*Mark 6:1-13*
Since Jesus left his home in Nazareth and began his ministry, he’s been a busy guy! He has been hard at work forming a team of disciples, exorcising demons from people, curing the sick and teaching crowds about the kingdom of God with parables. Throughout his travels it has become more and more clear that he is not your average person, and this is even more solidified when he calms a storm on the sea and then heals both Jairus’ daughter and the hemorrhaging woman. Who exactly he is, prophet, angel, messiah, people aren’t quite sure yet, but what they do know is that he is someone who comes from God.
Hearing about all these miraculous stories, we would be forgiven in thinking that when Jesus does finally return home, it would be an amazing experience for both the people in Nazareth and him, a prodigy son who returns home to the place that helped raised him. Turns out it wasn’t so amazing. We are not told exactly what Jesus said in that synagogue when he got up to teach, but it clearly upset some people. Was it scandalous, was it challenging, would it be considered blasphemy? We will never know, but what we can assume is that he spoke in some way to the authority he had been given by God, that he in some way asserted himself and his purpose on earth as divinely sanctioned, and we can assume this because in outrage the people in that synagogue question those very things. They ask where does he get these ideas? What wisdom does he think has been given to him? What deeds of power does he think he can perform by his own hands? Who the heck does this guy think he is, and what is all this talk about the kingdom of God coming from a boy who they’ve known their whole life, whose parent and siblings are with them right now? This is just Jesus, who comes from Nazareth and someone who comes from that small town surely has not come from God.
Not everyone from his hometown may have rejected his teachings, but for those who did, they were unable to see past their familiarity with him. Their perception of Jesus was limited by their preconceived notions of who he was and who he should be, a small-town carpenter's son with a mother to look after and siblings to be an example for. Because all they could see and focus on was his humanity, they failed to recognize the divine wisdom and power that was living and breathing right in front of them. For those who took offense at Jesus in that synagogue, it was unfathomable that God’s hand, that God’s kingdom, that God’s messiah would manifest in this person, Jesus, who they maybe saw toil with Joseph and pick on his younger brothers, or maybe play tricks on the locals with other kids. This person can’t be so divine if he’s so human.
When what we know of this world becomes really familiar, and we become so used to people and places being and existing as they are, then we can create certain expectations of how the world is, and these expectations can blind us to God’s work in it, work that is happening right in our midst. All of life is of divine creation, each of us are more than the body we embody or the town we come from. We are children of spirit in the eyes of our creator, we are that always first and foremost. But sometimes living in this human experience, we get caught up in our surroundings, listening to this world as it tries to tell us who we are and what we can be, forgetting that we don’t come from this place, we come from God, and in coming from God nothing has the power to limit our ability to live as spirits grounded in love. Jesus in his life demonstrated that we are so much more than what this world tries to tell us, more than our illness or mistakes or social status, that we all have a spirit that can grow and become closer to God, a God who will encounter us in surprising and unfamiliar ways.
When Jesus sends the disciples out, he does so by removing from them what would seem comforting and familiar. They do not get to bring any provisions except a staff, and they are asked to rely on the hospitality of strangers. This passage gets a lot of focus about Jesus wanting the disciples to trust only God on their journey, but more than that, I think Jesus wants them to see only God in all the places and people that they encounter. Without their own materials and ways of doing things in their own homes and synagogues, by going out, they must rely on the Spirit to ensure that they will encounter all they need to perform the miracles they have been asked to do. Their expectations of what could be had to shift.
These gospel passages invite us to examine our own familiarity with Jesus and consider whether we have confined God’s presence within the experiences of our humanity. Like the people of Nazareth, we may struggle to see God's hand at work in unexpected places or through unexpected people. Are there some people that we know so well we tend not to see them as a child of spirit, part of God’s creation? Are there towns or neighbourhoods we know so intrinsically that we can’t imagine God’s presence in every nook and cranny of it?
Even as a church, our familiarity with the story of Jesus can sometimes blind us to the ongoing revelation of God's presence that is happening in our communities right now. We see this clearly with the many expectations about church that we still hold tight to: that our worship has to be done in a certain order or that church can only be done in church buildings, or that communities of faith can only exist with money, or that only certain people can be sanctioned to do certain things. Remind me, how much money did the disciples leave with? How much were they instructed to make on their journey? What buildings were they asked to build? What confessions of faith were they required to hear before healing? What membership roles were they asked to present to Jesus at the end of it? The disciples' mission teaches us about the necessity of stepping out of a faith that has become too familiar, to unburden ourselves of excessive material provisions that create expectations around God, and to open our minds to seeing the many possible ways God’s loving spirit is manifested in our very presence including amongst the people and places we are most familiar with.
May this Sunday invite us to be open to encountering God in unexpected places and through unexpected people, recognizing that divine presence often breaks through our constraints of human understanding. May we, like the disciples, become vessels through which God's transformative power and love are made known to the all-too-familiar world around us, and may we be willing to venture into our daily experiences of life with only one expectation, that everyone, including ourselves, all come from God. Amen.
-Cynthia Reynolds
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