Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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It takes a village to put someone in his place. And there’s no village like one’s home village to do the job! Jesus’s been on tour – wowed the sophisticated, big-city Jews in Capurnim, dazzled the naïve Gentiles who lived across the Sea of Galilee -- but now he's come home, to Nazareth, and that’ll be different. Mark’s Chapter 6 stands in sober contrast to everything that’s come before. Until now it’s been glorious story, a story of Jesus’ “mighty works” (“dunameis” – we get our word “dynamo” from it.), but now he stumbles. Mark tells us that in Nazareth this human dynamo “could do no deeds of power,” and that he is “amazed at their unbelief.”

The entire episode is told here in six short verses, but, despite its brevity, it’s a story that asks deep questions. “Why do people reject Jesus,” Mark asks? Why, in Mark’s own day, in spite of the meteoric growth of the church, were there still those who refused to believe? How could people miss the truth of Jesus? How might we miss his truth for us and for our time? How is it that people, then and now, are often blind to enormous facts that lie right before their eyes? That’s what Mark wants to know.

First, Mark tells us in this story, the truth (when it appears) is frequently not what we expect. And expectations are hugely important. If our brains aren’t comfortable with something, if it doesn’t fit easily into a pre-established mental mold, we reject it – often angrily, to save our pride. This young man, Jesus, who they all had known as a child, had defied expectations. He had stepped out of “his place,” out of his social cast, if you will. We don’t expect carpenters’ sons to become prophets. The world into which Christianity came, Mark’s world, where social striations were far more rigid than they are today, had a problem with people out of place. Many gospel critics said, “It doesn’t make sense (in fact, it’s “scandalous,” to use Paul’s word) that God should come as a carpenter’s son, and be crucified as a common criminal. Logic, and social convention, would suggest that God should manifest himself more splendidly.” His father could have at least been the mayor of Nazareth.” His coming was not what we would have expected, the world said, so therefore it must be wrong. “Sweet little Jesus boy, they made you be born in a manger. Sweet little Jesus boy, we didn’t know who you was.” We didn’t expect you to come that way. Our expectations get us in trouble. How about this expectation which was wide-spread just a few decades back: “Black women don’t play tennis?” (I mean, they don’t belong to country clubs, which is where people take up tennis, so…) Or (for the same reason), “Black men don’t play golf.” Or, “White guys don’t sing rap.” Our expectations, our prejudices, get in the way and make us slow learners in God’s school.

Second, Jesus’ Nazarene neighbors said, we’re familiar with this boy, too familiar it turns out. He fits all our expectations. He’s just human. “Come on! We know who this is. He’s Mary’s son. We know the family. We bounced him on our knees, and chucked him under the chin. He’s nothing special. A dime a dozen. Just part of the landscape, like the rest of us. The early church struggled with the question of Jesus’ humanity, but that is not the point here. Here the question is familiarity. Can we see God in the familiar? It’s easy to miss him there. The consultant who helped us choose a sign for our church said that after the sign, any sign, has been in place thirty days, it might as well not be there at all. People become accustomed to seeing it; it becomes part of the scenery. Unless we change it, or hang banners from it, it gets lost in the background. Seeing something often we really do not see it at all.

The services and rituals of the church can, and often do, become too familiar. Today it’s the rite of holy Communion. Do it every month. Ho. Hum. It has to be renewed, revitalized each time. It helps me to remember that millions have found it necessary to receive this sacrament in hiding, sometimes underground, and that thousands have suffered and died for observing it. That keeps it from becoming ordinary. Faith overcomes the scandal of the ordinary.

Jesus was not able to work miracles in Nazareth, and he was amazed at the people’s lack of faith – their unbelief. Let’s go back to the basics. Grace, you remember, is what God does toward us – unmerited, unconditional love. Faith is our response to grace. If there is no response on our part, grace is still there – God still loves us -- but there are no miracles, no mighty works. So, in a very real sense, it is our faith that makes us well. As we come forward to receive the sacrament today, let us come as new people with renewed faith. Let us come “intending to lead a new life…” Let this deed, on our part, be not merely ceremonial. Sir William Watson, over a hundred years ago, described the ritualistic, pomp-and-circumstance church of his day:

Outwardly splendid as of old –
Inwardly sparkless, void and cold.
Her force and fire all spent and gone,
Like the dead moon, she still shines on.

Jesus has the power to make new! Let us not be like the people of Nazareth, all caught up in old expectations and prejudices and familiarities, but let us come seeking the refreshing spirit of God. In what new way is God speaking to you today?