May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 6
PROPER: 11 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: July 20, 2003
TEXT: Mark 6:30-44 – The Feed of the Five Thousand
“And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.”
ISSUE: The story of the Feeding of the 5,000, seems to be a Gospel Refrain. It is repeated some six time, and is found in all four of the Gospel accounts. It is the Christian Scripture’s 23 Psalm. It recalls the leadership of Moses and Elijah. It fulfills the promise of God in Ezekiel and Isaiah. And it suggests that the disciples and the church will feed others, becoming shepherds like Peter. “Feed my sheep.” It is the perpetual ritual of the Holy Eucharist.
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How many times have I preached on or alluded to the Biblical Miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in the past forty years, I could hardly count. The Feeding of the 5,000 (or in some instances the 4,000) appears six times in the Christian Scriptures. The miraculous story appears in all four of the canonical Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You know how some hymns have a repeating refrain after each verse. It would appear that the miraculous story of the Feed of the Five Thousand is the gospels refrain since it appears with such frequency. The 5,000 Feeding was generally in Jewish territory, whereas The 4,000 Feeding was in Gentile territory, giving some indication of the church’s mission to all people. (Mark 8)
We know that miraculous meaningful feeding stories are not limited to the Christian Scriptures. The Hebrew Scriptures (O.T) has several important feeding stories. One of the first of these stories is in the Moses Saga after the escape from the oppressive Egyptians; the Hebrews are wandering in the wilderness under the leadership of Moses. Part of the epic story tells of a period of great hunger, and the complaint of the people before Moses, “We wish that the Lord had killed us in Egypt. There we could at least sit down and eat meant and as much other food as we wanted. But you have brought us out into this desert to starve us all to death.” (Exodus 16:3) God, hearing the complaint, sends a flock of quail and the thin flaky manna from heaven to save Moses’ people. Jesus provides in the feeding story for his people in the wilderness, like Moses. His leadership becomes associated with one of the greatest of leaders.
Ancient Israel’s most favored and honored prophet was Elijah. There is a story of a miraculous feed by Elijah during a time of famine, when he is training other prophets. Elijah is brought 20 small loaves of barley bread. He tells his servant to distribute the loaves to the 100 prophets in training. The servant replies: “’Do you think this is enough for 100 men?’ So the servant set the food before them, and as the Lord had said, they all ate, and there was still some left over.” (2 Kings 4:42) Here you have Jesus miraculous feeding associated with the greatest prophet Elijah, and notice how many more Jesus can feed with even fewer barley loaves.
While I believe that these associations of Jesus with Moses and Elijah are certainly a part of the manifestation of the glory of Jesus, there is still another association that is also very highly likely. The construction of the Feeding of the 5,000, is also a fulfillment or likeness to the comfort given in the Twenty-third Psalm, “The Lord Is My Shepherd.” And the story of the feeding makes Jesus shepherd-like.
v “The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.”
Jesus said, just like Moses about the Hebrews, “They were like sheep without a shepherd. (Numbers 27:15 :”Moses prayed, ‘Lord God, source of all life, appoint, I pray, a man who can lead the people and can command them in battle so that your community will not be like sheep without a shepherd.’” Jesus becomes the shepherd, and feeds 5000 men not to mention women and children.
v “He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.” And “He ordered them (the disciples) to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass.
Jesus has just crossed the Sea of Galilee, and the crowds follow him around the still waters of the lake to be with him, where they are seated in green grass pasture.
v “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.”
The disciples say, “This is a deserted place (wilderness of evil spirits) and the hour is now very late (dark).” It is a deadly place to be.
v “You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.”
And Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Everyone had enough to eat and more because of the bounteous abundant care of the good shepherd.
The image of Jesus in the Feeding of the 5,000 of being likened to a shepherd is the Christian witness and follows up to the Hebrew prophets. Ezekiel (34:11f) declares that God himself will become the Shepherd of his people, since their leadership has failed to lead them. Isaiah proclaims in the name of the Lord, “I, the Sovereign Lord, tell you that I myself will look for my sheep and take care of them in the same way as a shepherd takes care of this sheep that were scattered and are brought together again.”
The emphasis of this wonderful story, and the meaning of the refrain, is that in turning to, and following Jesus Christ, you find the shepherding that you need, and from the bounty of God everyone will get their belly full of his grace, unearned love and forgiveness! There comes an empowerment to live life fully spiritually, in the way that food gives life and strength to the body.
Notice that in the story, the disciples are urged to feed the multitude, and they see that as an impossible chore. Yet God in Christ feeds the crowd and them once again, and there is an abundance of food left over. Five thousand have been fed, and there are twelve baskets left over. Ever since the church of Christ ever began, it’s central act of ritual and worship is the Eucharist. It is the ritual of feeding. It is the essence of Jesus Christ abundantly provided that has come down through the ages, where faithful people gather to get their bellies full of the grace of God, and the empowerment to spread that food, the spiritual grace of God. For this very reason we meet weekly, at least, to be fed with the love of God, and to receive the empowerment of God to take his grace and be instruments, ambassadors, agents of the grace to the world.
In the great religions of the world, and especially in Judaism and Christianity, the most important rituals center on eating together. In Judaism, the greatest feast is the Passover, which is a meal commemorating the liberation of the Jews and their escape from death and the beginning of their journey to The Promised Land. In Christianity it is the Eucharistic meal, the feeding with and upon the Lord that gives to us a foretaste of the Messianic Banquet in the Realm or Kingdom of God, and being the children of God under the rule of the Good Shepherd. It keeps our bellies full of the essence of Jesus Christ in our lives and being, and not to be taken lightly. According to John’s gospel account not only are the disciples fed at the Last Supper, they are taught to be servants to one another and in the world through the footwashing.
In the time of Jesus one of the most important things that people did together was to eat together. Nearly every meal was an important ritual. Meals were not rushed. They were an occasion for community, and for hospitality. There were, of course their cultural quirks in that men and women did not eat together and that people of the same class ate together. However, Jesus ate with women (Mary and Martha), sinners, outcasts, tax collectors, the least and the last. All people eating together without class distinction characterized the Feeding of the 5,000. Jesus himself rose above those quirks of the culture. The feeding was a time of prayer, breaking the bread, sharing, and fulfillment.
If there is anything we might learn from this story, other than it provides us with the understanding of the abundance of God’s grace, it is the importance of feeding together in the presence of Christ. We are now living in a world where people and families say they are too busy to spend time around the table with one another: too busy or pre-occupied to spend time to say a blessing and to break bread together around the dining room, or kitchen table, too busy to spend time at the Lord’s table on Sunday morning, too busy to spend time at the Hospitality hour. Eating and feeding together is dreadfully important to fellowship and family in the development of love, grace, and empowering support. One of the things peculiar to Alcoholics Anonymous is their fellowship and their sacrament of doughnuts and coffee, the bread and wine of A.A. Their bellies are filled and the empowerment of being a community together under their Higher Power has healing power.
