Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Measuring God's Love," Ephesians 3:14-21

 Sermon 7/25/21

Ephesians 3:14-21

Measuring God’s Love

Our scripture lesson for today is from the letter to the church at Ephesus. Some scholars think Paul wrote this letter, and others think it was written latter by a follower of Paul’s in Paul’s name. Who is right on that doesn’t really matter for us today though. What matters is the content of this letter, and what it means for us as disciples today. The author is writing to Christians at Ephesus. The Ephesians are one of a number of new faith communities planted by the apostle Paul and other apostles of Jesus, and many of the communities Paul was connected with were unique because they were made up primarily of Gentiles - that is, folks who weren’t Jewish, and didn’t convert to Judaism upon becoming followers of Jesus. That second part - not converting - was a matter of debate among Paul, Peter, James, and the other early leaders of the church, with Peter and James first believing that following Jesus required being part of the Jewish faith - like Jesus was - and Paul believing that Jesus-followers had freedom from the law in Christ, and therefore didn’t need to be converted - they just needed to be made new in Christ. Eventually Paul and the other leaders sort of agree to disagree and be about ministry in their own ways in their own places. But tensions remain, and there’s a strain for a long time as the early church figures out who it is, how it will be structured, what the rules will be. In the leadup to our text for today, the author is arguing that the Gentiles have become “fellow-heirs” alongside the Jewish community to all of God’s promises. Frequently throughout the epistles, the imagery used is that of adoption - if Israelites are God’s children, then Gentiles are like God’s adopted children. 

Hopefully, you can understand that the image of adoption is meant to convey not some sort of second-class status for Gentile Christians - rather, it is meant to convey the very purposeful extension of the covenant and promises of God to Gentiles because of God’s incredible love and God’s desire to always draw more and more into God’s heart. I’ve been blessed to know several families who have gone through the process of adoption. A pastor friend of mine today is celebrating the baptism of her son, a toddler, who has been with her since infancy, after just finally being able to officially adopt him about a month ago. Every part of the long adoption process has been a labor of love and devotion. And that’s what the author wants the Ephesians to understand - they’re “in,” they’re family, they’re part of the church, they are included in the “boundless riches of Christ,” it’s been God’s plan and hope and passion to have them be part of the body of Christ alongside the Israelites, and they are just as much heirs to God’s promises as anyone else. 

Our author, in fact, gets so worked up about wanting to communicate this all clearly to the Ephesians that by the time we get to our text today, the author is actually kind of interrupting himself with this prayer that focuses on two things: How much God loves them, and how much love they are capable of in return when they are rooted and grounded in Christ. The author prays that readers of this letter would be “strengthened in their inner being” by the Holy Spirit, that Christ may dwell in them, that they would be “rooted and grounded in love.” He prays that the Ephesians might come to understand “what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” And he concludes with a benediction, calling God one who can “accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” After that, the text moves on to chapter 4, and the author returns to a more teaching-style letter. 

So, do we understand how much God loves us? Are we rooted and grounded in Christ, strengthened in our inner beings so that we can live as followers of Jesus? And do we understand that God keeps on adopting and adopting, loving extravagantly and drawing more people into God’s family? One of my favorite decorations in my room at school is from my 6 year old niece Siggy. It’s a long strip of construction paper, measured to the length of Siggy’s outstretched arms, with construction paper cutouts traced from her hands for hands on each end, that is meant to represent a hug from Siggy. And it says, “I love you “this much.”” The point, of course, is that her love for me is as far as she can reach. Big love. I wonder if we get how much God loves us? The author prays that we might get a glimpse of understanding. Sometimes when we talk about the love of God, it becomes kind of trite - we say “God loves you,” but we miss the power behind it, the strength of it, the potentially-life-changing impact of it. 

