Sermon: Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 6:1-13

July 7, 2024 

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

Let me begin by taking you on a trip down memory lane. I invite you to conjure up memories of life in your hometown growing up. Take a moment to ponder: what are some of the memories of your hometown that come immediately to mind?

You may have good and fond memories. Your memories may also be unpleasant, maybe even anguished. Which is to say, our experiences of our hometowns are a mixed bag.

I love the town I grew up in. Good friends. Three generations of my family. A college in town that had a huge effect on the kind of person I would become. There are plenty of fond memories. But there are downsides, too. It was a small town; so, there were few secrets. Everybody knew everybody else’s business. 

In our hometowns, there’s usually a significant pressure to behave within the norms of acceptability and respectability there. Anyone who deviates too far from those norms is not always well-received. Extraordinarily gifted people are sometimes put in their place. There is often a pressure not to be too smart, or perceived as being too big for your britches. 

Hometowns can also convey the truth that “familiarity breeds contempt.” In hometowns, you cannot really hide the blemishes. Thus, it’s often the case that we don’t necessarily expect great things from the people we know too well in our hometowns. And when exceptional people do emerge, hometown folk tend to be jealous of the gifted ones who stand out and they try to put them in their place.

In these ways, those in our hometowns can be like the people described in today’s first reading from the prophet Ezekiel where the Lord said to Ezekiel: “Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel… They and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn….” 

In short, there can be a lot of impudence and stubbornness in our hometowns. People at home may dig in their heels, resisting the courtesy of showing each other due respect. And this can cause a lot of suffering in human community.

Jesus found himself in this same predicament when he and his disciples visited his hometown and his own kin there. The hometown crowd admits that Jesus has the gift of wisdom and they acknowledge that he does deeds of power with his own hands, the same hands that worked the ordinary job of a carpenter. 

But rather than marveling at Jesus, rather than celebrating with him, they took offense at him. The biblical Greek suggests they were scandalized by Jesus. They were stubborn and refused to see what God was up to in him. In response, Jesus offered those words of wisdom that are often quoted because they’re true in so many contexts: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown and among their own kin and in their own house.” In short, Jesus was amazed at their unbelief. 

The fascinating dimension of this passage is that “Jesus could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” Why is that? In Jesus’ humanity, he was embedded in a typical human family with envy and resentment among siblings. Yet, we also confess Jesus to be fully divine, omnipotent, all-powerful. Surely Jesus could have said, “I’ll show you. I’ll cure people and do deeds of power even if you are scandalized by me, even if you don’t believe in me.” 

But that’s not the path Jesus chose or chooses. Jesus does not impose his will on others. Rather, Jesus respects the will of others and invites them to be willing participants in faith, in trust, and to freely receive his power or not. 

But then what about those stubborn ones who cause Jesus to be amazed at their unbelief? What about the ones who were scandalized by Jesus? How can Jesus’ dynamic power break through that stubbornness and impudence of heart and mind? 

The key to understanding the possibility of breakthrough is found, I believe, in today’s second reading from 2 Corinthians where Paul explores his own humiliations that kept him humble. Pau writes: “Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh… Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but the Lord said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me…. For whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10) 

In other words, when we are faced with our own weaknesses and thereby genuinely embrace humility, that’s when, in the inviting power of Jesus and his Spirit, we become more open, and our stubbornness is softened, and we’re less prone to being offended and scandalized by others. And when we are humbled, we are open to marveling at Christ’s wisdom and his deeds of power. 

Moreover, when we’re humbled, that’s when our faith, our belief is awakened. The God-given gift of humility is the rich soil in which the God-given gift of faith germinates and grows and bears fruit. 

And when we are humbled in our weaknesses, we ultimately come to see and understand that the greatest wisdom of Christ is the humiliation of the cross that leads to the exaltation of the resurrection. 

The humility of faith made possible by Christ, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, changes everything and helps us see all things from God’s point of view. In faith we grow to see and embrace the wisdom contained in the scriptures even when just a few of us gather in conversation at our bible studies to explore the Sunday readings. 

In faith we grow to see that baptism is not just a water bath and human ritual, but a divine sacrament that claims us as beloved children of God, raising us with Christ, that we might share in his resurrected life. 

In faith we grow to see that the Eucharist is not just a little bit of bread that doesn’t look or taste like bread or just a little bit of wine or juice. Rather, these ordinary, unassuming gifts of creation contain the fullness of Christ’s presence and all his benefits to us. 

If we were left to our hometown stubbornness, impudence, and skepticism, we’d miss all of this extraordinary sacredness in the ordinary things we do. We’d miss that in our little congregation of Faith-La Fe, God in Christ, the creator and savior of the whole universe, is fully present here in the power of the Spirit. And that when it’s all said and done, God’s grace is sufficient for us. Thanks be to God!

And when we marvel at Christ present among us, we also come to marvel at the sacredness we see in ourselves and in each other. And we come to acknowledge that we share the common ground of our humanity in humility as humus, creatures of dust – but dust that God created, and dust that made it possible for the very Word of God to be made flesh in Christ, full of grace and truth. 

And in this state of grace, Jesus calls us and sends us out two by two, as it were, giving us his authority like he gave to his disciples, to invite repentance and to engage in acts of healing, casting out demons and anointing the sick – all the while seeing Christ, seeing sacredness in all whom we meet on the way.

In Christ, seeing the common ground of our humanity in its exaltedness and depravity, that’s the antidote to the tendency to be offended and scandalized by each other in our radically polarized nation and world.

Oh, what a gift of healing grace to all of our hometowns in such a divided and dangerous time for our nation and our world. Amen? Amen.