Never underestimate that Jesus Christ leads us to our Higher Power. Never underestimate that Christ is our Shepherd, who makes our bellies full and our cups running over with His grace, and empowerment.
At the end of St. John’s gospel there is another refrain that comes from the Good Shepherd to his disciple and apostle Peter. Jesus says to Peter, “Do you love me? . . . . Feed my sheep. . . . . . Feed my lambs. . . . . . . Feed my sheep!”
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ADDENDUM: It would be good to add to this sermon that the 5,000 sitting in groups of 50’s and 100’s may be related to David’s army and Jesus as the commander in David’s line See Chronicles 13:1, 26:26, 27:1, 28: 1.
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Sunday, July 27, 2003
PENTECOST 7
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 7
PROPER: 12B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: July 27, 2003
TEXT: Mark 6:45-52 Jesus walks on water.
“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.
ISSUE: The story of Jesus walking on the water is surreal. It is dreamlike. It is similar also to a poem, or a devotional reading. He sees his disciples fighting an adverse wind in the very early hours of the morning. In the face of an adverse ill wind, or evil spiritedness, in the darkness, Jesus comes and steps into their boat. There is a calm in the presence, and a new day dawns. The story reveals the uniqueness of Jesus to walk or step upon the uncertainties of life, and heal the evil spiritedness, and bring a new day.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What a wonderful story! Jesus walks upon the water, and steps into the fearful disciples boat, and there is a calm and the dawning of a new day.
Many years ago now, when I was in Seminary, I had a New Testament professor who largely dismissed the story of Jesus’ walking on the water. He was inclined to think that the story did not have much real meaning, but was a kind of folk image of Jesus that had crept into the biblical narrative. If Jesus were truly human, he would not have walked on water; the story served no purpose that to say that Jesus was really unique or special in some miraculous way that had little to do with reality. For the longest time I believed that too. Jesus walking on water was just a flamboyant way to say that he was a cool guy.
I’m glad to say that over the years, I’ve come to think differently. I cannot help but feel that the story of Jesus walking on the water had significant meaning for the early church, and for those of us living today in a very troubled world with a great deal of evil spiritedness.
First, I would suggest that we come to realize just how important this story may have been to the early Christian community of Jews. There were a number of stories from the Old Testament, Hebrew Scriptures, where men of God were given command over the waters. We could begin with the righteous Noah who followed God’s command to build an ark that saved Noah his family, and God’s creation from the cleansing flood. In the story of Moses leading his people out of Egyptian bondage and oppression, Moses stands before The Sea of Reeds, or Red Sea, and at God’s command holds up his staff, and the waters divide. The family of God walks across the sea bed, and are delivered. Wandering the wilderness for forty years, Moses’ successor Joshua parts the Jordon River, and the people of God enter the Promised Land in hope.
The Hebrew Scripture reading from 2 Kings tells of the great prophet Elijah who takes his successor with him, and striking the Jordon River with his mantle parts the river, and the two cross on dry land. Returning with the power of Elijah, Elisha is also able through the power of God to part the Jordon once again. These too are all stories of God’s power to deliver his people, and to express the power of his word in and through the prophets.
Even in the story of Job 9:8, in one of Job’s narrations on the power of God, he says: “He (God) alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.” Isaiah too writes: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep you away.”
What then is this story of Jesus walking on the water have to say to the people of God, other than in the presence of Jesus Christ we find the saving power of God revealed. When the disciples in the boat in Mark’s story see Jesus walking on the water, they think that it is a ghost and cry out in terror. Then they hear that his most precious voice saying: “It is I” or “Ego eimi,” which is the name of God pronounced to Moses. God is with them in the dark, in the wind, and on the sea. The story seems to be saying that in Christ, God is with his people in difficult times, and Jesus is the Lord revealing the saving presence of God to the disciples and to the early Christian community of Jews and Gentiles. Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh and reveal in this wonderful way to his people. The story is bringing to bear, opening revealing, the saving power of God in Jesus Christ to his people facing an evil spirited world.
The story tells even more, I think. Professor and biblical scholar David Buttrick speaks of the Parables of Jesus as often being surreal, having an unexpected twist to many of them that really grabbed the attention of the listener. They have a jarring quality to them. Just to refresh what I mean, remember the workers in the vineyard. The workers, who come last in the day, at the last 50 minutes, get the same wage as those who bore the heat of the entire day. We would say that’s not fair. But the shock of the story reminds the people that God wants everyone to have enough, and he has enough to assure everyone of what they need. The parable shocks us into another kind of thinking, different from the way the world thinks, but the way God thinks.
In the Parable of the Sower, the farmer goes out throwing seed all over the place. It lands on the road, lands in the weeds, on the rocks. It is a parable of enormous extravagant waste. The people of Jesus’ time would have been appalled at the performance of such a wasteful farmer broadcasting seed in every direction, and some of assured to be fruitless. Shocking as it is, or was, the parable tells of God’s enormous generosity of God’s love and grace. It packs a punch! It’s a surreal story. Many of Jesus’ parables demand a new kind of thought and thinking.
Look now at the story of Jesus walking on the water. It too is surreal. Jesus has just fed 5,000 people on in a green pasture, beside still waters. Hungry undeserving folk, good and bad, get more than enough to eat, and are sent back to their homes with their bellies full. (That story in itself is a bit surreal too, but we dealt with that last week.) Then, Jesus sends his disciples back across the lake while he stays to be alone and pray. From a place of observation, late in the night, and just prior to the dawn, Jesus sees his disciples struggling or straining against an adverse wind. Apparently they had not sailed very far, and were maybe trying to row against the wind. Remember that wind was a spirit for these people. It is an adverse wind, and evil-spirited wind. The sea for these people was also a pretty scary evil place, especially in the darkness. You may also raise the question of how Jesus saw them in the dark? Don’t know. He walks out to them on the sea. He doesn’t have to part the sea, like Moses and Elijah did. He can walk on it. He appears to be going to walk by, or pass by the boat. Whether this passing by, has anything to do with the passage from the Gospel of Thomas, where Jesus tells his disciples to be passersby or wanders in the midst of life, we can’t be sure, but Jesus is a wander in the midst of the frightening sea, and the scary place of evil spiritedness, and he hears the frightened and terrorized cries of his disciples. Then, he steps into the boat, and all is well. The evil spirited wind is calmed.
What we have here is a rather surreal story, as surreal as any of Jesus’ parables. He sees in and through the darkness and the fog. He walks on water. He passes by, but then turns responds to the call. He steps into the boat as easily as if it were on dry land, and the wind ceases. And the dawning of a new day comes. It is like a dream, a scary dream, but ends with peace. I remember as a child, spending time with my Godparents who had a shore home on the Magothy River, with a white rowboat tied to their pier. One night I awakened in to, or at least I thought I was awake, or in an alternative consciousness. The white bed sheets appeared to be the rowboat, and the floor appeared as water, and I had the illusion that I was adrift in the dark in the boat in the sea. I was terrified for an extended period of time. Until finally I saw the light from the bathroom lighting the hall, the illusion vanished, and there was such relief. We may understand something of the terror of the disciples when we have our own experiences of being adrift against the wind.
