Jesus Rejected

 

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon title is Hometown, Healing and Hospitality. My focus is Mark (6:1-13). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”  Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

Have you done much research into your hometown? How did your hometown get its name? Who are its most celebrated citizens? Most people know something of their hometown. They know the founders, the famous and infamous people, how it got its name and so on. Where I grew up and currently live, the township is named in honor of the Potter Brothers, James and Robert, successful businessmen of their time.

The most common names of hometowns in the US are Washington (88), Springfield (41), Franklin (35) and Greenville (30). There is also a suburb of Chicago named Hometown. Bordered by 87^th Street on the north, and 91^st on the south, Cicero to the west and Pulaski to the east, fewer than 4,400 people live there. Hometown has produced no celebrities. On the other hand, my father’s hometown of Aliquippa, produced musician Henry Mancini, Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld, and Hall of Fame athletes Pete Maravich, Ty Law, Darrelle Revis and Mike Ditka.

Celebrities aside, hometown is where you were born, grew up or your principal place of residence. I open with hometown because for the first time in Mark’s Gospel Jesus returned to his hometown. Nazareth was a small, insignificant village of a few hundred inhabitants. Here, one might expect a warm welcome and enthusiastic acclaim, but Jesus met a very different response.

According to his usual custom, on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue to teach. At first the villagers seemed to react in the same way as other audiences: they were astonished at his wisdom and authority. But in this case, the astonishment seems inappropriate and out of place. In their minds Jesus was just one of the guys, someone they knew all their lives. They never saw anything extraordinary about him. All this itinerant preaching and miracle-working seemed to them to be putting on airs.

Their questions displayed not a sincere pursuit of truth but rather indignant skepticism. Isn’t he the carpenter? Isn’t Mary his mother? They pigeonholed Jesus because they were confident that they knew all about him and could not accept that he might be from God.

Wisdom and mighty deeds are attributes of God himself. Of God’s wisdom, we read in Jeremiah, “It is [the Lord] who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.” The prophet Daniel affirmed, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.”

Regarding God’s might, “Moses implored the Lord his God and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?’” Jesus’ ancestors knew that God brought them out of slavery by his mighty hand and the outstretched arm. However, they could not bring themselves to draw the logical conclusion of their reasoning concerning Jesus’ wisdom and might.

They were scandalized and offended that a hometown boy might be inaugurating the Kingdom of God because it did not conform to their preconceived ideas about how God would and could act. Their attachment to their ideas became the obstacle to their faith. Earlier in Mark, we read about such people: “They may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.”

And so, Jesus cried out, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” In doing so, he linked his destiny to that long line of Old Testament prophets who suffered rejection or violence because of their unpopular message. We find this in more than six Old Testament books.

The Chronicler (Book of Chronicles) wrote, “The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.” Nehemiah prophesied, “Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.”

In his hometown, the failure of his kinsfolk to accept Jesus was symbolic of their rejection: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” Jesus could do little more there than heal a few sick people. Now, before I begin my second point, I leave you with a question: Like the people in his hometown, how do I reject Jesus’s teachings, God’s teachings?

My second point is healing. When we talk about healing, we mean restoring someone to health or the process of getting well. In antiquity healing had two aspects: professional medicine and faith healing. We think of the Greek physician, Hippocrates, commonly known as the father of medicine because he professionalized it. The Hippocratic Oath included the principles of medical confidentiality and non-maleficence, that is, do no harm. Even today medical graduates swear a modified form of the Oath.

Faith healers used herbs, amulets, charms and chants. They performed exorcisms and interceded with the gods of healing. In the Old Testament priests were the custodians of public health. Levitical laws concerned diet, health, sexual practices, quarantine and the Sabbath rest because they were seen as God’s concern for physical health.

Jesus is represented as a healer of multiple physical and psychiatric diseases, but he did not use magical practices. He healed through voice commands and physical touch. The early church continued Jesus’ healing ministry, as we read about Peter healing a man in Acts. And in James we read, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

Here, however, Jesus only cured a few sick people, and the reason Mark put it this way is because he wanted to highlight the necessity of faith, that is, a basic openness to God’s power at work in Jesus, as the proper disposition for receiving his healing. Despite the atmosphere of unbelief in Nazareth, Jesus cured people by personal touch.

Ironically, Jesus marveled at the Nazoreans’ lack of faith. He showed the same emotion that characterized others who reacted positively towards him. In the previous chapter of Mark, after Jesus healed the man possessed by an evil spirit and told him to return home to his friends to tell them how merciful the Lord was to him, everyone marveled. In Luke’s version of Jesus calming the storm, his disciples marveled. Here, Jesus marveled at their lack of faith. Few things caused Jesus to react so strongly as a lack of faith, or conversely, great faith. Matthew recounted how Jesus marveled at the great faith of the Centurion and the Canaanite woman.

