Getting Past the Jesus We Expected
Proper 9B
Mark 6:1-13
7/5/2009
Jim Melnyk

It's the morning of the first day of the week. The sun has broken above the horizon, burning brightly through a slight haze. Already, clouds of dust are raised by townsfolk bringing their produce and their wares to market. The air is still with the promise of another long, hot day in Nazareth.
        
Some of the town elders are sitting in the shade of a canopy as they await the new day's bustling activity. After their polite “good mornings” their talk turns to the usual gossip. Only today's gossip is a little more sensational than that of the past few days. Yesterday's Sabbath observances quickly become the focus.
        
“Imagine that one showing up here, in his own home town, telling us how to be proper Jews!” says old Jacob. “Why, I've been a good Jew since before he was born.” “It's not like he's been to Jerusalem to study with the great rabbis,” complained Benjamin. “He hasn't been gone all that long – certainly not long enough to show up on our doorsteps acting like some great prophet or something.” Jacob shows his anger, “Did you hear what he had the audacity to say? That 'a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, among his own kin, and his own house.' Mary was right to go after him last month. He is crazy. Too bad he wouldn't listen to her.”
        
A stranger had joined the group dominated by Jacob's and Benjamin's dialog. “Here, now!” he says. “Are you talking about that Jesus fellow? I've heard tales about him – and if even half of them are true.... Some say he's a miracle worker, and really a prophet like our father, Moses. Others say he might even be the Messiah. They say he even raised a young girl from the dead. It was over by the sea, somewhere. What if....
        
“Prophet,” sneered Jacob, as he spat in the dust. “He ain't no prophet! We don't even know if he's really a Jew. There's always been that talk about Mary. Maybe Joseph was just being a bit too kind-hearted. Jesus is just a carpenter gone crazy who thinks he talks to God. Well I say, God help him!” And with this last comment the talk turns to the day's activities, and what other crazy people would be showing their faces on the crowded streets of Nazareth.
        
Jesus comes to his own home, to his own people, and they know him not. Shades of the prologue to John's Gospel! Jacob and Benjamin, along with so many others in the town, cannot see beyond their own experiences of Jesus as a child, as a youth, and as a young man growing up among them. The elder townsfolk had rocked the crying Jesus in their arms, they had watched him toddle about needing a change of clothes, they remembered picking him up and dusting him off when he fell. The younger folk had played games with Jesus, and they had learned their lessons from the town rabbi together. Sometimes they didn't understand his questions to the elders, and sometimes they were a bit jealous of his own understanding – but no big deal. They knew that Jesus loved God. But a prophet? Or the Messiah? It just didn't make sense to any of them.
        
You see, Jesus just didn't fit. He didn't fit his neighbors' concept of what it meant to be a good Jew, let alone a prophet or the Messiah. A good Jew would not eat with tax collectors and sinners. A good Jew would not speak alone with unknown women, or gentiles, or with anyone tradition named as unclean. A good Jew would keep the Sabbath, not break it. This Jesus claimed to forgive sins and speak for God! He was too sure of himself. They knew who he was – the son of Mary and Joseph. And maybe what was scarier to them, Jesus knew who they were. He had grown up among them. He knew their weaknesses. He knew their fears. “God help us, if he is a prophet,” they probably thought.
        
The people of Nazareth couldn't see the Christ of God because they couldn't get past the Jesus they knew and expected. They couldn't see the Christ of God because they couldn't accept that maybe, just maybe, the Christ of God could come in a way unexpected by all. They couldn't accept that maybe, just maybe, God couldn't be put in a neat little box, or experienced like some tame pet trained to do the will of its master.
        
Jesus comes among the people of Nazareth as the Christ, the Messiah, and he is not a tame Messiah. He is the Christ who comes to do the will of God, not to fulfill his neighbors' or the world's expectations. And in the end he comes as a friend – Jesus comes as a friend who loves his own to the bitter end – Jesus comes as a friend who loves all the way to the cross and beyond – a Messiah who defies all logic, and who shatters the box and breaks the chains of peoples' expectations. He is not a Messiah easily recognized by jealous neighbors or unwilling hearts. Yet he is the Christ who comes for all, and most especially, for them.
        
And in the midst of all that – in the midst of all the speculation and scandalization – in the midst of wagging heads and the tugging of beards – Jesus continues his teaching. And he sends his closest twelve out – two by two – to proclaim the same Good News that had his hometown folks ready to riot. Pharisees, scribes, and even their blood enemies, the Herodians, are trying to figure out how to get rid of this troublemaker Jesus, and he sends his disciples out into some kind of theological twilight zone – between the known and the unknown – between hope and reality – between promise and pain. Jesus sends his followers out into life on the edge – and sends them there with little more than their wits and their faith. He sends them out to do more of what has already put their lives in peril. Thanks a lot Jesus! Way to go, Jesus! Couldn't have asked for a better calling, friend!
        
Last week we talked about what it means to live faithfully and non-anxiously in the between times – in those unknown, mysterious times between major events in our lives or between periods of precise clarity. Now Jesus tells us not only should we live in those between times, but that we need to live our lives on the edge as well – in the between places – in the places that stir between stability and chaos – that moves between security and want – between want and need – between have and need. I know – that's a tough sell. But as C.S. Lewis once said, “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort, you will get neither comfort nor truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair” (Synthesis, 7/5/2009).
        
We're still struggling with a Jesus who wants to live his life outside the boxes and free from the chains we use to contain him and his message – and all he wants us to do is step into the whirlwind with him! Hallelujah Jesus! At times we feel sent out into the world with little more than our wits and our faith to make a difference in people's lives. Sent with the challenge to offer prayer and healing to those whose lives are broken, and the challenge of repentance for those whose lives are built on the backs of the broken-hearted. And we are sent with the knowledge that those whom the world places on the edge – on the margins – are each fully and gracefully well within the circle of God's love – perhaps even at the very center of that circle.
        
Mark's Jesus tells us we can't wait for people to come to us to hear the Good News. We've got to go out into the community around us with naught but our wits and our faith and proclaim a love from God which transcends any divisions, transcends any bigotry, transcends any sense of superiority, and any sense of entitlement the world might throw at us. Paul's letter to the Corinthians reminds us that God's strength is made perfect in our weakness – it is not we who proclaim the love of God, but Christ in us.
        
Our challenge is to let Jesus be who he is – not who we want him to be – to get past the Jesus we think we know and expect. Our challenge is to let Jesus shatter the boxes and break the chains we as humans seem to need to build around him; recognizing in the end that Jesus is no tame Messiah – no tame Christ of God. The witness of Jesus – the witness of Paul and so many others that came after him – the cross and the tomb – the power of the Holy Spirit moving in our lives today – all – all shatter the logic of this world and define love in God's terms. Life in the between times. Life on the edge. Life in the margins. We can live this way – and help others do the same – when we live faithfully together in community. All are made worthy by the love of God. All can find a pathway in the between times and even in the margins of life. And all are welcome. Amen.


©2009 Jim Melnyk