We do live in a world of considerable evil spiritedness, a world in which we feel that we are rowing against the wind, and a world of enormously bad odds. We’ve seen a lot of disillusionment in recent years. We’ve seen the decline of so many sports figures, and supposed role models. We’ve seen a mess with religious leaders: TV Evangelists, and pedophile clergy. We’ve seen the scandals in political leadership, and the scheming of the business world. We’ve seen a lot of ill winds of war that never seem to get won, in Korea, Vietnam, the war on poverty and the war on drugs. Now we struggle with Iraq, with Palestine and Israel. And of course, we live with the struggles and the strains of our own lives, with loss of jobs, with a failing threatening economy, with a troubled marriage, a sick child. Perhaps it is as if we are starved for hope and resolution, as some people say we are starved for closure. We long for peace, and in our dreams it is as if God appears to be passing us by, and we are left alone to struggle helplessly against the adverse winds.
The story of the disciples battling the adverse wind is indeed surreal, dream-like. But I wonder too, if it is not like a meaningful devotional story of the early church and the church down through the ages. Last week I talked with you about how the Feeding of the 5,000 is a story that acts out the 23rd Psalm. People without a shepherd are led to green pastures by still waters to a place where with Christ Jesus, their baskets runneth over. It’s too good to be true. Surreal as it may be, the story is comforting, strengthening, and empowering to the faithful. And so it is with the story of Jesus walking on the water and stepping into the boat. Surreal, hard to believe, the story is yet meaningful to the struggling faithful. God steps into their situation and the evil spiritedness is taken away, and the journey home more bearable, more hopeful and encouraging, more peaceful.
Indeed, not unlike the disciples we too become hardened in acceptance of the magnificence and abundance of God to feed, and to deliver us from adversity. It’s hard to believe we are worthy of such grace, peace, and hope. Yet the mystery abounds of God’s presence and determination to reclaim our hardened hearts into the deeper understand of God’s mysteries.
Let us pray:
Lord God empower us to be your apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Equip us for the work of ministry. Let us not be tossed to and fro and blown about by every adverse wind of doctrine, buy people’s trickery, by the business, craftiness, and deceitfulness of a scheming world. Make our hearts malleable in allowing the presence of your Son Jesus Christ to step into our journeys that with him we may appreciate the meaning and the mysteries of Scripture that bring us safely home to your Kingdom. Amen.
SEASON: PENTECOST 7
PROPER: 12B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: July 27, 2003
TEXT: Mark 6:45-52 Jesus walks on water.
“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.
ISSUE: The story of Jesus walking on the water is surreal. It is dreamlike. It is similar also to a poem, or a devotional reading. He sees his disciples fighting an adverse wind in the very early hours of the morning. In the face of an adverse ill wind, or evil spiritedness, in the darkness, Jesus comes and steps into their boat. There is a calm in the presence, and a new day dawns. The story reveals the uniqueness of Jesus to walk or step upon the uncertainties of life, and heal the evil spiritedness, and bring a new day.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What a wonderful story! Jesus walks upon the water, and steps into the fearful disciples boat, and there is a calm and the dawning of a new day.
Many years ago now, when I was in Seminary, I had a New Testament professor who largely dismissed the story of Jesus’ walking on the water. He was inclined to think that the story did not have much real meaning, but was a kind of folk image of Jesus that had crept into the biblical narrative. If Jesus were truly human, he would not have walked on water; the story served no purpose that to say that Jesus was really unique or special in some miraculous way that had little to do with reality. For the longest time I believed that too. Jesus walking on water was just a flamboyant way to say that he was a cool guy.
I’m glad to say that over the years, I’ve come to think differently. I cannot help but feel that the story of Jesus walking on the water had significant meaning for the early church, and for those of us living today in a very troubled world with a great deal of evil spiritedness.
First, I would suggest that we come to realize just how important this story may have been to the early Christian community of Jews. There were a number of stories from the Old Testament, Hebrew Scriptures, where men of God were given command over the waters. We could begin with the righteous Noah who followed God’s command to build an ark that saved Noah his family, and God’s creation from the cleansing flood. In the story of Moses leading his people out of Egyptian bondage and oppression, Moses stands before The Sea of Reeds, or Red Sea, and at God’s command holds up his staff, and the waters divide. The family of God walks across the sea bed, and are delivered. Wandering the wilderness for forty years, Moses’ successor Joshua parts the Jordon River, and the people of God enter the Promised Land in hope.
The Hebrew Scripture reading from 2 Kings tells of the great prophet Elijah who takes his successor with him, and striking the Jordon River with his mantle parts the river, and the two cross on dry land. Returning with the power of Elijah, Elisha is also able through the power of God to part the Jordon once again. These too are all stories of God’s power to deliver his people, and to express the power of his word in and through the prophets.
Even in the story of Job 9:8, in one of Job’s narrations on the power of God, he says: “He (God) alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.” Isaiah too writes: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep you away.”
What then is this story of Jesus walking on the water have to say to the people of God, other than in the presence of Jesus Christ we find the saving power of God revealed. When the disciples in the boat in Mark’s story see Jesus walking on the water, they think that it is a ghost and cry out in terror. Then they hear that his most precious voice saying: “It is I” or “Ego eimi,” which is the name of God pronounced to Moses. God is with them in the dark, in the wind, and on the sea. The story seems to be saying that in Christ, God is with his people in difficult times, and Jesus is the Lord revealing the saving presence of God to the disciples and to the early Christian community of Jews and Gentiles. Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh and reveal in this wonderful way to his people. The story is bringing to bear, opening revealing, the saving power of God in Jesus Christ to his people facing an evil spirited world.
The story tells even more, I think. Professor and biblical scholar David Buttrick speaks of the Parables of Jesus as often being surreal, having an unexpected twist to many of them that really grabbed the attention of the listener. They have a jarring quality to them. Just to refresh what I mean, remember the workers in the vineyard. The workers, who come last in the day, at the last 50 minutes, get the same wage as those who bore the heat of the entire day. We would say that’s not fair. But the shock of the story reminds the people that God wants everyone to have enough, and he has enough to assure everyone of what they need. The parable shocks us into another kind of thinking, different from the way the world thinks, but the way God thinks.
In the Parable of the Sower, the farmer goes out throwing seed all over the place. It lands on the road, lands in the weeds, on the rocks. It is a parable of enormous extravagant waste. The people of Jesus’ time would have been appalled at the performance of such a wasteful farmer broadcasting seed in every direction, and some of assured to be fruitless. Shocking as it is, or was, the parable tells of God’s enormous generosity of God’s love and grace. It packs a punch! It’s a surreal story. Many of Jesus’ parables demand a new kind of thought and thinking.
