Douglas Williams Blog, Leadership

Leading through Failure: Marshall and Unifying China

General George Marshall was tasked with a gargantuan problem at close of World War II. After being instrumental in the Allied victories, and hoping to return to his retreat in Leesburg, VA for a much earned rest, Marshall instead chose to answer the call of President Truman to head up a negotiation mission to China.

Much like western Europe after World War II, China was in the throes of ideological debates, and sometimes outright fighting, between the Nationalists and Communist parties. With China being in close proximity to the Soviets, it was deemed crucial to America’s role in stabilizing the world, and promoting democracy, that negotiations would be carried out in China in order to reach a democratic, consensus government. This was to be Marshall’s task in China.

The China Mission details Marshall’s attempts at negotiations with both sides, even as fighting broke out in Manchuria and other regions, Marshall was heralded on both sides, as a fair and tough-nosed negotiator. However, Chiang knew that in a prolonged skirmish between the Nationalist and Communist forces the might of the U.S. military would be forced to align with his regime. Perhaps because of this, perhaps because of the inability of these Chinese factions to reach much agreement on anything related to a coalition government, Marshall failed to negotiate prolonged peace. China became swept up in a civil war with Mao and Communist forces ultimately declaring a People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

What lessons on leadership are even possible from such an issue as this? Well, Marshall went on to develop one of the largest post-war economic aid propositions in the history of the United States. By sending plane loads and truck fulls of supplies to struggling economies and governments in Europe, Marshall put forth American policy on dealing with the Soviets during the Cold War.

However, much of Marshall’s work in China was seen as a failure. However hard Marshall tried to muster his powers of intellect, persuasion, and discipline on the situation in China, the problem was ultimately too complicated and the personalities he was dealing with were too idealistic and resistant to change.

At some point, failure will happen. The proposal will fail, the initiative will be replaced. The stock market will drop, the business will be sold. What amazes me the most about Marshall is his ability to rebound and exhibit a tremendous amount of grit to pivot from failure in China to Secretary of State and the execution of the Marshall Plan. No one wants to experience failure, but there are times and examples, where failure can be the impetus for something much greater.

 

 

Douglas Williams Blog, Leadership

The Power of Moments

img-book-power-of-momentsWho doesn’t like a moment? Those unforgettable experiences that stay with you weeks and weeks after an event. It’s what memories are mad of, and it’s what most of us use to judge the significance of an experience.

Unfortunately, most of us tend to go through life waiting for moments to occur organically.

We’re usually wired to believe that moments can’t be created. As the faulty logic can sometimes go, who would want a contrived experience? Perhaps the question might be yes if that experience was filled with meaning and significance.

Well, the Heath brothers have done it again by showing us that perhaps one of aspects to your business, community, school, and/or religious organization is a lack of moments. An inattention to the times and opportunities you have to create lasting, meaningful moments for those in your purview. Times of transition, milestones that represent achievement or proficiency, and even pits that can best be described as traumatic are opportunities to think in moments.

Four elements are described in the book as opportunities to create moments: Elevation, Insight, Pride, and Connection.

Elevation. These are times in life that rise above the quotidian. Whether it’s a birthday, wedding, or retirement party, these are moments that already have a peak built into them. What the Heath brothers suggest is to take that peak and make it ‘peakier’.

How might you do this? The first idea is to “boost sensory appeal. This means making things look, sound, and taste better. The second is to raise the stakes. To do this, the Heath brothers suggest adding an element of “productive pressure”. Turning a moment into an event, a performance, or a game, elevates it to another level and increases expectation and buy in. The third idea to to “break the script”, which means that you introduce an experience that goes against common perceptions for how that experience should occur.

Insight. A moment of insight offers a new realization or a transformation. Noticing an aspect of a company, or noticing a part of an experience that you’ve missed before, can help to create insight.

Pride. Moments are elevated when we recognize the contribution, skills, and gifts of others. Scaling accomplishments and setting milestones that are well-defined and increasingly difficult help us to create better moments in our lives. Moments are also created when we have the courage to speak up and share our convictions with others.

Connection. When a group reaches a conclusion of shared meaning, new insight is reached and deeper relationships are formed.

Complacency has killed many institutions. Pursuing vibrant, thoughtful, energetic, and dynamic participation in a community leads to a deeper pursuit of mission and a deeper awareness of the possibilities that exist to make an impact where you want to make an impact.

