Proper 9B, 7 July 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

• 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10. King David made a covenant with them..
• 2 Corinthians 12:2-10..  My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.
• Mark 6:1-13. Jesus left that place and came to his home….Then he went among the villages teaching.

O God of grace, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

In our Gospel reading for today, Mark tells us that Jesus left the place where the hemorrhaging woman was healed and Jairus’ daughter was raised, and came to his hometown. I used to assume that Mark meant Nazareth when he said that Jesus came to his hometown, but now when I read this story with what comes before and what comes after, it seems clear to me that it’s not Nazareth at all; Jesus and his disciples are along the Sea of Galilee, and Mark has already mentioned in chapter three that Jesus, originally from Nazareth, was at home in Capernaum. Jesus had made a new home, a bigger home to accommodate not just his biological kin, but his kin in the kin-dom work of repentance, reconciliation and right relationship. 

 But of course, home is not just a bed of rose petals; there are thorns! Home isn’t just where the heart is, home is also where the hurt is. When Jesus began to teach in the gathering place of his hometown (also known as the synagogue), many who heard him were driven out of their minds, Mark says. Our English version says “astounded,” but the sense in Greek is astonishment with a heavy dose of panic, more like gobsmacked. They wanted to know who he thought he was, what on earth he thought he was doing. They took offense – they were scandalized. Mark assumes the hearer of the Gospel knows what was so offensive, so scandalous. My guess is that he was accusing them of making peace with oppression for the sake of safety. And Jesus wondered at their lack of faith. Notice the contrast. Jesus, not offended or scandalized by their unbelief, just wondered at it – there’s a strong sense here of Jesus’ compassion without judgment.

It’s easy for me to identify with Jesus and assume that the “hometown” that is denounced here is composed of some other group of people, somewhere else, some other time. It’s harder to acknowledge that I might be part of the hometown; that I belong to the hometown church – a church much more mainstream than on the fringes. Even in this parish we have become not so much of an outsider anymore because the Episcopal Church is changing around us and we are starting to feel at home. What if we are home? What if we don’t take Jesus’ teaching seriously because we are in his hometown, we are his kin? We’re pretty comfortable with Jesus. We’ve domesticated him. We’re self-satisfied when we hear his teaching to love God whole-heartedly and to treat neighbors with compassion and affection. That’s a familiar and appealing teaching to many of us — at least much of the time. But I wonder how and when we make peace with oppression for the sake of safety? How and when do we long for a Jesus who will make our life decisions comfortable and scandal-free because we are playing small?

William Countryman suggests that the hometown folks’ response in this story in Mark – the offense taken, at its root has to do with a failure to take themselves seriously. [1] And if this story is our story, and Jesus can do no great deeds of power here (except curing a few sick people), perhaps it’s about our failure to take ourselves seriously. Perhaps it’s about our inability to imagine that God loves us madly and God loves us too much to let us stay this way. Perhaps we need to be moving along on our spiritual journey, out toward the margins again and again, because God wants more from us because we have the resources to give more and do more. Imagine Jesus wondering at the ways in which our unbelief, our playing it safe, keeps us from experiencing the grace of God. Imagine Jesus wondering what will compel us to believe that God’s grace is sufficient for us, that power is made perfect in weakness, to quote Second Corinthians.

It’s often the case that when scripture sounds prescriptive, it’s actually descriptive – describing something about the cultural context of the writer or the audience. And then there are passages that sound descriptive that are actually prescriptive – giving instructions. I think this is a prescription for spreading the word and work of Jesus. Jesus, who had said and done some amazing things, was gone when this Gospel was getting written down, and it was time for his followers to get busy themselves. These are prescriptions, instructions for spreading the word, that include permission to walk away whenever the healing and teaching we are offering is not welcomed.