Look now at the story of Jesus walking on the water. It too is surreal. Jesus has just fed 5,000 people on in a green pasture, beside still waters. Hungry undeserving folk, good and bad, get more than enough to eat, and are sent back to their homes with their bellies full. (That story in itself is a bit surreal too, but we dealt with that last week.) Then, Jesus sends his disciples back across the lake while he stays to be alone and pray. From a place of observation, late in the night, and just prior to the dawn, Jesus sees his disciples struggling or straining against an adverse wind. Apparently they had not sailed very far, and were maybe trying to row against the wind. Remember that wind was a spirit for these people. It is an adverse wind, and evil-spirited wind. The sea for these people was also a pretty scary evil place, especially in the darkness. You may also raise the question of how Jesus saw them in the dark? Don’t know. He walks out to them on the sea. He doesn’t have to part the sea, like Moses and Elijah did. He can walk on it. He appears to be going to walk by, or pass by the boat. Whether this passing by, has anything to do with the passage from the Gospel of Thomas, where Jesus tells his disciples to be passersby or wanders in the midst of life, we can’t be sure, but Jesus is a wander in the midst of the frightening sea, and the scary place of evil spiritedness, and he hears the frightened and terrorized cries of his disciples. Then, he steps into the boat, and all is well. The evil spirited wind is calmed.
What we have here is a rather surreal story, as surreal as any of Jesus’ parables. He sees in and through the darkness and the fog. He walks on water. He passes by, but then turns responds to the call. He steps into the boat as easily as if it were on dry land, and the wind ceases. And the dawning of a new day comes. It is like a dream, a scary dream, but ends with peace. I remember as a child, spending time with my Godparents who had a shore home on the Magothy River, with a white rowboat tied to their pier. One night I awakened in to, or at least I thought I was awake, or in an alternative consciousness. The white bed sheets appeared to be the rowboat, and the floor appeared as water, and I had the illusion that I was adrift in the dark in the boat in the sea. I was terrified for an extended period of time. Until finally I saw the light from the bathroom lighting the hall, the illusion vanished, and there was such relief. We may understand something of the terror of the disciples when we have our own experiences of being adrift against the wind.
We do live in a world of considerable evil spiritedness, a world in which we feel that we are rowing against the wind, and a world of enormously bad odds. We’ve seen a lot of disillusionment in recent years. We’ve seen the decline of so many sports figures, and supposed role models. We’ve seen a mess with religious leaders: TV Evangelists, and pedophile clergy. We’ve seen the scandals in political leadership, and the scheming of the business world. We’ve seen a lot of ill winds of war that never seem to get won, in Korea, Vietnam, the war on poverty and the war on drugs. Now we struggle with Iraq, with Palestine and Israel. And of course, we live with the struggles and the strains of our own lives, with loss of jobs, with a failing threatening economy, with a troubled marriage, a sick child. Perhaps it is as if we are starved for hope and resolution, as some people say we are starved for closure. We long for peace, and in our dreams it is as if God appears to be passing us by, and we are left alone to struggle helplessly against the adverse winds.
The story of the disciples battling the adverse wind is indeed surreal, dream-like. But I wonder too, if it is not like a meaningful devotional story of the early church and the church down through the ages. Last week I talked with you about how the Feeding of the 5,000 is a story that acts out the 23rd Psalm. People without a shepherd are led to green pastures by still waters to a place where with Christ Jesus, their baskets runneth over. It’s too good to be true. Surreal as it may be, the story is comforting, strengthening, and empowering to the faithful. And so it is with the story of Jesus walking on the water and stepping into the boat. Surreal, hard to believe, the story is yet meaningful to the struggling faithful. God steps into their situation and the evil spiritedness is taken away, and the journey home more bearable, more hopeful and encouraging, more peaceful.
Indeed, not unlike the disciples we too become hardened in acceptance of the magnificence and abundance of God to feed, and to deliver us from adversity. It’s hard to believe we are worthy of such grace, peace, and hope. Yet the mystery abounds of God’s presence and determination to reclaim our hardened hearts into the deeper understand of God’s mysteries.
Let us pray:
Lord God empower us to be your apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Equip us for the work of ministry. Let us not be tossed to and fro and blown about by every adverse wind of doctrine, buy people’s trickery, by the business, craftiness, and deceitfulness of a scheming world. Make our hearts malleable in allowing the presence of your Son Jesus Christ to step into our journeys that with him we may appreciate the meaning and the mysteries of Scripture that bring us safely home to your Kingdom. Amen.
Sunday, July 13, 2003
PENTECOST 5
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 5
PROPER: 10B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: July 13, 2003
TEXT: Mark 6:7-13 – He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
ISSUE: Jesus sends out his disciples on a mission. They are unequipped with gear, but alive in the power and the spirit of Christ. They take the Good News that God’s Kingdom is coming and life can be radically different. They bestow healing. The passage is a real challenge to the church’s people (disciples) today to infiltrate the world, our communities, of today with the spiritual healing and hope that comes from the teaching and spirit of Jesus Christ.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What a truly wonderful passage this is from the Gospel account of Mark! It just offers a wonderful richness of what Jesus calls his disciples to be and to do. In this passage they are sent out in two’s to proclaim the Good News and to bring healing to their various communities. Remember that last week I talked about how sometimes it was difficult for Jesus to proclaim the Good News in his own hometown among family and friends. The prophet Jesus was not welcomed in his own hometown; there was little real faith in him. Thus, he accomplished very little. The church folk today who become too familiar and comfortable with Jesus have a tendency in their complacency, and being lackadaisical, to that fails to radiate, to spread in our world the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ. Notice the non-resistant energy that appears in this Gospel reading this morning. The disciples in response to the sending mission cast out many demons and anoint many who were sick and cure them.
What’s going on here? There’s a lot of meaning and rich background to this story. In the life and ministry of religious leadership, discipleship or followers have always been important. Turning back the pages of Scripture to the time of Moses, Moses selects 70 men from the Hebrews to assist him (Num. 11:4-29). They give Moses a hand in the midst of a lot of wandering folk who are afraid for their future in the wilderness. There is real precedence for the practice of selecting discipleship. Jesus, himself, would not have had much success with his own ministry if it were not for his own disciples. It made a significant group of followers that added significance and clout to his movement. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus actually sends out, like Moses, seventy disciples to begin teaching and healing in surrounding villages. (Luke 10:1-12) (Some accounts say 72 disciples.) In Mark’s Gospel account, Jesus sends out the famous twelve disciples, each one being a symbol of the Twelve Tribes of Israel carrying on the mission to the nations of the world. We are pretty sure by this time that Jesus had more than just twelve disciples.
Jesus sends these disciples out to be wanderers or passersby in the many surrounding villages. In the recently discovered Gospel of Thomas (Thom 42) there is one of the shortest of all the sayings attributed to Jesus, which says: “Become wanderers.” In your bulletin this morning, I have enclosed information about the Gospel of Thomas, which was discovered in 1945. (Please don’t read it now.) According to Mark, the disciples are to become wanderers finding their ways to surrounding villages, and settling for a period of time where they are welcomed to heal and to teach concerning the coming Kingdom, or Realm of God.
