Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2024, Dr. Tamilio

You know the saying: people don’t like change.  It’s true.  The older we get, the more resistant we are to it.  There are several reasons for this.  Rosabeth Moss Kanter, writing for the Harvard Business Review, cites ten of them.  The one she lists first is “loss of control.”  Kanter writes, “Change interferes with autonomy and can make people feel that they’ve lost control over their territory.”[1]  I agree and would add that it is also a sign that we are aging.  Pink Floyd put it eloquently:

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun

But it’s sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again

The sun is the same in a relative way

But you’re older

Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death[2]

Any single change reminds us that everything is changing — especially us!  Each year, each day, we get older.  One day we will no longer be here.  All change reminds us of that.

Plus, people are creatures of habit.  We like routines.  Most of what we do is the result of thought and practice.  We go to bed, we wake up, we brush our teeth, we go to work, and we eat our meals at roughly the same time every day.  When that changes, we have to change the way we think and act.  It disrupts the patterns we are used to.  The bigger the change, the bigger the disruption.  Even change for the better takes getting used to.

Believe me, the older I get the more I long for stability, too.  I have a habit of re-watching movies that I love, ones that I’ve seen dozens of times.  I read classic literature as opposed to the latest novel on the New York Times bestseller list.  There is something comfortable in the familiar.  Anything new or unknown may be exciting for some, but for many it is a shock to the system.

Maybe we can understand (at least in part) the uproar that Jesus caused among the establishment.  By establishment I mean the Jewish leaders of his day.  These people — the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the priests — believed, as do many people today, in following the letter of the Law.  I do not mean the laws of the land.  I mean the Law that is central to the Jewish faith: the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, the Law of Moses.  They were literalists: if it says it in the Torah, then it must be followed.

Jesus, however, introduced a new teaching.  Mind you, it wasn’t meant to replace the Law.  Jesus himself said, “Think not that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17).  He said this quite early in his Sermon on the Mount.  Think about it: his inaugural teaching, one his most important and often cited lessons, begins with him saying, “I did not come to do away with your religious rules.  I have come to fulfill them.”  But the way he sought to fulfill them — those religious rules — were not what people expected.  Jesus taught with a new authority shedding fresh light onto teachings held near and dear to centuries of Jews.  In other words, he was offering a new teaching, at least a new perspective on long-held beliefs.  He was bringing about change.

The religious leaders of his day did not like change any more than we do.  However, Jesus’ new teachings (with authority) challenged the authority of the religious elite.  People in authority do not want their positions of power challenged.  These religious leaders would soon go to extreme lengths to silence Jesus.  They had him crucified.

There is so much we can say about this, but I want to stick with the reading for today, and what Mark declares.  Jesus presents a new teaching with authority.  He presents the Gospel.

The very word “gospel” means “good news,” which is why we use those words synonymously.  It is good news for many reasons.  First, it brings a word of hope to those in utter despair.  We’ve mentioned many times before how at this point in history the Jews were oppressed by the Romans who ruled their land with an iron hand.  But the Good News wasn’t just for them.  It was for the Gentile world as well.  You can argue that it was primarily for them.  The Jews already had a covenantal relationship with God.  One could say that they were already in “good” with the father.  Jesus drew the circle even larger to include those who were not children of Abraham.  These were the forlorn of the forlorn.  These are the people who had no standing in Roman culture and just as little when it came to the religious leaders of Israel.  The Gentiles were truly outsiders — strangers in a strange land among strange faiths.  Jesus welcomed them into the fold.  You can imagine how that stoked the ire of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  This was new.  It was a change.

Why should we think that the Jews of Jesus’ day were any less resistant to change than we are?  This new teaching with authority must have shaken their foundations.  But it was changed for the better.  Not only was it inclusive, but it also brought healing to the sick, deliverance to the possessed, hope to the forlorn, light to those who lived in darkness, and peace to the distressed.

But even good change is difficult.  It rattles anyone who is used to an old way.  My daughter Sarah has had a severe tree nut allergy her entire life.  She gets tested every few years.  She’s done so since she was two.  The results are always the same: off the charts, keep the EpiPen on hand.  She is now 27 and was just recently retested.  The initial results show that she is now only allergic to walnuts.  She can finally have chocolate-covered almonds, pistachio ice cream, and hazelnut coffee.  Even though she is overjoyed, there is a melancholy cloud over her.  The way she explains it, she has had to be hyper-aware of anything she ever ate — always inspecting labels carefully; and telling waiters and waitresses that she has a severe nut allergy.  Although she is now relieved that she does not always have to do this as much anymore, it is a bit of a strange awakening for her.  She is so used to telling people she has a nut allergy, she is so used to looking at ingredients, that she feels uncomfortable not doing it.  Here you have a clear change for the better that still brings apprehension.

Mind you, not all change is good.  Change just for the sake of change makes no more sense than not changing things because you fear change.  We worship a Lord who is changeless.  As the writer of Hebrews claims, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8).  That is the one constant.  That is the rock you can stand upon that will never move.  His new teaching with authority offers life and salvation to all who accept it.  Indeed, as we just sang just a moment ago, “How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word.”  Indeed, his excellent changeless Word.  Amen.

[1] Rosabeth Moss Kanta, “Ten Reasons People Resist Change,” from Harvard Business Review (September 25, 2012): online.

[2] Pink Floyd, “Time,” from The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973.  Lyrics by Roger Waters.