Message 07-09-06
Series: Lectionary
Scripture: Mark 6:1-13
Title: Coming Home
Intro:
It’s great to be home.
I spent some time away over the last couple of weeks and I packed a lot of moving into it. I went to Ireland and Wales to study Celtic Spirituality and I went to Massachusetts to be with my mom and dad as they sold their house and moved in with my sister. I learned a fundamental thing while I was away. When I was in university in Wales I was a remarkable guy – I traveled thousands of miles to get there, I was on my own without a tour, and I was from a place that most of the people there had only heard about. On the other hand, when I got to my family, after studying in Wales, most of my time was spent packing, cleaning and going to the dump. I was just Geoff or any of the other nicknames my sister has for me. One of her emails to me, while I was away started “Dear Blockhead…” and that was because I forgot her birthday.
When you get home you’re just you, aren’t you.
Have you had that experience? When you’re out in the life you’ve created you’re a respected member of the community, but when you get home they hand you the trash. You’re just the little brother, the big sister, the kid from down the street and we all know what you did when you were in fourth grade.
Don’t start thinking that you’re all that. We know you.
Have you ever had that kind of experience?
Study:
That’s where we start with Jesus.
He’s been out in the countryside, performing miracles, teaching, becoming a known and respected rabbi. Now, he’s come home – kind of the local boy made good and what does he find? He finds people offended that he’s telling them about God. He finds that people are thinking he’s a bit uppity, thinking a little too much of himself, and he finds that the people he always knew are ready for him to just be Jesus.
I have a friend on the West Coast, a guy named Dave who’s a retired math teacher but has always been into drama and does a bit of community theater. He has a show that he’s put together that’s called ‘Shua. It’s what would be a nickname for Jesus – whose name would have been pronounced Yeshua by the people of his village. It wouldn’t have been odd for him to be called ‘Shua by people who knew him. There would have only been about 1600 to 2000 people living in Nazareth at that time. You’d pretty much be able to recognize everyone in the community. You’d be able to get the news about what’s going on. There’s only one synagogue in the village.
So when Jesus shows up the first response is to give him some honor. This scene is found in all four Gospels. He’s invited to read Scripture and to teach we’re told in one of the other Gospels. But then, as he teaches, the people become offended. It’s a “who does he think he is” kind of attitude. He’s just ‘Shua. We know where he comes from.
These are just country people and they’re looking for Jesus to have a bit more humility in his tone, rather than authority.
So they take a step back.
They decide to keep him at arms’ length. They decide to watch him for a bit.
I don’t think that’s unusual when it comes to Jesus.
Even in our country today people feel like they know about Jesus. They know all they need to know about Jesus and they are a bit put off by Jesus speaking with authority rather than a bit more humility. Who does he think he is? When Christians quote Jesus as saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father but by me.” It’s not hard to understand that people who don’t have faith in Jesus are put off by that.
We live in a pluralistic society, we’re told all the time. We live in a postmodern age, we’re told. This means that there are many truths that people claim and it also means that every opinion is questionable. Because there are so many truths being brought forward the general attitude is that there’s no one truth that can be accepted as fact. Everything is up for question. History is the opinion of the winners. Life is seen from your perspective and although your perspective may seem like reality to you, it is, after all, only your perspective. When this is the general mindset of the people of our society – and in particular the young people of our society – it is not hard to understand people being put off by someone who says I am the way and there is no other.
The people of Nazareth didn’t need a postmodern construct to be put off by Jesus. They just had to remember that he was the construction worker who lived in that house.
Can you hear the tone of their words?
Isn’t this the carpenter? The tekton… is the Greek word we translate as carpenter, which could be stonemason but in any case means someone who constructs out of wood or stone. Carpenter is a legitimate translation and is our heritage, but I tend to lead toward “construction worker” because there wasn’t a lot of fine carpentry going on at that time in that area.
Isn’t this the construction worker?
Isn’t this Mary’s son?
Did you catch that? When they said this they weren’t giving honor to Mary. They were denying Jesus a father, Joseph in particular. There are people who argue against the reliability of the Gospels by saying that there is no virgin birth recorded in neither Mark’s Gospel nor in John’s Gospel. But they also don’t hold up these small incidents where Joseph is not given recognition as the father of Jesus. People of the first century when Mark’s Gospel was written down would have heard the slur in this question. Isn’t this Mary’s son? It isn’t a claim for virgin birth but it is definitely saying that people didn’t know who Jesus’ father was. They were slamming him.
