2 Sam
5:1-5,9-10; Ps 48; 2 Cor 12:2-10; MARK 6:1-13
This
is our God forever and ever; God shall be our guide for evermore. AMEN.
“Prophets
are not without honor, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and
in their own house.” Prophets receive great honor everywhere but their
hometown, families and friends. Jesus makes this dreary, often true, remark
when he goes home briefly. He could only do “some healings,” with the implication,
that if you’re very sick, you’re willing even to let the hometown boy try to
heal you, because you haven’t much to lose; for weighty matters, a
stranger would know more than you know, more than what your neighbors or
teachers, friends, officials, and other homefolk know. If you’re having a
problem, if you could have, someone of the homefolks would (or should)
have solved it, and they didn’t—so what good are your own resources?
(I’d
observe that when there’s a competition for virtually any Episcopal job, and
someone in the running has a Brit accent, he/she virtually always gets the job.
Similarly both Mitt Romney and Deval Patrick’s significant gubernatorial
pre-election experience was outside any connection to the Great and General
Court or the seediness of other local politics. The Radcliffe medal for some
Woman’s Significant Contribution is NEVER given to a graduate of Radcliffe/
Harvard, I’d say in a really mixed message sort of way. I note, Jesus said none
of these whines such as, “People in Sidon, Bethany, and Tabgha always listen,
but you never…)
Here he’s
sending out his disciples, two by two. This comment was only about where
work was apt not to be successful. He told the disciples to travel
light, and then here’s the point: “he gave them authority over the unclean
spirits,” so “they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were
sick and cured them.” Disciples then were supposed to do work as well as simply
being prophets, prophet here meaning a person who speaks out, and to know when
the ministry was not appreciated. Jesus told them to recognize when their work
wasn’t working, and to make no complaints, nor excuses—but just to move on.
What’s
that authority Jesus gave them; how is it connected to what we’re to do, and
what we do, averring the Baptismal Covenant, both saying it for ourselves and
in behalf of Nolan, now to be baptized. We’re each and all “to continue
in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the
prayers.” We’re to “persevere in resisting evil, and when we fall into
sin, repent and return to the Lord.” It’s what Jesus sent the Apostles to do:
proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
How were
they—and we—supposed to do that? What’s that activity and work? “To seek and
serve Christ in all persons loving our neighbors as ourselves, to strive for
justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human
being.” Was their job so different from what we are called to do? They were
sent directly by Jesus, while we hear this less directly, although its intent
is the same. It’s the same charge to every baptized person, every Christian.
Did Jesus
mean for us not to be a prophet, not to speak out for Christ,
unless away from home? Does that mean being elsewhere, not home? Parents
of babies can’t go elsewhere, but they can be participating church
members where they are and persevere in resisting evil. They can provide models
for seeking and serving Christ in all persons and respecting the dignity of
every human person. Will all children hearing these words of and by Jesus from parents,
listen carefully, and put them right into action, respecting their parents?
Well, no. We all often don’t listen to, or, is it, that we don’t hear
what the most familiar people say to us? We don’t because we don’t. It may be
we say or hear the same things too often. (It’s particularly gratifying to hear
one’s grown up children, as parents, saying just what had been said to them,
being said to their children, and sometimes in the same frustrated tone they’d
heard.) It may be they don’t honor what we say, but they apparently did hear,
absorb, and learn some of what we said. Whether they do or not, we can shake
off criticisms as “familiarity breeds contempt” or Jesus’ version: “a prophet
is not without honor except in his home town” explanation.
He is also
saying, though, that prophets, people who speak out, do have honor
everywhere but at home. Whether we each turn out to be speaking and acting at
home or non-home, we are to be prophets. Here, though, we might mind how
we issue outspoken comments. At the beginning of General Convention, Presiding
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori spoke, concerned, as are many around the
Church in parishes, dioceses, and on the national stage about the contentiousness,
squabbling, backbiting, and gossiping we all hear. She said, "We have opportunities here in abundance to forswear
those evils, to lay down our various weapons of division, and to work together
for the commonweal of God’s created world. Is our faith lively enough to
do works toward that kind of abundant life?" This sounded like a
message I’d read on the House of Bishops website just before Convention. “I find a very depressing view of Episcopal Christians --
snarky, sniping at each other, tearing each other and the church down. I
entreat you who are at GC to edit your thoughts before posting. Think about how
those outside the convention and outside the church will view what you are
saying. I believe in transparency and fair criticism - but mostly I see it
being used to vent.”
A
prophet’s role is to speak out the joyful word of promised salvation for all, the building and
coming of God’s reign, and the seeking of justice for all, and so has no need
to carp about anything. That good word to spread could take all of us all, all
our days, all our nights, all our tweets, all our blogs, all our postings, all
our conversations, all our assessing, and simply all our all. At every level,
we are charged to be prophets, and wherever we are, some around us are
homefolks, used to whatever we say, say, and say again—but there are
some newcomers in our circle. Everyone hears the negative remarks, because
they’re fundamentally unkind, whether true or not. To tell stories of
salvation, to tell stories of justice, to tell stories of joy and good news
takes stopping the easy complaints we all have, and find the real work of the
Spirit, we’re all even more surrounded by, but we hesitate —maybe it
doesn’t seem like news or cynically clever.
Think of a generous,
hard-working story that happened to you this week. I heard several, and they
really were more emblematic of God’s reign than Yankee wins, cutting-off
drivers, or whatever leaps to mind as complaints. I think of two young women
who went to western Mass. to fetch a small child for her ailing mom, and not
one but each grandmother dropped whatever they were doing, one taking a bus and
one driving to help the parents and their small child. No one was hesitant or
complaining—they all rearranged and showed up. I think of Elizabeth Kaeton’s
story of trying to get to Convention and being stuck in an unac’d airport, with
a non-English speaking, poor, family, whose son fainted. The boy’s parents
panicked at the thought of the bill if EMTs looked at the boy, and so refused
treatment. All the waiting passengers were hot and upset. One explained to them
that there would be no charge. One took his empty water bottle filled it, and
handed it to the boy. The father was distraught that he had neither thought of
bringing an empty bottle, nor had the $6.50 to buy water. The person offering
the bottle said he’d been traveling for years and years and had just thought of
bring along an empty, soothing the man who was blaming himself for his son’s
dehydration. Someone heard that the family was moving back to parents, because
they’d been paying such high medical bills, they’d lost their housing. Another
passenger passed a hat, and it was full by the time the plane was called, and
all were on it. The child was ok; everyone felt better; and help had been found
and accepted. No one in that waiting room’s story was about the broken
air conditioning. Can we find the prophetic story in all we do, seeking and
serving Christ in all persons, striving for justice for all, and loving our
neighbor, even our home town neighbors as ourselves? Whether we win
praise as real prophets may well depend on who’s hearing us. We may sound like
the neighbor’s ne’er do well carpenter’s son—not an Internet whiz, or some same
ole same ole, or flashy newcomer. Kathleen Norris talks about the extrusion of
any newcomer teacher, minister or doctor—because they DID suggest new things,
but her townsfolk also rejected anything new from homefolk, and so got stuck in
a pattern of controlled non-change, where carping and gossip provide the only
liveliness. That is not what Jesus calls us to do. We’re called to be
prophets, to say out: Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior; we’re to say it and say
it, coming to believe it, and saying it again. Some will hear us; some won’t.
We’re called to keep saying it out, knowing however we’re heard, however we
speak out Jesus waits for us in Paradise: Good News. AMEN