Douglas Williams Blog, Theology

Sports and Faith: Play, Competition, Identity and Faith

0137_001It’s no secret to anyone working in an independent, Christian school that sports are important and can often become the focus of decisions ranging from hiring teachers to academic scheduling. However, athletics are a value added component and can do much to support academics. No one can argue that the special relationship of coach to athlete has had much success in directing and shaping the lives of millions of students. There are no easy easy answers when we enter these waters, and yet there are points at which we might sink. If you’re looking for a good co-struggler to take with you on this journey at your school, Adam Metz’s Elite? A Christian Manifesto for Youth Sports in the United States offers much guidance to aid you in the struggle between the powers of academics, athletics, and faith.

Writing for the church, Metz seeks to take seriously the cultural role of sports in our world before dealing with the benefits and dangers of athletic competition in the lives of young people. In the first part of Elite?, Metz seeks to provide a theology of sports, focusing on themes of play, competition, and sports as a spiritual power. There is excellent thinking in this book about play as a God ordained joy, connecting our creation as humans to creators of play. Competition is put into a proper theological perspective as Metz analyses not only competition’s ability to increase our performance, but also the danger of competition becoming “nothing more than a perpetuation of a kinesthetically-clothed prosperity gospel.”

However, the most eye-opening part of this discussion for me is when Metz points to sports as a principality and power. Naming the lies families are duped into believing about athletic goals, Metz points out that families:

“…are bound (believing a particular sports lifestyle is their child’s only hope for athletic success), led to where they don’t want to go (finding it a much more consuming commitment than they ever believed possible), unwittingly robbed of their freedom (believing they have spent too much time, money, and energy to let their child quit), and ultimately have their family’s relationship with God negatively impacted.”

Asking families and faith communities to thoughtfully consider their participation in the sports-industrial complex, and the incredible pull of this spiritual power, we can hopefully begin to take more seriously the role of sports in our lives and its damaging impact on families. Discussing the impact sports can have on politics, economics, and education, Metz helps us see the great potential, and harm, that can accompany the joining of sports with other, equally strong, powers.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing adolescents today is the conflict that arises from a pursuit of identity. Devoting a chapter to this topic, Metz is pointing communities to a path where they  take seriously the performance-driven aspect of sports and the accompanying kind of identity formation that is happening through sports. Metz names such phenomenon as athletes, like the star quarterback, exalted as status symbols. This star treatment can have a tremendously negative impact on the development of an adolescent, resulting in entitlement, special treatment, and celebrity status. Often this formation is occurring simply through the ways in which we set up our athletic programs. As Metz deftly points out, “Imagine the dramatic effect that traveling around the country to play in basketball tournaments has on the identity formation of twelve year olds.”

I mentioned above that Metz is a good co-struggler for this conversation around sports and faith, and I mean that with all sincerity. Rather than solely offering a critique of youth-sports in America, Metz, as a father of athletes and a high school football official, offers a unique perspective as someone who loves, values, and is caught up in, the sports-industrial complex. His theological acumen resists easy answers, and he provides categories for schools to honestly and faithfully consider the impact sports are having on adolescents, even as a writer with the local congregation in mind.

Metz encourages congregations to go through a faithful assessment of the degree to which sports impacts their gatherings, advocating a deeper and richer theological conversation on these matters. Additionally, Metz invites us to reconsider the merits of the often overlooked redemptive qualities in “silly” youth group games. If it’s true that we are created by God to play, perhaps one path forward, is simply to create more space for true play, even for our most serious athletes.

Douglas Williams Blog

Relationship and the Presence of God

Relationship. We believe spiritual formation occurs within a context of strong relationships. We seek to build mentorships with students in order to deepen their spiritual development.

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Ever since I was 8 years old I’ve spent a week of my summer at Carolina Bible Camp in Mocksville, North Carolina. Now, I have missed a few summers. There was the one summer I was working as an intern in Falls Church, Virginia. Even then, I made a trip down and back in 24 hours. There was also the summer Elizabeth and I were expecting our daughter, and the doctor cautioned us against taking a trip across the mountains from Nashville. Then there was this summer where we initially decided we were too busy, but then changed our minds and made the trip to North Carolina for the second half of camp.

I’ve thought a lot about what’s kept me going back, from a camper, to staff, through college and even with kids. I think the answer is pretty simple. It’s the relationships. I had the opportunity to make some great friends at camp, and I’ve also had the opportunity to meet adults who were important in mentoring and walking with me through life.

