Day of the Church Year: 6th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Passage: Mark 6:1-13
Several years ago, I had a conversation with a young adult who had struggled mightily in her early life, someone who had legitimately caused trouble for her parents and teachers, someone who made choices that caused her suffering and difficulty. At the time of our conversation, she had decided to finally be honest, to make different, healthier choices, to listen to those who were trying to help her. And I remember her being frustrated because, she said, “People won’t let me be different. Even when I am trying to do the right thing, people expect me to do what I’ve always done. They don’t believe me when I say that I am trying.”
When others have hurt us, the cynical, wounded part of each of us probably has a hard time allowing for the possibility of real growth and change in the person in question. Just like everyone else, I hate to be disappointed when people tell me they are ready for change...but then continue in their old, hurtful, harmful patterns. We want to wise and realistic and keen to others’ tricks. Sometimes, it is not just others but we who hurt ourselves, who disappoint ourselves, who continue in old, hurtful, harmful patterns. Yet how do we or others make change, grow and thrive, and follow the call of God if we expect only that we humans will take the same, broken path we “always” have?
If any of this sounds familiar, you will understand the people of Nazareth from today’s Jesus story. As we well know, Jesus is born in Bethlehem, but he grows up in Nazareth, a village in the backwater of Galilee. The people of Nazareth cannot understand how Jesus says what he says, does what he does, claim what he claims. The people of Nazareth have known him from the beginning. They know his mother Mary, his brothers James and Joses, Judas and Simon, and his sisters. They know he is a carpenter by trade. And while the gospel writer Mark does not say so explicitly, the Greek word that is translated as “take offense” implies that the people of Nazareth remember the scandal of Christmas 30 years earlier. They remember—or maybe their parents told them the local gossip about how Mary was pregnant prior to marriage. They remember the ridiculous story about the so-called angel Gabriel and the Holy Spirit. They remember the shame brought to this family. And now, this illegitimate child is teaching in the synagogue on the sabbath. This carpenter is preaching about the kingdom of God, healing people, and raising people from the dead. This hometown kid is countering the wisdom of the Pharisees and outrightly breaking the sabbath. The good, faithful people of Nazareth, the ones who knew Jesus as a child, as a teenager, as a young man, take offense at him. They are scandalized. Though Jesus cures a few sick people among them, the gospel writer Mark tells us that Jesus does no deeds of power there, that he is amazed at the people’s unbelief. (But, honestly, doesn’t the people’s unbelief make sense?)
Jesus goes on to say: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” He calls the disciples and sends them out two by two to cure and to proclaim a message of repentance. Jesus warns them that some of the folks they’ll meet on their journeys will not accept them—just as Jesus himself is not accepted in Nazareth. And there are some good reasons others might take offense at them. Jewish tax collectors worked for the Roman empire, exploited the poverty of their countrymen, and skimmed profits from the people’s taxes. Fishermen, though more honorable in their profession, stank to high heaven of fish. Despite the offense the disciples know they will cause, they go two by two anyway because Jesus calls them, and Jesus sends them.
This Jesus story is easier than the stories of our lives. For we can trust that Jesus is legit. Despite his scandalous conception and birth, his law-breaking, his counter-cultural teaching, Jesus is finally revealed to be Son of God and full of honor. Even the motley crew of disciples can be trusted because Jesus trusts them. Even though they are constantly getting it wrong, at least they are trying to follow Jesus, trying to heal, trying to proclaim the message of repentance. Two thousand years later, we might scoff at the people of Nazareth, shake our heads, and wonder how they could possibly question the words, deeds, and claims of Jesus Christ and his disciples.
But the stories of our lives make judgment and cynicism hard to avoid. For probably all of our lives are populated by broken promises, lies, and hurts too big to forgive and forget. Not only perpetrated by others but perpetrated by ourselves. I know this is a hard sermon, and I’m not usually so dour. But there is good news coming.
No matter what we’ve done to ourselves or others, no matter what has been done to us, no matter the stories of our past, we are called by God, and we are sent by God into ministry. I am not saying: stop being wise. I am not saying: stop practicing good boundaries. I am not saying: forget the past; no need to learn from it. Please, please be wise, set and hold good boundaries, and learn from the past. But no matter our past, no matter what we’ve done, no matter what’s been done to us, God calls us, and God sends us. Every one of us. God does not give up on us. God does not give up on anyone. Even when we cannot rally any more hope or any more chances for the people who have hurt us, God does. Even when we despair of our own choices, our sordid pasts, God does not. God calls each of us and sends us into ministry. God gives us purpose, work to do, people to serve, regardless. If today you are wondering if you are worthy to serve God and God’s people, the answer is yes. If today you are wondering if there is any hope for a person you love but can no longer help, the answer is yes. For the endless hope we know in God, we can say: Thanks be to God! Amen.