Pentecost 6B

6th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Last week, we talked about HOPE. From the Christian perspective, we used this definition: “Biblical hope is hope in what God will do in the future. At the heart of Christian hope is the resurrection of Jesus...The significance of Christ’s resurrection is not only that it points to his victory over death, but also extends that victory to those who are his.” [Paul K. McAlister, “Hope,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 997.] We had 2 stories of different people who put their hope in Jesus: a father with a dying daughter, and a woman with a long-term illness. Recall this woman had so much hope, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well’.” [ESV, Mark 5:27-28] She didn’t even need him to be an active participant; she just wanted to get close to him, to touch him, and her health would be restored…she would be made whole once more. She EXPECTED it to happen.

This is a stark contrast to the Gospel lesson for today. Here we have a group of people in Jesus’ hometown (Nazareth)…people who ALREADY KNOW Jesus. And yet, despite being closer to him than the woman who touched his garment, these people have no hope in him at all. Rather, they are unable to get past the fact that he is just the son of a carpenter - one of the craftsmen they all know. He’s just a regular guy. Why should he be able to teach in the synagogue like this? Who gave him this wisdom and authority?

When Luke tells about this episode of Jesus’ life, we get a little more detail that helps us understand. When Jesus teaches in the synagogue, he reads a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, and he tells the people in attendance that the ancient prophecy was now being fulfilled through Jesus and his ministry. As we know, the leaders of the synagogue, and even the people were offended by this; to say such a thing is to claim to be God Himself. How dare he, this mere carpenter’s son? The people were clearly angry and hostile.

So these people who know Jesus so well, are unable to believe in him…they cannot believe that Jesus is the Messiah who had been promised by God through the prophets of old. These people have no faith in him. Last week, one of our parishioners said that the way I described hope in the sermon, that it sounded like it was the same thing as faith. And I had to apologize, because I didn’t do a very good job of distinguishing between the two. Let’s fix that now. Hope, as we’ve said, is the positive expectation that God is going to do what He says He will do. So what is faith?

The Augsburg Confession tells us that faith is “when we believe that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who alone is the mediator who reconciles the Father.” [Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959), 42.] Faith and belief go hand-in-hand…and most importantly, we must keep in mind that faith is not something we can create on our own. Faith, like grace, is a gift from God. Faith is believing what God has done for us, believing that He is still doing it, and trusting that He WILL do in the future what He has promised. Hope is expecting that He will do what we want Him to do (such as heal our illness). They’re closely related, but faith has more to do with God’s own promises, where hope is about what we want from God. When the two are the same, when our hope is aligned with God’s will, it’s very likely that God will do them.

So this week, we’re talking more about faith…or lack thereof. For the people of Jesus’ hometown, their early knowledge of Jesus is actually an obstacle to faith. It keeps them from being able to have faith in him. Jesus calls this “unbelief”, and he really doesn’t have much to say about it, just that he marveled at it. It’s strange to me, that even when confronted with evidence, the people of Nazareth cannot believe that Jesus is more than who they know him to be. Look at verse 2. They recognize that he has great gifts: authority, wisdom, and power: “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?” [The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mk 6:2.] So either they’ve seen him heal the sick, or cast out demons or any number of his other works…but they refuse to believe. Evidence is not enough.

One part of this chapter that has always bothered me is verse 5: “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.” (Ibid., Mk 6:5) At first glance, it looks like Jesus’ power is dependent on whether the people believed in him or not…and that makes it seem like God depends on us…as though the more we believe in Him, the more power He has. Ask yourself: does that make sense? If that were true, how would God have created the universe, with no one around to believe in Him? It’s a misunderstanding of this text, but I think it’s easy to see how you could come to that conclusion.

What Mark is telling us is that Jesus couldn’t give people His wondrous gift. His “mighty work” is the grace of God that is freely given, not earned. Why couldn’t Jesus give that gift? My friend Pastor Hefner likes to say “the first thing FAITH says is ‘thank you’.” In other words, FAITH is how you receive the gifts of God. These people in Nazareth have no faith, therefore they cannot receive the gift.

So WHY don’t they have faith in Jesus? We said earlier that they knew him from when he was a child. This is true. But I want to put this a different way. They don’t believe in Jesus because they believe he has to be who THEY think he is…not who he REALLY is. They have one view of him, and that’s the only view that they will accept. They can’t be taught otherwise. They refuse to acknowledge the evidence in front of them. They refuse to listen to the man himself. They are immovable.