When it comes to working with students, there’s a lot of talk about the importance of relationships. But why do we talk about relationships and what do we see as being important regarding the relationships we make? In ministry, it often seems like it’s friendship with thin veneer of Jesus.

Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

I think ultimately where we go wrong in thinking about our relationships in ministry is thinking that the relationship is only a means to an end. In other words, we “use” the relationship to get to some other end like a faith commitment.

However, what if the relationship wasn’t a means to an end, but the actual meat and substance of ministry? What if, as Root states in Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry, in “The I-you relationship of person meeting person is the place where the transcendent otherness of God encounters us both.”

By being known, and knowing others, at camp, I became free to enter into the true humanity Jesus is calling me to pursue. Looking back, I’m thankful that it was in the relationships that God’s presence was mediated to me, finding others who were willing to carry my burdens, and being trusted enough to help carry the burdens of others.

Photo by Mariam Soliman on Unsplash

Douglas Williams Blog

At Tommy’s Bar-B-Que

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“What’ll you have honey?”

“I’d like a Bar-B-Que sandwich, french fries and a sweet tea, please.” I order without even looking at the menu.

I take a seat in the middle of the counter where I can look through the window into the kitchen.

“You want Bar-B-Que slaw on that?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And you wanted sweet tea to drink?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You’re so polite.”

I don’t really say anything to this because I was unconsciously taught not to accept a compliment. I’m saved from more talking by the arrival of my sweet tea.

I unpack my straw and take a draw on my drink. I look over my shoulder at the people and the restaurant around me. I bet I haven’t been inside this place in over a decade. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has changed.

I look over at the booths and think about where my friend Phillip and I would eat after going to the YMCA when we were home on summer break from college. Eating here with him was probably the last time I was in Tommy’s.

My food comes in less than five minutes. I take the sandwich out of the basket of fries, unwrap it, and I load up the space left from my sandwich with ketchup.

By this time the waitress has already refilled the few sips I’ve taken from my tea.

“Thank you.”

Then I bite into my sandwich.

I’m not a person who generally goes out looking for mystical experiences, but what happens in the split second after I take a bite is nothing short of a miracle. In an instant I’m transported back to a cold fall night. I’m at Tommy’s with my dad, and we’re grabbing a sandwich before going to watch the Thomasville Bulldogs play football on their way to another state championship game. In my mind it’s already dark outside even though it’s supper time. We’re sitting in the back seating area, and the place is packed. There’s a buzz in the air as people are waiting to eat before going to the game.

I quickly come to my senses and realize it’s 11:30 am on a Thursday in July.

It’s the way the bread gets just a little bit soggy. The way the Bar-B-Que hits the slaw. It is exactly the same as it was, not just 10 years ago, but almost 25 years ago. It’s probably been exactly the same for longer than that.

I take my time eating. I want to savor not only the sandwich, but my time at home.

As I leave, I think about the meals I’ve had this summer. It wasn’t too many weeks ago that I was eating on Rue Cler in Paris. Now I’m at Tommy’s Bar-B-Que. To be honest, I’m not sure which one I enjoyed more.

As I leave I get one more refill of sweet tea, pay at the cash register, and head out. For just that split second, I was home again.

 

Douglas Williams Blog, Home, Spiritual Formation

The Spiritual Discipline of Learning a Language

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I was driving to Publix Sunday afternoon and on the way there and back I was able to catch a few snippets of Krista Tippett’s interview with Cory Booker, U.S. Senator from New Jersey. Cory was discussing his mornings with Krista, outlining practices that help him stay energized and focused. He had some of the usual practices you might expect – meditation, exercise – but he added another that made me take note. Senator Booker uses 10 minutes of his mornings to study Spanish, and he sees this as a spiritual discipline.

I thought this was an interesting idea, and I wanted to do some thinking about the connections between learning a language and faith formation. So, here are three ways I think learning a language is a spiritual discipline.

  1. For the Sake of Others –  If a major aspect of spiritual formation is learning to think outside of yourself and to think about others, learning a new language gives you the opportunity to open up worlds of customs, language, and culture that would be previously unavailable. Booker latches onto this idea in his interview, connecting his pursuit of Spanish as a way of building relationships with other humans.

    In Invitation to a Journey, Mulholland makes the audacious claim that “If you want a good litmus test of your spiritual growth, simply examine the nature and quality of your relationships with others.” Mulholland goes on to claim that “Our relationships with others are not only the testing grounds of our spiritual life but also the places where our growth towards wholeness in Christ happens.” Growing in relationships and making connections with people different from you fosters spiritual growth. How might learning language help us in this endeavor?

