29 August 2021
Several years ago I went bicycle shopping with a former student, and his three year old daughter.
The family had just moved into a real house after living in an apartment since the child was born.
Now that they had a yard, a bike seemed to be just the perfect thing for summer.
We went to a large store. I’m sure it had hundreds and hundreds of bikes.
Now, clearly the father had in mind what kind of bike he was going to buy his daughter.
In fact, it was not a bicycle, but a tri-cycle.
Well, his daughter, as head strong as he ever was when he I knew him,
didn’t want a thing to do with a tri-cycle. She wanted a big girl’s bicycle.
The father patiently attempted to explain that she wasn’t big enough to ride the bicycle.
He attempted to explain that she would fall, get hurt, and probably not be able to pedal it.
What she needed, was a tri-cycle. That would offer her hours and hours of fun.
The three year old would hear none of it.
She wanted a big girl’s bike and that’s all there was to it.
Finally, patience exhausted the father finally said:
“I’m going to buy you this bright and shiny red tri-cycle. Daddy knows best. Okay?”
The little girl looked at him stonily and then in her loud outdoor voice,
a voice loud enough for everyone in the store to hear, said,
“Then, I want a new daddy.”
The people do not like what they hear from Jesus today.
We might even have some harsh judgments against these people
who today in Mark’s gospel begin to want a new savior, a new messiah, a new prophet.
But we’re really not much better than they were about hearing things we don’t want to hear.
We’re not much better at being challenged for what we believe or do.
We’d still like to believe that we know best.
And yet are we truly doers of the word and not merely hearers?
Question of this week: “What difficult thing are we called to hear and act upon?”