Mark my Words. "Not Accepted in the Heartlands" (Communion)

Readings: Psalm 48, Ezekiel 2:1-5, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10, Mark: 6:1-13
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, July 4 2021

Today, is Independence Day. A moment in history when a nation remembers how they have declared their willingness to stand alone and be guided by principles of self-government and freedom. Later in your history you would declare a desire to be “One nation under God.” There is an acknowledgment, in that statement, that true independence can only be found through a reliance upon God’s love and grace.

It is an unusual day for a British guy to be standing in a pulpit in an area where there are still historic signs of the revolutionary war around. Thank-fully it was a long time ago and it appears old animosities have been replaced by a close relationship between the two nations and a recognition of commonalities rather than what separates.  

Of course, for the majority of you this is your homelands, while for myself and Yvonne, most of our extended family remains over the other side of the ocean. But wherever you call home, it is always a strange experience visiting your homelands after you have been away for a while.

Because of COVID, Yvonne and I have not been able to make that journey to our homelands in recent days. We have a family wedding coming up next year and hope that will be an occasion to renew our acquaintance once again. Things is, whenever we do go, we notice changes.

Things are so familiar, yet at the same time so different. Time moves on.  People move on. Things change. There is a new building here.  An old landmark is no longer there. Who we are, is not who we were.

There is the awareness that you have moved onto other things, whilst some of those who stayed where they were, are much the same as they have ever been.  You see them through different eyes, but often they see you as they always did.

I was reading of the Welsh singer Tom Jones, (who had hits like, "It's not unusual" and "The Green, Green, Grass of home"), and how, for him, visiting his home village was a unique experience.  In the eyes of the world, he was perceived as a glitzy Las Vegas nightclub superstar.  In his hometown he was still 'Tom, y’know, Mrs. Jones's boy, who sings a bit and went off to America.'

He found it a liberating thing to walk around his hometown and be treated just the same as everybody else.  There is something in being around folks who knew us when we were growing up that is a great leveler, and which can be very accepting and comfortable.

The reverse side of it is that it can limit people’s expectations of us. It is almost as though the people who think they know you the best, feel a need to set limits on what you should and should not be able to achieve in life.

That seems to be what happened when Jesus went to his hometown after being on His first mission trip. People would not accept Him. “Why, He is just Mary’s boy, the carpenter. We know his brothers and sisters! He’s nobody special.”

It could even be that the townsfolk thought He was dodging His responsibilities. As there is no mention of Mary’s husband Joseph in the account, the presumption is that he had died and left Jesus, as the oldest child, as the head of the household.  To walk out on the family and go on some crazy preaching tour was not the thing to do!

For whatever reasons, be it familiarity or just resistance because of actions He had taken that were socially out of line, Jesus is met with rejection when He returns to His hometown.  The people are offended by His teaching, viewing it as alien to their understanding of what should and should not happen in their locality.

Jesus marvels at their unbelief, quoting them a parable, “A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.” A few receive Him.  A number receive healing, but these are a small number in comparison to the multitudes that were touched elsewhere.

Reflecting on the thought of Jesus not being welcome in His homelands, challenges me to ask a searching question. “How welcome is Jesus in my heartlands? How welcome is the radical message of the gospel in my heart of hearts?” There is no more familiar place to us than the principality of our own lives.  In our own experience we can easily become content with the way things are and not face the challenge of developing in our spirituality.

Whether we have been faithfully attending church in the United Kingdom, or the United States, or any other land… we have heard the gospel message many times. So many times, that it has become familiar to us. Maybe so familiar, that we think we know what it is all about and see no need for change or greater understanding.  We can become so satisfied with the status quo of church life that we lose the expectation of God’s Spirit breaking in on us, renewing us, and changing us.

Jesus could not do the work He wished to do in His homelands because the people were imprisoned by a view of life that allowed no room for the unexpected in the common daily life of their community. They knew the mighty works He had done; they recognized His teaching as having great depth, and they did not deny great things were taking place.