  2. Teaches Process – Nobody learns a world language in a day. It’s a process that can last years and years. I know a missionary who has lived in France for over 40 years and he said it took three years after moving to France to fully comprehend the language. This was after spending considerable time in college studying French. Spiritual growth happens in a similar way.

    Again, Mulholland, but this time on the process of spiritual formation, “There simply is no instantaneous event of putting your quarter in the slot and seeing spiritual formation drop down where you can reach it, whole and complete.” The starts and stops of learning a language opens you up to learning the process of going through a process.

  3.  The Ends of the Earth – God’s church is global. It’s not confined to the United States or to Mexico or Kenya. Jesus followers very early on saw God’s spirit working to spread Jesus’ gospel around the world. As Jesus claims in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus followers have a global mindset.

    So, of course, learning a world language takes you outside of the parameters of when you were born, your culture, its norms and mores, and very quickly ushers you into another culture where distinct practices give you the opportunity to reflect on your own culture. Philip Jenkins has done considerable work on investigating the global nature of Christianity, especially its rise in the global south. Reflecting on the nature of this worldwide view, Jenkins claims, “Looking at Christianity as a planetary phenomenon, not merely a Western one, makes it impossible to read the New Testament in quite the same way ever again. The Christianity we see through this exercise looks like a very exotic beast indeed, intriguing, exciting, and a little frightening.” What if we showed our students, through the study of language, a faith that extends beyond our preconceived borders?

What if our conscious attending to language development helped to give us a deeper sense of God’s presence and work in our lives? How might it change our courses, and our students, to see their pursuit of language in this way?

Douglas Williams Blog, Resources

The World According to Generation Z

genz-cover-4.pngThis past month (January 2018), the Barna group released a study on what they’re calling the next, next generation – Generation Z. This group is composed of those born between 1999-2015, and the oldest in this group is this year’s college freshman. As someone who works in a secondary school context, I’m interested in better understanding my students and how they interact with their world. This study provides some help in this area – though thinking beyond the information and determining how this might impact practice, is a layer I’ve yet to enter. Here’s Generation Z in a nutshell:

1. They Are Screenagers
It’s difficult to talk about this generation without starting to talk about technology. In short, they’ve grown up with it ways that no other generation before them has, and their social lives flow through technology in ways that they never have before. This generation is physically safer than any previous generation, but they are more prone to anxiety and psychological problems. There is an incessant burden they feel to represent their best self online.

2. Their World-View is Post-Christian
The percentage of Generation Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population, rising from 7% to 13%. 34% will say they have no religious affiliation. One reason for this is that perhaps it is becoming more acceptable to self-identify as atheist, which is resulting in the higher ratings.

3. “Safe- Spaces” Are Normal
To make another person uncomfortable, or to disagree with them, is a real aversion for Generation Z. This has shown up in their own life with trigger warnings and safe spaces, designed, and rightly so, to keep those who have experienced traumatic events from reliving them. However, the negative side of this comes to play when a student is reluctant or unable to make a declarative statement for fear that someone might disagree or take offense. This can also result in anxiety and indecision in the face of an important decision.

4. Real Safety is A Myth
Students in Generation Z have never grown up in a country not at war or involved in some major conflict. Their childhood was marked by 9/11, which has resulted in a view of the world that is not very optimistic. For those born earlier in the generation, their social awareness came to light around the 2008 recession, which has impacted their view of the world by giving them more of a dystopian slant. It’s suggested that this is seen in the books and movies that have become popular in their teenage years.

5. They Are Diverse
This generation is marked the acceptance, and perhaps the elevation, of women and non-whites over white-males. For Generation Z, diversity is not a protocol or a buzzword, it’s just their world. This is most notably seen in the fact that among the Kindergarten class of 2016 there was no ethnic majority among students. The impact of growing up in this milieu is uncertain, but could result in this generation becoming wary or unsupportive of organizations that don’t meet their accepted standard of diversity.

6. Their Parents Are Double-Minded
Studies are suggesting that parents are themselves split over the best way to raise this generation, with parents split between a helicopter style and one that is under-protective. Researchers are seeing both of these styles in parents and have thus dubbed them ‘double-minded’. When it comes to notions of safety and security, parents seem to be willing to go the extra mile and will do what they can to make sure their children are safe. However, the helicopter style seems to evaporate when it comes to technology and technology use. Generally speaking, parents seem to abdicate responsibility in this area, opting for little to no restrictions on Wi-Fi, social media, and phone use.