I will return to healing in my conclusion but before moving onto my third point, another question: How does my pride and self-reliance keep me from fully trusting Jesus’ healing powers?

Finally, hospitality. Hospitality is the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers in a warm, friendly and generous way. We derive hospitality from the Latin word hospes, meaning host, guest or stranger. The word hospital originally meant a guest-chamber, guest's lodging or an inn. In ancient cultures hospitality involved welcoming the stranger and offering him food, shelter and safety.

In Ancient Greece, hospitality was a right, where the host was expected to make sure the needs of his guests were met. A person's ability to abide by the laws of hospitality determined his nobility and social standing. In India hospitality is based on a principle where the guest is God. Whenever I have visited a home of a person from India, I noticed how gracious they are, offering drink and food, even on a brief visit.

Judaism praises hospitality to strangers and guests based largely on the examples of Abraham and Lot in the Book of Genesis. Hosts were expected to provide nourishment, comfort and entertainment for their guests, and at the end of the visit, hosts customarily escorted their guests out of their home and wished them a safe journey. These stories set the tone for biblical teaching. God is both the guest and the gracious host who befriended the Israelite people while they were strangers. Because they were once sojourners, the Israelites esteemed the stranger and the sojourner.

Jesus too is guest and host. Throughout his life, he remained a wayfarer who depended upon the hospitality of others: Matthew the tax collector, Simon the leper, Peter, Martha and Mary, as well as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, Susanna, and many others, who provided for him and his disciples out of their means.[18] As host, he washed his disciples’ feet and broke bread for them to eat.

In our passage today, Jesus instructed his disciples to take nothing but the clothes on their backs, sandals and a walking stick. Mark included these items in his passage to emphasize that discipleship meant walking on the way with Jesus. Their lack of a sack meant that they could not accept coins or other goods from people. They could not rely upon their own resources but had to learn how to depend upon God’s all-sufficient providence. We read in Second Corinthians, “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” Paul concluded that he could “do all things through him who strengthens [him],” because he “learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”

Because they were occupied not with daily needs, but God’s work, they would be free of distractions and remained focused on their mission. Their need for food and shelter would call forth generosity from those to whom they ministered. And their lack of material possessions lent credibility to their message since it demonstrated that they were preaching the Gospel out of conviction and not a desire for gain.

Allow me, now, to share a personal story of receiving another’s hospitality. I have told you this before, but it bears repeating. On January 6, 2014, our first grandchild, Emma, was born in Anderson, Indiana. At the time, my wife, Cindy, and I lived in Edmond, Oklahoma. The travel time between our house and Emma’s hospital was 12 hours … under normal circumstances. We left Oklahoma at 6:00 a.m. planning to arrive in Indiana by suppertime. Instead, we hit one of the worst ice storms in Illinois. By evening traffic came to a standstill. We were in Effingham, a small city intersected by Interstates 57 and 70. It has 20 hotels, but because every room was filled, we spent our first night at the Effingham Performance Arts Center on cots with 200 other travelers. Truckers, parents, infants and toddlers all crammed into one open space on cots. Cindy and I got no sleep that night.

The next morning, I learned that we would not be able to continue our trip and make Anderson by nightfall. We did not want to spend another night at the Performing Arts Center. So, being a Lutheran pastor, I looked up the Lutheran Church in Effingham. We called St. John’s Church. I explained to the secretary our plight. A few minutes later, the church president called and offered us a place to sleep. He met us and we followed him to his home. He then invited us to lunch. After lunch, we returned to his home, showered and napped. A few hours later, he asked if we would like to go to dinner with some friends. We obliged. The next morning, we headed out. We avoided the interstate and kept to state roads. We arrived in Anderson that afternoon. There and then, we saw and held our first granddaughter.

I tell you this story because we experienced Christian hospitality firsthand from the president of a Lutheran congregation in Effingham, Illinois. Hospitality is who we are as Christians. Hospitality is our ministry as individuals and as church.

How do we show hospitality to those who minister to us so that they are not distracted by daily concerns but can focus on their mission, the Gospel, the work of God? How do I not show hospitality for the Holy Spirit in my heart? What things do I do to drive Him away? Would I open my home, table and bed to a sojourning pastor and his wife?

My friends, extending hospitality in the name of Jesus Christ heals more hearts and souls than almost anything we can do in this world. If we want to heal our world, our nation, our neighborhoods and our families, we will by extending our homes, hands and hearts to people who may be seeking shelter, food and a warm bed, but unconsciously are seeking salvation … from the one who had no place to lay his head. Offer yourself to those who seek Christ as He offered himself to you and me, and when you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.