Going without Honor

Text: Mark 6:1-13
Other texts: Ezekiel 2:1-5

We are advised to set clear, measurable, and attainable goals. How else, we are asked, are we going to know whether we have accomplished what we set out to do? How do you know whether you have arrived if you do not know your destination? How can you plot the best path to get there? It is important to be effective and efficient, essential elements of productivity. If we set good goals, we say, we can mark and judge our actions, know when to cut our losses if necessary, quit while ahead, or optimize assets. This is good process for getting some kinds of things done.

But sometimes the goal is not the point. Sometimes the destination is not known to us. Sometimes we are called not to accomplish something but to be some way, or to be some place where we are needed for reasons mysterious to us and sometimes, but not always, eventually revealed to us.

Jesus returns to his hometown after assembling his team. He has been wildly successful. He has healed people, and cast out demons. Crowds have pressed around him, seeking his power. He has brought to life a child thought to be dead.

The people in his old neighborhood are astounded, Mark says. But not in a good way. Astounded as in “I don’t believe it!” They cannot believe that someone as ordinary and as without prospects as Jesus was could have done what he has. This is the Jesus the carpenter they know, one of Mary’s boys. They judge Jesus, taking offense our Bible says, but it really says they are scandalized.

Jesus seems puzzled, amazed by their disbelief, Mark says. But Jesus is not angry at the people. He is not judging them. Nor is he making excuses about his inability to do any deed of power (or just a few deeds, it turns out). He has not been thwarted in some project. His job is not to make people admire or trust him. Some people will, and some people will not.

Like a prophet, Jesus speaks for God. Whether people hear him is another thing altogether. He is not responsible for the hearing, just the speaking.

Jesus is not, as someone called him, a big ball of divine power walking around able to accomplish whatever he wants. In the Gospel of Mark, more so than in the other Gospels, Jesus is revealed over time, and there is a sense of Jesus gradually coming into his own. Jesus develops. We teach that Jesus is fully human as well as fully divine. As the lives of humans unfold, so does the ministry of Jesus.

This episode with his hometown neighbors is a lesson to his disciples, whom Jesus immediately sends out in mission. He warns them, through this example, and then through words, that some will welcome them and some will not. It’s fine. Minister to those who receive you, Jesus tells them. Do not worry about those who do not. Your job is to be the person who offers healing and transformation.

In the past few weeks two young pastors have been called to build, more or less from scratch, two new churches in this area. One (who is actually a pastor in training) is Tiffany Chaney , who is working in Dorchester at the site of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. Her fledgling congregation is called The Intersection, a name that fits the geography of the site and also fits the intent of its mission. The intersection, as she says, of faith and life.

The other pastor is Ryan Lun, who was just ordained last month and is working with Good Shepherd Lutheran church in North Quincy. His congregation-to-be is called Good Neighbor Church, which fits his mission of serving the growing population of Chinese neighbors in Quincy.

Both of these pastors seem to me to be people of great courage. They have been sent out (two by two as it happens) called to act without the benefit of the kind of goals that we are taught to admire. They have a thankless job. I do not mean that people will not thank them or that they themselves are not grateful for these calls. But their job is to do stuff that may or may not lead to some outcome that they may or may not have imagined. They are being called as prophets are called, sent as disciples are sent. Not knowing the destination.

Prophecy is the intersection of life and faith, of humanity and the spirit. It is embodied in humans like Ezekiel. O mortal, the voice says to Ezekiel, meaning “son of Adam,” a phrase which appears over and over in this book. A son of Adam into whom a spirit has entered.

Prophets have no goals, or rather their goals are not theirs and not known. Prophets carry the divine word even though they themselves are merely human. Prophets are called not to enact or implement the future, but to state clearly the present, to envision what could come from what is now, and to speak for God.

Stand up! God tells Ezekiel. You shall speak for me It is not a sought-after job. Prophets are rarely called to successful ministry. They always work in rocky soil. The people of Israel were, our Bible says, impudent and stubborn. It says more exactly that they had hard faces and hard hearts. They are rebels who have rebelled against me, says God. God is not angry with them, any more than Jesus is angry at his neighbors. The Israelites are rebels now. God has told Ezekiel that it will be tough going. God sends Ezekiel anyway. What happens next is not the responsibility of Ezekiel.

We are called—pastor-to-be Tiffany and Pastor Ryan and you and me—we who follow Jesus are called to speak. To speak clearly and courageously as Jesus has taught us, about forgiveness and justice and overriding compassion.

We are sent as disciples to reveal God through our actions, conforming our lives to our faith. We do not have to measure our accomplishments. We do not have to find or follow the best path. This is not a time to judge whether what we are doing is effective or efficient. It is a time to stand up when called, to go out when sent.