Mark 6:1-13a
I have a friend, Marge, who was a seminary student with me back in the beyond time. I became friends with Marge, as well as her husband (who was also one of our professors) and her teenage daughter, Aimee. I often housesat for Marge when she and her husband would travel, so Aimee and I got to be buddies. At one point, Aimee was set to travel for the first time out of the country, to Europe; to France, if I recall correctly. Having recently returned from my own sojourn beyond our country’s borders, I wanted to give Aimee a small bon voyage gift to mark the momentous occasion of her trip, so I purchased a passport case. When I gave it to her, I also provided a bit of advice, which was to keep close watch on her passport because U.S. passports are valuable overseas and can be stolen and used for nefarious activities.
Marge later told me that Aimee told them about my advice and seemed to take it as sacred truth. Marge also told me that they had said exactly the same thing to Aimee before but it wasn’t until she heard it from me, a non-parent in her life, did it really take hold.
I have a feeling that such a reaction is not completely unknown to parents of teenagers or parents with children of any age for that matter. And that reaction is not all that different from what Jesus must have experienced that day in Nazareth. We all know the familiar phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” and indeed that phrase could easily have been borne out of the incident we heard from the first part of the lectionary reading from Mark’s gospel this morning.
But before we get too hard on those folks from Nazareth, let’s consider the situation for a moment. If any of our neighbors in the apartment building where Allen & I live came up to me to tell me that they were sent by God to reform the world, I might be a little skeptical. Why, that’s just Cliff or Shana or Carlos. How can she or he be such an important person?
And of course, all this is only more intensified when you’re talking about someone returning to their hometown. How can he be that important? He’s just Walt & Susan’s kid, the one who got caught smoking behind the A&P. Who does she think she is? Her parents were plain old laborers who had little education. In fact, I’m not sure if her father is her father, if you know what I mean. Such comments and ones like them, perhaps not spoken but certainly considered, are all too common. And they lead to the discounting of many a prophet. And Jesus wasn’t the only one to note this phenomenon. Plutarch, who did his moral philosophizing during the first century not long after Jesus, said, “The most sensible and wisest people are little cared for in their own hometown.”
Just prior to our reading from today, Jesus had been out starting his ministry; traveling around healing, performing miracles, preaching, and teaching. Undoubtedly word of his activities filtered back to Nazareth; those sorts of events aren’t kept quiet for long, as the gospel writers themselves note from time to time. But I’m willing to bet that the miracles and the healings got much bigger and better press than his teachings and preaching ever did. It’s still true today; if you want to get a message across you do it rather than talk about it. We’re fascinated by action but not so interested in words. I believe it’s human nature transcending culture, time, and geography.
So very likely the home folks back in Nazareth heard about the paralyzed man in Capernaum who walked again, about the man with the withered hand who stretched out his cured hand, about the maniacal demoniac in the land of the Gerasenes who was brought back to sanity, about the woman who touched Jesus’ hem & was healed of her decades long flow of blood and about the young girl who was even brought back to life from death. Those stories travel. But had they heard what he had to say; what he was preaching and teaching throughout Galilee? If they even heard it, they probably didn’t remember it because the miracles were so impressive and words...well, words are just words.
So when Jesus got up to speak in the synagogue, his words, his thoughts of doing things differently, of interpreting scripture in a new way, came across as brand new to his listeners that day. They simply weren’t expecting what they heard. Jesus was issuing a challenge to the status quo and it was coming from within, from one of their own. It was coming, in fact, from the son of a carpenter for crying out loud. This was coming from Jesus, Mary’s son. Did you notice they didn’t even mention Joseph? “Jesus doesn’t have the credentials to do this,” was assuredly the thought in several minds that day.
Interestingly, this is the last time that Mark puts Jesus in the synagogue. From here on out, he goes out to the people directly, avoiding the standard routes of religious proclamation, eschewing what we would call “church” and instead preaching wherever he could gather a crowd of folks who would listen. As much as the crowd in the synagogue in Nazareth rejected Jesus that day, Jesus rejected them.
And the lectionary gets it right by making sure that the two seemingly disparate stories we heard from Mark earlier are indeed read together. Though the sending out of the disciples seems like a completely separate narrative, the fact that it follows this tale of rejection is important. Because as Jesus realizes that he won’t be accepted and heard through the usual religious routes, he discovers that he needs to do things in a new way. Sending forth his disciples in pairs is all part and parcel of the reaction to rejection. Jesus essentially says, “Fine, if I can’t do it your way, I’ll do it mine and put my message right out there in the midst of the people.”
Jesus’ instructions to his disciples as he sent them out was to pack light carrying only a staff; a staff for support? or defense perhaps? or because that’s what shepherds carry? Who knows. It was clear that he was saying, however, don’t get weighted down in non-essentials. What you need will be provided. Just take my word out there...to the people. And they did.
Those of us in the seemingly ever-shrinking mainline may need to pay attention to these two narratives closely if we wish to survive and be a presence within Christianity. Because if we’re going to expect “them” to come flocking to us in our churches, it may not happen. And you know whom I mean by “them.” “They’re” called the unchurched, which, I’ll point out, is our term for them, not theirs. “They’re” just folks. They don’t define themselves in relation to church or religion at all.
They’re the people Jesus went out to and sent his disciples to in order to heal and speak with after being rejected by the synagogue, by the religious establishment, by those who knew him best. They’re the people on which Jesus’ subsequent ministry focussed.
How often do we reject our own when they try to speak a new word? How frequently do we find that familiarity does indeed breed contempt? And of course, the very person we’re most familiar with, our very selves, is the one we reject the quickest. “I can’t do that because my ideas are too crazy, too far out there,” we hear ourselves saying. “I’m not a good speaker.” “I am unable because I don’t have the latest computer or the best clothes or a reliable car.” “I could never do that because…” and you fill in the blank. We all stop and reject ourselves all too quickly, as quickly as Nazareth rejected Jesus. We reject the one we know the best because indeed we can be very contemptuous of ourselves because of our familiarity.
But we are, like those early disciples, called to go out without our vast holdings of material goods and a simple supportive, defensive staff in hand. We need the support and defense that that staff provides because there are many places that will also reject us and our message of inclusivity and love. And just like the disciples were instructed to do, we need to shake the dust off our feet and continue on to more receptive ears.
You are equipped, right now, right here, to do ministry. Each of you. Every single one of us can leave this place this morning with all that we need to provide healing in an extremely broken world, a world that may be receptive or may not. But that’s not our concern. We are called, both individually and as communities of God’s church, to break down the walls and barriers that our culture tends to erect and speak a new word...out there...out in the midst of God’s people.
© Gerry Brague
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