Queen Anne 

Sermon:

The first location of Jesus’ ministry in this passage was in his birthplace—the village of Nazareth.  “He came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.”  Jesus returned to Nazareth as would a rabbi accompanied by his students.  For Jesus, this wasn’t spring break at home; it wasn’t a relaxing vacation with the folks.  Jesus was on business, a visit with a purpose.  He went back to the synagogue of his childhood and began to teach there.  The home folks were astounded by his wisdom, but they weren’t astounded enough to be convinced that he was sent from God.   “Where did Jesus get this knowledge about God?” they wondered. “Who empowered him to speak and act with such authority?”

They knew Jesus, or at least they thought they did.  They thought they knew his profession. “Is not this the carpenter?” they asked.  By this question, Jesus’ former neighbors were suggesting that he wasn’t really a rabbi, but merely a manual laborer.  They thought they knew his upbringing.  “Isn’t this the son of Mary?”  In that culture, identifying him by reference to his mother instead of his father was a slur that may have implied that they’d heard about his unusual birth.  They thought they knew his family:  “Isn’t this the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?”  In short, Mark says that “they took offense at him.”  That is, they stumbled so much over what they thought they knew about his commonplace background that they weren’t able to see him for what he really was.

Perhaps you’ve had the experience of going to your high school reunion or some other event from your past where people haven’t seen you for a long time.  You know that you’re different, but they still place you in the same box that you were in when you were there—the same cliques, the same stereotypes.  And you want to scream:  let me be who I really am!  You don’t know me.

The people of Jesus’ hometown concluded that he was either demonic or deceptive. 

In his famous book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes this statement: "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell.  You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. 

The locals in Nazareth determined that Jesus could have been a liar or a lunatic, but certainly not the Lord.

Consequently, we read that “he could do no deed of power there… He was amazed at their unbelief.”  The presence of Jesus will not produce transformation in people’s lives in an atmosphere of skepticism and resistance.

Yet, even with all of the negative reaction that came from most of the villagers in Nazareth, we still read that “he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”  In the midst of sardonic doubt and cynicism, a few people’s needs were so great that they had an attitude of trust, and Jesus, of course, would not refuse to help them.

Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples went on to a second location, far beyond Nazareth, and so the proclamation of the gospel spread to other places.  “Then he went about among the villages teaching [and] he called the twelve and began to send them out.”  Jesus authorized the disciples to be his appointed representatives in both word and power.  He gave them his authority and sent them out on an urgent task. Their message and deeds were an extension of Jesus’ own mission.

But Jesus warned the disciples that, as they ministered to others, sometimes they would meet with complete rejection.  There would be hostile villages where no hospitality would be offered and where the message would not be tolerated.  “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.”  In this situation, they were to do the symbolic act of shaking the dust off—the Jewish custom of warning about God’s impending judgment.  They were not to stay in a place—any inhospitable village—where their message was not favorably received.

But in other, more welcoming places—a third location—the disciples were received readily and eagerly.  There, they were able to preach and to heal with power.  In those communities, wherever they entered a house, they were to “stay there until you leave the place.”  The disciples were to be utterly dependent on others, bound to rely on the hospitality which was offered.  Whenever a home was opened to them, they were to stay there until they departed from the village—not to shift from house to house seeking better accommodations.

In this third, welcoming location of ministry, “they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.  They anointed with oil many who were sick.”  These words and deeds were the same as those that Jesus had done.  The followers of Jesus are to preach what their master preached and to have the same compassion that Jesus did.  Their coming to a village brought healing and salvation in the most comprehensive terms.  It is God’s intention to apply health and wholeness to people in their brokenness in order to make them full and complete, so that they may have life that is abundant.  The olive oil which the disciples applied was widely used in the ancient world as a medicine; it represents Jesus’ gracious and powerful word of healing in the context of preaching the word of the Kingdom of God.

In these three locations, then—the hometown village, the inhospitable village, and the welcoming village—the same message was proclaimed by Jesus and his disciples, but there were three very different responses.

Which location is most similar to us?  How will we receive him?  What can Jesus do in this place?  Can Jesus do deeds of power here—in this community of faith, among us as individuals?

