Bible Text: Mark 6:1-6 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: Mark | “If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what single book would you most like to have with you?”  You may have heard this icebreaker on occasion over the year.  Questions like that never appealed to me much—they always seem to be so far-fetched.  But now that we’ve been shipwrecked in a way, stranded for a good ten months of pandemic living, I think this is a question worth considering.  If I were shipwrecked on a desert island, I am pretty sure the book I would most want to have is a book about how to build a boat!

Good thing we at least have the book of Mark to help us through this rough time.  I hope you are reading Mark, too, because he gives us such a thorough account of Jesus’ ministry.  But with all those great stories in the life of Jesus, it might surprise you that we are looking at this story today.  After all, it’s the story of Jesus doing nothing magnificent.  Literally nothing miraculous or special at all except laying hands on a few sick people and healing them.  The most remarkable thing in this story is how Jesus was amazed that the people who had known him the longest trusted him the least.

The people from Nazareth weren’t shipwrecked on a desert island, or dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but they were, in their own way, trapped.  They were waiting for a Messiah, a special person sent by God, to redeem Israel, get rid of the Romans, and usher in a new period in history, when the hungry would have enough to eat, the exploited would receive justice, the blind would have their sight restored, and the lame would walk unhindered.  They were stranded in an unjust, suffering world.  They had the Hebrew scriptures to guide them.  But they were still waiting for a special word from the Lord, the Messiah, to help them if you will, build a better boat and leave that old world behind.

Enter Jesus.  The Word of God.  The Word Made Flesh.  The Messiah.  The first half of Mark’s gospel was written to convince us that Jesus is indeed Lord.  Mark records that the demons believed this was true.  Gentiles on the other side of the lake believed it.  Twelve disciples believed it enough to give up their former livelihoods to follow Jesus.  Last week we read how the woman with the flow of blood believed—and Jesus said her faith had made her well.  And Jairus, a ruler in the synagogue of Capernaum, believed, and his daughter was raised from the dead.  They heard the word of God that was Jesus, and trusted him, and amazing things happened as a result.

But not in Nazareth.  This was Jesus’ hometown, where he lived from the time he was a young boy, until he began his public ministry at age 30.  All those other healings Jesus did?  They were for people who were more or less strangers.  But now Jesus has come home to the people who have known him longer than anyone.  And if you’ve ever lived in a small town, you know that means everyone in Nazareth knew just about everything there was to know about Jesus!  They more than anyone should have been able to trust him—they knew him to be an honest, hardworking, good person.  It was in this town Jesus might have felt safest revealing the deepest truths about himself, that he was not just Mary’s son but was in fact God’s son, and that he had come to help stranded and stuck people become free.

But instead of following Jesus, they took offense at him.  The Greek word for took offense is literally translated scandalized.  They were embarrassed.  They were horrified that someone they had known for thirty years could violate their moral code.  Remember Commandment #1 from our study of Exodus?  “I am the Lord your God.  You shall have no other gods before me.” We might assume that the people of Nazareth took offense at Jesus because he claimed to be God, and to them that was blasphemy.

Remember how small towns work, though.  The people from Nazareth knew just about all there was to know about Jesus—but Jesus also knew just about all there was to know about them.  That’s life in a small town today, and it was definitely life in a small town then.  One of the things that struck me most when we visited ancient ruins in towns like Nazareth and Capernaum is how narrow the streets are and how close together the houses are!  They were very compact communities.  Even without trying to be nosy, it would be easy to hear your neighbors’ business.

But on the day Jesus came to the synagogue and taught, people realized they didn’t know all there was to know about Jesus.  There was more to him.  At first this seemed like a good thing.  They were very impressed.  But something changed, and the people in the synagogue got angry at Jesus.  I wonder if what they took offense at was really a sense that Jesus had violated their moral code.  Personally, I think they were scandalized because they realized, if there is more to Jesus than we knew, and now we know those previously hidden things, does that mean Jesus knows the things we think we’ve kept hidden?  Does Jesus know all there is to know about us?  Not just the good, not just the bad, but the really ugly, the secret darkness inside?

Anger is a tricky emotion.  It’s like a canary in a coal mine.  It is a signal that there is something wrong deeper down.  We might be scandalized, angry, or incensed on the outside, but underneath that anger always lies a much more tender emotion, emotions like fear and shame.

I remember one time, shortly after my sister got her driver’s license, my mom looking out the bay window in the living room, waiting for the car to pull in the driveway.  My sister was a few minutes late, and my mom was a nervous wreck.  Funny thing, though.  When my sister walked in the house, my mom did not give her a big hug and say, “I’m so glad you are home!  I was so worried!”  When my sister walked in the house, my mom was angry.  She was so angry that, if I hadn’t been a witness to the five minutes of worrying before that, I would never have believed my mom was scared.  But she was!  So often, though, instead of showing our fear, we show anger.

