Pentecost 5
July 5, 2009
Mark 6:1-13
This morning’s Gospel is yet another story where I look at the disciples and wonder how I would measure up if I were one of them. Jesus sends out the disciples to start doing his work in the world with nothing but a staff. No food, no money, no extra clothes. And they head out with no idea what to expect. I can’t imagine doing what the disciples did. There is so much I hang on to.
This past week I traveled with my kids to Texas to visit my sister. It was just a four day visit, but we were like a comedy routine trying to get through the airport. My sister had sent me home with my nieces’ old clothes for Sophie and my bag was over the weight limit. So I was madly transferring stuff from one bag to another. Then off to the gate balancing two car seats, two kids, our carry on bag and a stroller. Then to airport security where Dylan was completely unconvinced about the necessity of removing his shoes. I’d forgotten about all the new rules and had to throw out a bottle of water. Also the rule about taking electronic equipment out of your bag when you go through security, so my backpack was rejected because of the portable DVD I brought to get the kids through the long flight. So much stuff.
But it’s not just my stuff that might keep me from being as open to the unknown as the disciples were. There’s also my need for security, the comforts I’ve gotten used to. And even if I were able to push those needs aside, would I be able to head out so openly, ready for whatever lay ahead? Or would I be burdened by all my preconceptions and expectations about the people and places I’d encounter?
Quite a while back I went to my 10th high school reunion. It was the first reunion I’d been to and it felt very strange. I’d gone to college and grad school, lived in three cities, traveled all over the world, gotten engaged, who knows what else, and yet walking into that room full of all those people who knew-me-when turned me right back into that high school girl I’d been. Worried about how I looked, wondering what everyone thought of me, feeling tall and gangly. And still thinking about my old classmates in the same way too.
When I walked in, it seemed like nothing had changed for any of us in those 10 years. There was Eric, the smart kid who had been skinny and tall with big round glasses, and was still skinny and tall with glasses, still wearing an argyle sweater and looking nervous. Alexi, who had been something of a blowhard who thought a lot of himself and never forgave me for voting for his competitor for Student Government President still had that puffed-up, self-satisfied look to him. And the cool, beautiful girls, most of whom were named Jennifer, or Jen, or Jenny, and were about 10 inches shorter than me, still seemed to be hanging out with each other and looking down their noses at the rest of us.
Well, today we see Jesus at a reunion of sorts. He’s been away from home for a long time, traveling around, finding himself, finding God, performing miracles and teaching his followers. And now he heads home to see the people who knew-him-when.
Can you imagine if there were Facebook in Jesus’ time? I can imagine Jesus’ old neighbors reading his status updates. Tuesday: “Jesus fed a crowd from small boy’s lunch.” Wednesday: “Jesus stopped bleeding woman’s hemorrhage.” Thursday: “Jesus raised synagogue leader’s daughter from the dead.” And then Friday: “Jesus is heading home to Nazareth.”
They all head to the synagogue to see this home town boy that they’ve been hearing all these remarkable reports about. In their heads they still have the picture of teenaged Jesus, hair covered with wood shavings, soft-spoken, generally mild-mannered. And so that’s pretty much what they still see. He’s older now, darker, more rugged. And he speaks louder now, with more confidence. He talks like he belongs up in front of the synagogue. Which is ridiculous – they all know he’s Mary’s son, a carpenter.
Even Jesus who had been out in the world performing miracles and spreading the Gospel and attracting huge crowds can’t get past what people think they know of him back home. They want to be kind, after all he is one of them, but really – who does he think he is? Walking around like he suddenly knows so much? Getting into his head that he’s a miracle worker?
And so, we are told, “they took offense at him.” They just couldn’t see past what they thought they knew about Jesus. They couldn’t see this Jesus before them for who He was.
We’re told that Jesus was “amazed” by this, but I don’t find it surprising in the least. I know from my own reunion experience how easy it is to act like Jesus’ home town neighbors. There I was, looking at my classmates from a decade ago and sure that I knew exactly who they were. But the people I thought I saw didn’t exist. And maybe they never had. It turned out that skinny, nervous Eric was now a teacher. He’d started out after college in Teach for America and loved working with the kids. He’d married a very sweet woman from South America who clearly adored him and they spent their summers traveling to interesting places. Who’d have guessed?
Alexi had become a lawyer for another branch of the same law firm I was with at the time in New York City. He worked on some of the same cases as me and we ended up cracking up over some of our ridiculous law firm experiences. He was totally down to earth and able to laugh at himself. And he didn’t even remember the high school voting debacle. Who’d have guessed?
And those Jennifers weren’t perfect and scary at all. They’d gained some weight and some wrinkles just like the rest of us and several of them came over and shared some fun memory from high school. Entirely gracious and kind. Who’d have guessed?
Maybe they’d all been that way in high school and I’d just never given them a chance. Or, maybe they, like me, had changed, grown up, were in the process of becoming some better form of themselves. Either way, when I walked into that reunion, I was blind to who they were.
Which means I fit right into the Gospel of Mark.
In Mark’s Gospel, blindness is everywhere. There’s a lot of physical blindness, like blind people that get healed by Jesus, but there’s also a whole lot of “sighted blind,” like these folks from Nazareth. People that are unable to see the truth, people that don’t recognize Jesus for who he is, people that have no idea what he’s talking about.
And the people in Mark’s Gospel are not the only “sighted blind.” Many of us are right there with them, and not just at our high school reunions. We think we know who Jesus is too. Maybe we have a picture of him that feels comfortable to us. Whether it’s Jesus castigating the same types of people we like to castigate, or Jesus assuring the people who are like us. Maybe there are pieces that we purposely leave out of our picture of Jesus because they offend us, or challenge us, or just plain don’t interest us.
Whatever our picture might be, we can be fairly confident that it’s incomplete. We all have trouble seeing beyond what we want to see. Which makes us perfect recipients of Mark’s Gospel message. Mark assures us that faith isn’t about knowing it all, or understanding it all, or even believing it all. Instead, faith is about recognizing our blindness and being open to seeing in a new way.
A few chapters after our Gospel story for this morning, Mark sums up the solution for us pretty well. There we encounter blind Bartimaeus who is sitting on the side of the road as Jesus walks by. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus ask him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” And immediately Bartimaeus received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
May it be so for all of us as well. Amen.
Elizabeth Rees