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home is a policy MS word, home is one's place of residence, home could be a single house , home could mean a social unit, especially a family, more abstract li home could also refer to

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a familiar or comfortable setting like our seminary. So all of you, the A. P. T . S. Community, student faculty staff and my dear members of the board of trustees welcome home home

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could also mean a place of origin, your hometown , your home country, that is where you are from. People often often ask my wife and me , where are you from when I was at home

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, that is my home country. Um I was not often asked that question, but here in the diaspora of course, from my perspective, that is the question that people ask me regularly, where is

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your home? Where are you from? Where am I from? Who am I? Today's passage in Mark begins with a simple sentence. Then he went home, just went home, or more literally,

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jesus enters the house And right before this passage Jesus called and appointed his 12 disciples and now Jesus brought them together into house, Jesus went home with his disciples, either it's home or house. Um this

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type of language evokes a certain series of images and emotions. Um from the audience, you might expect that the following episode would include a story of relaxation , rest warmth, coziness, calm and intimacy.

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But what happened next is quite different as soon as jesus went home, the large crowd gathered around jesus and this home this space become, it became like almost like a marketplace. And in fact, that's

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not unusual in the Gospel of Mark, whenever he just enters the house, a crowd gathered around him . And of course, you know, in the new testament, new testament times, the house was

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different from what we see here in modern society. Even so that space, that house was so crowded . Well, apparently, apparently Jesus didn't have good rest at home, but at least I think Jesus

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probably had, Jesus probably enjoyed some warmth and intimacy . People gather around jesus, they welcome jesus, they want to touch and talk to jesus. They need jesus. However, a more surprising and on

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its unexpected event follows. Let me read Mark 3 21 when his family heard it, they went out to restrain him. For people were saying he has gone out of his mind. That's a difficult question

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. What information can we infer from that? Well , it lets us know that The house you just entered here in Mark three, it's not his house , it's not his home. Jesus was away from

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his home, away from his family members. And whenever the gospel gospel of Mark goes, says jesus goes home or jesus enters the house, it almost always means someone else house, someone else home.

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The house of Simon and Andrew the house of Levi , the house of Simon the leper and several houses of unnamed hosts, Jesus was away from his home , his family and unfortunately his family members were not

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pleased by his presence, his his ministry. Um Mark 3 21 actually shows that point. The first I just read it can be, it can be translated or slightly differently. The precise word people is

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not there in the greek. So the subject of the sentence can be read as referring to Jesus family , not other people. If so it's possible that not other people but Jesus own family members were saying

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he has gone out of his mind and they came out from their house their home and tried to restrain him from doing further create stuff. Jesus got no support or blessings from his own family. Home is

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a policy mus word. According to Mark six, Jesus never enjoys a restful moment in his hometown either . After jesus did his ministry on the gentile region , the eastern side of the sea of galilee,

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Jesus crossed the border and came back to the jewish region. Perhaps Jesus was exhausted. Perhaps he needed some rest help and support. Jesus came back to his hometown, but his people in the hometown responded

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to him sarcastically. Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What diesel power are being done by his hands? It's not, this is not this

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the carpenter, the son of mary and brothers. Brother of James and Joses and judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us. They even didn't call, his father's name, which is very

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unusual. They just call him mary's son. The people in jesus hometown, thought that they knew jesus very well and yet they didn't welcome his presence or his ministry. And Jesus leaves home again and never

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comes back. According to this narrative, in the gospel of Mark, Jesus once said in another gospel quote, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere

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to lay his head, Jesus was displaced. In a sense, Jesus was homeless. Let's come back to today's passage, Mark three, Jesus was not welcomed by his family's family members, but that's not

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the end of the story. Jesus was also accused by religious leaders from Jerusalem describes came from the center of religious authority to this periphery in galilee and describes came describes started accusing Jesus saying he is palatable and

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by the ruler of these demons, he cast out demons basically, these accusers are on the same page with jesus family who thought that Jesus was out of his mind. In our passage, the house language

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abound, jesus enters the house. The crowd gathered in the house, jesus family members come out of their house and try to restrain jesus and now describes come and accuse jesus by using the house metaphor,

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the king of the demons entered jesus and because jesus is possessed by this demonic king, he's able to cast out demons from other people's body. Of course , compared to the house. Then jesus picks up

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this house metaphor and turns it against, turns it upside down. How can satan cast out satan if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand, No one can enter

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a strong man's house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man. So Jesus compares his ministry of the Kingdom of God to this image, Jesus enters the house of humanity that was captured and

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oppressed by the demonic force and by his ministry, Jesus cast out satan from that house. After this story of the Parabolic home, The camera in verse 31 focuses again on the house. At the literal

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level, the house where Jesus was staying and Jesus family appears again, they stay outside the house and call him. This is ironic, jesus family outside and the crowd inside the crowd around you just say

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your mother and your brother and your sisters are outside asking for you, but Jesus doesn't respond to his family's call instead, Jesus replied, who are my mother and my brothers. She just looked around at

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those sitting around him and said, Here are my mother, my brothers, Whoever does the will of God is my my brother and sister and mother, What does that mean? Jesus enters the house?

