Outsiders who think we are in

Mark 4:1-34

There’s a line in this reading from Mark 4 that has always bugged me. It is the part where Jesus is supposed to be explaining things to the disciples and the other people in his inner circle, and he says, “The secret of God’s kingdom has been given to you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables. This is so that they can look and see but have no insight, and they can hear but not understand. Otherwise, they might turn their lives around and be forgiven.”

I wonder if this bugs some of you as well? I mean, shouldn’t Jesus want people to understand, to turn their lives around and to be forgiven? Is he saying here that that’s not the goal?

On the surface level, this passage offers us an excuse to be the worst versions of ourselves. After all, if Jesus didn’t intend for other people to understand because they are no-good rotten jerks, then presumably those are the people we don’t like already, because we know we are the insiders, ergo the people I don’t like must be the outsiders. If we understand it this way, Jesus may be suggesting that we are on the inside, they are on the outside, and that’s how it’s always going to be. ]

But there’s a huge problem with that interpretation. Fast forward only fifteen verses and Jesus tells the disciples and the other wise guys, “Listen carefully! God will evaluate you with the same standard you use to evaluate others.”

Listen carefully! If you evaluate others and determine they are the ones on the outside, then Jesus is going to hold you to the same standard. And what is that standard? Well, he already told us! The standard is that we understand and interpret the parables correctly. And how shall we interpret the parables correctly? Again, Jesus has already told us the interpretation: He is the Son of God, he is the one who embodies God’s word for the world, he is the one coming to die for the sake of the world, so follow him. And how do the disciples do with this interpretation?

Uh oh. Here’s the big problem: The disciples fail every single time. In Mark’s Gospel, the disciples are the biggest blockheads of all. Whenever Jesus tells them that he has come to die they laugh it off and start preparing his throne for the eventual overthrow of the Roman government that they are expecting. Every time he tells them not to share about the miraculous healings because the only miracle that matters is the empty tomb they laugh him off and tell anybody and everybody about the super cool miracle they just saw.

According to Jesus in Mark 4, the disciples are held to the same as the other people they are evaluating, yet the disciples are just as big and dumb as the people on the outside are, which means we are left with only one possibility: The disciples, who are presumably the insiders, are actually the outsiders—just like the rest of us.

Suddenly, if you see the disciples as outsiders to the kingdom of God, this passage takes on a whole different light. After all, Jesus told us to “Listen carefully!” Use your heads! If the disciples are outsiders, then there are no insiders, and if there are no insiders, then every one of us will misinterpret the parables. There’s a subtle message here for us that is crucially important: We don’t trust in the parables, since our interpretation of them is bound to be wrong. We trust in Jesus.

That’s all Jesus wants of us.

So, with those eyes, let’s return to this troubling verse again. “The secret of God’s kingdom has been given to you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables.” The first blush interpretation of Jesus’ words is that the disciples get it because they are the insiders, except we know now that that isn’t the case. They don’t get it. So, what is Jesus talking about when he says “the secret of God’s kingdom has been given you…”?

Well, what is Jesus always talking about in Mark’s Gospel?

It’s always about the crucifixion and the resurrection. It’s always about Jesus’ own personal mission of redemption for all humankind. The secret of God’s kingdom is not the interpretation of the parable. The secret of God’s kingdom is the one bringing the parable! It’s about Jesus himself, as it always is.

Suddenly, it all makes sense, even that last part that so bugs me that reads, “Otherwise, they might turn their lives around and be forgiven.” If the point of Jesus’ ministry was to turn around our lives, then yes, that would be what it’s all about. If that were the point, then at the end of our lives we would be judged on our interpretation of the parables. It would be you, standing in front of God, with a #2 pencil in your hand and one of those blue books with the prompt, “Explain the parable of the mustard seed” and on the chalkboard behind God there would be the grading scale: Score 100% or go to hell.

See, that’s the kind of world we think we want—the one where we are the insiders who have the secret knowledge and others are the outsiders beyond the possibility of forgiveness—because we are just like the disciples. We secretly (or not-so-secretly) want people to be judged harshly. We want to know all the super-secret test answers and we want them to struggle. The disciples are us. And if the world were saved according to this understanding of the parables, then that’s exactly the situation we would find ourselves. But Jesus knows better, because Jesus knows that every one of us would fail that test. After all, Jesus gives the disciples the answers straight to their faces and they still have no clue who he really is, as it says in the very last verse: “³⁴ He spoke to them only in parables, then explained everything to his disciples when he was alone with them.”

If anybody would have understood, it was the disciples, but they were just as lost as everybody. Remember, in Mark’s Gospel only the demons know who he really is. So, we’re left with this: Your salvation is not dependent on understanding what Jesus is saying. How could it be? So, better check your ideas of who is an insider and who is an outsider. It may very well be that the person you so despise stands precisely where you stand—a sinner in need of grace. Thankfully, according to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has only one purpose and one direction for his life, and that is to save sinners such as us. Outsiders who think we are in.