Will we be people who repudiate Jesus, like those in the inhospitable location?  Many in our culture disdain the claims of the Christian gospel.  Most of us, however, will not act like those who rejected Jesus outright.  After all, we’re religious people, regular churchgoers.  Thankfully, we won’t have the dust of our homes shaken off of someone’s feet.  Now that would be embarrassing!

But will we be like those in Nazareth—the hometown location—who seemingly know him well but miss the true import of his message—those who actually know Jesus in only a very superficial way?  This scenario seems much more likely.  Those who should have known him best and recognized him for what he was were actually clueless.  Jesus was amazed at their lack of trust. 

By their failure to allow that Jesus could be anything other than who they thought he was, they blocked what Jesus wanted to do for them.  “He could do no deed of power there.”  Jesus doesn’t force anyone.  Even he can’t work in us without our response to his overtures.  Jesus offers us his invitation, but we must acknowledge and act on that invitation.  True faith isn’t based on proximity to Jesus or to his church, just being around religiosity, but on a willingness to consent to God’s claim on our life.  Just as faith has positive effects when present, so the absence of faith hinders the manifestation of God’s saving power.  That’s not to say that a lack of faith ties God’s hands, but rather to indicate that when we demonstrate faith, which is a receptivity to and dependence on God, God meets us with God’s overwhelming power to change us and to heal us.  Likewise, there are opposite consequences in the absence of such receptivity to God, for Jesus does not freely exercise his power when people are not welcome to take in what he has to give.  For example, Jesus doesn’t just throw miracles at people willy-nilly.  He becomes deeply involved in relationships with people and then his powerful acts are performed in the context of these relationships.  And when we don’t trust him, certain privations will result.  Do you wonder why others seem to have so much faith—why some seem to experience spiritual transformation?  Perhaps it’s because they’re open to it.  The people of Nazareth were not predisposed to recognize Jesus.  He was too familiar.  And they were too suspicious, too jaded. 

Will we be ready when Jesus comes to our place?  Will we be available to be transformed?  What does God want to do in our lives?  What needs to be healed—physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually?  Of what sins do we need to repent?  From what addictions do we need release? The villagers were not really reachable; they weren’t receptive to who Jesus was and what he wanted to do in their lives.  They missed out on what God had for them because they based their judgment on too narrow a foundation.  The people in Jesus’ own area reached conclusions based only on his background.  A lack of trust excluded the people of Nazareth from the dynamic disclosure of God’s grace that others had experienced—even some who were in their own town.  For even in the middle of a community filled with contempt and ridicule, a few can be healed, often those who are desperate for help, those who know how deep their need really is.  They believe in Jesus’ ability to meet their need and they take the step of trusting him.  In the words of the old hymn:  “Those who know the story best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.”

Perhaps we will be like the people in the welcoming location, those who received the message with hospitality—with expectancy and anticipation.  Rather than judging Jesus by previous bad religious experiences or baggage from our background or a pessimistic attitude or a fatalistic sense of defeatism, maybe our hurts and our inadequacies will allow us to open up to what God has to offer us.

In the villages that eagerly received the disciples’ message, their circumstances pointed them in the direction of Jesus.  So much of our dulled spirituality is caused by constraints from our past that impinge on the present.  Sadly, the result is too often that God isn’t able to heal us or redeem us because of our lack of trust.

Rather, let’s receive the good news of repentance and wholeness—of Jesus’ words and deeds—with earnest expectation.  When we receive the gospel message in that frame of mind, then—like the disciples—we’ll be empowered to give it away.  And that will be a blessing for the world around us, for the people with whom we interact every day also need a word of grace and a helping hand—the healing oil which is a salve to our souls.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said something that seems as relevant today as it did when he wrote it two and half centuries ago:  “I see around me on every side, either people of no religion at all, or people with a lifeless, formal religion.  I am grieved at the sight, and I would greatly rejoice if by any means I might convince some that there is a better religion to be attained—a religion worthy of God who gave it.  This better religion is none other than love, the love of God and all humanity.  This love we believe to be the medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world.”

We still experience the evils of a disordered world.  Jesus and his disciples offered this gospel of love--this anointing oil, this medicine of life as a never-failing remedy.  May we not be the ones with a lifeless, formal religion, the ones with a superficial or cynical attitude, but rather may we be the ones who are ready to receive that gospel of love with anticipation and joy, and then to share it with others. 

Amen.