When have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you are loved? I’ve been thinking a lot this summer about how much my mom demonstrates love for me and others. There are the big things, of course - my mom’s consistent presence in my life, her affirmations, her support of my goals in life. But what I’ve been noticing lately are so many of the little things. For example, she has two kinds of silverware. She loves her silverware with big chunky colorful handles. I once remarked that I preferred the feel of the thinner, plain silver handles. And now, whenever I’m coming home, she’ll get out a couple of sets of the kind I like, just for me, and if she sets the table for me, she uses the silverware I like. I decided to try my vegan cookie stand at the farmer’s market this summer - and every single week, she’s baked cookies with me and been at the stand with me, and rearranged her entire freezer so that I can store things, and bought a special shelf for the guest bedroom for all my ingredients. She does things like this all the time. But - and here’s the astonishing thing - it isn’t just for me, or for her children and grandchildren even that she does these things. She bakes meals for her neighbors and stops by with them. She sends boxes of fall leaves to my great aunt who lives in Arizona and misses the foliage. She takes treats to the office manager at her apartment complex. She brought gifts for the children of the owners of the Chinese restaurant she frequents. I teased her that I think she spends most of her time just sitting around thinking about things she can do to make other people happy. But it’s not really a joke - I think that’s what she does, for real. Because I think what brings her the most joy in life is showering others with love. And when I reflect on her loving nature, I’m overwhelmed. When have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you are loved? 

As loved as I feel by my mother, I imagine that God, who created me and everything I know, God, in whose image I’ve been created, God, who has formed me and knows me - how much must God love me? Not because I’m so wonderful - but because God is “so love”! That’s not trite - it’s overwhelming, to be loved so completely. And it calls for a response. It calls for us to be strengthened, rooted and grounded in this love, so that what God can accomplish in us is more than we can ask and imagine. 

So, when have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you love someone? God wants us to be grounded in Christ, so that we can love like Christ loves. We draw our strength from Christ, so that when it seems like we can’t love the way Jesus loves on our own, we realize we can because of what Christ gives to us. God wants us to love one another like God loves us. God wants us to be like my mother, imagining all the ways we can shower others with love - not just our favorite others - but all of God’s children. And as we’ve discussed, God has a really big family for us to love with lots and lots of siblings for us. That glimpse of God’s love that I get from my mom? God not only loves me that way, but God loves the people of whom I’m not so fond that way too. God loves the folks who drive us crazy, who’ve caused us pain, with the same extravagant love we can barely comprehend, and asks us to do likewise. Sometimes, it seems impossible. But, as the prayer we heard in this letter reminds us, God can do in us what is abundantly far more than we can imagine. 

Friends, I pray just what our author has prayed - that you might start to understand truly, deeply, in your core, how much God loves you, how much God claims you as part of the family, without which the family just wouldn’t be whole. I want you to understand at least a glimpse of how much God hopes and dreams goodness and joy for your life. And then, rooted and grounded in that love, I want you to make it a life priority to make sure others - all the others - understand this too. Because if we can really start to understand the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ for us, of God’s love for us? Confident in that kind of love, what else could we need to change the world? Amen.  

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Bearing Hard Words," Mark 6:14-29, Amos 7:7-15

 Sermon 7/11/21

Mark 6:14-29, Amos 7:7-15

Bearing Hard Words

What first comes to mind when you hear the word “prophecy”? Often, people think immediately of predicting the future, a kind of fortune-telling. We seem to have a fascination with anything that suggests we could accurately predict the future. And what’s the appeal of trying to predict the future? Why are we fascinated by anything that appears to be a prediction of future events? I can only imagine that it is our general anxiety over things unknown, and our general dislike of things that we can’t control that makes us want to believe that something, someone, somewhere can predict the future with accuracy. Otherwise, we have to live with the unsettling reality that things outside of our control, like disaster and illness, can just come on by and bring upheaval to our lives with there being nothing we can do to stop it. The idea of predicting the future, I think, is about control and security. 