We know this guy. We know his background or his “lack” of background. Why should he be taking on this authority?
They took a step back and so it says he couldn’t do any miracles there. Except for healing a couple of people he wasn’t able to anything much. We’re told in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus took his family and moved them to Capernaum.
But here the story takes a shift. Jesus leaves Nazareth and goes out teaching in village after village and then he sends out his disciples. He calls them to himself and sends them out and he gives them authority. He sends them out two by two and they go and bring healing and the message of the Good News of God. They call people to turn around and come to God. And not only Jesus but his disciples go on to heal and to cure and to drive out evil.
And this is what it comes down to… and what it’s always come down to and what it will probably always come down to…
People can take a step away from Jesus, just sit back and watch to see if he can do anything. Or they can participate in building the kingdom of God. Being spectators or participators is the way it works.
You see we’re not following a “truth.”
If you what you want is to get all your truth lined up, if what you’re looking for is for everything to be proved to you, if you want to make sure that you’re only stepping on solid ground before you take a step… well then you’re never going to see anything.
It’s just not going to happen.
If you’re a Christ follower you need to remind yourself that you are not following a code or a rule book or a list of demands. You’re a Christ follower. We follow Jesus. We follow someone.
I’ve said this before and you’ll probably hear it again. It’s not about being good. It’s not about being clean or being righteous or even being right. It’s about following. If the reason I come to church is to find out how to be good or “gooder” each week, I’d rather go camping.
It’s not about being good. We are not going to get good. We will be made righteous and we will be cleansed. We may even, even in this lifetime, recognize that we have been made whole from being fractured by life. But that is not the point. The point is participating. The point is following. If we are made whole it is so that we can bring the kingdom of God into someone else’s life, it is so we can offer to others what found us. We can point out the direction of home.
So, what do we do to get ready for this?
Do we read up on all the arguments on the resurrection? Do we study the issues of textual criticism so that we can refute “The DaVinci Code”?
Jesus says, go out in faith and engage with the people you meet. Jesus says – Participate in the kingdom of God and bring the kingdom with you. We are not called to be spectators. We are called and sent to be participators.
How do you feel about yourself in relation to God and to being a Christian? Where would you put yourself on a scale of 1-10? There are people here I’d put above me I know that. My conversations with God tend to include things like – I don’t know how to do that. I don’t want to do that. I’m feeling really uncomfortable. I’m going to look stupid. I find following God to be hard and when I look at and listen to some of you I find you so much more comfortable.
But I find that my experience is that the tools I take with me are not what I end up using. Jesus says, go out and trust God. Be part of the kingdom of God and build the kingdom. Jesus knew his society. The communities of his society were required to receive and care for strangers. What Jesus tells his disciples is stay in the household that first receives you. Don’t jump to “better accommodations” just because they show up later. He teaches his followers to live in their culture and to treat all people as important.
Do we know our culture? Do we know the society we live in? I think this is important because we can easily live in a sub-culture, a Christian culture. We can have Christian books on our shelves and Christian records in our CD players. We can wear Christian clothes and have Christian insignias on our cars. We can go to hear Christian speakers and attend Christian seminars. We can wrap ourselves so completely in “Christian” stuff that we don’t communicate with the people of the world. Jesus said, “I want you to be in the world, just not ‘of’ it.” Jesus said, “Just take your staff.”
We need to know our culture and to bring it and its messages to God and talk them over with him. We need to speak to people as human beings. We need to speak in fair-minded ways that honors others whoever they may be. We need to call others into this.
I find that many people in the Democratic Party need to do this. They need to speak in fair-minded ways toward those on the right.
I recently read a speech by a Democratic Senator. He shared an email he received from a Christian doctor who is against abortion. In it the doctor wrote that he liked some of what the Senator was saying, but then when he went to the Senator’s website he found a reference to “people who were against abortion” and he found them referred to as “religious ideologues.” The doctor said he wasn’t writing to ask to change his position on abortion yet, but he was writing to ask that he speak in a fair-minded way toward those who disagree with him or who have another opinion.
The Senator admitted to being ashamed by this. He discovered that someone on his staff had written the statement on his website and he sent this email to everyone on his staff and had it changed. The Senator, in this speech, told of his own faith and he called on his party to learn to speak in fair-minded ways.
That doctor is a brother of ours in the Lord. That doctor gives us a good example of who we are to be in our society. We are to be people who participate in life, who engage in conversation about the real things of life and who lead others into being truly human.
We are called by Jesus and sent by him to build the kingdom.
