July 8, Ordinary 14B (Mark 6:1-13)

My final exam in bowling was broadcast over the college radio station. I needed to pass in order to meet the physical education requirement for graduation. Fortunately the bowling gods were on my side, and I threw my cap to the wind a few days later. The bowling idea came after judo, where I had a harder time. Fascinated by the new wave of kung fu films, I enrolled in the first-level judo class—twice, taking incompletes both times. For the life of me, I couldn’t learn to fall.

In Mark 6, Jesus and the disciples arrive in Jesus’ hometown. The story, often titled “Rejection in Nazareth,” is providently placed just as Jesus prepares to take the training wheels off and send the Twelve out on their first missionary foray apart from him. As much as I enjoy casting the disciples in the role of clueless foils, I can draw a straight line from their fumbling and bumbling to my own. Both as a teacher and as a learner, I’m struck by the way Mark documents this introduction to discipleship class. Rather than seeing the Twelve as clueless dimwits, I see them as freshmen. And there are few things that make me feel more fragile and frightened than being a flat-out beginner.

Mark 1–5 gives an excellent overview of the 101 class as Jesus starts to train the people who’ve been set apart to replicate his ministry. Jesus’ pedagogy includes verbal teaching, eliciting questions, and demonstrating core competencies; his content covers such subjects as “The Buzz about Beelzebul” and “Family Is Relative.” Midway through the semester, Jesus introduces the concept of a “master story,” meant to contextualize their whole mission going forward. “Listen up!” he says, as he begins unpacking the parable of the soils, “you might want to remember this—it’s going to be on the midterm.” Following the tutorial on “Start Small, Think Big” (lessons learned from a mustard seed), Jesus herds the Twelve onto a boat so he can teach them to tame their fear of disequilibrium. And then it’s off to the tombs for “Ownership Transfer: The Ins and Outs of Exorcism.” Finally, when repeated interruptions force him to alter his teaching plan, Jesus offers an impromptu lesson: “How to Stop Time.”