That’s not, however, what the prophets in the Bible were all about. Prophets are truth-tellers. Prophets are truth-tellers, particularly when no one else wants to say how things really are. You know what I mean: Everyone knows what’s really going on, but no one wants to speak unwelcome truths out loud. A prophet is the child who tells the emperor he has no clothes, when no one else is brave enough to say so. A prophet tells it like it is, says how bad things really are, talks about where the path we are on will lead if things don’t change. But a prophet doesn’t necessarily want what they speculate about to come true. Instead, a prophet wants people to stop and repent, wants them to get back on God’s path before things go too far the wrong way. In its simplest version, you might think of prophecy like this: a parent tells a child that if they don’t get their grades up, they will flunk out of college, live at home for all of their days, and never get a real job. The parent isn’t predicting the future, even though this might be exactly what happens. Instead, they’re truth-telling. If you don’t change, these are the probable future consequences of your current actions. Prophets are visionaries too – they don’t only tell the bad things that might happen if we don’t get our acts together, they also try to hold before us the truth of the potential good that might come if we do change our ways. Think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” King was a prophet: a truth-teller, calling us to account for our racism, and holding before us a vision of what could be, a world where his children no longer faced discrimination and prejudice. He certainly was not predicting the future. He was offering up a vision of the possible paths we might take as a nation. A truth-teller and prophet.

Our scripture texts for today bring us accounts of two prophets. First, we hear from the prophet Amos. Amos lived in the 8th century BC. He was a farmer, breeding cattle and tending fruit trees, positions that would have made him fairly prosperous.. And he lived in Israel during the time of King Jeroboam II. It was also a prosperous time for Israel as a whole, but “social and religious corruption were rife; many worshipped materialism and other gods.” (1) God calls Amos to speak out and warn that Israel will be held accountable for its corruption. Amos shares in our text today a vision from God - God sets a plumbline against a wall, a device that would show if the wall was straight and level or not. The implication here is that the plumbline will show that Israel is not level, not acting with justice and righteousness. And God won’t “pass them by” anymore - God won’t ignore their misdeeds.  

Amos’ prophetic visions come to the attention of the king by way of Amaziah, a priest who is in the royal employ - he works for the king. He tells the king that Amos, through his prophecy, is committing treason, conspiring against the king. He says that the land is not able to “bear” Amos’s hard words. And Amaziah tells Amos he’s banished to Judah, and he should prophesy there instead of in Israel. But Amos counters that he’s not a prophet - at least not a professional prophet. Professional prophets, employed by the royalty of the day, would often feel beholden to their employers, telling them what they wanted to hear. Amos has no such qualms. “God said ‘Go and prophesy’” Amos tells Amaziah, and so he did. That’s where our passage ends for today, and we don’t know how his response was taken. We just know that Amos continues to share his prophetic visions of the consequences Israel will face for its injustice and oppression, for wandering from God’s path, and that his visions prove to be accurate. 

Our other prophet today is John the baptizer, who we encounter in the gospel of Mark. John, cousin to Jesus, is counted in the scriptures as the forerunner to Jesus. He has a more assertive tone to his teaching than Jesus in some ways. His focus is on calling folks to repentance, and sometimes he does so with vivid imagery, calling the religious leaders vipers, telling people God’s judgment is like an ax at the root of the tree, or like a winnowing fork separating the usable from the unusable. There’s a sense of threat in his words, I think: “Get it right or else” that makes you want to spring to action. Our text today is a bit of a flashback. King Herod is hearing folks talk about Jesus, saying he’s like Elijah or John the Baptist back from the dead. Because, as Mark recounts, Herod has just had John beheaded. Herod had put John in prison because John called Herod out publicly for Herod’s behavior. Herod married Herodias, who had been the wife of his own brother, Philip. It was against the law of Moses. But since Herod was the king, few dared to confront him for his actions. Not John though. John simply called Herod out, and said out loud what others would only say in whispers: Herod, what you did was wrong. 

