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2 Cor. 2: 2-10

Mark 6: 1-13

They = knew who he was. He wasn’t any ‘rock star,’ no Billy Graham, no ‘messiah’ to them. After all, they’d seen him grow up in Nazareth, just another snot-nosed kid running around the neighborhood with = the other kids --- including four of his own brothers and some sisters (who apparently were not deemed important enough in this cultural setting to mer= it either name or number). The hometown folk remember him starting out as a carpenter because what boys usually did at that time and place was learn th= eir father’s trade. Joseph isn’t mentioned in the narrative for var= ious possible reasons we don’t have time to explore today, but folks knew = that this young man who astounded th= em with his teaching in the synagogue was Mary’s son. They knew his fami= ly and thought they knew all they needed to know about him. The irony is that = they were the ones least able to recognize who Jesus really was. Proverbially speaking, ‘They couldn’t see the forest for the trees.’

Where did this man get all this?= they asked warily of his wisdom. And what about those deeds of power . . . being done by his hands (v.2) --- surely a reference to his spreading reputation as a healer and miracle worker. “Who does he think he is, for God’s sake?” some started to grumble. “We knew him when . . . and he’s surely not what some people are saying he is!” The hometown folk took offense at him (v.3), Mark= 217;s Gospel tells us. The word for offen= se also translates: stumbled. Their familiarity with him was a ‘stumbling block’ in the way of their having faith in him as the One sent from God to save them and give them abundant life.

The o= pening verses of John’s Gospel, written decades later, reflected on the matt= er rather bluntly: He came to what was= his own home, and his own people did not accept him (1:11). “His own people” is co= mmonly interpreted as a reference to all the Jews and, indeed, that was largely the case. But in the context of today’s passage, it refers to those with = whom he grew up in Nazareth --- including friends, relatives, even members of his immediate family.

Jesus= was amazed at their unbelief (v.6), and because of it was unable to do any deed= of power like some had heard of him doing elsewhere. (Well . . . actually he d= id a few, we’re told, but nothing really big because he was a prophet . . . without honor in [his] hometown, among= [his] own kin, and in [his] own house (v.4).

One w= onders how amazed Jesus might be at the unbelief of those who claim to be his family today? In a story told earlier= in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ mother and brothers go out to where he was preaching with the idea of doing what we might call an ‘intervention.’ This took place on another occasion when he had gone home (3:19), and those closest to him were convinced --- as were many = in the crowd --- that Jesus was possessed by an unclean spirit (3:30). In modern parlance we might say he was emotional= ly disturbed, perhaps suffering from illusions of grandeur. . . . <= /span>

Havin= g spent much time with adolescents over the years as they and their parents worked through the pangs of separation as friends become, in a sense, the new fami= ly that teens were making for themselves, Jesus’ response to the news th= at his blood relatives were outside waiting to take him home does not sound as harsh to me as it may to some: Who = are my mother and my brothers? he asked rhetorically, looking at the crowd sit= ting around him. It’s not those who in name are the family of Jesus, but rather those who do the will of God (3:31-35).

We ar= e his family in this time and place --- we who seek to do the will of God as Jesus revealed it. We are part of THE CHURCH, somehow mysteriously the hands and feet, the hearts and minds of THE BODY OF CHRIST on earth. We are also part= of the Church which is --- however divinely inspired --- a very human institut= ion. We may know --- or at least think we know --- all the ‘facts’ a= bout Jesus, but today’s gospel invites us to reflect on whether that familiarity breeds an informed objectivity --- or faith. Remember it was those who knew him best = that amazed Jesus [with] their unbelief!

In a = story entitled: “Coveting Luke’s Faith” that appeared in a Sund= ay edition of The New York Times more than five years ago, novelist Dana Tiern= ey wrote:

̶= 0;When I was a child in Sunday school, I would ask searching questions like ‘Angels can fly up in heaven, but how do clouds hold up pianos?’ and get the same puzzling response about how that was not important, what w= as important was that Jesus died for our sins and if we accepted him as our savior, when we died, we would go to heaven, where we’d get everythin= g we wanted.

Some = children in my class wondered why anyone would hang on a cross with nails stuck thro= ugh his hands to help anyone else; I wondered how Santa Claus knew what I wanted for Christmas, even though I never wrote him a letter. Maybe he had a tape recorder hidden in every chimney in the world.

This literal-mindedness has stuck with me (Tierney goes on); one result of it is that I am unable to believe in God. Most of the other atheists I know seem = to feel freed or proud of their unbelief, as if they’ve cleverly refused= to be sold snake oil. But over the years, I’ve come to feel I’m missing out. My friends and relatives who rely on God --- the real believer= s, not just churchgoers --- have an expansiveness of spirit. When they walk al= ong a stream, they don’t just see water falling over rocks; the sight fil= ls them with ecstasy. They see a realm of hope beyond this world. I just see a babbling brook. I don’t get the message.

