, he walked these hills and valleys, sailed in boats, encountered farmers and fishermen, met merchants and tradesmen. Jesus would go to Jerusalem, as we know, but the reports of what he was doing in this small area would precede him and make powerful people in the capital city very, very nervous.

How did it happen? How did Jesus start a world-changing movement in such a place as this? I thought about that as we climbed down Mount Arbel and began our final day of hiking about 10 miles to Capernaum, which served as the home base for Jesus’ ministry.

Actually, Capernaum is an anglicized way of pronouncing the name of the town. In Hebrew it’s Kfar Nahum or “Village of Nahum.” While there doesn’t seem to be any connection to Nahum the prophet, Kfar Nahum was best known as a fishing village of about 1,500 people on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was a typical in so many ways—clusters of multi-generational homes built out of the black basalt stone that is characteristic of the region, a small synagogue, olive and wine presses, the sound of the waves coming off the lake. Kfar Nahum sat astride a major road where trade goods would pass from Damascus and points east down to the Mediterranean Sea and on to Egypt. The abundant tilapia fish in the lake were caught and served fresh or dried for travelers on the road, which meant that the fishermen who plied their trade were likely not the poorest people in the region but rather some of the most prosperous.

Mark tells us that Jesus came down to Galilee from Nazareth preaching the message he had first proclaimed in his hometown—the message that had nearly gotten him thrown off a cliff: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:14-15). In Kfar Nahum, he went to the synagogue and preached but unlike in Nazareth, the people in this little town were “astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (1:22).

And so, Jesus’ movement begins to take root. He calls a few fishermen to be his first disciples. He goes to Simon’s house, one of these fishermen, and becomes part of the oikos, the household, healing Simon’s mother-in-law and many others. In fact, Mark tells us that soon “the whole city was gathered around the door” of the house. Jesus had become part of a family that was ever-expanding.

In fact, in Mark 2 we see a subtle shift. Mark tells us that Jesus was “at home” in Capernaum when he healed a paralytic who was lowered down from the ceiling because the crowd cramming into the place was so great (2:1-12). It was from that new home base that he called more disciples, continued to teach and heal in the synagogue, and taught the crowds by the seaside.

What Jesus does, in short, is gather a new family around himself—a family not based on blood or affinity, but rather a family on a mission. He begins to teach and train and equip some of these people for the mission of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. He lives in a different sort of oikos.

It’s hard for us to imagine how radical this was in the ancient world where, according to New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III,  people were marked by three G’s: gender, genealogy, and geography. Most people stayed within their lane and never left home and family. Jesus had not only left, he was making waves.  Some thought he was crazy. Scribes came up to Galilee from Jerusalem to accuse him of being in league with the devil. Mark tells us that Jesus own family traveled from Nazareth to Capernaum “in order to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind’ (3:21).

Which brings us to the scene we read about earlier. Jesus’ mother and brothers arrive outside the house but they can’t get in because of all the people, so they send a message which is relayed to Jesus. “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” His response is shocking: He looks at those seated around him and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (3:35).

So much for focus on the family! The disciples whom Jesus calls are not going to be just his entourage, not just hangers-on, they are family. Indeed, for Jesus, making disciples is primarily about building a family—a family on a mission.

Actually, if we understand our theology, that shouldn’t be shocking. Last week was Trinity Sunday and one of the best ways to understand the Trinity is as a family. That’s the way Rublev portrayed them in his famous icon (a handpainted copy of which I received as a gift from our group in Israel). Jesus comes from this intimate, three-in-one, one-in-three family where each member of the Trinity is in the other and all together have a mission. It shouldn’t shock us, then, that Jesus models that sort of family with his disciples—an intimate relationship in which each has a role and all have a mission—the mission of doing the will of God, of spreading the good news of the kingdom, or modeling for the world not just the words and works of Jesus, but also the way of Jesus. It’s a family that’s ever-expanding, so it’s no wonder that Jesus’ last words to his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew are to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Their family is to make more family—which is the culimination of the mission of the family of Israel. Remember what God said to Abraham in Genesis 12? I’m going to make you a family so that, through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Now it was happening, it is still happening, when the followers of Jesus Christ become a family on mission.

