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July 9, 2006 by Jim McCrea Mark 6:1-13 Two weeks ago, our congregation did its annual Road Rally, which is perhaps the feature event in our yearly Fellowship calendar. For those of you who haven't heard of - or haven't personally endured - the Road Rally yet, the essence of it is a journey into the unknown. Teams of people pile in their cars to follow a series of rhymed clues that lead from one to another to another across the countryside with the intent of meeting up again for dinner at a restaurant in a secret location known only to my wife and me. The strongest impression most people have of our Road Rally is probably that of the atrocious rhymes. You might say that it's pundemonium out there while the Rally-ers search for the various landmarks we've pointed out along the way. But I've often seen the Road Rally in a different light than that. To me, it's a metaphor of faith. We take various groups of people and send them out to an unknown destination, following clues that shed just enough light to get them to the next step and no more. Isn't that pretty much the biblical model of faith? You can see examples of that over and over in the Bible. Abraham and Sarah set out for the Promised Land - not really knowing where their destination would be - but trusting in God's word that they would arrive safely wherever it was. Centuries later, God freed their descendants from slavery in Egypt, only to have them wander in the desert for 40 years because they lacked the faith to believe that the same God who had won their freedom through a crescendoing series of miracles would somehow be able to do additional miracles to win the Promised Land for them. Some 600 years after that, the Jewish nation is in its death throes as a deadly army tightens an unavoidable noose around Jerusalem. But, at that moment, the prophet Jeremiah obeys God's command to buy some land that has already been overrun by the enemy as a sign that some day the people will be restored to their country. In the New Testament, you see the disciples dropping everything to follow Jesus, even though they really didn't understand at first what it would mean to follow him - a journey that would take them to a cross and beyond. And, of course, there is our gospel lesson today in which the disciples are sent out with nothing at all except a mission, but what a mission! They are to call people to repentance, cure the sick and cast out demons. None of those things were in the typical job description for your average fisherman or tax collector or zealot. So the disciples must have felt at least a little anxious about getting this assignment. However, they did it anyway and had spectacular results. I've always found it interesting that Mark chose to include this story in his gospel as the follow-up to the story of Jesus' return to Nazareth. That was a mission which landed in the midst of his hometown neighbors with a resounding thud. The people in Nazareth had heard all the stories about Jesus' miracles and his new and challenging teachings, so I'm sure there must have been at least a little bit of civic pride when he returned to his hometown. After all, it's not every day you have a celebrity in town - let alone one who grew up in that town. And even in those days before mass-media, Jesus clearly was something of a celebrity. It's hard to keep quiet about things when you've seen someone walk on water, feed 5,000 people with a box lunch and raise the dead back to life. But when Jesus showed up back in Nazareth, it turned out that all his former neighbors could see was the guy who once worked at the local carpenter's shop and who had such an unusual birth story that the whispered rumors had apparently never died down. After all, they referred to Jesus as "the son of Mary" rather than the customary phrase which would have been "the son of Joseph." In fact, the phrase "the son of Joseph" would have been the expected description for Jesus even if, as most biblical scholars assume, Joseph had died some time before Jesus began his public ministry. And so, whatever signs of unusual religious insight Jesus may have demonstrated while he grew up- or whatever quiet miracles he may have performed in their town - were simply forgotten in the rush of his former neighbors to judge him as the local kid who got too big for his britches. And the most interesting part of the whole story to me is the fact that their lack of faith interfered with Jesus' ability to perform miracles among them. What that tells me is that even though his power as the Son of God remained undiminished because of who he was, God apparently chooses to limit his power so that it only works through the faith of the recipient. Clearly, the God who made heaven and earth would not have to do that, but God must have imposed limits on his own power to respect the free will of his children. Martin Luther once wrote, "Faith is a bold and daring confidence in the grace of God so sure and certain that a man [or a woman] would stake his [or her] life on it a thousand times." In a similar fashion Ambrose Bierce wrote that faith is "Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." I think that both of those definitions are wonderful, ringing affirmations of what faith can be at its most high-minded state. But what about faith as it is experienced in our everyday lives? What about the faith