What is also particularly interesting is that they are not to have any gear with them. They are to carry no food, no extra clothes, or money; just wear sandals for the rough terrain. They are to be totally and completely unencumbered. They only carry with them the teachings and the spirit of healing that has been bestowed upon them. They were to settle where they were welcomed and treated with hospitality, and at the right time move on. If they were rejected, then they were to simply dust off their feet as a testimony against them, and move on. Dusting off one’s feet is what Jews did when crossing the border from pagan territory. It was a sign of retaining the purity of Israel, and in the case of the disciples then, a sign of retaining their integrity to carry on their mission in places where it would be more likely to be received. People in this period were actually expected to provide appropriate hospitality to strangers, for the purpose of protection, which was also considered to be honorable. It was likely then, in most instances that Jesus’ disciple would find hospitality. They were to be totally dependent and homeless, without being encumbered in anyway to begin their work.
Here’s still another important aspect of this mission, important for us to understand as well. Recall there was the belief in the hierarchy of beings: God at the top followed by the sons of God and archangels, followed by spirits evil and good, followed by human beings, and finally the animal world. What Jesus is doing here is elevating his disciples above the realm of evil spirits to the realm of sons and daughters of God with him. At the very least they are given the power over the evil spirits and the evil spiritedness of the world to cast out demons or evil spiritedness, to heal or restore the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the expendable people and peasantry to an honorable status in the sight of God and the Christ. The spirit of love, forgiveness, and acceptance is bestowed upon them. They are fully participating in the ministry of Jesus Christ. While they are likely to experience rejection, they will also participate in his glory.
Please understand what this means. When we participate in Holy Baptism, we receive the Holy Spirit of God to participate in the ministry of Jesus Christ:
v “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.” (BCP, p.308)
v Continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.
v Proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
v Seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor.
v Strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.
We are called with Christ and all of his saints and baptized folk of the church down through the centuries to understand the venerable position to which we are called. We are to infiltrate the world with the spirit of love, forgiveness, and justice. To do this you don’t need stuff: food, money, and finery. All you need is the spirit of God within you, which comes from the church, the sacraments, the absorbed teachings of Jesus, and a clear understand of your (and mine) commissioning by virtue of your baptism and your relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord, AND OF COURSE, A BUDDY!
Jesus sent his disciples out two by two. I’m not sure that we have to take this literally, but what it means is that we need community. If someone were to ask, “Can you be a Christian without attending a church.” I would have to answer that as not really. We can have Christian values, Christian principles, virtues, and even a spiritual prayer life. But Jesus always worked and lived in a community. We need the church and one another to keep ourselves in check, to remember our humility, to be refreshed and to keep fresh in the teachings of our Lord and what the proclamation of the Good News is. Consider the work of those who put on the Bible School. I’m not absolutely sure the kids learn a whole lot of Bible verses, and scholastic knowledge. But they do learn and see co-operation among the staff of people working together to give the kids a loving atmosphere in the spirit of God. It becomes a forgiving loving community. You know, you don’t remember much about the facilities of your childhood schools. But you sure do remember what the teachers were like, and who the good ones were, and how they related to you.
Basically we give ourselves as part of a wonderful community. Granted we do give things, and as an institutional community we do get encumbered. We do all have our bad days, and our prejudices, but at the heart of us we must keep in tact the loving relationship we bring to friends, loved ones, and strangers. For first, Christ loved us, and our love and investment in others is what really counts as we proclaim a way of life that belongs to the Kingdom of God..
Notice how little the disciples have in this story: the clothes on their back, a staff and sandals. But they are lifted to the realm of God, with power over evil spiritedness, and are part of a community proclaiming wherever they go that God is loving, God is restoring, God is accepting, that there is coming and is near the Kingdom and Realm of God, into which all are welcome. “Hear that his most beloved voice saying, “Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” (Matt. 25:34)
SEASON: PENTECOST 5
PROPER: 10B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: July 13, 2003
TEXT: Mark 6:7-13 – He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
ISSUE: Jesus sends out his disciples on a mission. They are unequipped with gear, but alive in the power and the spirit of Christ. They take the Good News that God’s Kingdom is coming and life can be radically different. They bestow healing. The passage is a real challenge to the church’s people (disciples) today to infiltrate the world, our communities, of today with the spiritual healing and hope that comes from the teaching and spirit of Jesus Christ.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What a truly wonderful passage this is from the Gospel account of Mark! It just offers a wonderful richness of what Jesus calls his disciples to be and to do. In this passage they are sent out in two’s to proclaim the Good News and to bring healing to their various communities. Remember that last week I talked about how sometimes it was difficult for Jesus to proclaim the Good News in his own hometown among family and friends. The prophet Jesus was not welcomed in his own hometown; there was little real faith in him. Thus, he accomplished very little. The church folk today who become too familiar and comfortable with Jesus have a tendency in their complacency, and being lackadaisical, to that fails to radiate, to spread in our world the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ. Notice the non-resistant energy that appears in this Gospel reading this morning. The disciples in response to the sending mission cast out many demons and anoint many who were sick and cure them.
What’s going on here? There’s a lot of meaning and rich background to this story. In the life and ministry of religious leadership, discipleship or followers have always been important. Turning back the pages of Scripture to the time of Moses, Moses selects 70 men from the Hebrews to assist him (Num. 11:4-29). They give Moses a hand in the midst of a lot of wandering folk who are afraid for their future in the wilderness. There is real precedence for the practice of selecting discipleship. Jesus, himself, would not have had much success with his own ministry if it were not for his own disciples. It made a significant group of followers that added significance and clout to his movement. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus actually sends out, like Moses, seventy disciples to begin teaching and healing in surrounding villages. (Luke 10:1-12) (Some accounts say 72 disciples.) In Mark’s Gospel account, Jesus sends out the famous twelve disciples, each one being a symbol of the Twelve Tribes of Israel carrying on the mission to the nations of the world. We are pretty sure by this time that Jesus had more than just twelve disciples.
Jesus sends these disciples out to be wanderers or passersby in the many surrounding villages. In the recently discovered Gospel of Thomas (Thom 42) there is one of the shortest of all the sayings attributed to Jesus, which says: “Become wanderers.” In your bulletin this morning, I have enclosed information about the Gospel of Thomas, which was discovered in 1945. (Please don’t read it now.) According to Mark, the disciples are to become wanderers finding their ways to surrounding villages, and settling for a period of time where they are welcomed to heal and to teach concerning the coming Kingdom, or Realm of God.
What is also particularly interesting is that they are not to have any gear with them. They are to carry no food, no extra clothes, or money; just wear sandals for the rough terrain. They are to be totally and completely unencumbered. They only carry with them the teachings and the spirit of healing that has been bestowed upon them. They were to settle where they were welcomed and treated with hospitality, and at the right time move on. If they were rejected, then they were to simply dust off their feet as a testimony against them, and move on. Dusting off one’s feet is what Jews did when crossing the border from pagan territory. It was a sign of retaining the purity of Israel, and in the case of the disciples then, a sign of retaining their integrity to carry on their mission in places where it would be more likely to be received. People in this period were actually expected to provide appropriate hospitality to strangers, for the purpose of protection, which was also considered to be honorable. It was likely then, in most instances that Jesus’ disciple would find hospitality. They were to be totally dependent and homeless, without being encumbered in anyway to begin their work.