More good information is available at this site, as well as a link with information on these six points and more. Of course, the big question becomes what we do with this information. How will we more effectively teach and mentor this generation in our schools and churches?

 

 

 

 

 

Douglas Williams Blog, Leadership

Martin Luther as Leader

With 2017 being the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I felt somewhat compelled to read Eric Metaxas’ biography on Martin Luther. Metaxas dispels a number of biographical rumors and inaccuracies related to Luther’s life, but I found a section on Luther’s leadership as the Reformation was beginning to sweep through the German states especially poignant and relevant to our own world.

A bit of context before I share a quote from Metaxas.

Pope Leo X and the emperor Charles V colluded to bring Luther, the rabble-rousing monk, before an official gathering of church and state officials to decide his fate. In a very real way, Luther’s life was on the line at the Diet of Worms where he famously made the proclamation, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”  In order to save Luther’s life, Frederick the wise crafted a plan to have Luther kidnapped and kept safe in a castle tower in Wartburg. It will be here that Luther begins to translate the New Testament to German, and it is also while Luther is here that others begin to take his ideas and run with them, often in ways that run contrary to Luther’s sensibilities.

One Reformation leader in particular, Andreas Karlstadt, begins to force practices on communities as it relates to Communion. It was a common practice for the priest to take both elements, the bread and wine, but for congregants to only take the communion wafer. In Luther’s absence, Karlstadt began to decree that true members of the church would take both Communion elements, inflaming believers throughout many German cities.

When news of this finally reached Luther in the Warburg castle, he was dismayed to hear how forceful and impractical Karlstadt was being with the implementation of Communion. All of this deeply troubles Luther who believes the Reformation is being taken over by sloppy thinking and forceful practices. Luther appeals to Christian freedom, noting that there will be some who choose to take both elements and others who choose to abstain from the wine. For Luther, a person’s conscience is not easily dismissed.

Reflecting on this time in Luther’s life, Metaxas writes these words about Luther as a leader:

Luther’s genious and what made him the unquestioned leaders of his movement comprised two things. First, he had the all-important pastor’s hear, such that he was deeply concerned not merely with being right but with how what one said affected the simple faithful. Luther knew that some had felt pushed too quickly and too hard by the changes that Karlstadt…had championed…One must be concerned for those who are not yet fully on board and must bring them along patiently. So to be right required being right not just in what one did and said but in the way one did and said things.

It’s clear that there’s something for leaders to consider when it comes to being right, not just in what you say or believe, but right in how you say and do.

Douglas Williams Blog

She Belongs Among the Wildflowers

roksolana-zasiadko-112871“Look at the light in the trees, it’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“Yes”, she said, “It is beautiful.”

It wasn’t too long after this that I was a sobbing mess in the driver’s seat of my car, hauling it out of the suburbs, to get my daughter to kindergarten. I usually don’t cry during my morning my commute but that dastardly Mr. Steve the Music Man caught me off guard by playing a flawless cover of Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” by Audrey Spillman on his Early Birds radio show.

I was an emotional wreck for the rest of the ride.

Tributes to Tom Petty have been abundant in the last few days, but there was something about this song, at this time, in this place, that broke me down.

What did me in was when I made the mistake of glancing in my rearview mirror. Sunlight was streaming through my daughter’s already golden hair as she gazed through the window. I knew in that moment that I couldn’t keep her safely buckled in the backseat of my car forever. A day is coming, and coming way too soon, when I’ll let her wander because I love her so much.

Tom’s words and music, the way he captured the pain and joy of letting someone you love go, came crashing down upon me in my Honda Accord as I thought about the little life I was ferrying to school.

Richard Rohr taught me to look for ‘thin places’ in life. These are times, experiences, even locations, where the perceived chasm between heaven and earth is taken away and the two are one, back the way it’s supposed to be.

I was caught terribly off guard this morning when the cabin of my sedan became such a place.

Thanks Audrey and Mr. Steve.

Douglas Williams Blog, Mark, Theology

Mark 3:7-35: A lake, a mountain, and a home

Jesus TeachesIn Mark 3:7-35, Jesus goes to a lake, a mountain, and an unidentified home. In all of these places, Jesus will be surrounded by people. At the lake crowds are pressing in so that Jesus must retreat to a boat before he is crushed. At the house, Mark tells us that the crowds were so thick and troublesome, Jesus and his disciples were unable to eat. In between, he takes a hike up a mountain.

