Sermon for Time after Pentecost – Mark 6:1-13

I think I’ll call today’s gospel reading the gospel of naked baby photos. Imagine when you meet that special someone. Let’s pick a holiday. Thanksgiving. You bring them home to meet your family. Everything’s going great. Your parents are behaving themselves for a change. Your siblings press pause on the rivalries. It’s all nice, until…. out come your naked baby photos. Oh how CUTE you were then! Oh how MORTIFIED you are now! Has that ever happened to you? Here’s what happened to me on Facebook. SHOW PHOTO. So CUTE! So let’s fast forward a few years. The high school reunion. You’ve changed. You’re wiser. Happy. Well-adjusted. But then you run into that person or clique that always got under your skin back in the day, and the old stories come up that you thought you forgot. Maybe you haven’t moved on like you thought you did. YOU know you’re not the same person you were, but other people apparently didn’t get the memo, so you feel like you have to defend yourself now. It’s like other people only want to prove you’ve never changed.

I think Jesus knows what that feels like. He’s been out on the road around Galilee. Healing and working miracles. Last week we talked about all these crowds that flock wherever he goes. Incredible stuff. Mary and Joseph must have been amazed. So Jesus comes home to Nazareth. It’s not a big place. Could be a few hundred residents. Maybe 1000. We’re not sure. But we think each town in Galilee has one synagogue, where everyone goes, because it’s a pious region. So synagogue is like the center of community life. Every Sabbath is like a town reunion. So Jesus goes to synagogue, and starts teaching. How’d it go? Not so well. It’s hard to tell from our translation, but they’re not wondering at his wisdom or works. They’re actually saying what kind of wisdom and works are THOSE? They don’t even say “him”. They basically say TOUTW – “hey, check THIS one out!” Like Jesus is just a clown. Isn’t he Mary’s son? Aren’t his brothers and sisters here? He’s just a carpenter! It’s like they pull out Jesus’ naked baby photos. See, he hasn’t changed. He’s still the same person he used to be. But now he thinks he’s a preacher!

So, why do people bring up the past like that? In Jesus’ case, it’s because they don’t like what he’s preaching. He’s telling them truths about themselves that they don’t want to hear. He’s describing their sin. So they take offense. The actual word is ESKANDALIZANTO – scandalized. So immediately they try to discredit Jesus with his past. What, he thinks he’s better than us? Where does he get off calling us sinners?

We do the same thing with each other. Could be that we’re jealous when someone seems to get their life in order while our own lives are still a mess. They show us what we’re not and it’s threatening. Or could be that the longer we know people, we make strong assumptions about who we believe they are. We label and put them a box. But when they break out of that box it’s like the way we thought things work isn’t true anymore. We say who do they think they are? We’re suspicious. We don’t really believe that people can change, maybe because we don’t really beleve we can change. A leopard can’t change its spots.

But we always lose when we do that. We close off any possibility for how someone else’s transformation might be a gift to us. We know Jesus is only trying to lead his hometown to repentance, but they only hear accusation, so they go on the defensive. They tear him down. They don’t get that the whole point of repentance is to show them their brokenness, because it’s the only way they can recognize HOW Jesus is healing them. Which he is. But if you can’t see that healing, then it’s like you were never healed at all. So the gospel says he could do no deed of power there, except for a few. Now, on the one hand Jesus shouldn’t be surprised. He tells them prophets are not without honor except in their hometown. Still, he’s amazed at their unbelief, that they can’t see what he’s obviously doing among them. And he walks away. The end.

Now, Jesus isn’t deterred – he continues on to other towns to preach and heal, but now he also sends his disciples to do likewise. And we’re his disciples too. He’s also sending us. What’s the message? Repent. Well, how’s that going to go? Not well. When Jesus says IF any place will not welcome you and refuses to hear you – he’s saying it WILL happen. But Jesus doesn’t just say walk away. He says WHENEVER anyone refuses to hear you, as you leave shake the dust off youor feet as a testimony against them. He means while they can still see you. What does that sound like? Condemnation. Now, we could try to use Jesus words against him – you didn’t condemn Nazareth, you just walked away. Except, it doesn’t matter. When no one repents, walking away IS condemnation. So we’d better make our message count. Failure’s not an option. Except, we’re compromised, especially with the ones who know us best. The ones we least want to abandon. Because they know the ways we haven’t changed. The ways we DON’T repent. Our message is hollow, and when we turn to Jesus to ask what now, we see him walking away.

But thank God for that, because we knoow where Jesus is going. He’s going to the cross. And he doesn’t shake the dust off his feet as a testimony against Nazareth or against us. He does the exact opposite. He becomes the dust for us, by suffering and dying for our sake. And even then, he rises. Because he knows our unrepentance, and he loves us too much to abandon us to that. He becomes the life and the resurrection FOR us, because we can’t do it for ourselves. And that HAS changed us, because we know that he has claimed us by name to belong to him, by his own choice, because he WILL get what he wants. He always does.

But then we wonder – how could we have been changed if we still feel the same? Day in and day out it’s like we’re back to the same old habits and mistakes. But they’re not the the same. These don’t define us anymore. In fact, these are the very places that God wants to show up, just to show God’s own power that breaks forth in the unexpected. The ordinary. That’s what the sacraments are all about – God shows up in ordinary water and bread and wine to bring forth a new creation. It’s how we know that this is not all there is. God is always at work by the Spirit, and it’s not our successes that prove it. It’s our weaknesses. Our failures. And only God has the power to transform those into gifts for the sake of others, so that they would know that they aren’t defined by their weaknesses or failures either. That’s what casting out demons looks like. That’s real power. That’s hope. Hope isn’t just some kind of gauzy wishful thinking. Hope does things.

So, what this all means is that we don’t have anything to prove anymore. Sure, we still debate issues that matter for the sake of the world. Jesus still calls us to work for justice and equality. But we don’t have to argue or persuade about ourselves. We can just live, and that’s a huge gift. That’s repentance, and we have the pleasure of telling others what that really means. Even still, some may not want to hear it. So Jesus says if they refuse to hear us, shake the dust off our feet as a testimony against them. But we know Jesus well enough to know that doesn’t mean what we thought it did. Our translation is unfortunate. The Greek can also be read as testimony FOR them, NOT against. See, no one ever argued anyone into a changed heart. It’s futile. It’s the dust under our feet. And we shake it off for their sake and ours, so that we both will be free once and for all, because we get to trust the Spirit to do what it promises. Thanks be to God.