Here’s still another important aspect of this mission, important for us to understand as well. Recall there was the belief in the hierarchy of beings: God at the top followed by the sons of God and archangels, followed by spirits evil and good, followed by human beings, and finally the animal world. What Jesus is doing here is elevating his disciples above the realm of evil spirits to the realm of sons and daughters of God with him. At the very least they are given the power over the evil spirits and the evil spiritedness of the world to cast out demons or evil spiritedness, to heal or restore the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the expendable people and peasantry to an honorable status in the sight of God and the Christ. The spirit of love, forgiveness, and acceptance is bestowed upon them. They are fully participating in the ministry of Jesus Christ. While they are likely to experience rejection, they will also participate in his glory.
Please understand what this means. When we participate in Holy Baptism, we receive the Holy Spirit of God to participate in the ministry of Jesus Christ:
v “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.” (BCP, p.308)
v Continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.
v Proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
v Seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor.
v Strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.
We are called with Christ and all of his saints and baptized folk of the church down through the centuries to understand the venerable position to which we are called. We are to infiltrate the world with the spirit of love, forgiveness, and justice. To do this you don’t need stuff: food, money, and finery. All you need is the spirit of God within you, which comes from the church, the sacraments, the absorbed teachings of Jesus, and a clear understand of your (and mine) commissioning by virtue of your baptism and your relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord, AND OF COURSE, A BUDDY!
Jesus sent his disciples out two by two. I’m not sure that we have to take this literally, but what it means is that we need community. If someone were to ask, “Can you be a Christian without attending a church.” I would have to answer that as not really. We can have Christian values, Christian principles, virtues, and even a spiritual prayer life. But Jesus always worked and lived in a community. We need the church and one another to keep ourselves in check, to remember our humility, to be refreshed and to keep fresh in the teachings of our Lord and what the proclamation of the Good News is. Consider the work of those who put on the Bible School. I’m not absolutely sure the kids learn a whole lot of Bible verses, and scholastic knowledge. But they do learn and see co-operation among the staff of people working together to give the kids a loving atmosphere in the spirit of God. It becomes a forgiving loving community. You know, you don’t remember much about the facilities of your childhood schools. But you sure do remember what the teachers were like, and who the good ones were, and how they related to you.
Basically we give ourselves as part of a wonderful community. Granted we do give things, and as an institutional community we do get encumbered. We do all have our bad days, and our prejudices, but at the heart of us we must keep in tact the loving relationship we bring to friends, loved ones, and strangers. For first, Christ loved us, and our love and investment in others is what really counts as we proclaim a way of life that belongs to the Kingdom of God..
Notice how little the disciples have in this story: the clothes on their back, a staff and sandals. But they are lifted to the realm of God, with power over evil spiritedness, and are part of a community proclaiming wherever they go that God is loving, God is restoring, God is accepting, that there is coming and is near the Kingdom and Realm of God, into which all are welcome. “Hear that his most beloved voice saying, “Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” (Matt. 25:34)
Sunday, July 6, 2003
Pentecost 4
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 4
PROPER: 9 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: July 6, 2003
TEXT: Mark 6:1-6 – Rejection by Jesus’ Hometown
Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” . . . . And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching.
ISSUE: The passage tells of how Jesus was rejected by some of the people closest to him, and he was amazed at their unbelief. Yet he persisted in his ministry at great risk, and a few people followed him, and a few joined his movement but stayed at home. We must not forget that he brought something new and demanding in the Gospel of love, and preaching hope to the poor and disenfranchised. The church folk of today must not become too familiar and comfortable, or we are like his closest family and friends. Mark presents a challenge to rethink you position and join with the active ministry of Jesus Christ, proclaiming the Good News today.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In today’s reading from the narrative of Matthew, Jesus comes home to his own. In the past weeks of readings from Mark’s Gospel account, Jesus has calmed a storm, expelling the evil spirits, saving his disciples from the elements. He exorcised, or restored is better, the Greek Demoniac in the Gerasenes. He has raised Jarius’ daughter from the dead, and raised a woman who was unclean for twelve years in Jewish territory. His ministry of healing, restoration, and his bringing of some unique peace to his own has been presented as one unique and dynamic ministry, constantly on the move, and touch the lives of Greeks and Jews, men and women (in a man’s world). Mark manifest Jesus Christ as Son of the living God, bring Good News and hope to the world. HE is fine wise sage, a prophet of hope, and a folk healer touch humans and their human spirits.
In sharp contrast he comes to his hometown, and cannot do a thing. It is as if he becomes impotent in Nazareth, except he heals a few. His closest family and friends take offense at him. From the perspective of the 1st century Middle Eastern culture, Jesus is really quite radical. In fact he was thought to be maybe even a little mad by his own family. Earlier in Mark’s Gospel account (Mk 3:20-21) Jesus family sets out to bring him home from a large dinner gathering, because people were saying, “He’s gone mad!” Here in Nazareth, his place in the society is challenged. Who does he think he is? Where does he get such wisdom in his sayings? The greatest of insults by family and friends is when they refer to him as Mary’s son, intimating that he was an illegitimate offspring.
There are some scholars who seem to think that the rift between Jesus and his family may reflect some very early rift in the early Christian movement (William Loader: Pentecost 4, 2003), in which Jesus’ brother James may have taken some early leadership. This interpretation is only speculation. What Jesus does in his ministry is what was thought to be deviant behavior. He leaves family and friends behind to begin his ministry, as a kind of renegade kid. Appropriately, he should have been at home taking care of his mother and younger brothers and sisters. Notice the listing of the names of the brothers: James, Joses, Judas, and Simon. (It was a man’s world; therefore, the sister’s names are not listed.) There is, of course, considerable resentment that he would dare to teach them or speak in their local synagogue. Who does he think he is? He is essentially little more than a carpenter and/or stonemason, a laborer. Yet he travels from town to town with a select few and spends time in the wilderness alone, in close proximity to evil spirits. From the point of view of his town and family, Jesus is really quite deviant and dares to step out of his assigned place. As a sage, a teacher, a healer, he has no honor, and honor was the highest value of the time, in his own hometown, and thus, the proverb: Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” He was amazed at their unbelief, and moves on to other towns and villages teaching.
Consider the opposition that Jesus faced. The Pharisees frequently challenged him, for his teachings that challenged some of their teachings of the time. It was not even that he was so radical but sometimes he gave a new and improved slant about what the law actually meant in terms of keeping the law with compassion and love. He was challenged by people who thought Jesus was deviant in his teachings and behaviors: his traveling, leaving family, his enchantment with the wilderness where he had no fear of evil spirits and used quiet remote places for prayer, meditation, sabbath rest. Remember that in the wilderness places Jesus fed folk spiritually as at the feeding of the 5,000 and the Sermon on the Mount, and on wilderness a mountaintop he was transfigured in the presence of Moses and Elijah. Yet all this was considered deviant behavior, and challenged his honor and status. His arrest and condemnation to crucifixion was a quite dishonorable position that caused many to turn against him in the end. In fact, in Luke’s account (Luke 4:18) of Jesus’ visit to Nazareth, the people run him out of town and attempt to push him over a cliff! He knew throughout his ministry considerable resistance. He is amazed at their unbelief.
