Sermon for July 4, 2021 Pentecost 6 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Mark 6:1-13; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
“With a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” Do you recognize those words? They were published 245 years ago on July 4, 1776 as the concluding sentence to the Declaration of Independence. This sentence came after Thomas Jefferson had laid out the case that everyone was created to live in equality, to be able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness; and after the signers laid out the case that the American colonies had suffered “a long train of abuses and usurpations” by Great Britain, and that King George had become a tyrant.
It was one thing to believe that the king and government of Great Britain had become unjust. It was another thing to do something about it. It’s like the story of the iconic American magician, Harry Houdini. With a tightrope stretched across Niagara Falls, he asked the crowd, “Who believes that I can wheel this wheelbarrow across the tightrope above Niagara Falls?” Yes! Yes! The crowd cheered its belief. “Alright then, who wants to get in the wheelbarrow?” Getting in the wheelbarrow? That’s faith! And faith involves vulnerability.
Well, as the Founding Fathers 245 years ago pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, they were declaring by their faith and actions that life in America could be radically different. They were “getting in the wheelbarrow” so to speak, and many of them did pay with their lives or their fortunes. They were making themselves vulnerable by their need to rely on one another, and on divine Providence--even with the diversity of background and opinion among them; even though they lacked many of the goods, supplies, and institutions they needed to finish the job; even though they didn’t do things perfectly and had many disagreements among themselves; even though failure meant certain death; even though success meant that they would continue to be vulnerable as they worked out the details of a previously untried way of organizing a country.
Faith involves vulnerability. And that is true of faith in God, as well, because faith in God will change your life. This is what we see happening with Jesus and the disciples in today’s gospel. The story picks up after Jesus has experienced lots of success. Over the past several Sundays, we’ve heard the stories of how he healed and forgave people, how he reached out to include in the Kingdom of God those who had been excluded from their community. He’s even raised a dead girl back to life. Crowds are following him wherever he goes.
You might think that now would be the perfect time for him to go back home to Nazareth, to show all the people he grew up with that the “local boy made good”. So when he teaches in the synagogue, what is their reaction? “We’ve known this guy his whole life, why should we listen to him? We remember little toddler Jesus with his runny nose and dirty diaper, crawling under the seats at church. He’s no prophet, no big shot. He’s a regular old carpenter, just like old Joseph was. We know his mom, his brothers, his sisters. They’re nothing special.”
But it was more than simple jealousy, I think. Because the message Jesus taught--which, by the way, was totally consistent with the kind of things they’d always been taught about the Old Testament prophets--well, Jesus’ message was also something radically different. Sure, the people of Nazareth had always learned the teachings about God’s law, about faith in a God who holds the future, about what life would look like when God’s Kingdom breaks into the world.
The difference is that now Jesus was saying, “God’s Kingdom is here, right now!” Where Jesus is, there is God’s Kingdom. And with the deeds he was doing, the way he was treating people, and restoring people to life and health, and to their rightful place in the communities they’d been cast aside from--Jesus was demonstrating in the flesh, in the real world, just what God’s Kingdom is all about. It’s as if Jesus was telling them, “all those things you believe in, that’s the wheelbarrow. Now, I’m asking you to get in the wheelbarrow, and I’ll take you on the tightrope across to the other side.”
It might be easy for us to say, “of course they should have listened to Jesus”, but let’s face it, making a life-changing leap of faith like that ain’t easy. Jesus had made himself vulnerable to his hometown people, and they turned on him. I love how the gospel of Mark describes it in verse 5: “Jesus could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” Which is exactly the same kind of deeds of power he had been doing everywhere else--for people who were open-hearted and humble enough to make themselves vulnerable through their faith, and to subject themselves to the judgemental sneers of the townsfolk who were set on rejecting Jesus.
Jesus may have been rejected, but he didn’t let that stop him from doing the ministry God sent him to do among those who opened their hearts to accept it. And this is the lesson Jesus taught his disciples, as he sent them out in pairs to the neighboring villages. This is actually the first time in the gospel that Jesus lets the disciples do the kind of things that he’s been doing. Of course, they didn’t have it all figured out yet. Even through Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, they would keep messing things up and not understand what Jesus had been telling them all along. But just as Jesus made himself vulnerable in faith to his old neighbors in Nazareth, now he was going to make the ministry of God’s Kingdom vulnerable in faith to a well-intentioned but imperfect band of disciples. Yet in that vulnerability lay the hidden power of God. That’s the message of the cross.
I love the way “The Message” translation of the Bible interprets this part. It says Jesus sent them off with these instructions: “Don’t think you need lots of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple. And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content until you leave. If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.” Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies and healing their spirits.
Like Harry Houdini on the highwire across Niagara Falls, Jesus was giving the disciples their own wheelbarrows and saying “have at it!” Go and do God’s work in the world. You’ll be vulnerable because some will not want, accept, or be open to what you’re doing or saying. But don’t worry about it; you can’t control what other people think or how they react--you can only act according to the faith and understanding God has given you. And remember, you will have each other, and most importantly, God will be with you.
The lesson for the disciples is the same lesson for the church today. Like the disciples, with their limited understanding and tendency to make mistakes, the church is (humanly speaking) always a fragile institution. Only with a firm reliance on God’s grace does our human weakness become strength through the power of the risen Christ among us. So stay connected to Jesus in faith, in prayer, and through each other. That’s enough!
That’s enough for us to keep on doing the work of God’s kingdom in the real world--helping people grow in prayer and faith, caring for people’s health and well-being, finding ways to include those who’ve been cut off from their community, learning from experience, and living by the values Jesus embodied. Amen.