John faced harsh consequences - he was imprisoned for his truth-telling. But Herod was apparently fascinated enough with John, and fearful enough because John actually seemed to be righteous, holy, from God, that Herod still didn’t enact a harsher punishment - until Herodias, Herod’s wife, intervened. No doubt she also wasn’t pleased to be the target of John’s blunt indictment. So, using her daughter (in Mark’s account, she’s confusingly also named Heroidias, but other gospels name her as Salome), and a pleasing dance the daughter performs for Herod and his guests, Herodias is able to manipulate the situation - and Herod’s foolishness - to get him to agree to behead John. Herod is grieved - but not enough to stand up to the situation. He doesn’t want to break an oath in front of guests, and John is put to death. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about these two texts and what they mean for us, followers of Jesus. I think we’re called to speak prophetically, and to be truth-tellers, especially when there are truths that are hard to hear but need telling anyway in order for God’s hopes for the world to bear fruit, but what exactly does that mean? How do we go about being prophets? Can anyone be a prophet? And doesn’t everyone think they have the truth? How do we know what we have to say is “right”? I’m thinking of a person I know who considered it one of her spiritual gifts to tell people things they didn’t want to hear. She was pretty harsh and direct, and people were often hurt by her words. She sometimes made people feel pretty bad about themselves. Still, though, she felt like she was doing a public service, because she felt like she was telling people hard truths that they otherwise couldn’t see, or that they would ignore or suppress, or otherwise not deal with. She believed that confrontation, even or perhaps especially in unflinching, blunt, perhaps rude expressions was the way to go, to be a truth teller. Of course, the folks to whom she directed these truths didn’t always find them to be a spiritual gift. Instead, they found her words to be painful and hurtful, making them feel bad about themselves, and like she was damaging their relationships by being unkind. When are you being a prophet, and when are you being a bully? Or when should we speak up with the truth, but we’re just being too afraid to take a stand? 

I think to answer those questions, we can ask ourselves some other questions for reflection. Most importantly, I think we need to figure out where the impulse to speak the sometimes-hard-to-hear truth is coming from. First, and most importantly, is it God who is prompting you to speak up? Or is the impulse really just from you? How can you tell the difference? I’ve always found some words of United Methodist Pastor Adam Hamilton helpful on this subject. He says, “One path is easy and safe and doesn’t require a lot of risk taking. The other path is difficult. It feels riskier. It makes us a little sick to our stomach. When confronted with these two paths, it’s usually the path that makes us a little queasy that is the right path. It leads to the greatest reward and the greatest impact. I call this the principle of “discernment by nausea.”” (2) I find that when it is God prompting me to do something, instead of just my own will, my own desires, the thought of doing it makes me uncomfortable and nervous, a challenge I have to meet. Is God prompting us to speak up? Ask God! Pray for clarity. Listen carefully for God’s voice. In my experience, when God is nudging us, God keeps nudging until we respond, one way or another. Just read the book of Jonah if you need an example of how God keeps at a prophet until they respond to God’s call.   

Another question to ask: What will the consequences of your truth-telling and prophetic voice be and who will bear those consequences? In other words, what will be the fall out of the truth telling you do, and who will be impacted? If you don’t have any consequences to face because of your truth-telling? Well, your message might actually be more self-serving than God-serving. God’s prophets in the Bible faced serious consequences. Amos was threatened with exile and charged with treason. John was imprisoned and beheaded. But the other prophets often faced similar fates. They told the truth, but there were often big consequences for them for their faithfulness to God’s message and task for them. If your message of truth only seems to have consequences for others? It might be time to reexamine your motivations. 

