No Place Like (Not) Home
“No Place Like (Not) Home” Ezekiel 2:1-5; Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13
The theologian Chris Green likes to say – and it is only a little bit of an exaggeration – that in the gospel narratives there are two basic reactions that people have to the teaching of Jesus. One reaction is: We are completely confused. We have no idea what you are talking about. This is a common reaction, especially in the texts we’ve been reading from Mark’s gospel – Who is this, who teaches with authority? Who is this, who calms the winds and the sea? Who is this, who calls out demons, and they obey him? And in other gospels too – think Nicodemus, born again? How does that work? And perhaps you sometimes have that reaction to reading or hearing a passage of the gospels – I hope the sermon is going to explain this, because I’m not sure I get that.
So that’s one of the two reactions to Jesus that Chris Green identifies: We don’t get it. We don’t understand. The other reaction, he says, is: We understand exactly what you’re saying – and we want to kill you. When Jesus claims authority to forgive sins, when Jesus cleanses the temple, when Jesus tells parables about wicked kings and unforgiving brothers – there are people who understand immediately that he is talking about them, challenging their claims to power and control, denying their claims to speak for God – and they don’t like it.
We often make the assumption that the message of Jesus was universally popular – we assume that everyone was happy to hear the message of Jesus, and why wouldn’t they be? Jesus spoke of a God who is undivided love, a God who is merciful and forgiving, a God who offers healing and new life, a God who does justice for those who suffer oppression. Who could be against that? Well, a lot of people, as it turns out. There are lots of people who are invested in other ideas of God, for a variety of reasons, who resist the message of Jesus.
Remember, from the very beginning of Mark’s gospel, the one-sentence summary Mark gives us of the message of Jesus: The kingdom of God is at hand, so (1) repent – which doesn’t mean “feel sorry for your sins,” it literally means “change your mind,” change your way of thinking, change the direction in which you’re heading, and (2) believe this good news – or better, trust this good news, start acting as though this good news is true.
And this presumes that you think that hearing that the kingdom of God is at hand is good news. I suppose that if you think the existing kingdoms of this world are already giving you what you need, the news that another kingdom is at hand and that we can participate in it by changing our minds and trusting the presence of the kingdom of God is not good news. Why should I want to change anything? Everything is going very well for me right now, thank you very much, and I don’t want to hear anything about change.
So when the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, the news that God had heard their cries for justice and freedom and was about to deliver them – this was good news for the Israelites, but Pharoah thought it was very bad news. Or when the prophet Ezekiel is called, as we heard in the first reading today, to announce that the kingdom of Judah is about to fall, the temple of Jerusalem is about to be destroyed, even more of the people are going to be sent into exile – but, good news! God is going to remain faithful and God’s salvation will be given in new and different ways. God warns Ezekiel that this message will be announced to “a rebellious house,” to “impudent and stubborn” people who may or may not receive it – and that Ezekiel should announce the good news anyway.
Of course, the good news of the kingdom of God actually is good news for everybody. God’s love does mean peace and freedom for everybody. Sometimes we see that immediately and we are eager to change our minds and trust the good news. Sometimes we change our minds while gritting our teeth, and we trust the good news while feeling some sense of loss over what we’re being called away from. And sometimes we say no thanks, I’m really not interested in changing anything at all. And when God lets us experience the consequences of our choice, perhaps we will reconsider. Fortunately perceiving the arrival of God’s kingdom, changing our minds, and trusting the good news is not something we do once and for all – it’s something we are invited to do over and over and over again throughout our lives, and when we discover that we’ve failed to respond there is always another chance. But even though the good news is always good news, none of us always hears the good news as good the first time around. Depending on how attached we are to the kingdoms that are not of God.
Unlike some of the other gospels, Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus said in his visit to his hometown. Nor does Mark tell us expressly that the citizens of Nazareth wanted to kill him. Luke, on the other hand, records the first sermon of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth and how in response the people tried to run Jesus off a cliff. Mark doesn’t report any of those details, but Mark does make clear that the visit of Jesus to Nazareth doesn’t go well.
Mark probably assumes that the message of Jesus in Nazareth was basically the same message Jesus announced everywhere in his ministry in Galilee: The kingdom of God is at hand, change your mind and trust the good news. And the people of Nazareth said: Change? Who are you to tell us to change! We know who you are.
And Mark tells us that the people of Nazareth had so little faith – that they were so unwilling to trust the good news – that the kingdom of God did not become manifest to them. That Jesus could not do any works of power there, apart from a few healings. Even though the kingdom of God was just as near to them as it was to all the people whose lives had been touched and healed and restored by Jesus – because they would not consider changing their minds, because they would not trust that Jesus was bringing them good news, the kingdom never became real to them.
How do we increase our faith? How do we who, in many ways, have it good already – if only because of the country that we live in and that we celebrate today – how do we make sure that we are not closing ourselves off from the opportunities we are being given to perceive the presence of the kingdom, to be willing to change, to have faith and trust in the good news?
In part, it’s by practicing repenting, practicing changing our minds and our ways, practicing putting our trust in the good news, living as if the good news were true. Paul talks about it in the second reading today. He talks about the “thorn in the flesh” that he was given – he’s opaque about what exactly that was, though perhaps the Corinthians to whom he’s writing, who knew him personally, would have known immediately what he meant. In any case, Paul says, he asked God three times to be relieved of his thorn in the flesh, and God said: My grace is enough for you. In other words, No. And Paul says he had come to change his mind, to accept living with his thorn in the flesh as a way of embodying the good news, as his way of trusting that the good news of the crucified Jesus is true.
And in the gospel today, Jesus does the same thing with his disciples. He sends them out on mission, to do the same things that he does, to announce that the kingdom of God is at hand so everyone should repent and believe, everyone should change their ways and trust the good news. He does not tell them to set up shop and invite people to come to them, in the places where they are comfortable and in control, he sends them out vulnerable, dependent on the hospitality of others – meaning that to do this mission they will have to embody trust in the good news that they are announcing. Even knowing that not everyone will respond well, even knowing that having to shake the dust from their feet and moving on is a possible outcome.
And when the disciples return – they testify to having witnessed the power of the kingdom of God and the power of the good news to change lives and bring healing and peace. Because they approached their mission as if they believed what Paul says in today’s reading: “whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” As if they believed that God’s grace is everywhere, available for the asking, and that God’s grace will be sufficient. It’s when they embodied that trust in the way that they went about their mission that people heard and received the gospel.
A prophet is not without honor, Jesus said, except at home. At home everything is too familiar, too easy to accept, too tempting an alternative to changing one’s ways and trusting the good news. So Jesus sent the disciples on mission away from home, so they would develop their own trust, their own sense of the trustworthiness of God’s promises. May we, on this day when we celebrate all that is good about the land we call home, may we also be led on paths that will teach us to have the faith to perceive the closeness of another and better kingdom, and be willing to change our minds and trust this good news.