... they went out to seize Him, for they said, "He is beside Himself." (Mark 3:21)
I'm not a big movie-goer and I hardly ever watch the same movie more than once, but there is one film I have seen five or six times, and I'd see it again if I could find it. Evidently, a lot of other people felt the same way about this film, because it ran in one big city movie theater every day for twelve years. The film is called "The King of Hearts," and it has to do with an insane asylum caught up in the middle of World War I.
The patients in this asylum all have child-like minds. They are quite harmless, but they see the world through the eyes of a child. They romp and play with each other, giggling and laughing all day long. They have no sense of maturity or responsibility; it's clear that they just couldn't function in the "real world."
Meanwhile, out in the "real world," the First World War is raging on. Gradually, the war gets closer and closer until one day, the two armies come within artillery distance of the little village where this asylum is located. Someone decides to open the gates to the asylum and let the patients out, presumably so they can run for their lives.
The patients stream out of the gates, thrilled with their first taste of freedom, but instead of running away, they run into the village, which is now totally deserted. They put on police uniforms and shopkeeper clothes; one becomes mayor, another becomes the parson, and so on. It gets quite comical as these asylum inmates take over the town in their own child-like way.
But soon the battle for the village begins and the inmates' innocent joy is swept away before the onrushing tide of war. And the question in the movie becomes: who is mad and who is sane?
Out there in the "real world" - the "sane" world - young men who have never met are trying to kill each other. Young men who don't even know each other are killing and being killed in order to settle an argument started by old men. In one scene, a Scottish regiment appears on the horizon, marching in their kilts with bagpipes blowing; you'd think they were marching off to a parade instead of a war!
Death and destruction are everywhere. The beautiful little village is bombed into rubble and then the armies leave to do the same thing to some other beautiful little village. So, who is mad - the soldiers or the inmates? You watch the harmless play of the patients and then you watch "normal" or "healthy" people kill each other in a brutal war, and it makes you think that maybe the asylum is the only sane place and the rest of the world has lost its mind. Who is mad and who is sane?
That same question is posed by our text this morning. The "normal" people in the village of Nazareth looked at Jesus and called Him mad. "He is beside Himself," they said. "He is possessed by demons. He has lost His mind!"
It doesn't really fit our image of Jesus - the picture we have of a gentle, genial Jesus patting little children on the head and smiling warmly on the crowd - but why might the villagers have said this? Why might they have called Him mad?
Remember that Jesus stood in the tradition of the prophets, and prophets did things that made people wonder about them. Ezekiel took the scroll Scripture was written on and ate it. Isaiah walked around naked and barefoot for three years. John the Baptist came storming out of the desert wearing animal skins and eating bugs. These are not the kind of guys you'd want to invite home after church for a quiet family dinner.
Try to picture what Jesus might have looked like to those who saw Him and knew Him. See the prophet's fire in His eyes as He speaks of the rich, the hypocrites, the scribes or Pharisees. See His long hair blowing in the breeze. See the plain white robe, probably soiled and dirty from time to time (as when He spent forty days alone in the desert). Judging by His appearance, people may well have looked at this Man and said, "He is beside Himself."
See also the people around Him. There are simple, uneducated fishermen. There is a tax collector, despised by every patriotic Jew. There are prostitutes and other women of questionable reputation. These are the disciples of a holy man? Jesus gathered such people together and said that they would enter heaven before the respectable people, the priests and the pious leaders. Judging by the people He had around Him, the villagers may well have looked at Jesus and said, "He is beside Himself."
Then there are the things Jesus did that raised questions in people's minds. He took some mud and mixed it with spittle and made a blind man see. He cast out demons. He charged into the sacred temple and started a riot - is this what a religious man would do? He went to the Cross and proposed to save the world by dying as a common criminal? Judging by the things he did, people may well have looked at Him and said, "He is beside Himself."
With His standing as a prophet, with His appearance, His friends and the things He did, people may have concluded that Jesus was mad. But I suspect that people also called Him mad because He made them uncomfortable. His life, His message, His whole way of thinking were just too radical and hard to bear. Why, Jesus Himself had said that the gate which leads to salvation is narrow; many are called, but "the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matthew 7:14).
So, Jesus Himself expected that the great majority of people would reject His call to turn the world's values upside down and live in God's new kingdom today. He knew people would call Him mad as a way to write Him off, a way to explain Him away. Call Him mad and you don't have to deal with Him. You don't have to deal with the challenge He poses to your life.
Of course, this can also happen to us lesser mortals, born of mere flesh and blood. It happened to a man named Jack Shea, who, in 1963, was a successful, highly-paid executive for an oil company in Dallas. He was a mover and shaker in the conservative circles which run that Texas city.