There’s a lot of talk about family these days and in America people are most apt to say that “nothing is more important than family.” In a sense, that’s true, but too often we’ve set up the importance of our biological family over and against what it means to be part of the family of disciples of Jesus Christ. Think about some of the ways we try to sort out the apparent conflicts between our discipleship, our church participation, and the demands of family.

Family OR Mission

For example, we can see it as a choice between Family OR Mission. Given our limited time, crazy schedules, and multiple commitments we feel like we have to choose between what Jesus wants and what our family needs. I hear this from parents who are forced to choose between going to church on Sunday or going to soccer or baseball or a whole host of other things. Families want to be present, but they also want their kids to bolster friendships, get exercise, and have fun—not that you can’t do those things at church, but the cultural pressure to participate in family activities is very strong. When the choice is between family or mission, guilt and anxiety is often the result. The feeling is that you have to sacrifice one or the other in order to live out the call of Christ.

Family AND Mission

Of course, there’s the flip side of that, which is Family AND Mission. There’s so much good stuff we should be doing for our families and for the mission of Christ that we try to do it all. But it’s exhausting! I see it in the droopy eyes of frazzled parents who are apt to drift off during sermons. I see it in my own life as I try to balance home and work and sometimes can’t give my best to either.

Family ON Mission

But Jesus is actually recruiting a Family ON Mission. It’s a call to live a more integrated life, to see ourselves as part of a larger family of disciples whose mission isn’t just to attend church on the one hand or focus on our own families on the other. Rather, we see our daily lives as being lived in concert with Jesus—that no matter where our families might be, we are always representing the family of disciples. We see our church involvement not just as a programmatic obligation, but as the family gathering for the purpose of building one another up, sharing our family resources, and doing mission together. We look at our neighborhoods as our mission field, our regular relationships with other families and people in our sphere of influence. We seek out persons of peace whom we can make part of our family and who can catch the mission of Jesus as well. We learn how to do life together and see our discipleship not as another obligation but as a way of life.

The reason that the family of disciples multiplied like wildfire from this remote corner of the Roman empire didn’t have anything to do with a buildings, or programs, or budgets. Actually, they didn’t have any of those things. What they did have was a family of disciples who continued to bring others into their orbit, showing them how to live life the Jesus way. Those who were disconnected from their families of origin by sin, by disease, by reputation, found a home among a group of people who cared about them. They found new fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters in a larger family—a family called the church.

The church doesn’t need a strategy; the church is the strategy.

I heard a quote the other day that has stuck with me: “The church doesn’t need a strategy. The church is the strategy.” I think that’s absolutely true. The church, the family on mission, was the strategy of Jesus that changed the world and can do it again if we embrace it.

We reached Kfar Nahum at the end of our hike on the Jesus Trail, but I realized that it wasn’t the real destination. Instead, it was a launching pad—the formation of a family that, when it is healthy and growing, makes everyone a part of it healthy, whole, and holy. From there, Jesus and his family of disciples would begin another long walk—Jesus to the cross to complete the mission of saving the world and the disciples to the corners of the earth to tell the story and form new families of faith. The early church didn’t have a strategy. It was the strategy. It still is.

I traveled nearly 7,000 miles to Israel to walk another 40 miles on the Jesus Trail. What I discovered is that I didn’t have to go that far to walk in his footsteps. The risen Christ is still on the move right here in Monument, still looking to build the family through the power of the Holy Spirit, still calling people to be disciples who make disciples.

I look out here at you, the oikos, and the rubrics of preaching dictate that I should give you some application, some series of points on what you should do with this message. Well, after a long walk, all I can tell you is this:

TRAIL

Go be the family of Jesus. Go and be a family on mission. It’s that simple. Go and invite your neighbors into your life. Care for them, love them, get to know them, show them what it means to be part of the family of Jesus. Go and see that Sunday morning soccer game as a chance to model the family of Jesus to those who do not know him. Go and see your coworkers as potential members of the family. Let them see how you live the way of Jesus. Walk across the street, walk around the neighborhood, walk around your workplace and open your life to people so that they might see Christ. That’s the strategy, that’s the destination.

Do that and we will all be on the most important Jesus Trail ever laid out. Amen.