Now I ask you: is that a 2,000-year-old problem, or is that a problem we still have today? Turn on the news or social media or pull out today’s paper, and you’ll see we’re just as bad today. We make up our minds about something going on in society and we cannot be convinced otherwise, even in the face of facts and evidence. It’s a big part of why our country is so divided right now. We tie our positions and our understanding to our pride and our dignity, and anything that goes against what we understand is just unacceptable. And we close our ears and we refuse to be moved, and we’ll argue until it gets nasty and mean. That thing we used to call “civil discourse” is incredibly rare, if not extinct.

In matters of faith, we can take comfort in the truth of God’s Word, and we can lean on that, as we should. But even in the church, we have the same or similar problems. Our very denomination exists because we have said that the Bible means what it says; those on the other side of the theological isle have said they want it to mean something else…something other than what it actually says.

Have you ever engaged in a dialogue with a critic of Christianity? An atheist or an agnostic? What’s the first thing they say? “I could never believe in a God who does such terrible things.” They have a firm belief in who God is, and it’s skewed and twisted. It’s not who God SAYS He is. But they are convinced. They don’t want to hear that their understanding is wrong. They won’t listen to our teaching. They won’t allow any evidence to change their mind. Some of them will go so far as to say that Jesus never really existed…that the only evidence we can produce is the Bible, which they are convinced is myth and no truth. Too bad for them, we actually have other evidence - Roman records and documents from that time - that verify the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified as a criminal. Verifiable, secular proof of his life and death. You can offer even this non-Biblical evidence to them and they will still refuse to listen.

So what are we to do with this? First, we need to recognize our own faith - the faith given to us by the Holy Spirit in our baptism, and renewed and refreshed each time we read or hear God’s Word, and each time we partake in Holy Communion. We have faith. Knowing that, we can recognize what we are to do with that faith, and that is to carry it into the world, sharing the Good News that is given to us in His Holy Word. And what if we offer the Gospel to someone who doesn’t want to hear it? Not to worry. God sent Ezekiel to bring His Word to people who were rebellious and impudent and stubborn. God knew they wouldn’t hear what Ezekiel had to say. He sent Ezekiel anyway.

Likewise with Jesus in the Gospel: he taught and preached in his hometown. And since Jesus *is* God, he knew that the folks in his hometown wouldn’t believe him. He knew this before he stepped into the synagogue that day. But he taught and he preached anyway. And after that, he sent his disciples out, with authority over unclean spirits, to teach and share the Gospel. And what does he tell them? “And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” [The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mk 6:11.]

Jesus knows that there will be people who won’t listen…who do not want to hear this message of repentance and forgiveness. Just like us today - we don’t want to hear that things are any different than what we know them to be. We don’t want to hear that our lives aren’t what God wants them to be. We don’t WANT to hear that we are “captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” We want to be told that we’re basically good, and that because we’re pretty good people, God will love us and will bring us to be with Him because He loves us. Newsflash: God doesn’t love us because we’re pretty good people. Not at all. That actually wouldn’t be good news. In fact, that wouldn’t really be news at all.

What makes the Gospel really and truly “Good News” is that we’re not good people and God loves us anyway. We’re actually sinners. We disobey God all the time and God loves us anyway. We sin against God and created gaps and rifts in our relationship with Him. We damage our relationship with Him and make ourselves less and less worthy of His love with every passing day - sin piled upon sin. And with every day, and every sin, God tells us that He loves us anyway. When we repent and ask His forgiveness, He forgives us because the price was paid. The sin had consequences, but those consequences were dealt with, by someone else. And that someone else is this carpenter’s son, from the unremarkable little town of Nazareth.

“Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works 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?” [The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mk 6:2–3.]

Yes, he is the carpenter, the son of Mary, brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon…and his sisters, too. Where did he get “these things?” This wisdom and power that allow him to do mighty works? He is more than a carpenter…much more. He is the Son of Man…the Christ…the Messiah…the Son of the Living God. He is the One foretold by the prophets. He is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the whole world. He died on the cross for you and for me and rose from the dead on the third day. His resurrection points us toward the future that we who *do* believe will all share one day, and it is that final resurrection that gives us hope. He is worthy of our faith and our trust. And it is with that faith that we walk each day. Let us pray that our faith will allow us to receive his great gifts, and that our faith would let us hear where God wants us to go, and what He wants us to do. He has blessed us to be a blessing. Let’s pray and ask God to show us not just what to bless others with, but also when, where and how…and we will all watch that blessing spread and multiply across our community.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.