What we might say today is that “Familiarity breeds contempt.” There is a basic assumption in many of our local American communities today that everybody, or at least a very large part of our communities, are a members of the folk American-Christian Church. And we becomes settled in to a kind of apathetic, lackadaisical, comfortable acceptance of our Christianity, which by and large gives us a secure feeling of our place in the Kingdom of God, and something of great discomfort when we are confronted by the changes that come in the world, or when there is a more specific demand upon our attention to live a lively and active commitment to the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives.
Many folk will admit to their commitment to Christianity. But when the going sometimes gets tough, demanding, or uncertain, there is a grabbing for exceptions to the rules. For instance, we all know that we ought not to be prejudiced, and that Jesus commanded a love, an understanding for all people, and an acceptance for all of God’s people. It took a very long time for the American people to adjust their thinking about the African-American people living in this country. Many Christians were very resistant to, and still are, to that awareness of how powerful white people dehumanized others because of the color of their skin. It was a time for repentance and renewal, and a harder look at our Christian belief system. Human consciences had to be shaken.
Right now, there is considerable debate in the nation, because of the Supreme Court decision regarding the place of gay and lesbian people in our society, as regarding their privacy rights. It is being debated in the church as well, and perhaps some day there will be some kind of resolution to this issue that seems at times to be in conflict with our morality, and with a new sense of morality on this issue. I hear Christian clergy saying that gay rights, and their rights to privacy are detrimental to the well being of family life in this country. From my own point of view, the people that I know who are practicing Gay and Lesbian people live in very stable family relationships, both between themselves and with their extended families. They make good homes, pay their taxes, sometimes adopt children, work hard, and contribute to their respective communities. Are there bad gays and lesbians? Maybe so. But my God look at the mess of so many of the broken disastrous homes of straight people ruined by alcoholism, drug addiction, adultery, and just down right stupidity and immaturity. We condemn others to take our attention away from our own need for redemption, change, and healing. The Gospel of Christ is about understanding, compassion, and an acceptance of people that are different. The sin in this situation is not so much whether a person is gay or lesbian. The sin seems more importantly to reside in sexual promiscuity in all people, and how people are used, abused, and humiliated, and treated like animals rather than humans with dignity. It must be wonderful to know everything already, and to have all insights, and never have to grow, think, or change. All of which seems a bit unreal to me.
Surely, we have all heard some good person say, I know I am supposed to forgive Uncle Joe, but I will not forgive him for as long as I live. That’s a far cry from the standard of forgiving one another 70 times 7, and a far cry from “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”
Christian people, overly involved with their own lives, will say that they don’t have time to walk and extra mile with someone in need. They can’t turn the other cheek. That doesn’t work; it’s a little much for Jesus to ask. You have to live and act from a position of power and strength against you enemies is the lead banner of much American thinking. Yet Jesus and St. Paul’s teachings clearly stated that when one was weak, then were they truly strong. It is not in the flinging of weaponry around that heals the world’s conflicts; it is ultimately negotiation and understanding. War has become the world’s vicious cycle.
Jesus also taught generosity and sacrifice, recognizing the abundances come from God. Sacrifice and generous giving is not exactly what many Christians have in mind in light of Jesus’ command to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, or at a minimum to share an extra sweater.
Jesus had a wonderfully unique understanding in his own time of what was truly honorable. Honor was the main virtue of the time. You would do anything to preserve you honor including lying. Repeatedly the Gospel accounts speak of Jesus as saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you . . . . . .” Speak the truth is what is implied here. Truth is honorable for Jesus.
His precious Sermon on the Mount tells of what Jesus saw as truly, honestly honorable in the eyes and sight of God: It was the poor that were honorable, not the self-righteous shot shots who looked down on others. It was those who mourned, who had known suffering. Those who sought the truer purity of God in terms of what came out rather than what you put into yourself. Those who strived in their world for justice and what was right for all people exhibited true honor. It goes without saying that Jesus played havoc with the standards of the time.
The resistance and the rebellion often expressed to the Gospel teachings of our Lord are sometimes every bit as real today as they were in the first century. It is not just against God, or even lack of literal belief in Scripture that is offensive to our Christian faith. It is apathy, complacency, self-satisfaction, knowing-it-all without reflection and openness to possible change that offends and minimizes the true effectiveness of our ministries, and our faith, loyalty, and trust in God. He was amazed at their unbelief, their lack of belief that what came from God was the measure of true honor: that love, forgiveness, compassion, mercy, giving, sacrifice, thinking, praying, reflection, meditation, caring, concern for justice were not seen as the stuff that truly honors God.
. Good works, self-righteousness, being right, or even our high standards of morality are not what save the world and us. We are saved, redeemed, enlightened by our belief in the way of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Master, Teacher of true honor.
SEASON: Pentecost 4
PROPER: 9 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: July 6, 2003
TEXT: Mark 6:1-6 – Rejection by Jesus’ Hometown
Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” . . . . And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching.
ISSUE: The passage tells of how Jesus was rejected by some of the people closest to him, and he was amazed at their unbelief. Yet he persisted in his ministry at great risk, and a few people followed him, and a few joined his movement but stayed at home. We must not forget that he brought something new and demanding in the Gospel of love, and preaching hope to the poor and disenfranchised. The church folk of today must not become too familiar and comfortable, or we are like his closest family and friends. Mark presents a challenge to rethink you position and join with the active ministry of Jesus Christ, proclaiming the Good News today.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In today’s reading from the narrative of Matthew, Jesus comes home to his own. In the past weeks of readings from Mark’s Gospel account, Jesus has calmed a storm, expelling the evil spirits, saving his disciples from the elements. He exorcised, or restored is better, the Greek Demoniac in the Gerasenes. He has raised Jarius’ daughter from the dead, and raised a woman who was unclean for twelve years in Jewish territory. His ministry of healing, restoration, and his bringing of some unique peace to his own has been presented as one unique and dynamic ministry, constantly on the move, and touch the lives of Greeks and Jews, men and women (in a man’s world). Mark manifest Jesus Christ as Son of the living God, bring Good News and hope to the world. HE is fine wise sage, a prophet of hope, and a folk healer touch humans and their human spirits.
In sharp contrast he comes to his hometown, and cannot do a thing. It is as if he becomes impotent in Nazareth, except he heals a few. His closest family and friends take offense at him. From the perspective of the 1st century Middle Eastern culture, Jesus is really quite radical. In fact he was thought to be maybe even a little mad by his own family. Earlier in Mark’s Gospel account (Mk 3:20-21) Jesus family sets out to bring him home from a large dinner gathering, because people were saying, “He’s gone mad!” Here in Nazareth, his place in the society is challenged. Who does he think he is? Where does he get such wisdom in his sayings? The greatest of insults by family and friends is when they refer to him as Mary’s son, intimating that he was an illegitimate offspring.
