Text--Mark 6:1-13
Last Sunday I
talked a bit about the connection between the lectionary texts in Mark’s
Gospel. This week, it seems that the two sections of the text are not connected
at all. In fact, some commentators suggest that pastors choose one or the
other. I think that the texts are related and that they hang together in the
same way that the texts I talked about last week hang together.
Let’s begin with
the first text. Jesus comes home. The people are astounded. But not in a good
way. Who is this person? He is the carpenter; he is the son of Mary. These are
not just questions about the ordinariness with which they regard Jesus. A
carpenter, a builder, someone who worked with his hands was of the lower class.
He was someone the learned people, the merchants, the landowners, the rabbis,
the religious leaders would look down on..
Even those of the
same class might have wondered, who did Jesus think he is? He’s one of us and
now, he thinks he’s better than we are. I’ve heard it said about different
groups: they are like crabs in a barrel—as one climbs up, the others reach up
to pull it down.
There’s even more
reason to look down on Jesus. The text says the people called him the “son of
Mary.” We are so used to hearing that that we don’t think about it. Then, men
were called son of their father. By calling him son of Mary, they are drawing
attention to the fact that Joseph may not have been his father. Today,
illegitimacy is not unusual, but I remember a time when a child was scarred by
not having a father. By referring to him as son of Mary, the villagers are
calling into question his honor.
So, because of who
Jesus is, the people of his hometown refused to believe that he could do any
deeds of power or have anything to teach them. It is easy to assume God is not
in the ordinary, the usual. I’m reminded of the story of Naaman. Naaman was a
commander in the army of the Syraians. He had a skin disease. He could get no
help in Syria. His wife’s serving girl told him that in Israel, they could cure
this. And so Naaman asked the king of Syria to write the king of Israel asking
for help. To make a long story a bit shorter, Naaman went to Elisha the
prophet. Elisha sent a messenger who told Naaman to bathe in the River Jordan.
The Jordan River is a creek. Nowhere does it deserve the name river. In most
places you could wade across it. It’s not the Mississippi. Heck, it’s not even
the St. Francis. It’s like the creek that runs through your backyard.
So Naaman was a
bit put off. He was expecting to have to do something spectacular or at least
arduous. At least to be sent to bathe in a real river. And so he refused. A
servant said to him, if Elisha had told you go do something hard, you would
have done it, so why don’t you do something easy.
Like Naaman, we
expect God to be in the spectacular, the breath-taking, the unusual. Like the
people of Jesus’ hometown, we expect God to be glamorous, spectacular,
breath-taking, unusual. We don’t expect God in the ordinary.
I’m reading a book
called The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. It’s about Ignatian
Spirituality. At one point, the author talks about our desire for a connection
to God and how we feel that desire. He tells the story about a friend, a
“self-described workaholic who hadn’t been to church for many years,” who went
to the baptism of a friend’s child. “Suddenly,” he says, “she as overtaken by
powerful feelings—mainly the desire for a more peaceful and centered existence.
She began to cry, though she didn’t know why. “ He continues, “she told me that
she felt an intense feeling of peace as she stood in church and watch the
priest pour water over the baby’s head. To me,” he says, “it seemed clear what
was happening: she was experiencing at that moment when her defenses were down,
God’s desires for her. . . . But, she laughed and dismissed it. ‘Oh,’ she said,
‘I guess I was just being emotional.’ “
We dismiss God in
our lives, just as the people of Nazareth did. It’s just the ordinary. I’m
being emotional. It can’t be God. It’s too easy.
This part of the
text ends that Jesus was amazed by their unbelief. This is another story of
faith. This time of people who didn’t have the faith to see what God had put
before them. Without faith we can’t see God; we can’t see what God is doing.
This passage, too, is about faith: how what we assume, what we expect matters.
It’s about how we should be open to see God in unexpected places: in the
ordinary, in ordinary people, in our everyday lives. Not just in momentous
occurences.
I think the second
part of the text is also about faith, even though the word doesn’t appear.
Remember last week I told you that Jesus had been on the Sea of Galilee with
his disciples and a storm had come up. Jesus was sleeping and the disciples
woke him up. He calmed the storm and then asked them why they were afraid; didn’t
they have any faith? Now we see Jesus sending the disciples out with no bread,
no bag, no money in their belts; and only the clothes on their back.
They are to go on
a long, dangerous journey with nothing! Can you imagine! I am finally getting
to the point where I am beginning to pack lightly. Basically it’s because most
of the places I go, I can buy whatever things that are essential that I’ve
forgotten. But it’s taken me a while. I still pack medicine, just in case I get
sick. I always have extra food for the plane because it would be a tragedy if I
should get hungry. My carry-on has hand sanitizer, lotion, a tooth brush and
toothpaste, eyedrops. All the stuff I’d absoluetly have to have for an
overnight flight. In at least ten flights, I haven’t opened the plastic baggie
with these essentials. Yet, I continue to pack them.
My first reaction
to Jesus would have been, “are you crazy? We can’t possibly do that. What if no
one will take us in? What if my clothes get torn? Do you really expect me to
beg from total strangers?” I need all my stuff.
A number of years
ago, I went to Nicaragua with two pastors. I hadn’t gone to seminary yet, so I
was the layperson. We were going to see whether we could set up a partnership
between the presbytery and a group of churches in a remote area of Nicaragua.
We stayed in Managua the capital for a couple of days and then flew out to the
Atlantic coast. From there we were to travel by jeep up to the Rio Coco, the
border between Nicaragua and Hondurous. Our plane was late in arriving at
Puerto Cabezas. When we arrived at church headquarters in Puerto Cabezas on the
coast in the late afternoon, we were told that they had radioed the folks we
were to visit to tell them we weren’t coming. The people at church headquarters
had been told the plane had been canceled. Our Nicaraguan leader, Pastor Norman
Bent ducked into the church’s food pantry. He came out with a can of pineapple,
one of corn and one of beans. That’s all they had he said. Norman continued,
“They aren’t expecting us, so there may not be any food for us.” And so we left
and drove through the waning light into the night.
We arrived at the
village. Everything was dark. There was no electricity. Our jeep’s lights woke
everyone, though and they happily came out to greet us. They fed us. They had
slaughtered one of their few chickens for us and we feasted on the meal. The
pastor’s family vacated their one room house so that we could stay there.
One of the pastors
on the trip had reflected on the experience. He talked about how we were like
Peter who didn’t want Jesus to wash his feet. Not that Jesus was too good to
wash Peter’s feet, but that Peter didn’t want anyone to serve him. To be served
is to trust, to give up control. We had trusted to go on in the dark when we
weren’t expected. None of us had completely given up control on the trip.
Norman had his three cans of food. I had my suitcase full of clothes and
medicine. The others also had overflowing suitcases. What we learned was the
possibility of trust. That generosity abounded. The experience is one I look
back on and say, yes it is possible to step out into the unknown when God calls
us to such a thing.
Faith is trust in
God. Faith is to give up control and trust in God. Jesus somehow transformed
the disciple who earlier had feared for their lives on the Sea of Galilee,
those disciples that Jesus had scolded for having no faith and turned them into
men willing to leave everything behind: food, extra clothes, money and to
depend solely on God and others. To go out and do. The disciples went out and
cast out demons and cure those who were ill.
Faith is the
openness to believe. To be vulnerable enough to see, to hear, to feel God.
Faith is the trust to go out where Jesus calls us. It is both openess and
action. To be surprised both by what God is doing and by what God enables us to
do. Amen.