You know, the Greek word that we translate into disciple can also be translated “learner.” Jesus’ followers in Mark’s telling were not professionals. They were learners. And Jesus sent them out without certification or equipment. Jesus seems to have been a firm believer in the buddy system – he always sent his learners out two by two. He gave them power over polluted spirits and some pretty specific travel instructions that didn’t permit spending money or a carry-on bag! One outfit, a pair of sandals, and a rod or a staff to use as a walking stick and for self-defense if necessary. It seems the only thing Jesus prepared the learners for in this story was rejection. Pay attention to that – Jesus’ teaching had been rejected first in Nazareth and then in Capernaum, so he went to the neighboring towns. Jesus’ learners were given instructions to do the same thing. “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” Don’t carry the dirt forward with you – shake it off.

You probably have heard the poem written by Ken Untener commemorating the life of Oscar Romero called “Prophets of a Future Not Our Own.” I think of it when I remember times that my own offers of teaching or healing have been unwelcome or rejected. [2]

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

You and I are urged to be learners in today’s Gospel reading, commissioned to go cast out demons and offer healing to our hurting world. We practice in here so that we can do it out there. So I want to do an imagination exercise with you because I think that this was an imagination exercise for Mark’s earliest audience. Imagine that you are open to learning from Jesus. Imagine that you are not a professional exorcist, not a professional faith healer, not a professional evangelizer. 

 Now imagine that you are needed by Jesus to cast out whatever spirits keep people from experiencing and sharing God’s love. Imagine that you are needed by Jesus to make it clear to people who are left-out or lost, that they are valuable in God’s economy. Imagine that you are needed by Jesus to restore people to community – to right-relationship with one another. Imagine that there is justice work for you to do in places you’ve never gone before.

Now imagine that not only do you not have to go it alone, Jesus doesn’t even want you to go it alone, because God invented the buddy system. Use it. Take a witness. Be a witness. Don’t ever be the only one. If you find yourself alone out there – doing justice or healing work, go back and pray to find at least one buddy. Now, you might find yourself paired with someone you’d never have asked for or imagined. I know I often do – it’s a motley crew that Jesus collects – still, two is the essential minimum for justice work. 

Imagine that you have all you need – that carrying extra stuff just gets in the way. Imagine leaving behind the baggage of what Robert Coles calls “decades of accumulated thoughts, involvements, and entanglements.” The less stuff we have with us, the more vulnerable we are (that’s the scary part for those of us with a lot of stuff). Imagine that Jesus knew that the more vulnerable we are, the less we have to lose, the more radically available we are – to others, to ourselves, and to God.

Imagine that one measure of God’s realm is hospitality extended to strangers. And imagine that you will need the hospitality of strangers. And, imagine that some will not extend that hospitality. Imagine that if people don’t welcome you, you just move on – you don’t stay there, you don’t get stuck, you don’t argue your point to death, and you don’t carry their dirt with you to the next place you go. Imagine proclaiming a different vision of reality that is deeply embedded in our sacred texts and tradition. It’s about the all-sufficient grace of God, Who is Love. 

I imagine that by now many of you are listening with one ear and meanwhile coming up with reasons why this is unrealistic, unreasonable, impossible, or simply doesn’t apply because you feel that you are: too young, too old, too busy, too harassed and helpless yourselves, too unprepared or unconvinced, or maybe you are too smart, or too skeptical, or too cynical, or maybe you feel that it’s too soon or too late.

Imagine that Jesus looks at you with compassion. Imagine Jesus knows you – really knows you – knows your burdens and your charms, your weakness and your strength, your bravery and your fear – that Jesus knows you and loves you – that Jesus is crazy about you. Imagine that your particular scars, your particular interests, your particular abilities make you just right to go out to be justice workers. Imagine that Jesus cannot wait for you to experience the joy of receiving hospitality in surprising places when you risk exposing your own need.

Often when I am working on sermons, I think, this sermon needs a story. And it does. But this one doesn’t need a story from me about my experiences of the power of not going alone, or of needing hospitality from strangers, and of shaking the dust off of my feet when my offerings were not welcome. It needs a story from you about your experiences. What are your stories of the buddy system, of being received as an agent of healing or rejected and of letting go of the dirt and moving on? It’s your stories this sermon needs, this world needs. Imagine that.

1. Louis William Countryman, New Proclamation, vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003).
2. Ken Untener on the occasion of the Mass for Deceased Priests, October 25, 1979.