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Pentecost 5, Proper 9 Lesson: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
July 5, 2009 Psalm 48
The Rev. Karen Evans Epistle: 2 Corinthians 12:2-10
St. James’ Church, Marietta Holy Gospel: Mark 6:1-13
I speak to you in the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I started out thinking about the parade yesterday. As some of you know, we took the Wonderful Days bus, and thanks to Nancy Eubanks, we had bunting on the front of it, there were some of the Wonderful Days children, some of our youth, Bill & I, Nancy & Bill, the Duncan family. We were in the parade. Michael & Julia went out in front carrying a big banner that said St. James’ Episcopal Church, and it was a lot of fun (although I must say my arm is still sore from waving my flag out the window). It was quite an experience because I have not been in the parade; if ever, it was a long time ago. It was amazing to see all the people gathered, to see people waving, and hear them say, “Happy 4th of July.” I thought to myself, it is such a warm welcome to us, as we are going through and doing this.
I wonder what it was like when Jesus came home. I wonder if he did not have, maybe not a parade, but a warm welcome from the people he had grown up with. After all, he had developed quite a reputation. He had been doing miracles, healing people, calming storms, doing all of these things right in the region. They would have thought, “Hey, this is our hometown boy made good! This is great; let’s welcome him home. Jesus, great to see you again.”
But then came Saturday and it was time to go to the synagogue. When they got to the synagogue and read the lesson, then Jesus got up and began to teach them. All of a sudden, the mood changed. It was no longer welcome.
Part of the problem was that he was a local boy. Others in the synagogue knew him when he was a child. They might have bought door frames from him because he was a carpenter. The women may have said, “I see his sister every day at the well when we all go to get our water and do our washing.” It is very hard to go from the hometown boy to being a prophet, let alone the Messiah.
Bill can tell you that when he was first ordained one of the places that was open was in the next town over from where he had lived much of his life. We talked it over and decided that while it was a great church, it was going to be more trouble to be there than to go someplace totally strange, where nobody knew us because making that transition from the local boy to the priest is very hard. People do not recognize you for who you are.
I can identify with that, too. Sometimes when I read this passage it makes me mad. I remember things that seem to be the same kind of reception. I remember one time when the Vestry at the church I was serving at needed to bring in an expert on congregational development, when I had finished two years of training in that field. Or, when the diocese was going to insist that I do training in some clergy misconduct materials that I helped write.
But there was more to it. It was not just that Jesus was a hometown boy. In his day, there was a very clear class structure. What class you were born into, what work you did determined your place in society. Folks in the synagogue knew exactly where Jesus belonged in that order of people. He was not at the bottom, he was not a day laborer or a subsistence farmer. He was a skilled craftsman, but he was not of the upper classes.
Jesus was not of the class that would have been considered to have sufficient insight and wisdom to teach others. So, when he stepped out of his place, when he began to teach them as though he had the authority to do it (and, of course, he did), they were offended.
Then there is one more problem. For every prophet in Israel’s history, there were a dozen magicians, herbalists and self-proclaimed doctors who made their livings by their own skills.
Jesus was very clear. He said over, and over and over again, God does these deeds of power – the healings, the exorcisms, the stilling of storms. God may do them through me, but it is God who is doing the deed. He did not claim anything on his own. That is what he said, what he taught and what he lived. Folks in the neighborhood could not see past the kid they knew, the guy from down the block, to see that it was God who was doing the work, and that Jesus was the vessel or the means.
Our lessons says Jesus “could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”
Are there places where God is at work in our lives, in our community, in our nation, in our world, but we cannot see it because it does not meet our preconceptions, or it offends our prejudices.
There is a second part to our lesson. What that part says to me is that Jesus did not give up when he was rejected. He still healed a few people. Not only did he continue in the nearby villages to proclaim the Gospel, he sent out his disciples to do the same thing.
I sat next to someone at lunch the other day who said, “I don’t bow my head when you pray. I’m a recovering Christian.” By that I think he meant that he had outgrown the Christianity that he knew, and he no longer believed. He was someone who had a very stressful job and had seen much of the dark side of humanity. I am sure that the unquestioning faith of his childhood did not serve him any more. But no one had taught him what an adult faith could do for him.
I believe that Jesus still sends his disciples to tell the Good News to those who have never heard it and to those who need to hear it again. Then the choice is theirs – to accept it or reject it. If they accept it, we have new and faithful Christians. If they reject it, we move on. Amen.
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