God, it’s him. Again.
Texts for Proper 9 (14) Year B
- 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
- Ezekiel 2:1-5
- Psalm 48
- Psalm 123
- 2 Corinthians 12:2-10
- Mark 6:1-13
Jesus. could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching.
T’S Hard for me to read these verse without imagining the starting of our mission: not because all of these passages are about prophets and I think I might be a prophet (God forbid!!) but rather because all of these passages are about unbelief.
So I’m thinking about my own unbelief.
Unbelief is not about doctrine or creeds. Jesus wasn’t expecting the folks in his home town to run up and shout the Nicene Creed – or even to say “Jesus is Lord” (the earliest, and most complete creed of the Church) or to hail him as messiah. Nor is Jesus looking for people to ask him to do something.
The Greek for unbelief is apistia απιστια and it means, simply, lack of trust. Again, this is not about doctrine – what lack of trust are these people showing to Jesus?
What I mean about my own unbelief is my fear, fear that God can’t be acting in this way: a random bishop from out of the blue, a missionary priest in Buffalo, stranded here because of love. What do you mean “Start something”?
When I look back I have very few proper “regrets” about things. But I wonder sometimes what things might have been like if I had jumped the moment I felt the prompting of the spirit instead of waiting or dragging my feet over and over again.
These people in Nazareth are all standing around saying “Feh… this is Mary’s son. We know his family. Do you remember that time that Jesus was 3 and he got really sick in the Synagogue? Yea, right – miracle worker.”
So notice what they’re saying here…
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.
There’s this guy that’s been walking abound the backwoods for a year or so – a lot of people probably heard of him without seeing him. Suddenly word comes that he’s on his way to Nazareth! And when he FINALLY gets there…
Whoa. it’s Jesus.
Mary’s Son.
You know: it’s him. We still don’t know who his daddy is…
Feh.
These people are objecting because Holiness didn’t look like what they wanted. They want Rabbis and Torah scrolls and trumpets and maybe a Red Sea parting and gold Ark of the Covenant. Or maybe Joshua fit the battle of Jerico and Maccabee children and swords!
Instead it’s the semi-homeless hippie of questionable parentage.
How many times did I drag my feet for good, solid religious reasons? How many times did I demand God too show up in exactly the predictable way that I want?
How many times does God show up looking like what we didn’t want?
How many times does God do something we didn’t want him to do? It’s not classy enough, not holy enough.
Amen!