Close to Home

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’" Mark 6:4

The Reverend Luther Zeigler

Emmanuel Church

July 8, 2012

            Here we are in the sixth chapter of Mark’s gospel, well into Jesus’ public ministry, and after some pretty spectacular teaching and healing that has attracted throngs of followers around the Sea of Galilee, one would think that the good folks of Nazareth would be excited to hear that Jesus is coming home and would be planning a ticker tape parade for their favorite son’s return.  How disappointed Jesus must be to hear, instead, the stinging words of rejection, suspicion, and disbelief in today’s gospel text.

            We tend to forget that Jesus was fully human, as well as fully divine.  And as a fully human being, I have to believe that it was heartbreaking to receive such a cold and hostile reception upon his return home.  It is only human to want acceptance, approval, even praise for the important work that you are doing with your life, especially from those family members and friends with whom you grew up.  I think this is something all of us secretly crave; we want our parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, and childhood friends to be proud of us for who we have become and for what we are doing with our lives.  And to be scorned, rather than cheered, must have been humiliating and isolating.

            The problem is not that the crowd fails to recognize Jesus’ deeds.  Mark tells us that the hometown folks are indeed “astounded” to hear Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue, they recognize his wisdom, and are themselves witnesses to the deeds of power being done by his hands.  They can see the results; they are just unwilling to believe that the source of this power is God himself.  It must be a trick of some sort, they think; the work of a sorcerer, or a magician, or a charlatan.  And for this reason, Mark tells us, Jesus’ own friends and family take offense at his presence among them again.

            Jesus responds to this rejection not in anger or bitterness.  Nor does he wallow in self-pity.  Rather, he merely expresses his amazement at the depths of their unbelief and recalls the truth of the ancient proverb, echoes of which we hear in our Old Testament reading this morning from Ezekiel, that “prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”  And then he gathers his disciples, and sends them out two by two to continue their teaching and healing in neighboring villages.

            There are two important lessons that I take away from this morning’s gospel text:  the first is about us, about human nature; and the second is about God.

            The first lesson is this:  human beings consistently fail to see God in the midst of their lives.  The divine can be right under our noses and, more often than not, we remain oblivious to its presence. 

            Let’s start as close to home as possible.  Let’s consider our own bodies.  I wake up every morning and somehow that amazingly reliable muscle right here in my chest just keeps on going, pumping blood throughout my body, allowing the rest of this complex web of muscle, tissue and bone to not only function, but to do some pretty amazing things.  And what about our brains, and their ability to take in and process our perceptions, to form words, to express complicated thoughts and feelings to other human beings in ways that can be readily understood and felt, to retrieve memories from the past and bring them to consciousness, to guide our actions and choices in creative and constructive tasks. 

            We are these walking and talking, feeling and breathing, communicating and loving, selves; reflections of the creative brilliance of God Himself.  And yet, most days we just blithely take the miraculous givenness of our bodies, minds, and spirits all for granted.  It is usually not until something fails us – when we take ill for a few days, or lose the use of some part of our body, or are hospitalized with a serious condition – that we suddenly appreciate all we have been given.  Our familiarity with ourselves oftentimes blinds us to the miracles we are.

            And the same is also true, of course, with the other people in our lives and with our surroundings.  We are blessed with people who care for us, who love us, who share their gifts and talents with us, and we are surrounded by a glorious and enchanting universe; and yet most of the time, we act like we are entitled to it all, or even bored by it, rather than being overwhelmed with gratitude and awe.  The truth is this:  the risen Christ is in our midst every second of every day in all that we encounter and yet we somehow fail to see him.

            But worse than that:  familiarity can even breed contempt, as the old saying goes.  We not only take the familiar for granted, but we then tend to move to the next step of griping and whining when things (like our bodies) don’t work the way they once did.  Or we express bitterness or hostility to those around us because they don’t seem able to meet our expectations or fulfill our desires to the same extent they did in the past.  Or we covet what others have that we have no longer.  Yes, familiarity breeds contempt.

            When the young man Jesus returns home, his family and friends are convinced that they know who he is.  They are familiar with this boy and where he came from.  He cannot possibly be anything special.  Yes, they’ve heard of some remarkable teaching and healing, but surely there must be another explanation.  The crowd’s doubting words – “is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” – are much more biting and derisive than we might suppose at first hearing.  The Greek word that is translated here as ‘carpenter’ actually has a more negative connotation, something like a mere ‘construction worker.’  So, what they are saying is more like:  “you don’t expect us to believe that this uneducated laborer is a prophet, do you?”

            And calling Jesus “the son of Mary” is even a greater insult.  The Jewish custom at the time was always to refer to a man as the son of his father.  By omitting any reference to “Joseph,” and mentioning just his mother’s name, the crowd is not so subtly questioning the legitimacy of Jesus’ birth.  What they are saying in effect is:  “You don’t expect us to believe that this illegitimate son of a peasant girl is doing God’s work, do you?”

            The hometown folks are sure they know what a prophet looks like, and this young boy of questionable birth, no social standing, no formal education, and no decent profession is not the stuff of a prophet.  Their familiarity with Jesus and his humble origins, coupled with their own narrow preconceptions of who God is, completely obscure God’s presence in their midst.

            I wonder how often you and I miss Christ’s face in the people we encounter each day because we too are imprisoned by our own preconceptions and biases, and burdened by the familiar terrain of our own lives.  I wonder how often we just pass Christ by in our own hometown in the rush and routine of our daily rhythms.  Today’s gospel is a reminder to us all to be ever alert to Christ’s ubiquitous presence in our lives.  Look for him in the smile of a neighbor, look for him in the need of a stranger, look for him even in the familiar face you see in the bathroom mirror each morning, for Christ is forever seeking new opportunities and places to embrace and redeem us.  There is a reason we call ourselves, in St. Paul’s words, the Body of Christ.

            If the first lesson I take away from today’s gospel is about our failure to recognize God when we see him, the second lesson is about God and it is this:  although His loving pursuit of us is relentless, it is never coercive.  God neither forces us to believe in Him nor does he offer us irrefutable proof of his presence; instead, he invites us to trust in the power of his reality.  One of the more interesting things that Mark reports in our text this morning is that Jesus’ power to heal and transform was somehow inhibited in the face of the hometown crowd’s disbelief:  As Mark says, after witnessing the crowd’s disbelief, Jesus “could do no deed of power there.”  As the crowd’s faithlessness increases, Christ’s divine activity subsides.

            I do not think this means that God’s power in Christ is in any way compromised or limited by human action, but I do think that it teaches us something important about the utter respect God has for our freedom, the freedom He gives us either to accept his gracious love in faith and gratitude or to reject it.  God won’t force our hands.  What Jesus learned that day from the hostile reception he received in Nazareth is exactly what he taught his disciples as he sent them out two-by-two to continue his teaching in neighboring villages: Jesus learned that you can control what you say, but you cannot control what people hear.  He learned that you can control what you do, but you cannot control how people respond.  He learned that you can control how you show your love, but you cannot control how people receive it.  Christ will not coerce us into believing in Him, or being His disciples.  But He always stands ready, with open arms and a loving heart, to accept our freely made decision to believe in Him and the truth of his message. 

            In sum, these are the two things I invite you to hear in today’s gospel: First, Christ is always near, in the most unlikely places and faces, if we just have the eyes to see him.  And second, Christ’s love for us is such that he will not compel our attention and obedience to his presence; rather, he will patiently wait and wait and wait for us to recognize his face, to trust in the love he offers, and to take the risk of following in his way.  But the choice to see him, to believe in him, and to follow him is ours.  Amen.