Mark 6:1-13 "Ouch! Rejected"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         Christian evangelist and author Josh McDowell once wrote: ““People refuse to believe that which they don't want to believe, in spite of evidence.”  He goes on to describe a startling discovery made by English scientists in 1797. 

         “When explorers first went to Australia (he writes) they found a mammal which laid eggs; spent some time in water, some on land; had a broad, flat tail, webbed feet, and a bill similar to a duck. Upon their return to England, they told the populace of this, and (the entire scientific community) felt it was (an elaborate) hoax. They returned to Australia and found a pelt from this animal and took it back to England, but the people still felt it was a hoax. In spite of the evidence, they disbelieved because they didn't want to believe.”

         The animal, of course, was the duck-billed platypus, which is, as one blogger declared, “God’s ultimate practical joke.”  People refuse to believe that which they do not want to believe, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. 

        It is kind of like the time that I preached my first sermon in my home church in Montclair, NJ, shortly after I was ordained.  Some of you may know this story, especially if you have seen the needlepoint slogan commemorating it hanging over the door inside my office. 

         I stood up in the pulpit that morning.  It was one of those large and ornately carved ones that was situated somewhat above the congregation.  I am sure I was nervous, but I knew that I was supported by three years worth of prestigious Yale Divinity School professors as well as my peers assuring me that being a woman preacher was the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

         Little did I know that at least some folks in the congregation were more likely to be thinking, if not whispering to their neighbor:  “Isn’t that Nancy Allen who grew up in this church?  Isn’t that Barbara and Rich’s daughter, the skinny one who had those less-than-stylish, sharply cut bangs and big brown eyes?  How did she get so wise?  I mean, isn’t she the quiet little introverted thing who never liked to speak in front of anyone?  What is she doing up in that pulpit? 

        All this doubting and lack of trust in who I had become became clear to me, however, as the congregation filed out at the conclusion of the service, all of them dutifully shaking my hand and intoning the usual Sunday morning post-worship mantra:  “Nice sermon, Reverend.”  All, that is, except for one of the last people to file out.

         She was an elderly woman in a navy blue dress with large white polka dots.  She carried a shiny patent leather handbag over her arm.  She shook my hand and loudly proclaimed, “You know, dear, with girls like you up there, we don’t need ministers.” 

         Ouch!  Thumbs down in my own hometown!  At least no one tried to throw me off a cliff as they did Jesus in the Gospel writer Luke’s version of this story of rejection that we read this morning.

         Just like me, Jesus was under the impression that he was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  A real man about town!  After all, in the past two days, he had performed not one, not two, but three miracles.  He had calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee with a shout and a wave of his hand.  He had healed a nameless woman from a chronic bleeding disorder (and he did not even know that he was healing her), and he had raised a little girl from the dead.  Not bad!  Jesus was a heralded healer, a rabbi on a roll! 

         And now he walked confidently into his hometown synagogue on Friday evening, most likely believing that the congregation would hang on his every word.  He could say anything! 

         I suspect that the synagogue was packed because Jesus’ reputation preceded him.  As preaching professor Alyce McKenzie comments, “I picture Jesus' hometown family and friends squirming in their synagogue seats and craning their necks to see if he's coming up the center aisle as they wait for his arrival that day. The hometown boy is coming to bring the (weekly) message….As his family and former neighbors sit waiting, I bet they were preparing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

         Perhaps they were saying to each other, ‘Even if he's not that good a speaker, we need to encourage him, because he's just getting started.’ His home townies don't know who they're waiting for. They think they're waiting for the boy who knows how to make the best shelves in town. They think they're waiting for the familiar sibling of James, Joseph, Judas, Simon, and his sisters (unnamed!). They think they're waiting for the obedient son of Mary.”

         But it was not Mary’s kid up walking up the aisle.  It was not the Jesus who repaired a leaky roof and built some good sturdy furniture who was teaching them.  It was not the Jesus they had always known standing in front of them that evening as he elaborated on a passage from the prophet Isaiah (again, that is according to the Gospel writer Luke, who goes into way more detail than his counterpart, Mark, would ever think of doing), making a declaration about himself that could not possibly be true: “The Lord God has appointed me to preach good news to poor people, to heal the blind and sick, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

         What?  The effrontery!  Who did he think he was trying to be so high and mighty, fancying himself as a rabbi? “The Lord God appointed me…” 

         Hogwash!  After all, this was Jesus, Joe’s boy, who had been preparing to take over his father’s business (until he left so suddenly recently, left his family hook, line, and sinker. Can you believe it?).  He went off on his own just like those religious crazies you hear about. 

         Ouch!  Thumbs down in his own hometown!   However, Jesus seemed to take it all in stride.  As he and his followers continued their journey, he merely shrugged his shoulders and commented: “A prophet has little honor in his hometown, among his relatives, on the streets he played in as a child….A prophet is respected everywhere except where he grew up.”

         You know, when you think about it, this whole preaching business and the hometown crowd getting so upset with him might have come down differently if Jesus had given a bit more thought to what he was going to say.  Methodist bishop William Willimon speculates this way:

         “A friend of mine returned from an audience with His Holiness the Dali Lama. ‘When His Holiness speaks,’ my friend said, ‘everyone in the room becomes quiet, serene and peaceful.’ Not so with Jesus. Things were fine in Nazareth until Jesus opened his mouth and all hell broke loose.