I think this is what was going on in that synagogue in Nazareth.  There are only two places in the Bible where Jesus is amazed.  Once in the gospel of Luke, Jesus was “amazed” at the faith of the Roman centurion, who asked Jesus to heal his servant.  The other time is here in Mark, where Jesus is “amazed” at the lack of faith from the people who knew him best. At the heart of this word faith is trust.  The Roman centurion trusted that Jesus was a safe person to approach.  He trusted that his request would be received graciously, and that Jesus not only had the power to heal, he was committed to using that power for good.

But the people of Nazareth were not so sure.  It seems they believed Jesus had the power—they were amazed at his teachings and knew of his miracles.  But they did not trust that Jesus wanted to use that power for good.  They did not trust they would be accepted, warts and all.  They did not trust Jesus to love them.  So before Jesus could reject them, they rejected Jesus.  They could not name their fear.  They could not name their shame.  But it was there.  The anger was the tip of the iceberg.  Underneath the surface was a whole lot more to grapple with.

None of this would matter much except, as people stranded on our own desert islands, we are prone to doing the same thing.  We have known Jesus most of our lives, yet we have trouble trusting that we are loved and accepted.  We have trouble remembering that Jesus is committed to using his power only for our good.  We doubt God’s presence with us, we doubt God’s ability to help us, at times we doubt God even cares.  So we content ourselves with reading books like “How to be Happy While Stranded on a Desert Island” instead of opening ourselves up to the possibility that there is a different storyline that was written, and is still being written, right in front us and inside of us. A book about how to build a boat.  The Word of God, Jesus, a life given so we don’t have to go through life feeling stuck, alone, ashamed, angry, or afraid.

Maybe that is why, when we take communion, Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  As we behold the life of Jesus in our own hands, and take that into our own bodies, Jesus wants us to remember that he will always use his power to liberate us, to get us off our desert islands, laying down his life to bring us freedom and healing and new and everlasting life.  By remembering Jesus’ power and Jesus’ all loving intentions, we built our trust.  We build our faith.  We become disciples.

Mark records the story of Jesus visiting his hometown immediately after the story of him raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead.  That was a mountaintop moment, right?  That is the most dramatic and exciting story in Mark so far.  And it was accomplished even with the interruption of the woman with a flow of blood.  In Mark chapter five, it seems as if nothing can get in the way of God’s power doing what God’s power loves to do—heal, redeem, restore, reinvigorate.  But Mark chapter six?  What a letdown that must have been for Jesus to go back home, and show his full self to the people who should have been most able to trust him, and not be able to do much of anything.  As we’ve been saying since Mark chapter one, there is the call, and there is always the anti-call.

But this “failure” at Nazareth, if you don’t mind calling it that, this anti-call, serves as the catalyst for a new call.  It is right after this that Jesus sends the disciples out two by two, so they could expand Jesus’ ministry.  They drove out demons.  They anointed people with oil and healed them.  Not everyplace welcomed them.  But they didn’t let a down day stop them.  They didn’t let fear or shame or anger or apathy derail them.  They took the good and the bad in stride, and step by step stayed true to their mission.  They did not allow themselves to get stuck in a bad place.

I find this chain of events so comforting.  I confess to you that I have so often wished I lived in a Mark chapter five kind of world:  where people eagerly seek out church, and the church helps them, and everything we do results in only good.  Wouldn’t that be great?  I’ve wanted that as a pastor, and I’ve wanted it for me as an individual, too.  I would like reach out and touch Jesus, and have the thorns in my flesh be instantly cured.  I have longed to hear the words, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.”

But the reality is, I seem to be destined for more of a Mark chapter six kind of life, where some things go right, and some things don’t work at all, and sometimes people get angry and hurt, and I get angry and hurt, and the best we can do is lay hands on a few sick people and see incremental improvement in specific areas if we focus really hard on them.  But what is also recorded in Mark chapter six is, amazingly, sometimes we see improvement on areas we haven’t focused on at all!  Healing comes, not because we were seeking God, but because God is seeking us.  This common grace is also a mystery, a mystery that invites us to keep on keeping on.

I know we are all getting tired of being stranded on the island of COVID 19.  But even as we feel stuck in our present circumstances, Jesus came to free us from wondering and wavering, to knowing for sure God is with us.  How can you use this pandemic time to build a boat, to strengthen your faith?  Not every day will be a banner day.  Even Jesus had days that were less than stellar.  The key is to keep on keeping on.  As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “Those who wait”—in other words, those who trust—”in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  Amen.