There are some scholars who seem to think that the rift between Jesus and his family may reflect some very early rift in the early Christian movement (William Loader: Pentecost 4, 2003), in which Jesus’ brother James may have taken some early leadership. This interpretation is only speculation. What Jesus does in his ministry is what was thought to be deviant behavior. He leaves family and friends behind to begin his ministry, as a kind of renegade kid. Appropriately, he should have been at home taking care of his mother and younger brothers and sisters. Notice the listing of the names of the brothers: James, Joses, Judas, and Simon. (It was a man’s world; therefore, the sister’s names are not listed.) There is, of course, considerable resentment that he would dare to teach them or speak in their local synagogue. Who does he think he is? He is essentially little more than a carpenter and/or stonemason, a laborer. Yet he travels from town to town with a select few and spends time in the wilderness alone, in close proximity to evil spirits. From the point of view of his town and family, Jesus is really quite deviant and dares to step out of his assigned place. As a sage, a teacher, a healer, he has no honor, and honor was the highest value of the time, in his own hometown, and thus, the proverb: Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” He was amazed at their unbelief, and moves on to other towns and villages teaching.
Consider the opposition that Jesus faced. The Pharisees frequently challenged him, for his teachings that challenged some of their teachings of the time. It was not even that he was so radical but sometimes he gave a new and improved slant about what the law actually meant in terms of keeping the law with compassion and love. He was challenged by people who thought Jesus was deviant in his teachings and behaviors: his traveling, leaving family, his enchantment with the wilderness where he had no fear of evil spirits and used quiet remote places for prayer, meditation, sabbath rest. Remember that in the wilderness places Jesus fed folk spiritually as at the feeding of the 5,000 and the Sermon on the Mount, and on wilderness a mountaintop he was transfigured in the presence of Moses and Elijah. Yet all this was considered deviant behavior, and challenged his honor and status. His arrest and condemnation to crucifixion was a quite dishonorable position that caused many to turn against him in the end. In fact, in Luke’s account (Luke 4:18) of Jesus’ visit to Nazareth, the people run him out of town and attempt to push him over a cliff! He knew throughout his ministry considerable resistance. He is amazed at their unbelief.
What we might say today is that “Familiarity breeds contempt.” There is a basic assumption in many of our local American communities today that everybody, or at least a very large part of our communities, are a members of the folk American-Christian Church. And we becomes settled in to a kind of apathetic, lackadaisical, comfortable acceptance of our Christianity, which by and large gives us a secure feeling of our place in the Kingdom of God, and something of great discomfort when we are confronted by the changes that come in the world, or when there is a more specific demand upon our attention to live a lively and active commitment to the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives.
Many folk will admit to their commitment to Christianity. But when the going sometimes gets tough, demanding, or uncertain, there is a grabbing for exceptions to the rules. For instance, we all know that we ought not to be prejudiced, and that Jesus commanded a love, an understanding for all people, and an acceptance for all of God’s people. It took a very long time for the American people to adjust their thinking about the African-American people living in this country. Many Christians were very resistant to, and still are, to that awareness of how powerful white people dehumanized others because of the color of their skin. It was a time for repentance and renewal, and a harder look at our Christian belief system. Human consciences had to be shaken.
Right now, there is considerable debate in the nation, because of the Supreme Court decision regarding the place of gay and lesbian people in our society, as regarding their privacy rights. It is being debated in the church as well, and perhaps some day there will be some kind of resolution to this issue that seems at times to be in conflict with our morality, and with a new sense of morality on this issue. I hear Christian clergy saying that gay rights, and their rights to privacy are detrimental to the well being of family life in this country. From my own point of view, the people that I know who are practicing Gay and Lesbian people live in very stable family relationships, both between themselves and with their extended families. They make good homes, pay their taxes, sometimes adopt children, work hard, and contribute to their respective communities. Are there bad gays and lesbians? Maybe so. But my God look at the mess of so many of the broken disastrous homes of straight people ruined by alcoholism, drug addiction, adultery, and just down right stupidity and immaturity. We condemn others to take our attention away from our own need for redemption, change, and healing. The Gospel of Christ is about understanding, compassion, and an acceptance of people that are different. The sin in this situation is not so much whether a person is gay or lesbian. The sin seems more importantly to reside in sexual promiscuity in all people, and how people are used, abused, and humiliated, and treated like animals rather than humans with dignity. It must be wonderful to know everything already, and to have all insights, and never have to grow, think, or change. All of which seems a bit unreal to me.
Surely, we have all heard some good person say, I know I am supposed to forgive Uncle Joe, but I will not forgive him for as long as I live. That’s a far cry from the standard of forgiving one another 70 times 7, and a far cry from “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”
Christian people, overly involved with their own lives, will say that they don’t have time to walk and extra mile with someone in need. They can’t turn the other cheek. That doesn’t work; it’s a little much for Jesus to ask. You have to live and act from a position of power and strength against you enemies is the lead banner of much American thinking. Yet Jesus and St. Paul’s teachings clearly stated that when one was weak, then were they truly strong. It is not in the flinging of weaponry around that heals the world’s conflicts; it is ultimately negotiation and understanding. War has become the world’s vicious cycle.
Jesus also taught generosity and sacrifice, recognizing the abundances come from God. Sacrifice and generous giving is not exactly what many Christians have in mind in light of Jesus’ command to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, or at a minimum to share an extra sweater.
Jesus had a wonderfully unique understanding in his own time of what was truly honorable. Honor was the main virtue of the time. You would do anything to preserve you honor including lying. Repeatedly the Gospel accounts speak of Jesus as saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you . . . . . .” Speak the truth is what is implied here. Truth is honorable for Jesus.
His precious Sermon on the Mount tells of what Jesus saw as truly, honestly honorable in the eyes and sight of God: It was the poor that were honorable, not the self-righteous shot shots who looked down on others. It was those who mourned, who had known suffering. Those who sought the truer purity of God in terms of what came out rather than what you put into yourself. Those who strived in their world for justice and what was right for all people exhibited true honor. It goes without saying that Jesus played havoc with the standards of the time.
The resistance and the rebellion often expressed to the Gospel teachings of our Lord are sometimes every bit as real today as they were in the first century. It is not just against God, or even lack of literal belief in Scripture that is offensive to our Christian faith. It is apathy, complacency, self-satisfaction, knowing-it-all without reflection and openness to possible change that offends and minimizes the true effectiveness of our ministries, and our faith, loyalty, and trust in God. He was amazed at their unbelief, their lack of belief that what came from God was the measure of true honor: that love, forgiveness, compassion, mercy, giving, sacrifice, thinking, praying, reflection, meditation, caring, concern for justice were not seen as the stuff that truly honors God.
. Good works, self-righteousness, being right, or even our high standards of morality are not what save the world and us. We are saved, redeemed, enlightened by our belief in the way of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Master, Teacher of true honor.
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