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The crowd gather around him and jesus creates a new house creates a new family, the family of God , familiar day or using a modern scholarly term, the kingdom of God, his human family is outside

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calling him and misunderstanding him while his new family is inside sitting around him and hearing him, Jesus found his new home where the kingdom of God is being realized and of course the Kingdom of God and the

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Kingdom of God are not mutually exclusive or contrast contrasting images. Home is a policy MS word in some sense, a kingdom or an empire can also be thought as a family. In Jesus time, the

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roman empire was promoting itself as a universal family and the emperor was the Paterfamilias, the father of the household or the potter patria, the father of the fatherland. And here inside the symbolic space where jesus

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is with his disciples and with the crowd, we see a different family with a different paterfamilias is emerging . Home is a policy MS word and I believe we have. We all have stories, stories of

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your home and how they intersect with the stories of your call either biological family or other forms of family or church community or home country. Perhaps many of you came here with full support from your home,

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you may arrive with their prayers, their blessings, but perhaps some of you have come here despite the doubt and distrust of your home, despite the challenges that you may face at your home. Perhaps some

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of you may not have a place that can be properly called a home and yet one thing is common as long as we are sitting around jesus and doing the will of God, Jesus calls us his mother

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, his brother, his sister, that is Jesus family who are within the house with him, you are jesus disciples and Jesus brings you into the house with him. However, the deepest irony in the

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gospel of Mark is that this gospel constantly questions the boundaries between inside and outside who's included and who's not and this new family, new home, it's not perfect as other families as other homes in Mark,

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jesus often teaches in the house. So the typical pattern is like this. First jesus teaches parables in public and that many understand. Then disciples come into the house with jesus and ask him further clarifying questions

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, jesus, what does that mean? And Jesus gives private lessons, so to speak. But the problem is that even so, they do not understand the parables, and Jesus keeps asking, do you

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not understand? Do you still not perceive, are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and fail to see, do you have ears and fail to hear? As soon as we feel assured that we

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are at home, we are in the house with jesus thankfully included in the ark of salvation. As soon as we think we have the right teachings, the rite liturgy, the right system, the right

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house of worship, jesus parabolic presence sleeps away from our grip, it's like when the disciples boat was toast by the strong wind, Jesus walks on the water, but this jesus tried to pass them by

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and the disciples were terrified thinking that it was a ghost. The market, jesus is like the ultimate other jesus question rings and rings again, Do you not yet understand at his crucifixion, the disciples eventually

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scattered and the crowd who were sitting around you just also left him. There are no insiders, the house collapsed or not toward the end of his earthly ministry. Right before his suffering and death, Jesus

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was staying in someone else house as usual. This time Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper and while having a meal, a woman approached with an alabaster jar, she broke open the

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jar and anointed jesus and this house was filled with the fragrance, perhaps that fragrance stayed with jesus when he was crucified later that week, some people were upset because of this lavish waste, but Jesus declares

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that this woman's act will become a part of the gospel whenever and wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her. And right after that

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scene, Jesus is moving the market, just moving into another house that and and there he has the passover meal with his disciples and within that house, Jesus broke bread and gave it to his disciples and

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said, take this is my body and that's the last time in the market narrative when jesus is in the house and in this final house we are left with the unnamed woman who has become part of the

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gospel by breaking the jar and with the sharing of the bread, that is the broken body of jesus . There we are, Jesus was a house list person and in the last house he temporarily stayed,

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Jesus broke his body and shared it with his new family. That is the group of his disciples who followed this homeless jesus and this means that displacement and homelessness are actually a key to understanding who jesus is

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and who disciples are whenever you are displaced, where whenever your existence is uprooted and rejected, jesus is with you and he gives you his body or in other words, whenever you accept and welcome all displaced

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individuals and groups of all kinds you accept and welcome Jesus, Who is the archetypal displaced and rejected one . Let me finish this sermon with a quotation from Daniel Miliary face seeking understanding, which many of you

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are also familiar with in theology classes. Right at the end of his discussion about classical marks of the church, Miliary mentions the basic principle quote since the new testament period, it has been a principle of

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ecclesial ology, that the church is where christ is , then he goes on to ask rhetorical questions and provides a series of possible answers depending on different church tradition, but where is christ? The answers to

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this question in the history of doctrine are familiar, christ is where the bishop is christ is in the eucharistic celebration, christ is where the gospel is preached and heard. Christ is where the gifts of the

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spirit are manifest. While there is surely some truth in all these responses, none of them explicitly includes the response given in Matthew 25 31 the following christ is present among the poor, the hungry, the

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sick and the imprisoned end quote and I would add , christ is among all the displaced and uprooted all those who lost their home. And our God is the God who gathers them all as in the vision

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of Isaiah in God's house, they will be given a name better than sons and daughters. This God is the God who gathers the outcasts of Israel and furthermore gather others to them. Besides those already gathered

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, Jesus says in my father's house, there are many dwelling places, yes, there are many dwelling places. Whenever jesus enters a house or more precisely whenever Jesus creates a house filled with his followers filled

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with all kinds of people. There the church is born and this homeless judges calls it home, jesus went home, let us follow him, let us become a home for the homeless, let us become

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a home for one another, jesus, help us