Then, on November 22, President John Kennedy was killed on the streets of Dallas, and Jack Shea was deeply troubled. He wrote an article for Look magazine about the atmosphere of hate which had been allowed to flourish in his city.
He talked about the right-wing groups, the Ku Klux Klan and others, who had been openly whipping up anti-Kennedy hostility for months with public rallies and radio shows and broadside newspapers. Kennedy, they said, was soft on communism, soft on the Russians and soft on Castro. Kennedy was doing too much for black people. Jack Shea wrote that Dallas had become a hotbed of far-right extremism while people like himself had been silent. Now, the President of the United States was dead.
Soon after he wrote the article, he was forced to resign from the oil company. His friends threw him out of their exclusive country club and made him an outcast. "Shea has gone mad," they said. "He cracked up; he couldn't take the pressure of the oil business." Jack Shea had seared a hole in the conscience of Dallas and people had to find a way to explain him away.1
In the New Testament, being called "mad" was like a badge of honor. It was a sign that you had truly grown beyond the fallen wisdom of this world and taken on the exalted wisdom of God.
There was a man named Festus, a Roman governor, who looked at the apostle Paul and said, "Paul, you are mad. Your great learning [about Jesus Christ] is turning you mad" (Acts 26:24). But Paul was proud to call himself a "fool" for Christ (2 Corinthians 11:21). "I am talking like a madman," he said (11:26), because "The wisdom of this world is folly with God" (1 Corinthians 3:19). Paul delighted in saying things like, "My power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9), because he knew that words like these are a foolish mystery to the world, but to the Christian believer, they are the plain and simple truth.
Who is mad and who is sane? It was said at the end of World War I that, "The only man who came out of this war with His reputation enhanced was Jesus Christ." It goes on and on. The world suffers the bitter fruits of loveless power while Jesus preaches the power of love. Would that we could be mad like Jesus! Would that we could be beside ourselves in Christ.
Who is mad and who is sane? Most people in the world treat their enemies like their enemies and live by the slogan, "Don't get mad, get even." Most people hold grudges and carry around the baggage of anger and resentment, which gets heavier to bear every year.
But Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to overcome our enemies by making them our friends. Do not resist evil with evil, but pray for those who hurt you. The world preaches revenge while Jesus preaches forgiveness. Would that we could be mad like Jesus! Would that we could be beside ourselves in Christ.
Who is mad and who is sane? Most people in the world live for the things of this world. They want what their neighbors have and then they want more. Greed is their creed and wealth is their god. All that matters in life is the "pursuit of happiness," which (for them) means all the things that money can buy.
But Jesus tells us not to live for the things of this world. Live to give and not to get - in marriage, in friendship and in the world - live to give. Be more worried about giving than receiving. Do not accumulate earthly riches, which rust and rot away, but seek instead the riches of the spirit, which last for all eternity. The world preaches selfishness while Jesus preaches service. Would that we could be mad like Jesus! Would that we could be beside ourselves in Christ.
When you love Jesus, you love someone the world calls mad. You love someone who takes the values and priorities and logic of this world and turns them upside down. So, ask yourself now: is there anything in my life that would lead people to say, "He is mad!" In the way I am living, am I enough like my Lord to make people say about me, "She is beside herself?"
Remember that Jesus doesn't want our praises so much as He wants our faithful living. So, are you foolish enough to believe what He said about love and peace and forgiveness? Are you insane enough to believe that Jesus' way can really work in daily life and in the world? Are you crazy enough, like Jack Shea in Dallas, to stand up for what is right even when everyone else is wrong?
I hope you are, because what others call "mad" is what we call the Way, the Truth and the Life.
We Christians can do no better than to have people say about us, "Those people are crazy. They've all lost their minds." We can do no better than to shine Christ's light for all to see, that God's glory may be revealed through our foolishness (1 Corinthians 4:10). This is what Jesus wants for those who live in His name. He is calling us today into a whole new world, a whole new life, into His kingdom which has no end. We only need to be mad enough to follow him there. Amen
Pastoral Prayer: Most Holy God, who inspires people of every age to be all we can be and more than what we are, make us "mad" in the eyes of the world, that we might be faithful in the eyes of heaven. Make us "mad" enough to love our neighbor in a world filled with hate, "mad" enough to give in a world obsessed with gain and "mad" enough to love Your Son, Jesus, and to live first for Him through all the trials and tribulations and temptations of this world. In Jesus' name. Amen
1. This story appears in Robert A. Raines, Creative Brooding, (Collier Books, New York, 1966), pp. 62-63.