I Cannot Believe It

Today we continue to follow Jesus in Mark’s gospel. What has been nice about the texts we’ve been using during the summer is that each story that we read and hear about basically precedes the one we heard before it which gives us a great basis for the text that we hear this week.

Last week, as you may recall, we heard the two stories of the healing of women. One was a woman who had been sick with bleeding for over 12 years, and the other was a 12 year old girl who had died and Jesus brought back to life. What we discussed was the key to both of those texts is that the woman had faith in Jesus and just needed to touch him, not even talk or have him pronounce anything, but just touch him and she would be made well…and she was. For the little girl the father had enough faith in Jesus that, Jesus brought the little girl back from the dead with a touch. We focused on the importance of both faith and touch in our lives.

If faith is an important part of understanding Jesus ministry to the world then you can see how it is no wonder that when Jesus returns to his hometown he is not able to do any deed of power as our text tells us except a few healings of sick people. The reason we see that this is the case is that the people in Jesus hometown were so focused on the fact that Jesus was Mary’s son and the brother of all of his siblings. Jesus is a carpenter by trade. He hadn’t been from a family that would become rabbis or priests or a worker in the temple. How is it that someone who grew up in a tiny backwater town would become this incredible rabbi with so many followers? Where did Jesus get all of these powers and all this great wisdom about God and the Torah? All the people gathered in the synagogue may not have seen any of the deeds that Jesus had done but I’m sure they had heard about them from Mary and Jesus’ siblings. Remember how Jesus’ family tried to come and restrain him because people thought he was mad and they then didn’t fully understand Jesus and his ministry? We have no idea how his family interpreted that event and reported it back to their small town.

So all these people who grew up with Jesus only knew him as a carpenter and nothing else and had heard stories of his deeds and powers and wisdom but had not seen it for themselves. They could not get their heads and their minds past little Jesus playing games and running through the village. They couldn’t get their heads past young Jesus learning from Joseph what it takes to be a carpenter and helping build things for all the other villagers.

Have you ever had that happen in your life before? When you go back to where you grew up people only see you as little Susie Q, or the boy who used to run through the streets naked, or the kid who used to hit their baseball into someone’s yard and would climb the fence so that they didn't’ have to talk to that person? Or you used to be the one who would always TP people’s houses on the holidays and smash pumpkins in the streets? If you think about it isn’t that what class reunions are all about? You go and see people that you likely haven’t seen for years and hear, maybe sometimes in disbelief, learn about what they do now in their lives.

I knew someone from high school and she was a straight A student and deeply involved in sports and the student body. After a year of college when I met back up with some friends for the summer they had told me that she had gotten in with the wrong crowd and was now a party girl who was struggling with all of her classes. I really could not believe that someone who was such a good student would suddenly get sucked into something that she had no desire doing when she was in high school. It can be difficult for us to see people doing things and being things different than from what we remember them as when they were younger.

In fact I know several people who are pastors who said that they would never in their life had chosen that path for themselves. And some of these pastors have gone back to class reunions and told people they were now pastors and their old classmates would look at them sideways and say, “but aren’t you the one who used to… and now you’re a pastor?” I would never have thought you would do that.

So if it is hard for us to believe someone is something different than what we think they could have or would have done with their lives, is it really any wonder that the people in Jesus’ home town have a hard time believing that this man who used to be a boy carpenter is anything more than a carpenter? To use the words of Quincy from the kids show “Little Einsteins”: “I cannot believe it!”. And as we all know the word believe and faith go hand in hand. So if they can’t believe or have faith that Jesus anything other than who they knew him to be and not who he really is standing there in front of them, then it is no wonder Jesus cannot do anything other than what they expect of him.

Faith had the power to heal the woman with the hemorrhages and raise the little girl from the dead and lack of faith had the ability to stop Jesus from doing any miracles in his home town. Having faith in someone and believing they can do something is an important part of Mark’s gospel and it is important for us as well. We need to have faith and believe that God is at work through each of us. If God is at work in each of us then God is at work at Grace. If God is at work in and through Grace then God is at work in Kingman. And I think you see where I am going. So if God is at work in Kingman then that will then spread to Arizona and the United States, and around the world. If we put our faith and trust in God and allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through us then we truly will do things that might just make people wonder where this all came from.

This is where the we come to our point in today’s text about the sending out of the twelve disciples to do their own mission work. The disciples have now seen and experienced what it is like to have people have faith in Jesus and in God and what that can do for them, and they had just experienced what it is like when people cannot see past their understanding or preconceived notions of who someone is or what they can do. Jesus has given them hands on, real world experience of both the power of faith, and people’s inability to believe in something more.

With those skills and understanding of what people are like, Jesus sends the disciples out in pairs, which gives them the ability to witness and hold an account of what actually happened. As the disciples went out with the authority Jesus gave them they were able to cast out demons and cure those who were sick.

The mission of the twelve gave the disciples a glimpse of what it would be like, though they didn’t know at that time, for the time when Jesus left them. It is also a great example for us of what it is like for us to be Jesus disciples. So far his disciples were watchers and observers, but now they were fellow workers in the Kingdom of God. They weren’t just there to watch and write down everything Jesus did, but they were active participants in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to the towns and cities they entered. They saw and experienced what faith could do and they knew what it was like if someone didn’t believe.

But as I said earlier, if God is at work in each of us, and trust me, God is at work in us, then we have that same gift and ability to change people’s lives by sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. We have the same chance to share with people how much God loves them and wants to have a relationship with them, we have the chance to share with people that Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice by dying on the cross so that their sins may be forgiven, meaning all their past mistakes are wiped clean and they have a fresh start. And if they say, “I cannot believe it!” Invite them to come and see how all of it is true and how it takes place weekly at Grace Lutheran Church. Come and see is what Jesus told the disciples to turn them from fishermen and tax collectors to be the voices of God for the world.

You may be teachers, and nurses, and insurance agents, and realtors, but you are also Jesus disciples and you have the same gift to show people what faith in Jesus Christ is like and what it means to have a relationship with God. I encourage you to use those gifts and invite people to experience the unbelievable, for all things are possible with God.

Amen.