I also think we can ask about the source of joy in the work of prophecy. As I said, being one of God’s prophets came with a lot of serious consequences, but that doesn’t mean being a prophetic voice for justice is joyless work. I don’t think God wants us to engage in a life of joyless work, even for God, because God loves us and God is full of joy, and God is always inviting us to share in that joy. The question to ponder is where the joy of prophecy comes from. The person I mentioned who loved being so harsh and direct with others? I think what worried me is that it seemed like their joy in truth-telling came from catching others off guard, making them squirm, making them have to deal with unwanted conversations and confrontations. Instead, I think the joy of the prophetic voice comes in seeing the work of God’s justice for the most vulnerable accomplished. When the biblical prophets speak, for example, one of their biggest areas of truth-telling is in calling God’s people out for a failure to care for the poor, the orphaned, the widow, and the stranger. They call God’s people to account for failing to care for and in fact actively oppressing the most at-risk people in society. And for prophets, then, I think the joy of their work comes when those most-vulnerable are cared for again as a result of their truth-telling work. When things are set right, when people return to God, when God is honored instead of false Gods - idols or wealth or whatever we sometimes make more important than God - when the people turn back to God - I think that is the source of a prophet’s joy. 

Sometimes, we’re the recipients of prophetic words from someone who is acting on God’s behalf. Truth-telling is rarely easy to hear, but when it comes our way, I pray that we will be able to listen to the message God is sharing with us, and repent and turn back on a path toward God. And sometimes, friends, we’re tasked with the sacred work of being truth-tellers, prophets for God. I hope we engage in that hard work whenever we see injustice and oppression hurting the most vulnerable. But when we speak God’s truths, inspired by the courage and faithfulness of voices like Amos and John, let us make sure it is God who is guiding us and God who is speaking through us in all we do. Amen.  

1. Chris Haslam, “Comments,”

 http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/cpr15m.shtml

2. Adam Hamilton, “Leading Unafraid,”

https://www.churchleadership.com/leading-ideas/leading-unafraid/

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Shake It Off," Mark 6:1-13

Sermon 7/4/21

Mark 6:1-13

Shake It Off

My brother Todd is a theatre professor, and these days, he’s more likely to be directing a show and teaching young actors than performing in the shows himself, but he spent a lot of years as a professional actor before falling in love with teaching. The theatre life meant many short gigs for him, where he would go do a show for six weeks, and then have three or four weeks in between before his next job started. When I was serving at a church in New Jersey, about 45 minutes from New York City, it was really convenient for him to live with me - where he could audition and get to rehearsals, and have a free place to live while he was between jobs. For my part, I liked to put Todd to work at my church. Over the years, on most Christmas Eves and Easter Sundays, I would get Todd to perform dramatic monologues as Joseph or the Innkeeper or a Wiseman or Herod in the story of Jesus’s birth, as Peter after his denial, or after the resurrection. My congregation always loved hearing Todd, finding that he helped bring the scripture text to life for them. I, of course, also think Todd is great, but it was a bit harder for me to get drawn in. Why? Well, he’s my baby brother! I watched him grow up. I saw him when he was a 4 year old shepherd in a Christmas play, waving to my mom from the stage during the show. And I saw all his rehearsals for his church monologues, and his goofy antics and mistakes as he was getting ready. I know Todd is a good actor - but it is still hard for me not to just see Todd. 

At the same time, I’ve had a similar experience from the other side. One of the earliest weddings I officiated was for a friend from college. I went straight from college to seminary, and her wedding was sometime during my first appointment as a pastor, and so I was pretty new still, but I’d certainly officiated enough weddings to know what I was doing. Still, many of the attendees at the wedding were college friends who had never seen me in my role as pastor. They’d seen me as a classmate, a peer, a friend, someone they hung out in the dorms with and went to classes and campus events with. It was hard for them to see me as the pastor in charge. When I led everyone through the wedding rehearsal, I was so frustrated, because they - my friends - kept pushing back on my directions. They kept questioning whether the directions I was giving were the best ones, and offering their own ideas instead. I had reasons for the way I was leading - but they didn’t trust my reasoning, because they weren’t seeing me as the pastor in charge of the ceremony - they were seeing me as their buddy Beth. 

