The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
July 7, 2024
Mark 6:1-13

The audio of this sermon is available here.

Because I am an overachiever, I managed to graduate college in three and a half years. Yay me. I saved some money and I got a break before going to seminary that fall. But, this master plan of mine had its drawbacks. See, I had nowhere to live that summer so I had to move back in with my parents. I’ll tell you, after three and a half years of freedom, of being on my own, going back home was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. 

“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?” (Mark 6:3). 

See, it’s even hard for Jesus to go back home. Going back home can be hard because these are the people that know you best. In fact, they knew you before you knew you. They were there for your birth, they raised you. They watched you grow up; and then they watched you leave. And for them, who you were when you left home, is who you will always be. Even if you do change.

Think of it – Jesus has left home. He’s been baptized by John in the River Jordan. He’s been going around teaching and preaching. Jesus has cast out demons, he’s healed a man with a withered hand, he’s just raised a little girl from the dead. His fame is beginning to spread. Then Jesus goes back home to Nazareth. And they don’t know what to make of him. 

Isn’t this the kid we used to watch run around the village? Don’t we know his mother and his brothers and sisters? Isn’t this dude just a carpenter? He’s got delusions of grandeur, this Jesus guy. Going home is one of the hardest things we can do; because these are the people that knew us for who we were, but they may not know us for who we have become.

I hear this all the time in my pastoral ministry. It’s the reason why people with substance abuse disorder can have such a hard thing going back home after treatment – it’s because their family and friends can have a hard time understanding what it means for them to be sober. The family and friends had grown accustomed to the addiction, and they can’t deal with people who have changed. It’s the reason why veterans can have such a hard time after war; we on the home front don’t necessarily know what has happened out there on the battlefield, we don’t know how they’ve changed. What might be a simple invitation to a fireworks show for us, could be traumatic for a veteran. It’s the reason why kids who are figuring out their identity can have hard times talking about this stuff with their parents; because we know them as they were, not as they are. “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 the people of Nazareth are scandalized. That’s what the scripture says. “And they took offense at him.” The Greek word there is scandal, they were scandalized by Jesus. Not necessarily by his teaching, by his deeds of power; I don’t think they’re scandalized by Jesus in that way; they’re scandalized because Jesus is not who they expect him to be. Jesus does not fit into the box he used to fit in. He’s become someone different; with his fame spreading and his deeds of power growing, Jesus is clearly something they are not ready for. And they’re scandalized by it.

This is part of our relationship with God all throughout the Bible. The people of God simply don’t know what to make of God. They’re always wanting God to be someone, something, that God isn’t. Remember how Adam and Eve tried to hide from God; thinking that they could fool God. Remember how Jonah wants God to blow up the city of Nineveh because they’re sinful; but God relents and shows mercy. It’s just like this, Jesus shows up in his hometown, and they’re scandalized. Later on, Jesus will come into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and the people expect a warrior king of old, like David. But no, he’s the prince of peace. 

So as Jesus looks around at his family and friends, as he looks around at his hometown of Nazareth, you can feel his pain. “Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he 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.”

There are two lessons we take from this, I think. The first is the human one. When people in our lives are trying to better themselves, encourage them, don’t bring them down. If someone is trying to kick the habit, or get healthy, or is trying to figure out who they are – listen to them, support them. When that kid comes back home from college, don’t expect them to be who they were four years ago. 

But the more important lesson is the theological one. God is who God will be (Exodus 3:14). God is completely free, not bound to our schemes and systems. God will not fit into the tidy boxes we make. Or as a poet once said, “God is a problem that we don’t need to solve.”

Again, this is incredibly uncomfortable for us. We want God to be predictable, we want God to do our bidding, we want God to be like an algebra formula – if we put twenty bucks in the offering plate, then we’ll have a good week. It’s not that easy, and it’s not that cheap either.

Because following Jesus is going to cost us everything. Think of those twelve disciples. Jesus sends them back out into the world, and “he ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.” And then, imagine when those disciples go back to their own homes. They’ve been casting out demons, healing the sick. Imagine when they go home what their family and friends thought about them. That was their real cost to the disciples; the relational cost of losing family and friends because of Jesus. Their families were probably scandalized that they had decided to wander around, going from village to village talking about this carpenter from Nazareth. They probably thought the disciples had lost their minds. 

And in truth, they have. Because the whole point of Christian discipleship is that we would lose our minds in order to receive the mind of Christ. To see the world as Jesus sees it. This is the freedom of God. 

That will be the scandal. And oh how I pray for a good scandal. I pray that the world would be scandalized when we say that God loves everyone, no exceptions, and we mean it. I pray that the world would be scandalized when we say that we are going to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. I pray that the world would be scandalized when we say that the Church is not a haven for the righteous but a hospital for sinners. I pray all this, because it’s our opportunity as the church to show the world what Jesus was about. Following in the footsteps of Jesus, I pray that you, the Church of God, would be a living scandal for peace, and love, and mercy to a world so intent on shame, and anger, and bitterness. I pray that you, each of you, would receive the mind of Christ so that you would become a scandal for Jesus.