Doing What is Possible

Our lesson this morning comes from the sixth chapter of Mark’s Gospel. The first 13 verses of that chapter. Hear these words.

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, where did this man get all of this? What is the wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph’s, of Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. Then 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 he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching, and he called the 12, and began to send them out two by two. And he gave them authority under the UN over the unclean spirits. 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 he said to them, wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place, and if any place will not welcome you, and they refuse to hear you as you leave. Shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent, and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
Friends, this is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

You’re going to respond back to me at the count of three. I want you to say loudly and clearly to me, the name of your hometown. Ready? You got it. One, two. Three. Oh, you’re from everywhere. That is cool. I’m a little jealous of some of you who are from Ruston, who grew up in Ruston, who went to school in Ruston and are still in Ruston. I have a couple of siblings like that that grew up and were educated and lived in the same place their whole life. They. They know everyone. Preachers are not so lucky. We’re nomads. we live out the biblical directive that we are not from here. We are just passing through. And Tamara was talking to Andrew yesterday. And Andrew and his wife Mallory are here. They’re getting the camper ready to take to Lake DeGray for a couple of 3 or 4 days. All I know is there are houseboats and campers involved. And there was a weird conversation that I overheard, and Tamara asked Andrew, Andrew, what do you consider to be your hometown? Andrew was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He doesn’t remember it, but he was born there. And Andrew has lived in New Orleans and Lubbock, Texas, and Arcadia and Baton Rouge. Lake Charles. Andrew’s been everywhere. That’s what happens with preacher’s kids. When we moved from Blackwater to First Church Lake Charles, we left Allison in Baton Rouge. And when we left Lake Charles and we went to Bossier City, we left Andrew and Lake Charles. Andrew says, I consider Lake Charles to be my hometown. It’s where he spent the longest time, where he went to college. That’s where he’s married and raising his family. There’s something about your hometown. For many, you belong there. It’s a source of strength and light and love. For others of us. It was a launching pad when we left, and we haven’t been back. We were sent out to do other things and live in other places.

This is the second reference already in Mark’s gospel to Jesus being at home. The first. Early on, it just says Jesus was home and everybody thought he was crazy. And they said to his family, you need to rein him in. He’s not making sense. He’s got Beelzebub. Get him under control. This second time. It’s specific. Jesus is in his hometown, his disciples are tagging along, and Jesus goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath. And because he is a Jewish male, he is allowed to exegete and actually expected to exegete Scripture. And he talks like they’ve never heard anybody speak, and they know he’s done works of power and mighty deeds that they haven’t seen before. But rather than saying, look at him, a homeboy who has made good, he’s one of us and he has succeeded and we’re so proud of him. It says, and they took offense at him. Who is he? Is he too good for us now? Has he become citified? Doing all this stuff he does. And Jesus said to them, prophets are not without honor, except in their own hometown, among their own can and among their own house. And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hand on a few sick people and cured them. And Jesus was amazed. At their unbelief.

Those words ought to scare us to death. But we’ve sanitized them. We’ve read them so often, or we’ve heard them so often. We’re not scandalized by them. God is sovereign. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. God is omnipotent. God is omniscient. God is omnipresent. God is above the creation. There is nothing more powerful than God. But there is one act that God will not stop. There is one place that God self-limits himself and steps away. And that is the point of human free will. You see it in the Garden of Eden. Very first act. Really. The Bible records God said to Adam, you can eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden, but of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and good and evil. You shall not eat. The Hebrew says, for the day you eat thereof dying you shall surely die. You can’t get any more dead than dying. You shall surely die. And you know what happens in Genesis three? Eve says, I think I will. By the time of Genesis six, we’re told that humanity is so evil that God brings a flood.

Human free will. And this human free will allows human beings to reject God. It allows us to reject Christ. It allows us to ignore the things we are called to do. It allows us to live our lives with little or no faith, trusting only in what we can do, what we can see, what we can create. It rejects the notion of the divine. It creates what is called functional Gnosticism, that we’re Christians on Sunday morning and then after Sunday morning, we go home, and we figure out how to do everything on our own with no regard to God. The children of Israel are saved from the Egyptian army at the Red sea, and they’re wandering in the wilderness, and they come to a place called Kadish Barnea, and they turn their backs on God, and they go into the Promised land under Joshua’s leadership. And they conquer. They don’t do it God’s way. They do it their way. And for a while, they’re good. They’ll worship God. And then they decide they’re going to worship Baal, or they’re going to worship Asherah, or they’re going to worship some of these other deities. And God has to raise up another people to bring the children of Israel back into line, and they get themselves lined up with God. And then they decide, now we’re going to reject the way God wants it to do, and we’re going to do it our way.

