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First
Reading
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Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
Ezekiel 2:1-5 |
Psalm 123 |
2 Corinthians 12:2–10 |
Mark 6:1–13
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There is an old Hasidic story about a physician who was consulting with a patient. “Hmm,” said the physician, “the devil of your illness is very serious, but if you cooperate with me, we can fight it together and it will be two against one. But if you resist, and take the side of the illness, then I will be outnumbered and the outcome may be different.” If you don’t have confidence in your doctor, the health process will be thwarted.
The story of Jesus’ venture to his hometown is part of the broader itinerary of Jesus as he traveled back and forth across the Lake of Galilee, to both gentile and Jewish towns along the shore. Today’s lesson is not a statement with anti-Jewish or pro-gentile implications or about who is more likely to accept the Gospel. Jesus was accepted and rejected in both gentile and Jewish environments, as the larger narrative makes clear. Yet Jesus’ experience in his hometown poignantly shows that in a community where one might expect acceptance, there well may be rejection, and later disciples of Jesus should not be shocked or discouraged by it.
When God’s grace is freely offered and generously sown like the seed a farmer who sows a field, we all have the choice to accept or reject it. God does not force grace and healing on any of us. We all have the option to say no and close our hearts and minds to its growth and eventual signs of its harvest.
Today’s Gospel is an example of Jesus teaching and offering signs of God’s healing and reconciliation at work among them, but of people not receiving the good news as good news. They interpreted it as bad news, and interpreted signs of God’s kingdom as menacing threats to their way of living. Hence, Jesus is not able to work acts of healing and signs of God’s good will as in other towns where people accepted him.
The Gospel writers put Jesus in the tradition of John the Baptist and the great prophets of the Bible because, like their message, Jesus’ teaching implied change and a shift of direction. John the Baptist introduced Jesus’ ministry with the announcement, “Repent!” Repentance isn’t some sort of morbid self-flagellation or an insidious attempt to load one’s self up with guilt and self-hatred. It is a call to change. Signs of God’s Kingdom are present, but we may have to turn our head to perceive them, or turn down the volume of our own music in our ipod to hear them. Many times evidence of God’s healing is readily present, but the icy coating on our hearts has to melt. The switch on the deep freeze of our hearts needs to be turned off and in some sense we need to be defrosted.
This past week, Public Radio had a short segment on the effects of undamming the Kennebec River in Maine and letting it flow freely, unobstructed to the Atlantic coast. True residents of Maine generally look upon change with hefty skepticism, and most of them opposed the undamming of the Kennebec after 150 years and predicted dire consequences. But now some years after it had been done, Mainers have changed their minds. For the first time in over a century, thousands of shad have come up and spawned. As one down-easter put it, “To see thousands of fish spawning in the river is an awesome sight, never imagined,” and, of course, something that had not ever been seen since their great grandfather’s day.
The Gospel lesson may be suggesting that it is in second thoughts, in repentance if you will, that Good News be revealed. The Gospel always presents in some way a discontinuity from the past; not necessarily a complete rejection, but at least a modification of consequence. Conversion implies willingness to be open to the possibility that a change may be a good thing. Simply being open to a change of direction and at least mulling it over and giving it consideration, rather than easy acceptance, is a hopeful sign of the Good News at work.
I wonder if Jesus didn't pick the Fourth of July weekend to visit his hometown. On this holiday of fireworks and picnics, we remember that the birth of this nation was considered by the world an untested bold experiment if not radical departure from the status quo. Perhaps Jesus’ rejection in his hometown and the message of repentance, change of direction, second thoughts, and openness to the possibilities of conversion may be quite appropriate for every Fourth of July.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