I had these scenes on my mind as I looked at our scripture text for today from the gospel of Mark. Jesus and his disciples show up at his hometown in Nazareth. By now, Jesus is well into his ministry. He has his disciples, he’s performed miracles and healings and has been teaching and arguing with the religious authorities, and he’s generally “established” so to speak. But when he comes back home to Nazareth, and starts preaching and teaching there, he gets a different reaction than the crowds that have followed him everywhere thus far. In Nazareth, he’s met with skepticism. “Where’s this guy getting this? He thinks he’s sooo smart. What are these tricks he’s trying to show off with? That’s Mary’s kid. We know his brothers and sisters - he’s no one special!” You can just hear it, can’t you? They can’t take Jesus seriously. Maybe some of them are just unable to get their head around seeing someone they watched grow up in a new light. They’re like my college friends, having a hard time comprehending that I was actually officiating a wedding, or me, having a hard time seeing Todd as anything but Todd. But others apparently have a still more “aggressive” tone of unwelcome to their response. The text says that they take offense at Jesus, literally that they are scandalized by his presence and teaching among them. But they are the ones who are a stumbling block in Jesus’ path. In the presence of so much unbelief, Jesus can’t be in ministry the way he wants, and he heads out of town.

The second part of our text picks up similar themes: Next we find Jesus sending out the disciples, two by two, to just the same kind of work he’s been doing. He tells them to take nothing with them - no bread, no bag, no money in their belts. No extra preparations. This put them in a way of not depending on themselves, but on God, and on the hospitality of those they would meet in their travels. That’s a lot of trust to give both God and neighbor. I trust God, but I still pack my suitcase. Times are different, of course, but I admire how clear Jesus was in creating a pattern of ministry of the disciples where everything pointed to the fact that they were to rely on God and stay focused on the mission of spreading the good news - God’s reign, God’s way was at hand, changing the world, not in some far off future, but right then, and Jesus wanted people to get ready for God’s way, God’s love, God’s grace, embrace these gifts, and live them as a life-changing truth. That’s the message the disciples were to carry with them, calling people to repent - to turn back from their own ways, and instead go God’s way - as they traveled from place to place. And if they encountered people who didn’t like what they had to say? Jesus told them to just “shake off the dust” from their feet, a sign that they were leaving a place behind, and move on to the next. Was Jesus influenced by his own hometown reception in giving instructions to the disciples? It’s hard not to think so, given the juxtaposition of these two vignettes. Mark, in his succinct way, gives us one verse to cover the results of the disciples’ work, reporting that indeed they went out as instructed, anointed sick folks with oil, cured them, and cast out demons. 

What do we make of all this? I have to admit that there’s part of me that loves the idea of just shaking the dust off my feet and moving on anytime someone doesn’t like what I have to say. Don’t agree with me? That’s fine. I’m committed to my beliefs, I feel like I’m responding to God’s call, and I’m going to move forward with or without you. Sounds great, right? And sometimes, I can do just that, realizing that I can’t wait to get everyone’s approval or affirmation to do what I think is right or I’ll be waiting forever. But other times, well, it seems so dismissive, Jesus’ attitude. Aren’t we supposed to be persistent? Shouldn’t we try, try again when it comes to sharing the gospel? Is Jesus just writing some people off as a lost cause? That doesn’t really seem like him, does it? So what am I missing here?   

C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia are some of my favorite books. In the second book in the series, Prince Caspian, Lucy and her three siblings, who have had adventures in Narnia during The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, find themselves back in Narnia for a second time. On a difficult journey to save Narnia, Lucy suddenly sees Aslan, the lion, the Christ-figure of the books, leading her down a trail that looks like it is dangerous. But no one else can see Aslan except Lucy, and she, the youngest of the group, can’t convince them to follow. And so Lucy ignores Aslan’s direction, and they keep heading the opposite direction. Eventually, though, Lucy and the rest of the travelers realize they had been going the wrong way for hours, and they’ll have to go back the other way that seemed to be more difficult, now having wasted a ton of time. Eventually, the rest of them can see Aslan too, and they all learn a hard lesson about trusting the one who is their leader. Lucy tries to tell Aslan she couldn’t have followed him on her own - no one would go with her, and she was stuck going the wrong way, even though she knew Aslan wanted her to go a different direction. But Aslan helps her realize that Lucy wouldn’t have been alone - she’d have been with him. And if she’d chosen the right way, even if no one else would go with her? Aslan leaves her to consider the possibilities of such devoted faithfulness.  