After the Pharisees begin to plot with the Herodians over how they might end Jesus’ life, Mark has Jesus retreating with his disciples to  the lake, the Sea of Galilee. Jesus tries to withdraw, but the people draw near. Mark is keen to tell us that all kinds of people, from “Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon”, came to see Jesus. Everyone wants to see this man for themselves. I tend to think about Jesus being surrounded by a nice orderly crowd, but, based on Jesus’ request for a boat, it seems this crowd was anything but serene. Those with diseases are pressing to be near him and those with unclean spirits see Jesus, they fall down in front of him and identify him as the Son of God. Jesus tells them to be quiet.

Jesus then goes to a mountainside, and Mark tells us that Jesus calls to him those he wanted, which I think contrasts nicely with the crowds gathering to see him. Jesus then appoints twelve to be those who are sent out to accomplish two things: 1) preach and 2) to drive out demons on the authority and based on the commission from Jesus. The location of a mountain always brings to my mind the giving of the Law to Moses, who ascends, receives the message from God, and brings it back to the people. Jesus does something different here. He calls those he is empowering to the mountain, sending them out to be heralds of God as king and the kingdom of heaven as the dominant socio-political force in the world.

In the third act of this section, Jesus goes into an unidentified house. This time the commotion was so great that Jesus and his disciples weren’t even able to sit and enjoy a meal together. Two accusations are leveled at Jesus. The first comes from his family, “He is out of his mind!”. The second comes from the teachers who had come down from Jerusalem to protest, ““He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.” Jesus will deal first with the teachers of the law and then his family.

To the teachers of the law, Jesus makes it clear that a divided kingdom will never stand. If Jesus is possessed, how is he able to drive out demons from those who are possessed with a demon. Why would Satan allow such a thing to happen? You can’t rob a strong man’s house without first tying him up and them taking what he has. The lesson here is that Jesus has bound Satan and is able to rob him of those whom he has possessed.

Jesus takes his rhetoric one step further. Instead of simply refuting the teachers of the law and moving on, he offers a harsh judgement against them and their particular brand of self-righteousness. If the religious leaders are the ones saying Jesus has an impure spirit, they are failing to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the ‘eternal sin’ Jesus mentions.  There’s endless speculation over this, but I think it’s the failure to recognize the work of God’s spirit – attributing the work of God to the work of Satan.

In verse 31, Jesus’ mother and brothers make an appearance so that he might deal with the accusation they brought against him, that he was out of his right mind. They ask to see Jesus by sending someone in to visit with him. I wonder why Jesus’ family didn’t go into see him themselves. Were there too many people? Did they not want to associate with the rowdy people who were clamoring to see Jesus? Were they afraid for their own safety? The spokesperson tells Jesus that his family is looking for him. I think this is an odd way of phrasing this because other people had been looking for Jesus and had obviously found him. Why wouldn’t his family enter the house and look for him themselves? Jesus rhetorically asks, “Who are my mother and brothers?” He answers it by claiming that those who draw near to him and do the God’s will is his brother and mother.

People, crowds of people, bookend these three scenes. There’s a mix of swarming crowds gathering around Jesus and his disciples who are sent to the swarming crowds. In a culture that was heavily organized by societal hierarchies and peppered with the importance of family, Jesus does something radical here when he appeals to the crowds. He accepts them (he doesn’t even know them) and claims that those who do his will are his closest relatives (which means he gives a back seat to his closest relatives).

Roman emperors knew the power of the populous masses and sought to control them with a variety of tactics. The Roman writer Juvenal passes along the policy of Emperor Augustus whereby the Plebians would be appeased with ‘bread and circuses’. In other words, you’ve got to give the people what they want, food and entertainment, or they’ll revolt against you. The gladiator battles and hippodrome races where a major aspect to this policy. Jesus isn’t simply appeasing the crowds. He’s meeting their needs at a deeper, more intimate level. This isn’t appeasement. It’s fulfillment.

For Mark, King Jesus has fully assumed control of his kingdom. He has brought good news and peace (1:1), had a royal servant prepare his path (1:2-4), received divine recognition as a Son of God (1:11), communicated his platform (1:15), gathered his inner council (1:16-20), battled against the warring powers (1:23-26), initiated his welfare policy (1:32-34), debated other religious-political leaders (Mark 2), trained his inner council to act on his behalf (3:13-19), received adulation from crowds (3:7-12), and settled the question about the inheritance of his crown (3:34-35).