What they had a problem with was fathoming how a man from their little village had been anointed with such great wisdom and power. They found the thought that He had a divine work to do in their midst an offense.  Who was He to tell them how they should be living their lives?  Wasn’t He, after all just a carpenter, just a local boy? Things like that did not happen in their town!

In a similar way in our inner heartlands, in our heart of hearts, we can limit the work of God.  We find the thought that Jesus wants to do some divine work in our midst somehow unbelievable. After all, that is not our daily experience. Of course, we believe Jesus can do great things, and we know He gave great teaching, but does it really penetrate our hearts?

William Barclay, in his commentary on Mark, tells the story of the poet Thomas Campbell, a man of considerable talent.  His father had absolutely no sense of poetry whatsoever. When Thomas achieved his longtime dream of having his poems published, he sent a copy to his father.  The old man looked at it.  

At least he looked at the cover and the picture on it. He never actually opened the pages and read anything. His only comment was “Well, who would have thought our Tommy could have a book made with a nice picture on it?”

“Sometimes” comments William Barclay, “when familiarity should breed a growing respect it breeds an increasing and easy-going familiarity.  Sometimes we are too near people to see their greatness.” I would want to add; “Sometimes we are so familiar with our limitations that we fail to see the possibility of there being anything more.”
 
Yet there were some in Jesus hometown who were not content.  Though the majority reacted with an unbelief that Jesus marveled at, some were healed.  So, there is a way to break beyond our familiarity barriers and expand our horizons! It may not be the way the majority takes, but has not that always been the case with those who desire to walk with God?

Consider Ezekiel, the prophet of our Old Testament reading.  God addresses him as ‘mortal man’ (for that is what he was) yet identifies him as being a person of faith amongst a nation where many disbelieved. (Ezekiel 2:3) “Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have turned against me.”

Consider how, after His rejection by most of His own folk, Jesus does not despair or change His plans, but rather carries on expanding His work, training His small band of twelve disciples by sending them out two by two to give them their first taste of preaching the Good News of the Kingdom.

Consider how, though initially rejected by His family, His mother Mary was one of the few who stood by Jesus to the end, when the rest of the disciples deserted Him. Consider how His brother James, after the resurrection, came to be regarded as the apostle and the leader of the Jerusalem church.  Though their familiarity was a stumbling block, it was one they eventually overcame.

We have stumbling blocks in our faith journeys.  We have problems that we do not seem to be able to get over. We become content with our unbelief and our unfamiliarity of God’s ways. We give up on ourselves.  We give up on each other.  We give up on our churches.  We let hope pass us by. The familiarity of our heartlands causes us to feel nothing can change or will change. We become so hardened by our familiarity that we reject even the words of those who tell us change is possible.

It does not have to be that way. It was not that way for Ezekiel.  It was not that way for those in Jesus town who found healing that day.  It does not have to be that way for us if we heed Christ’s words that we should seek the things of His Kingdom over and above all the other things we want in life.

This passage challenges us today, that though we are simply mortal women and men, it is in our lives, cluttered as they are with everyday concerns and mixed motives, that God wishes to work in the power of God’s Holy Spirit. It is for us to invite Jesus into our heartland, to see not the limitations that both ourselves and the world around us place upon us, but the vast possibilities that the Grace of God opens up to us.  

Today… Independence Day. Wherever we consider our homelands to be, one thing is clear. Freedom only comes to us within a certain framework. A war of independence took place that allowed this nation to be a place of self-government, rather than a colony under some the reign of some distant king.

The challenge remains that, for a person of faith, spiritual growth takes place, not through independence from a higher power, but through dependance upon the powerful love of God, that we find in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.

Here, around a table laid with bread and wine is an unparalleled opportunity to lay our lives before God and seek God’s renewal. Let us celebrate the freedom we have to be here. Let us celebrate our history and our unique identity. But let there be no familiarity. Let there be a recognition that we are where we are and who we are by the Grace of God. And let us seek for that grace, always fresh, always new and always amazing, to guide us through days that lay ahead of us.  

And to God be all praise and glory. Amen.

 The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.