Mark 6:1-13
He goes back home again. He goes back to Nazareth . . . and it is just as important an event for him as it would be for you and me.
We see it at homecoming every year. And we see it at family reunions - the folks who come back to share . . . not just in the food . . . and not just to sit in the shade and catch up, though that might be part of the sharing . . . but the ones who come back to share a portion of their hearts . . . a part of their lives with the people they love. They are the ones who come to homecoming in order to participate . . . to give, not to take. And they are the ones who make homecoming worthwhile.
This is why he goes back home. To give back something to those people in Nazareth who had given him so very much.
There is the rabbi who first taught him the Torah. There are the boys - the friends of his childhood - the ones he had run with through the streets, dust splaying between their toes, laughing and playing. There are the parents of his friends, the ones who accepted him into their homes as one of their own - always, always with a open seat at the table for him. There is the woman who was the first to ask him - not his father . . . not the shop . . . but him - to shape something from wood just for her . . . to build her a bench or a box or a shelf. And then too, there is his family - his mother, his brothers and his sisters. They are all in Nazareth.
These are the people who shaped him. These are the people who taught him. These are the people who made his ministry possible. They are the people he loves most in the world.
And he comes back to give them the gift closest to his heart - the only gift of real value he can give. He comes back home to share the word of God with them. He comes back to bring them salvation and eternal life.
Oh, they listen politely enough. No one gets up and walks out. There isn't even very much shifting around on the benches . . . or coughing . . . or nodding off while he's speaking. They hear the beauty of his words, but that's all they hear - and words that in Cana or Capernaum would have brought folks to their knees and changed lives on the spot . . . well, here those words just seemed to fall flat.
Afterwards, they shake his hand and say, "good job, preacher! Fine sermon . . . fine sermon." But as soon as they step away from him, they put their heads together and they whisper, "but it's only Jesus. Why, he's the boy who hates spinach . . . who used to play practical jokes with the outhouse on Halloween! Isn't that his family standing right over there? He's just the carpenter's kid - Mary's boy. Where does he think he gets off telling us how to live?"
And because they think they know him so well . . . because they had seen the skinned knees and the spilt milk . . . because they knew - as only people in a small town can know - whenever he had a difference of opinion with his mother . . . or ordered red flannel underwear from Sears . . . because of all this, they turned their backs and they walked away. And Jesus could do no deeds of power there, in his home town. With his own people.
A few years ago, I took part in a summer prayer study - and a mighty study it was, too - an eight week commitment to study and prayer daily . . . and meeting together once a week to discuss what we had discovered about God and ourselves during our week. And the very first day of the very first week, the study asked the question: Are there things God can't do until we pray about them? Are there things that God won't do until we ask him?
At the time, it was a question that shook me to the depths of my soul. I mean, my God can do anything . . . can't he? My God is a God of power and majesty. My God is a God of grace and love -- a God whose love is deep and sure and whose grace doesn't depend on whether or not I deserve that grace . . . or whether or not I even notice that love and grace. And at that point in my life, that question seemed to me almost a heresy.
I spent most of that summer meditating on that question. I chewed on it and chewed on it until most of the flavor was gone and then I stuck under the wagon seat so I could get it later, too. It didn't seem to me that it was a question that had an easy answer - and, in some ways, it still doesn't.
Because we do believe that God can do anything. He is a God of power . . . a God without human limitations or human boundaries. I believe that with my whole heart. There is nothing my God can't do. But what I've also come to understand over the years is that our God is also a God who places limitations on himself.
Our God is powerful enough to sweep all hate and pain and destruction right out of our world . . . and where is the value in that? He could do away with all sin and disease at this very moment . . . and what would that mean to us? He could have created us to believe in Him just as surely as we breathe . . . and where is the relationship in that?
Because our God is a God, first and foremost, of relationships. He doesn't just want us to believe in him . . . he wants us to call him by name. He doesn't want to rule over our lives as much as he wants to share in them. He wants to walk with us more than he wants to lead us around like a pet on a leash.
You see, God is a God of expectations, too. He always expects a response from us. He expects us to make the decision to step into that relationship with him and then he expects us to act on it. He expects us to make the commitment to continue on that path with him. It's not enough just to show up and listen. Jesus always expects us to participate . . . to share actively in our own salvation.
We've seen it over and over: every healing, every miracle that Jesus ever performed was a response itself. Before he will move in our lives, we have to ask him. Before he will change our hearts, we have to invite him in. Before he will take away our sin, we have to recognize that sin and give it to him.
But neither is our relationship with God a self-help 4-step plan that we can get up one morning and decide to improve on all by our lonesome. In fact, it is impossible for us to do for ourselves . . . by ourselves. We can't earn God's love. We can't buy grace with our piety.
All we can do is respond to the open-ended offer God makes us through Jesus. All we can do is actively participate in the relationship that he makes possible.
Ken Kesselus says: If we look to the message of God like a prophet too close to home, as too familiar or too costly, we cannot recognize God for whom and what God is. If we fail to honor Jesus as Lord and Savior, we will not connect with God nor take advantage of what God offers us.
The people of Nazareth lost a great opportunity by not listening more carefully to their neighbor and relative -- who they knew only as Jesus the carpenter son of Mary. But we know differently. We know him as Jesus the Christ, our Lord and Savior. And we know not to reject the God that might seem too familiar to us.
And the answer to the question that I chewed on all that summer? What great wisdom did I finally come up with?
Quite simply - unless we ask . . . until we pray . . . we simply can't see the answer that we get. It's always there. The answer is always right in front of us. It's up to us to ask the question . . . seek the answer . . . give the sin away . . . invite Jesus in. Only then can we accept the grace that God is holding out.
(Comments to Mary tonymary@bellsouth.net)
Ellzey UMC, Otter Creek, Florida