Sermon: 6th Sunday after Pentecost
4 July 2021 –
Archdeacon Mark Long
2 Corinthians 12:2-10;
Psalm 48; and Mark 6:1-13; NRSV
In this season that follows on from Pentecost we are exploring what it looks like to live the Christian faith, and one of the best ways to explore is to ask questions. Any question is useful if it helps us broaden or even change our perspective, if it helps us be more open to participating in what God is up to in our world, and if it increases our willingness to be progressively welcoming and inclusive.
In today’s Gospel narrative we find Jesus in his home town teaching in the Synagogue, and the people asking questions that steadily limit their openness to what God is up to among them in the person of Jesus, to the point where Mark reports that Jesus is amazed at their unbelief. Interestingly this lack of openness, this lack of trust, does not stop Jesus healing a few local people, but does limit the village from experiencing any act of power; they remain blinkered to the opportunity in their midst.
Jesus clearly doesn’t hang around to persuade them differently, and Mark immediately reports that Jesus moves on to other villages in the area. This opens up an important perspective: sharing the Good News is not to be done at all costs, and specifically not if there is disinterest. This is evident in Jesus subsequent instruction to the disciples as he sends them out: they are not to waste time with those who are unwelcoming and more specifically also unwilling to hear; they are instead to shake the dust off their feet and move on. The disciples go out to call people to repentance.
What are some of the questions we are asking at the moment; and are these questions ones that open us up to what God is doing in our time, or are they questions that keep us asleep to God’s presence and purpose for us? And of course, how do we know the difference? In Jesus’ home village the questions they asked kept them asleep to what God was doing despite their initial amazement at Jesus’ wisdom. They were quickly scandalised and chose to not allow this wisdom to change their outlook. They were discomforted by Jesus’ prophetic presence and chose to not be changed by it. Perhaps our discernment needs to reflect on how we respond to discomfort, and on how we may adapt our questions to ease any discomfort we experience?
What does it mean to repent? In terms of today’s Gospel reading it is to wake up to God’s presence; it is to really hear what God is saying and calling us to; it is being open to having our perspectives changed by what we both hear and see. However, it’s not about change for the sake of change; rather it is a setting aside of attitudes and perspectives and resulting actions that keep us at a distance from God and from other people, that maintain our independence and invulnerability. Repenting is to be open again to the power of God and the power of God’s word, both Biblical and prophetic; to being guests of other people’s hospitality where we lay aside our own desire to control our social context and be willing to hear the pain of other people’s lives even in the midst of our own struggles; to welcome people whose practices or belief systems may appear different to ours, and engage in meaningful dialogue; and in doing so to share prophetic hope.[1]
As Jesus sends his disciples out he also gives them authority over unclean spirits, and we hear that not only do they call people to repentance, but they drive out demons and anoint and cure many who are sick. One way in which we deal with our discomfort is to demonise that which discomforts us. If we are to share a prophetic hope, we need to be cognisant of this strong human tendency, and open to God’s activity in setting us free from it. A chapter earlier in Mark’s Gospel we hear how Jesus cleansed the demoniac of Gerasa, chasing a legion of unclean spirits into a herd of pigs. Not only was this man set free of the evil that had controlled him, but for Jesus’ disciples who likely held the common orthodox Jewish hostility for the Hellenistic culture of the Decapolis there was a symbolic cultural cleansing that altered their perspective and allowed for people of that region to be a welcome part of the crowds that subsequently followed Jesus.
And so what does it look like to live the Christian faith in this post-Pentecost season of the Church year? I believe it is to allow the Spirit of God to work deeply within us, giving us the courage to confront our own demons; it is to repent and recognise afresh the presence of God in our lives and world; it is to be healed of that which afflicts us; it is to see the world differently, to see the world and others from God’s perspective; it is to acknowledge the image of God in every person, and see the potential for good in every cultural context; it is to be indiscriminate in the manner in which we share the bounteous love of God at every opportunity. It is to be humble, dependant, and vulnerable before God, the Source of all Being, and before one another; always. It is finding the courage to say, “With God’s help, we will!”
Let us pray,
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