Jesus was amazed at their unbelief. And as you watch the story unfold in the Gospels, what you see time and time again are people choosing to reject Jesus. And God does not circumvent that choice of human freewill. Then we’re told that Jesus went about among the villages teaching, and he called the 12, and he began to send them out two by two. There is a pattern in the gospel of Mark. Indeed, there’s a pattern throughout the Gospels where Jesus is rejected, where people turn their backs on him, where they reject his teaching or they deny his miracle working power, or they sublimate his will to what they want, and then he will commission a group of people. It’s like Jesus gets rejected, and then he sends a group of people out to do his will. He’s rejected, and he sends a group of people out to do his will. He’s crucified, and he sends a group of people out to do his will. The cool part of this is you and I are part of the commissioned. That the story of the 12 is a pattern for how we serve, how we live for Christ. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except his staff. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts. Wear sandals don’t put on two tunics. Actually, live out what you just prayed. Give us this day our daily bread. I want my people to go live it. I want them to trust me for the resources. I want them to trust me for the results. So, he sent them out with the admonition to trust him. And then he said, I give you the gift of moving on. If any place will not welcome you, they refuse to hear you. As you leave, shake the dust off that is on your feet as a testimony against them. That’s Jesus’s way of saying, sometimes my people, sometimes my church. You just need to move on. I need to do a new thing. You’ve done that over and over and over and over and over again, and it’s not working.

And that is the height of insanity in church life. We keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, and we think if we do it harder, if we do it better, if we promote it better, it will have different results and it never does. And Jesus said, hey, church, you can shake some dust off and move on. Yes, my hometown rejected me, but I’ve commissioned you. I’ve given you the power to go and serve, to go and make a difference. And you see what happens. Jesus can only lay his hands on a few sick people and cure them because of their unbelief. But as the 12 go out in faith, as the 12 go out in the mighty name of Jesus, the 12 go out doing what Jesus told them to do. They cast out what many demons and anointed oil anointing with oil, many who were sick, and they cured them. There is rejection and then commissioning. There is resurrection and commissioning. There is the coming of the Holy Spirit and living out what Christ told us to do.

I have a minister friend who’s in Houston right now, and he was he was sent to Houston years ago to start a new church. And they basically brought the property for him, and the church started out with a parking lot. And he got the church off the ground. They built a building or two, but the church reached this place where he just said things were not going well. He said we would start a new program and it would be just an absolute flop. We would design a new strategy to to get people to come to worship or to get people to come to small groups. And it didn’t work. We would start a new ministry and it would fizzle and we couldn’t figure it out. We were gathering every week to pray for these ideas. We were gathering as leaders and pastors. We were gathering as lay people were just praying and praying and praying, praying that the church would succeed, he said. But nothing worked. He said finally, in one of the prayer meetings, one of the lay leaders of the church said, you know, maybe we ought to ask God what God wants us to do. Suddenly he said, it hit us and it hit us hard. We’ve been planning church programs that we wanted to do and then praying, God, please come join us and what we want to do. But from that moment on, he said, his prayers and the prayers of the church changed. Now we pray, God, what is it you’re doing in Houston and how can we be a part of it? You know what happens if you pray prayers like that, don’t you? You lose control. You can throw every calendar you’ve ever had away.

Back in the 80s and 90s, we had something called a Franklin planner. Man, if you wanted to fix your life, you went and got a Franklin planner. This is about that thing. About that thing. I never figured out how to use it. It was so complex. But that’s how you figure out how to order your life. And that’s what we want. We want a God who fits into our ordered life. And God says, look. Sometimes I bring things into your life to shake things up, to stir things up. To cause you to step out in faith. How crazy was it that Jesus commissioned those lay people? Those 12 and said, go! How crazy is it that Jesus said to us, very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me, that you will also do the works that I do, that’s you. And in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the father may be glorified in the son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. John 14, verse 12 and 13.
So it’s up to you. Will you accept that calling and commissioning? Will you accept for yourself the power that Christ gives you to change the world? Will you accept his presence? Will you become like Saint Teresa said in the 16th century, Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours of the eyes with which he looks. Compassion on to this world, yours of the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world. This table reminds us that people kept rejecting Christ and turning their backs on him. And finally, the crowds yelled, Crucify him! And this is the result of that. His body broken for you. And his blood. Shed for you. So this morning when you come to communion, you receive the body of Christ in your hands. I want you to look at your hands. Your hands. Christ is in those hands. Christ is in you. The hope of glory. He resides in you so that you may serve him and live for him and make a difference in the world for him. So, when you receive communion this morning. Just know that you’ve been commissioned to serve him, to live for him, and to make a difference in our world in his name. Amen.