SUNDAY, JULY 7, 2024 | AFTER PENTECOST - Proper 9 (B)

Old Testament & Psalm, Option II

Old Testament Ezekiel 2:1–5

Psalm Psalm 123

New Testament 2 Corinthians 12:2–10

Gospel Mark 6:1–13

Revised Common Lectionary (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2009).

Ezekiel: “Thus says the Lord God” - it is important they know it was a prophet they either accepted or rejected

2Cor: Paul was weakened, so that God can be glorified more

Mark: Jesus’ strong teaching elicited suspicion and insult. They cut themselves off from miracles/deeds of power with their unbelief.

He sends his disciples on a missionary journey - without resources, so that they do not preach the gospel through their might, but in vulnerability and yet, they have done many good deeds!

Good morning,

Well, now I think we can say that summer is in full swing - school’s out (well, for some, not for me :)), people are vacationing, and July the 4th is just behind us! And temperatures are sky high! I have hung out with friends on Thursday and then it was time for a beach day on Friday! I hope your week was just a little bit fun as well.

Our gospel text doesn’t have any beaches or grilling, but hey, we can’t have everything.

It’s not summery, but it is also quite a mild text that fits well with Ezekiel and 2 Corinthians - the overarching theme is strength in weakness. What a beautiful paradox of faith.

In Ezekiel, we see that God sends him amongst the wayward people of Israel and he is to tell them: “Thus says the Lord” and whether they accept him or reject him, “they shall know that there has been a prophet among them. “ And God realizes that Ezekiel is merely a mortal (as God points it out a few times), so Ezekiel’s position is not great - prophets are often insulted, beaten or worse, but God wants the message to come from someone who is an underdog, just like the nation of Israel once was before God adopted them.

Paul on the other hand doesn’t quite fit the bill - a self sufficient Jewish man with a Roman citizenship, top notch religious education, and generally somebody who probably enjoyed a life of relative privilege as a Pharisee before he became the Lord’s apostle. He is well aware of that and thinks to help him from being too “elated”, he has a thorn in his flesh (a disease perhaps) to torment him and asked the Lord to remove it, but he said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” and Paul adopted it into his missional identity and became content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for he thinks whenever I am weak, then I am strong. The origin and manner of the thorn is unclear, but again, we can see that the message of God dwells in a weak vessel, not a strong one.

And finally we have our passage in Mark, where we witness continued suspicion towards Jesus, because they know him and his family from before he began his earthly ministry and thus they cut themselves off from the merciful power of God because of their unbelief. That story serves as a little bit of a preface to the sending of the twelve as Jesus began to send them “out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.” Yes, that seems like quite a bit of conferred power, but what comes next balances it out quite a bit:

He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

And He further said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

Simply put, they are to be at mercy of people they just met with nothing to give them or pay them for their hospitality and their only recourse is to “shake off the dust that is on [their] feet.” And with that they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. And in their vulnerability, God glorified Godself and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. What an awe inspiring testimony…and anxiety inducing as well, to be honest - going to strangers is stressful enough, but moreover asking them for free hospitality?

Again, so different from the world with maxims such as “the luck blesses the prepared” or “better safe than sorry.” Well, we are pretty much breaking all those here, remember they didn’t have any proper training at this point (as it is still quite early in the ministry in the flow of the story) and they were still pretty green in their discipleship to Jesus. If we are to apply it to Christian mission, then we can see that we are not supposed to go out into the world in a position of power and influence, but rather vulnerability and humility as opposed to how would empires spread through might and forcefulness.

So as we look at the world around us, without our baptismal eyes and the Holy Spirit, such request would seem ridiculous and the development of Christianity as Christendom, an institution, would validate you - missionaries as well-educated and influential men that would be coming amongst the unbelievers with an entourage of knights and bureaucrats. Coming from me, it is perhaps a little bit of a paradox - I am an over-educated individual with multiple degrees and fair bit of privilege, but that is the fulfilment of the expectations of the church for this office, not what God necessarily wants for we are all priests as Christians and we are called to humble ourselves and become vulnerable for the sake of the kingdom of God. For some, like the disciples that were fishermen, that is just a small step, but for others, like the centurion or the rich man, it is quite a leap. And yet, we are all called to it. In our weakness and vulnerability, God will be glorified and the message of the Kingdom will be spoken out loud and that is very good news, for not everyone needs to attain influence or education to do so.

It is a message that we need to hear as those aligning themselves with Christian nationalism feel emboldened and empowered to be loud and proud and demand their twisted ideals to be implemented, by force if necessary, even though these ideals have nothing to do with Kingdom of God, but rather with the Roman empire that Jesus opposed and ultimately got murdered by - ideals of exclusion of those different from them, punishment of those that disagree with them, and helping your own tribe only. Spreading Christian faith by force simply doesn’t work - crusades didn’t convert the Middle East to Christianity and native Americans and Africans didn’t become believers in Jesus by force, but through the Holy Spirit as they recognized the grace and hope beyond the brutality and hatred of the colonizers. Let us remember that for the longest time in colonial America, if a slave (African or native American) wanted to be baptized, they had to promise to continue obeying their master even after becoming “free citizens of the kingdom of God!” You can spread Christian culture by force, but that is not what Jesus had in mind, when he sent his disciples “two by two.”

On Fourth of July, we remember the victory over the British Empire and their grasp on these lands. And the point was to be free from this vast colonial power that dictated the culture and religion to adhere to. Christian mission is not about building a mighty Christian empire - on the contrary, we are to humble ourselves and become weak, so that the influence of God’s mercy and love can be strong and reach everybody. So let us try to do so and moreover, let us scrutinize anyone who claims that Christianity is supposed to be aligned with the ideas of conquest and cultural indoctrination! There is no “be and behave like our preferred kind of Christian or else” in the kingdom of God! Only grace upon grace forever.

Amen.