I don’t think Jesus wants us to shake the dust off our feet because we’ve written others off, because we’re done with them, because we’ve rejected them. After all, Jesus is all about second chances, and third chances, and thirtieth chances in his way of forgiveness. Instead, I think he is speaking to us like Aslan speaks to Lucy, urging us to trust that if we put our faithfulness to God’s call and mission first in our lives, if we commit to not wavering from that call no matter what, we’ll be going God’s direction, and God’s direction is always the right path. And, our very commitment to traveling with God might turn out to be the demonstration of discipleship that others need most to consider their own choices, their own life directions. As disciples, our purpose is to follow Jesus. We’re meant to keep on figuring out what God is calling us to do, even if that means we have to keep on traveling, keep on searching, keep on the move, keep being in ministry in new ways, keep trying new things, keep stepping out in faith where no one else will go with us. Jesus goes with us, leading the way, tucking in behind us, and living within us. We have all we need to faithfully choose God’s path. 

At the same time, I think we’re also meant to wonder when we’re a little bit like the folks in Jesus’ hometown. When are we so sure we already know who someone is, what they can do, that we can’t see how God is at work in them? Maybe you’ve been like me, unable to fully appreciate the gifts of someone because you were so close to them, you couldn’t imagine them in unfamiliar roles. Maybe you’ve been like my college friends, not realizing someone had grown up, been equipped and trained, matured, and you’re still thinking of them like the person they used to be. Maybe, sometimes, we’re like those who heard Jesus, and rejected his message because we just couldn’t imagine someone who didn’t meet our expectations being the vessel of God’s good news. As I mentioned, Mark tells us that folks “took offence” at Jesus, that they were scandalized by him. That word is tied in the with the biblical concept of stumbling blocks. Stumbling blocks might sound pretty benign, but in the gospels and in the writings of Paul, serious consequences are given to those who are stumbling blocks in the paths of those who are trying to follow Jesus. In fact, there are a couple of words for stumbling blocks, and one has a more “accidental” tone - a stumbling block that just happens to be in your way - and another has a definitely more “purposeful” tone - a stumbling block set intentionally by an enemy who is trying to make someone stumble. These are the stumbling blocks that Jesus and Paul warn about most often. And while those hometown folks who hear Jesus today and reject him view him as a stumbling block, what I see is Jesus determining that neither his neighbors in Nazareth nor the naysayers who the disciples will meet in their ministry journeys can be allowed to be stumbling blocks that prevent Jesus and the disciples from doing the work of God to which they are called. I don’t ever want to be a stumbling block preventing someone from doing the work God has called them to do. 

And so sometimes, I have to do some self-examination, and figure out if it is my perspective that is too limited. Imagine if Todd decided not to be an actor because I couldn’t stop seeing my little brother when I watched him perform! Imagine if I gave up on being a pastor because my college friend couldn’t picture me being the wedding officiant in the know! Imagine if you give up on God’s path for you because of discouraging words or actions! Don’t give up, friends. Instead, shake off the dust, move on, and keep moving toward God. And imagine if we realized that we were the ones discouraging others from their discipleship! May it never be so! 

Instead, let us cultivate faithfulness - in our own hearts, and in each other. Let’s build each other up, so that we all might have the courage to follow where God leads. And when we encounter resistance, let’s keep moving forward, remembering that it is God who calls us, God who guides us, and God whose message we are called to proclaim. Amen.