        And this was only his first sermon! One might have thought that Jesus would have used a more effective rhetorical strategy, would have saved inflammatory speech until he had taken the time to build trust, to win people's affection, to contextualize his message -- as we are urged to do in (preaching) classes.

         No, instead he threw the book at them, hit them right between the eyes with Isaiah.”  Why, I wonder, did he have to sound so threatening?  No wonder he turned off the congregation!

         No wonder he left town, no doubt realizing that his words had threatened those folks he had grown up with, no doubt accompanied by his own feelings of rejection, perhaps even hurt by the lack of trust shown to him by those who knew him best.  It was at that point, however, that he did an interesting thing. 

         He gathered his twelve disciples about him, gave them some brief instructions, and sent them out to be like him, to be his hands and feet in the wider world.  He sent them out to preach and heal, to transform lives, to be boldly loved by some and rejected outright by others. 

        “’Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.  And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave. If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.’’

         Say what you need to say.  Do not pull any punches.  Know that you words and actions will threaten some folks.  You will be rejected outright by others – sometimes by the people you thought were your most ardent supporters, who had your back, sometimes even by your family.  But if you are speaking and living my message (Jesus said), and you are doing it in love, then there is nothing more you can do. 

         He might have continued:  “You can lead a horse (or a camel) to water, but you can not make it drink – which does not mean you should not make the attempt.  Just shake it off and keep trying.  Keep preaching, keep healing, keep forgiving, keep being a peacemaker and justice-seeker.  Keep being compassionate.  Nobody said that discipleship would be a Sunday School picnic.  Being one of my followers is risky business, risky business indeed.

         “Then they were on the road (the Scriptures continue). (The twelve) preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.”

         Being a follower of Jesus is risky business.  It is risky business indeed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that sometimes people disappoint us when we wish they had our back.  Sometimes the people we would expect to support us are just not engaged – or just not willing to go out on a limb with us.

         And when that happens, we have a choice.  We can figure it is just too hard and throw in the sponge, or we can stick to our principles, stick with the gospel message.   

         This story illustrates for us that, each day, we take a risk if we choose to live as the woman or man God calls us to be. After all, we may make others – even those close to us - feel threatened in their easy, cozy worlds.  We may face rejection. 

         Discipleship is not easy.  We take a risk when we choose to live as a follower of Jesus.  We take a risk when we choose to live as God wants us to live.  Each day we choose whether the return we get from living that way is worth the risk.

         We face that choice as individuals, but we also make that choice as a church – and what better day to talk a bit about that choice than on the day of our Annual Meeting when we look at who we are and who God has called us to be in the year to come.

         I read this quote somewhere this past week:  “We are at a grace-filled moment when we are able to choose our own future.”  And so it is for this church family.  We are indeed at a grace-filled moment, but it is a moment that is also incredibly risky.  The moderate church – and that would include us – is at a crossroads – and we must choose a direction.  Who are we?  What is our purpose?  What is our future here in Raymond?  Those are risky questions to ask – and even riskier questions to answer.  How are we – as a church – when it comes to taking risks?

         Let me end by reading you part of a blog post by Methodist pastor Ken Corder.  He writes:

         “Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God as a place where radical love, surprising grace, and over-the-top compassion spontaneously emerged in unexpected places.  It was a place of change, transformation, growth, pushing the envelope in order to see God’s kingdom unleashed in the world. He challenged social, cultural, economic and religious norms and traditions of his day with beautiful alternatives of grace, freedom and moving well-established fences to expand the breadth and reach of the kingdom of God.

         What too many churches have done in response to the great problems of the world today, and they are many, is to hunker down with a bunker mentality.  It is a weak position of insularity.  And after decades of insularity and hunkering down, if we are brave enough for a moment to look up and see what the world is up to, we find that in our insularity, we have become dangerously close to being irrelevant to a secular, unbelieving world.

         So what do we do?  Say it was a good ride while it lasted?  Say, well, let’s hang on as long as we can doing it the same old way, at least we’ll have our church until we’re gone?

         Jesus was not willing to let his beautiful, transformative message of the kingdom of God wither and die on the unfertile ground of people whose hearts were too hard or too disinterested in hearing the Gospel, so he took it to the streets, the hedge rows, the villages, the other side.  When the conservative, stagnant synagogues told him they had no use for his upsetting message he took it outside the establishment and formed a radical group of outcasts who took the message of the Good News to the people.  Oftentimes they found unfertile soil there as well – doubters, naysayers, people afraid of how Jesus’ message would effect their business, their pocketbook, their marriage, their way of life – so they told him and his ragtag disciples to move on down the road.  They did not want to hear it.

         But sometimes, every so often, one or two people, a small group – maybe one of ten healed lepers, maybe one tax collector, maybe one centurion or one dejected woman would hear Jesus’ message and be transformed, changed forever and would join the slowing growing band of disciplined followers – disciples of Jesus Christ.

        We must decide as a church (Corder blogs) if we are going to be with the stagnant naysayers, the staunchly comfortable, cautious traditionalists who look up one day and see they have become irrelevant to a world so in need of Jesus’ message of radical love, compassion, forgiveness, nonviolence and hospitality.  Or - if we are going get things done in the kingdom of God, if we are going to open our hearts, our minds and our doors to the Jesus who longs to transform this world.” Whew!  Talk about risky business, risky business indeed!  How are we as a church when it comes to taking risks?

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine