Who Is Jesus 8

Children’s Message- Break Children into groups, assign a teen or adult to each group, and have them plan a road trip. They have 60 seconds to do so- where are you going, what are you packing- go.

Across the first several chapters of Mark we’ve followed Jesus as he has taught and traveled across the region around the Galilean lake, first on the traditionally Jewish side of the lake and then in the decapolis on pagan Greek side of the lake. But today Jesus sets foot back in his own town. And we might expect this to be a glorious homecoming. As word of Jesus has spread, surely Jesus neighbors from his childhood have become proud to be connected to someone as famous as he is becoming, right? If this happened today, Jesus would have autographed a picture of himself for the local cafe to hang on the wall. The local paper would have kept up with his progress, his success, his career. Small towns tend to treasure their successes- why am I telling you guys this- you know this. We would want this story to be one of those successful homecomings complete with parade. But that’s not this story.

The New Revised Standard Version The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth

6 He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” 5 And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Now lets unpack this a little bit. Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, isn’t just small- its microscopic. During Jesus’ childhood and at the time this takes place, the population of the town is roughly 400 people. Its so remarkably unimportant in the region that it isn’t even mentioned in roman governmental writings until the 3rd century. There are a number of towns in the area with much more prominence, much more importance. Its a tiny village of stone huts, temporary dwellings we would see as tents, and a few civic buildings, like the synagogue Jesus finds himself in. People don’t move to Nazareth. People leave Nazareth. So its unsurprising that everyone in that synagogue knows Jesus. The question is, how do they know Jesus? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this the uneducated laborer? Isn’t this Mary’s son?! Man isn’t that a loaded title. Because Jesus birth wasn’t exactly conventional in any form, but from the outside looking in, from the perspective of the other villagers in Nazareth, Jesus is Joseph and Mary’s child, conceived before their wedding, not exactly smiled upon by the community. They know him too well. Or at least, they know him too well on their own terms, and therein lies the problem. They can’t hear Jesus because they are projecting their own words, their own inadequate knowledge, their own stories onto him. They’re not proud of him. They’re not supportive. They’re offended that he would stand in front of them and claim any sort of authority or knowledge. They recognize the knowledge just long enough to be disgusted by it and reject it as false. He’s too familiar. They’ve been around him their whole lives. And he’s already a shamed name because of this birth story- not the angelic visits and holy beginnings but as the child of unwed parents. So what’s the result of their lack of faith. Its interesting, a scripture we have a hard time dealing with. Mark and Luke clean it up and tell it a slightly different way because Mark’s words are too difficult. “He could do no deeds of power.” Jesus is unable? What” He “can’t”? Since when could Jesus not do miracles? How is their lack of faith a limiting force? Can’t Jesus just blast out some mighty miracles in front of them to prove himself? Apparently not, as the text tells us he can only lay his hands on a few sick people to heal them, shocked by the lack of believe of the community he grew up in. They can’t respond to the teaching. They can’t hear the gospel. They can only see what they want to see, Jesus on their own terms. So then the question is, how does Jesus respond?

The New Revised Standard Version The Mission of the Twelve

Then he went about among the villages teaching. 7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 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. 10 He 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.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Jesus response to their unbelief according to mark is, in essence, to shake the dust off his feet on his own home town as a testimony against them. He leaves and continues to teach the gospel they weren’t willing to hear elsewhere. And he sends out his closest followers with instructions not to rely on the things that would make them comfortable, things that familiar to them, things that are safe- food, backpack, or cash. Don’t take a change of clothes. Leave behind what you expect, what you want, what you know. If a lack of faith relies on what you expect, want, and know, then faith as encouraged by Jesus here ventures into the uncomfortable unknown completely dependent on what will be provided on behalf of God by others. And notice the difference between what happens in Nazareth when Jesus himself is the one teaching and working and what happens here as the disciples venture into the unknown among those who don’t feel as if they have Jesus figured out. They go teaching repentance, something that is done as Mark makes clear from Chapter one onward as an act of faith and not fear. And we see the faithful response of those who they teach. If faith is something that makes those miracles possible, something that both the previous interaction in Nazareth along with several other healing stories certainly speak to, then these 12 followers of Jesus find more faith in the countryside among those who don’t know Jesus than was found among those you would expect to know him best in his home town.

Here’s a passage that’s about faith and repentance that leads me to a point where I have to wonder if the challenge, the stumbling block in my faith journey is not what I know or what I don’t know, but instead what I think I already have figured out, and therefore what I refuse to hear, listen to, consider, think about, etc. because I know I know it already. Fellow followers of Jesus, what if what we trip over the fact that Jesus is so “known,” so “familiar” to us, that we refuse to see the ways that busts out of the boundaries we would assign. The gospel of Mark tells that story over and over again in a variety of ways, reminding us that Jesus never really fit the expectations of anyone around him, those close and those far. What if our knowledge and expectations of Jesus are our weakness just as it was those in Nazareth.

I’m certainly not telling you to stop learning. That’s a dumb thing to say for a number of reasons, but especially for a guy whose forking over a lot of cash for an advanced theological education. What I mean, though, is that we must be careful to never substitute our knowledge for the gospel, which is exactly what happens in Nazareth. When we exalt our perception above everything else, we turn what we think we know into an idol and step into dangerous territory. Instead, we must always be willing to reassess and reconsider everything we think we know. If Jesus neighbors in Nazareth would have been willing to do so, this story looks very different. I am afraid that the church has the very real potential, and quite an unfortunate history, of doing the very same thing. Let us have ears to hear the gospel, not mouths to declare our perception as gospel.