Joshua D. Walters
Proper 9-Year B
Mark 6:1-7
I would imagine that this scenario is happening all over the country today. Dozens of newly-ordained curates and assistants are ascending the steps of their new pulpits for the first time, myself included. After their first Sunday last week, it is now time to be wholly introduced to their new congregation. Today our church’s newest clergy-the one’s with the starchiest and blackest clergy shirts—climb the steps of their new parish homes and begin their ministries and proclaim God’s good news to God’s people—at least that is what we ‘newbies’ hope happens and not get run out of our new hometowns.
So, how fitting it is, then, that our Savior is doing the very same thing; however, he has the difficult duty of preaching to his hometown congregation. He himself ascends the dais, reads from Holy Scripture, and begins the ministry of proclamation, of bringing Good News to those whom he knew best, or at least they thought they knew him best. He has the toughest job of all; he’s preaching to family and kin.
As a little background to today’s passage let’s look back to where Mark has been in the preceding chapters. Jesus, Baptized and anointed by the Holy Spirit in the first chapter, has called his twelve Disciples, he has had a series of very successful preaching gigs, if you will, in neighboring synagogues. To date he has calmed storms, caused little girls to come back from death into new life, exorcised demons, cured lepers, and even brought to health an ailing mother-in-law. And now, after all this great success with all the laurels and accolades of God, Jesus comes back to his people—those who knew him and knew his family. While the text is not clear as to why Jesus returns to his hometown, there are two things that are certain. First, he calls his disciples to absolute secrecy about any of the preceding events, especially the miracles. Perhaps Jesus was hoping that these people who knew him would see something new, something beyond being the young man of Mary, brother to James, Joses, Judas, Simon, and unnamed sisters. Perhaps Jesus was hoping that these people of Nazareth would recognize his divinity first and nurture our Lord in his journey yet to come, sending him along his way with joyous Hosannas and undulating palm fronds.
Yet in the end he was ‘amazed at their unbelief.’ He was amazed that such faithful Jews, devoted members of the synagogue, beloved friends, were unable to recognize the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets in their midst. He was amazed by the coldness and the myopia with which they read the scriptures and he was amazed by their absolute certainty that nothing so extra-ordinary could be taking place by someone so well-known and common. Bear in mind these people were not bad people at all. They were faithful, observant, orthodox Jews—they were just a little skeptical.
The second fact we know for certain is that Mark mentions neither the text of Jesus’ teaching nor even the Words that Jesus says to them. The text is unvoiced as to what brings the congregation to such an uproar; our Gospel remains silent as to what he says, even while the outraged crowd is not. Mark’s Jesus lacks the temerity and gumption that Luke’s Jesus has. In Luke’s version of this same story Jesus reads from the sixty-first chapter of the prophet Isaiah. After reading the passage Jesus says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” So what is this great affront which this silent rabbi Jesus lays before the congregation and what is their great sin?
I believe that what Jesus said to this congregation is irrelevant. Unwilling ears don’t hear new sound’s and myopic eyes cannot see when new lenses are absent. That was the synagogue’s greatest sin. It is their inability to look at the familiar, and to see it in new and unfamiliar ways.
What a lack-luster homecoming at the start of Jesus’ ministry.
Yet he continued on with the work given him by God. In the verses following he sends forth his disciples into the world and the neighboring villages. However, his rejection by his very kinfolk in his home-congregation would be the last time in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus entered a synagogue. From here-on-out Jesus’ ministry and teaching would take place outside the normal bounds of society and outside the presupposed norms of his faith community. But all the while, God’s son was amazed, perhaps stunned, by their unbelief. Perhaps Jesus entered his hometown with the hopes that they would eagerly drop their belongings and follow him in his endeavor, just as the Twelve had done, and perhaps the generosity with which they reared him had made him look toward them with such optimism.
What this congregation in our Gospel, this assembly of seasoned Nazarenes, failed to see was something new in something very common. It is the same for all of us. We see the same person, hear the same songs, say the same prayers, we dismiss them as writ, and we fail to see or hear the new gem lurking just under the surface. But we, Christians, are forever called to look for the newness of creation in an already created world. Our recent General Convention is proof of our continual recreation of the commonplace, by the continued flight of the Holy Spirit in the election of Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori, the acceptance of the Millennium Development Goals, and even in the continued expansion of our calendar of Feasts. Our lives as Christ’s ministers is punctuated by our on-going commitment for the justice of all people and in our Baptismal Covenant in seeking to serve Christ in all persons and perpetually striving with insatiable commitment for justice and the dignity to all people.
With our attention and continued commitment to those words we, too, are called to find newness in that what we find common. During our next service we will be baptizing six new members into the household of God, they too will be starting their ministry at Christ Church. With the loving arm’s given to us, may we rear them in the perpetual remembrance that God is with us, and with the persistence of the Sun’s rising, God’s light will continually shine and make all things new.
“Help us, O Lord, to live
the faith which we proclaim,
that all our thoughts and words and deeds
may glorify thy name.”
—Hymn 628 from The Hymnal 1982
With God’s help, may all our lives, hand in hand with our newest brothers and sisters, continually ascend the Gospel steps of Christ’s revelation to this world.
AMEN
