SUNDAY SERMON
REJECTION AND FAITH
Pentecost 4, Proper 9, Year B
July 6, 2003
Old Testament Reading: Ezek
2.1-7
Gospel: Mk
6.1-6
Jesus is rejected by his hometown. It's hard to miss this message. But rejection is hardly a popular topic. When was the last time you let yourself feel it? In a rejection letter from your first-choice college? From a job you really wanted? From a loan you really needed? From a man or woman you really loved? Rejection is nobody's favorite subject. And we go to great lengths to mask it, to overlook it, to make it go away. It's only natural to want to feel accepted. And that is why I asked, "when was the last time you let yourself feel rejected?" when you didn't mask it or pretend it wasn't there?
Rejection can be much more subtle than a Dear John or Dear Jane letter. Adults just as easily as teenage cliques can send the rejection message. You know how you can speak politely but still hold a person at arm's length. When we run into someone at the grocery store, we may say, "it's been so long; we'll have to get together" or "why don't you stop by the house sometime and see the new porch we've added." But we seldom follow through. And the person gets the message-unspoken, but subtle rejection.
Let's say you have just returned from a 30-day alcohol treatment center. And I don't call you to play tennis or golf; I don't discuss our former joint business venture. In fact, I avoid being seen with you. And I probably do so out of fear and self-protection. You're no longer one of us the way you used to be. In fact, I'm not sure who you are now. So I distance myself.
REJECTION…this could be the title for today's reading from Mark's gospel.
Jesus is rejected by his hometown. And it's not too subtle. What can this episode
in Jesus' life show us about the unpopular subject, rejection?
Some of you have heard me say that Mark is my favorite of the four gospels.
So I am pleased we are back to Mark after some excursions into John during the
Easter season. With a few exceptions, we are now traveling with Mark's Jesus
until December [Advent].
Mark is a master storyteller; he builds suspense by slowly escalating the conflict.
And conflict is what it's all about for Mark. By chapter 6 [today's episode]
we've already seen Jesus in conflict with evil spirits, with the Pharisees and
even his disciples and family members. In chapter 3, also set in Nazareth, his
family thinks he is going overboard and he distances himself from them. Now
we come to this second rejection of Jesus in his hometown; the conflict escalates.
The plot thickens. It's fair to ask: Do I really want to follow this Jesus if
the passwords are "conflict" and "rejection"? Do I know
this Jesus of Mark's gospel? It's worth thinking about as we read through Mark
over the next five months.
Let's return now to the story itself-to another sabbath and another worship-this
one in Nazareth in a synagogue. Listen again to how the people react and how
Jesus reacts.
[READ Mark 6.1-6 in Peterson's The Message.]
At first he made a hit; they were impressed or amazed. Mark likes that word [amazed]; he uses it almost as often as "immediately." But "amazed" is not uniformly a vote of confidence. It can mean amazed and irritated; amazed and jealous or defensive. I think Mark is setting us up a bit, as good storytellers do. This kind of amazement can turn from cheering to jeering in a heartbeat. (Just look what happened on Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, then found himself on a cross.)
In one breath the Nazareth crowd is saying, "we had no idea he was this good, this wise." In the next they're slamming him saying, "who does he think he is anyway; we've known him since he was a kid?" They took offense. In the original language this word can also mean stumbled (skandalizein) which is one reason I find E. Peterson's translation so on target: They tripped over what they knew about him and fell, sprawling. And they never got any further. They might have listened longer… learned more…reserved judgment about this carpenter-turned-preacher. But instead they stumbled. Just as I often stumble when I trip over what I think I know and understand about another person; when I reject her because I close the door on knowing her better.
My hunch is that they wrote him off; they didn't want to claim him as a hometown
boy. "He's no longer one of us; in fact we're not sure who he is now."
Whether openly hostile or covertly resentful, they stumbled and fell into rejection.
And what about Jesus' take on it? He was amazed (that same word again) at their
stubbornness, their unbelief. No wonder he couldn't do much of anything there;
home soil turned out to be barren ground.
Jesus gets their message, unmistakably, but he makes sure that God has the last word. He quotes Scripture to them. When he says, Prophets are not without honor except in their hometown…, he knows and they know that he is pointing the finger at them and reminding them of a slew of prophets in Israel's history (Jeremiah and Ezekiel especially come to mind).
As today's OT from Ezekiel puts it, Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them (Ezekiel 2.5). When synagogue let out that day on to a dusty Nazareth street, everyone knew Jesus had called them, "rebellious."
Finally we are left with Jesus. Nothing is said about Jesus' emotional response to his rejection at Nazareth. Jesus simply acknowledges what has happened by addressing the people with his "prophet without honor" comment. And then he moves on: he went about the villages teaching. He does exactly what he tells the disciples to do in the next episode: shakes the dust off his feet and goes on.
Jesus acknowledges rejection and moves on. This is not easy. Dwelling on it would be easy; resenting it would be easy. In my own life, I find I have yet to "move on" totally from a subtle rejection by my hometown parish which has never invited me to visit or preach or preside.
Do you ever wonder how at a human level Jesus managed to suffer some of the rejections he received from his family and betrayals by his friends? The reason Jesus could acknowledge the rejections and move on is not because he was so superhuman that he didn't feel any of them but because he knew who his Father was.
When all is said and done, the same is true for us. If we know who our Father is, if we know God as Friend and Lover of our souls, then as rejections come, and come they will, we can acknowledge them and move on. Not get trapped in resentment or blaming or analyzing to death. Rejections are real; Jesus knew about them in depth. He moved on; he is pulling for us to move on, too. By God's grace, we can and we will.