My hu= sband, who was reared in a devout Catholic family and served as an altar boy, is a= lso firmly grounded on this earth. He doesn’t even have the desire to believe. So other than baptizing our son to reassure our families, we’= ;ve skated over the issue of faith.

I ass= umed we had stranded our 4-year-old son Luke in the same spiritually arid place we’d found ourselves in. When my husband went to Iraq for several mon= ths, I thought Luke and I were in it together, a suddenly single mom and a nervo= us boy whose daddy was in a war zone. I was numb with anxiety when I talked to= my husband on his satellite phone; yet Luke was chatty and calm. He missed his daddy, but he wasn’t scared. . . . I thought he was just too young to understand.

Then = one night Luke and I were watching television, and a story flashed on about a soldier, home on leave for his wedding. I tried to switch the channel, but = Luke wanted to see, so I let him, thinking: It’s a wedding; it’s fin= e. But the soldier started talking about how afraid he was of going back, how dangerous it was in Iraq. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luke steeple h= is fingers and bow his head for a split second.

Surpr= ised, I said, “Sweetheart, what are you doing?” He wouldn’t tell = me, but a few minutes later, he did it again. I said, “You don’t ha= ve to tell me, but if you want to, I’m listening.” Finally he confessed, “I was saying a little prayer for Daddy.”=

̶= 0;That’s wonderful, Luke,” I murmured, abashed that we, or our modern world, somehow made him embarrassed to pray for his father in his own home. It was= as if that mustard seed of faith had found its way into our son and now he was revealing that he could move mountains. Not in a church or as we gazed at t= he stars, but while we channel-surfed. I was envious of him. Luke wasn’t rattled, because he believed that God would bring his father home safely. I= was the only one stranded.

The a= uthor begins to summarize, saying: “Some people believe faith is a gift; for others, it’s a choice, a matter of spiritual discipline. . . . Being = no theologian, and not even a believer, I am not in a position to offer up theories, but mine is this: people who receive faith directly, as a spontan= eous combustion of the soul, have fewer questions. They have been sparked with a faith that is more unshakable than that of those who have been taught.=

After= I saw Luke praying for his father in Iraq, I asked him when he first began to bel= ieve in God. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve always known he exists.” My husband did return from Iraq safely, but if something had happened to his father, Luke would have known Dad was in heav= en, waiting for us. He doesn’t suffer from a void like the anguished fath= er in Mark 9:23-24: Jesus said unto hi= m, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

This mother/author concludes: “For Luke, all things are possible. At the e= nd of his life, he will be reunited in heaven with his heroes and loved ones, = Mom and Dad and George Washington, his grandparents and Buzz Lightyear. Luke’s prayers can stretch to infinity and beyond, but I am limited to one: Help thou mine unbelief.”

Becau= se of their inability and unwillingness to see beyond their limited expectations = of the world --- Jesus was unable to do for those he knew best things that wou= ld have made a positive difference in their lives and the lives of others arou= nd them.

Like = those hometown folk in Nazareth, we who are his family now are often unable or unwilling to see within the familiar and commonplace, the possibility of God’s presence transforming us --- despite what we say we believe! Li= ke Pharisees seeking for “signs,” looking for God in the exotic an= d marvelous, we are often unable to imagine that the Kingdom of God draws near in the li= ves and actions of ordinary people in whom the Spirit --- the continuing Presen= ce of Christ dwells.

The s= piritual climate of a congregation, its expectancy, its openness to allowing the hea= ling and renewing powers of God show up in surprising ways, will determine what = God can --- or cannot --- accomplish in our midst.

In today’s lesson, the unbelief<= /i> of his people was also cause for Jesus to move on to other villages teaching. = The God we know in Jesus Christ is always on the move --- often in spite of the institutional church! He bids his followers to move on, as well, and not get stuck in the past.

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The d= isciples then get sent on their first mission trip: They went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, = and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. Just as we look forward to hearing from our youth who have just returned from their mission trip, we’re told the disciples later reported the results of all that they had done and taught (v.30).

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In today’s epistle lesson from the second letter Paul wrote to the churc= h in Corinth, the Apostle chooses to identify himself as a servant of God not because of all the great things of which he could boast as a result, but because of the things God was able to accomplish through his weaknesses and inadequacies, things accomplished for the glory of God that were quite clea= rly not of Paul’s doing alone.

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As we= wait with anticipation the calling of a new pastor to be our spiritual leader in years to come; as we ponder with anxiety the health of our music director a= nd its implications for the future of what has been a great strength in the li= fe of our church; as we, like many other congregations, struggle with the challenges of hard economic times --- may we never assume to know all there= is to know about the God made known to us in Jesus Christ. May we never presum= e to know the limits of what God’s Spirit can accomplish in our midst, wha= t deeds of power might be done, what mountains might be moved if only we believe.

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May G= od open our hearts and minds to see beyond the way things have always been; to welc= ome new things God’s Spirit might have in store for us; to offer up even those things we consider vulnerable about ourselves so that God might trans= form them into strengths for the purposes of God’s kingdom.

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Lord, we believe. . . Help thou = our unbelief.