Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13
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In looking at today’s Gospel reading from Mark, I can’t help but notice that Mark is giving us a near perfect illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Perhaps some of you are nodding your heads in agreement, but I suspect others are wondering what I’m on about...
Perhaps a bit more explanation is needed. The Dunning-Kruger effect was named for two social researchers in the late nineteen nineties. Doctors David Dunning and Justin Kruger noticed that people tended to overestimate their own skills in areas they didn’t know much about. For example, I may have flown a Boeing triple seven in a computer flight simulation game, so I think I’m ready to actually fly the plane... But, if you’re getting on the plane and see me in the cockpit, here is my advice to you: get off now.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is that I don’t know enough to know that I don’t know much. What I lack in knowledge I make up for in confidence – ill placed confidence.
Now why should I think Mark is illustrating this effect in this Gospel reading? Let's look at the passage. We have Jesus arriving back in Nazareth after a very successful tour through the Galilee. Lots of folks have been healed. He has been a popular teacher. And he has earned a very fine reputation. But in Nazareth he bumps into the hometown crowd. They were not with him on the Galilean tour. Yet they are quite certain that they know Jesus best. They are the experts on Jesus. But they are experts in a Dunning-Kruger sort of way...
They are not about to let new information get in the way of what they know. They know Jesus to be the son of Mary. They know his brothers and sisters. They know Jesus is a carpenter, not a teacher, not a healer, not a miracle worker. They don’t know enough about Jesus to let him out of the box they think Jesus should be in – the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Perhaps Dunning-Kruger is a little too modern to be relevant. How about the Rule of St Benedict? One of Benedict’s great worries in the rule is that we will engage in grumbling. In Benedict’s mind it is one of the most offensive things you can do.
It's not hard to understand why St Benedict is so opposed to grumbling. It is destructive, highly toxic, and once it gets its foot in the door, it's very hard to drive away. And this is what the hometown folks are doing. They know Jesus to be a small-town guy. Who does he think he is preaching and teaching and performing miracles. Grumble, grumble, grumble...
Just look at how toxic and powerful their grumbling is. Jesus is unable to do any deeds of power. These narrow-minded hometown folks manage to disempower, to neutralize the second person of the Trinity... We have to give them an “A” for achievement... Disempowering God is no small thing.
But of course, we’re not here to grumble about Jesus’ friends and family... We’re here to learn about how to be better followers of Jesus. Grumbling takes us just in the opposite direction.
It's curious that Mark, in this Gospel story, seems to be using Jesus’ friends and family as bad examples... as examples of how not to faithfully follow Jesus. This is a role normally reserved for Pharisees... We might consider that Mark is giving us a very simple, binary sort of story: don’t do that... do this... Don’t be like the hometown crowd – be like the disciples.
If the first part of this Gospel passage is an instruction on what not to do, then the second part takes us down the path of what we should be doing. Jesus goes out and teaches and heals people and calls the disciple, and by extension us, to do the same.
The people of Jesus’ time lived in a pre-medical world – they did not have our understanding of how illness works. They did not understand how infections or diseases spread. We have moved away from a belief in possession by demonic spirits as the source of illness. So, it can be a bit challenging to try to understand what scripture may be saying to us – especially for those who feel compelled to take Scripture as literal truth.
Jesus gives the disciples authority over unclean spirits. I’m not at all sure what to do with that authority. Though Mark does give us some clues about what we are not to do. We are not to use this authority to enrich ourselves.
We are to seek out those in need and provide what help we can. And we are to do so in a modest and humble way. Mark is severe rather than florid, as Father Huntington might say... No second tunic, no extra clothes, nothing to eat, no bag, no money... How can we reconcile this with the image of a modern mega-preacher flying in a private jet to an arena filled with a cheering crowd to preach the Gospel of Prosperity with this instruction? That is an easy question for me.
More challenging for me is how do we reconcile the lives we live in the Order of the Holy Cross with this instruction... I don’t think it’s a question we answer once but rather a question we answer day by day – in word and in deed, in humility and in love.
Jesus calls the disciples is to carry the message of God’s love to the world and, as Martin Luther King clarified for us, justice is the calculation, the expression of God’s love. In the world of Mark, showing God’s love was not all that complicated... teach, heal, make whole. It may be more complex in this day and age, but maybe not... We know we are to feed the hungry, comfort the suffering, visit prisoners, teach and bring light to those who live in darkness. The opportunities to do these things are more plentiful now than ever – something for which we should feel sorrow.
There are endless ways to show and share God’s love. But at some essential level, there is only one task – be God’s messengers. Share the gospel in word and deed.
If we don’t want to live in a Dunning-Kruger world, then there is another thing we need to consider. We need to look at the questions that we ask and especially how we ask them. The way we frame our questions also frames our answers.
Jesus’ hometown crowd framed their questions in ways that diminished Jesus. Isn’t this Mary’s son? Don’t we know his family? Isn’t he a carpenter, like his father? Essentially, they are asking if Jesus is a fraud? And in their minds, they know the answers to their questions before they ask.
If our question is something like, how might I share God’s love with the people of this world, then our answers are going to be filled with people and with love. If our question is something like, how might I fix the broken people of this world, then my answers are going to be filled with broken people. If I ask how to get sinners from the wrong path to the right path, then my answers will be filled with sinners. For my answers to be truly Christlike, they need to be filled with love.
Often, especially in matters of faith, the questions are more important than answers.
But in our contemporary world there is something worrisome – questions that are not really questions at all... questions that are meant to be toxic... questions that are meant to end discussions, not open new possibilities.
Sadly, in our contemporary civil society toxic questions have become normal. Our political discourse is filled with them. And the defense for such toxic questions is typically something like I’m just asking a question.
Asking toxic questions is dangerous. In the world of Benedict, framing your grumbling in the form of a question is still grumbling. It is still deadly. Benedict has no patience for it. And more ominous – it is unfaithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus.
The one thing God calls us to is love. We are to start by loving the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and strength; and we are to love our neighbors and ourselves. Jesus comes into our world because God loves us so deeply. Our task in following Jesus is to receive and share that love.
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