that sustains us during the mundane chores of caring for our young children or elderly parents? What about the faith that sustains us when we're trying to live by ethical standards in a job - or in a world - that doesn't value those standards? How often do we miss the miracles that are available to us if we only had the faith to perceive them and receive them? There's an island off the coast of Japan called Miyajima. And, according to Steve Souther, the deer on that island have become so used to being fed by humans that they have totally abandoned the wild and moved into town. There, they beg for food and are so aggressive that they will snatch ice cream cones from terrified children and then eat the wrappers, too. As a result, these deer are in terrible physical condition. They can't walk very well, much less run or jump. They have transformed themselves into something far less than they were intended to be. Souther says, "Not far from that sweltering village is a lush forest with trees and streams; fresh fruit and grass; cool water from sparkling streams - everything a white tail deer needs to be happy. Yet they have been reduced to begging for food they were not intended to eat, and to sleeping on hot concrete parking lots. [...] And I know they must not be very happy or contented." Have we - like those deer and the residents of ancient Nazareth - settled for living as something far less than we could be? Or are we willing to look at the world through new eyes, to follow the example of the disciples, who came to understand that when they were sent out totally empty-handed, they could still count on God's power to work through them to bring about amazing results. That's the point of this next story which comes from Japan. (Thanks to Anne Le Bas!) There was once a woman whose only brother had come back from some far away war. He was physically unhurt, but sad and angry, and nothing his sister could do made any difference. He just pushed her away. In desperation, she went to see a wise woman from the village - a healer. "I can help," said the woman, "but you must bring me something. I shall need a hair from the chest of the crescent moon bear." That is a bear who has a white patch on his chest in the shape of a crescent moon. When the woman heard this request, she was terrified. The crescent moon bear was very fierce. She was sure she would never survive the ordeal, but she decided to try. She packed some food and set off to the bear's cave in a clearing at the top of a mountain, not really knowing what she would do. But, by the time she got to the top of the mountain, she had had an idea. When she got there, she took some of her food and laid it at the mouth of the cave. Then she went and stood on the other side of the clearing. The bear lumbered out, saw the food and the woman, but she was too far away to worry him. So he ate the food and went back into the cave. The next day she repeated this, but came a little closer. As the days passed, she carried on with this routine, getting a little closer each day until she was standing right by the cave. The bear came out. He saw her there and drew himself up to his full height. "What do you want?" he growled. The woman trembled with fear. "I want to ask a favor in return for the food I have given you." "What?" "I need to pluck one hair from the crescent on your chest. It will hurt, so I need your promise that you won't hurt me in return." "Very well." he growled. She reached up and plucked just one hair, as quickly as she could. Then she took to her heels and ran. And it was just as well. The bear entirely forgot his promise, and let out a great roar of pain and began chasing after her. She ran like the wind all down the mountain, through forests and fields, just managing to stay ahead of him until she reached the safety of the village and the bear turned back. The woman ran straight to the home of the healer, still clutching the precious hair tightly in her hand. She gave it to the healer and waited to see what she would do next. Surely she would use it to make some sort of potion or spell. But the healer strode over to the fire and threw the hair into it. In a moment it was gone. "Why did you do that? After all I went through to get it! It took more courage and strength and patience than I thought I had. I never thought I would do it!" "I know," said the healer, "Now, take that courage and that strength and that patience, and return to your brother - you have all you need to help him." And the woman went home, knowing that she had found for herself what she sought and could do what she had to. In time her brother was restored to health, and she was never the same again either. All of us have times in our lives when it seems that our struggles are too great to bear. When a job is lost or a loved one has died; when the stress of day-to-day living seems crushing; when friends or family have abandoned us; when we feel we are carrying the weight of the whole world - like the mythological Atlas - but our arms are tiring and our knees are buckling. There is no magic that will transform the pains and pressure of those moments. However, we do have the promise that God will never leave us and will sustain us through all our circumstances. If we can trust in those promises, then we will have everything we can possibly need to endure and to thrive. Amen.
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