Text:
Mark 6.1-13
May I speak in the name of the Holy & Blessed Trinity, One God in three persons.
Last week, we celebrated the sacraments of baptism and eucharist. Remembering that a sacrament is, an outward and visible sign of an inner, spiritual grace. We gave thanks for the ordinary things, oil, water, bread, wine, you, me, that help us to understand God’s love and God’s presence with us. These physical things become sacraments of God’s love as through prayer, we consecrate them, we set them apart to no longer be only ordinary things but to be ordinary things used for God’s purposes.
Sacraments make God’s love and God’s presence real for us in tangible ways. As we receive the elements of a sacrament, they allow us to see that God is not far away from us but right beside us, present in ordinary things, waiting to be discovered and to enter into our lives.
In Jesus, we meet the real presence of God. In Jesus’ life we see what God’s love looks like in ordinary, human form. Jesus is the ultimate sacrament, the complete sanctification of ordinary human life that makes God’s love and God’s presence real for us in a way that we can grasp.
And, as we heard in today’s Gospel reading, not only did the Son of God become human in Jesus, but he also lived most of that human life in a very ordinary town, Nazareth, where he was seen as a very ordinary person. “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
And yet, the people of Nazareth did know that there was something out of the ordinary about Jesus. We have read that they were astounded by Jesus’ teaching, his wisdom and the powerful deeds he was doing. In response they ask the key question of the first half of Mark’s Gospel, who is this?
The people see God’s presence in Jesus. They know that what they are seeing, hearing, experiencing is beyond ordinary comprehension but instead of being able to take the step of faith and understand that this is God at work in the ordinary things of life, they reject Jesus, refusing to see past the ordinary, and he is amazed at their unbelief.
God’s interactions with us are always two-way. God offers us love and relationship, but it is always up to us whether or not we will receive that gift. Many times, as in this situation, people are offered far more than they are ready or willing to accept. At those times, although God is there, present in the ordinary, waiting to be seen and received, without a desire to accept, we go away empty, wondering where all these things come from and taking offense at them.
The Gospel passage tells us that Jesus, could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them (v5). Does this mean that Jesus needed people to believe in him before he could do anything of power? No. God’s power was present in Jesus in Nazareth just the same as it was everywhere else he went. We know that because Jesus did still heal some people there.
Jesus could not do any great deeds there because God always gives us a choice. God can only work in us if we allow God to work in us. The people of Nazareth could not see God at work in the ordinary, they would not allow the possibility that the ordinary could be holy, and so they did not allow God to work in their midst.
Ultimately, God cannot be stopped so some people were healed, but the fullness of what was possible was not received. Despite the inability of the people of his hometown to allow God to work in them, God’s mission will not be defeated. Jesus calls his disciples to him and sends them out, two by two, to proclaim his message of repentance and to offer healing in his name.
Jesus gives his disciples instructions about how to behave if the people will not welcome them or listen to them. They are to move on, shaking the dust of the place from their feet. There is recognition here that God’s work cannot be stopped simply because people resist it or don’t want to hear about it. God’s love is offered endlessly, regardless of the human response to that love.
Jesus also offers instructions on how to behave when people do welcome his disciples. In those situations, the disciples are to receive the gift of
hospitality that they are offered, confident that their message from God is a worthy gift in return. There is a lovely mutuality in this exchange; dignity and respect for the ones who offer hospitality and receive the message as well as for those who offer the message and receive the hospitality.
These are helpful thoughts for us as members of God’s church. We are ordinary people and yet God offers to each one of us the extraordinary gift of being adopted as a beloved child of God, of forgiveness, purpose and wholeness.
God calls us and sends us into God’s world to share the message that we have received. When we go, we are to travel light, relying on God and the goodness of others, rather than on our own self-sufficiency. We are to welcome the hospitality and the gifts of those to whom we are sent, rejoicing in the opportunity to share God’s love with them and also showing them respect and appreciation for all that they offer us.
God can and does work through ordinary things and ordinary people. Each of us can both give and receive God’s blessings. During this season of Ordinary Time, it is good to remember that God touches us in and through the ordinary things of life. In fact, our sacraments help us to see that there really is no such thing as ordinary, that it is only a fault in our seeing that tricks us into thinking that there are things that God can use and things that are beneath God’s notice.
Everything is part of God’s creation and God’s presence is constantly around us in every part of life. Everything is holy. God always stands ready to work in us if we are willing.
The Lord be with you.