The Impossible Mission?

A sermon preached at Old South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Hallowell, Maine, July 9, 2006.
Text:  Mark 6:1-13

Sermon prayer:

            I must admit that the Gospel of Mark has never been my favorite Gospel.  In fact, it is pretty much my least favorite Gospel.  When I saw Mark slated as the lectionary Gospel reading for at least the first half of the summer, I thought it might be a good time to get re-acquainted with Mark and to see if my old prejudices were still valid.
            It turns out, they still are.  I still don’t much like the Gospel of Mark.
            As if it isn’t already hard enough to be a follower of Jesus, Mark seems intent on making the whole enterprise even harder—almost impossible.  In his spare and stark language, in his uncompromising tone, Mark basically illuminates the life of the  close Christ follower as full of suffering and misunderstanding.  Certainly, there is the reward of salvation at the end, and there is healing for some along the way, but those who are closely following Jesus seem only to be reminded that theirs is a life of difficulty and struggle.
            Today’s passage is yet another example.  Among his own people, in his own hometown, Jesus encounters rejection and conflict.  Mark suggests that they rejected him because they thought of him as an unimpressive “hometown boy.”  He was a local—someone who knew them and someone whom they knew.  Maybe everyone thought that he was in town just to visit his mother—and it was about time, too.  So, when he got up to speak at the synagogue on that Sabbath day, they weren’t too surprised.  It was only natural for him to get up and speak about the scriptures.  But when they heard the way he spoke, they were kind of surprised.  They didn’t expect him to speak with such authority. 
Interestingly, we are given no content of Jesus’ teaching here, only a report that that encounter with Jesus provoked fierce resistance, even among those who were closest to him.  What could he possibly have said to them?  What was his teaching?  Was it the usual stuff or something different, something reserved for those whom he knew so well, those who knew him as well and his family?
            But, alas, we are left only with guesses.  Mark offers no clues.  What we seem to be left with is Jesus and his unknown teaching, his closest followers around him and a town full of friends and relatives who pretty much rejected the whole thing.  After all of the healings that had already taken place, this must have been quite a slap of reality.
            So, Mark cleverly links this story of rejection with the sending out of the disciples as if to say that the crisis which Jesus provoked will also afflict those who follow Jesus as Jesus gives his disciples instruction on how to handle inevitable conflict.
            From this text we gain a simple, straightforward, but sometimes overlooked insight:  Jesus provoked controversy; his followers also provoke controversy.  Something about Jesus, something in his teaching or in his person, turned away more people than he attracted.
            Is this, then, the path that we must follow as well?  Is this the model—is this the expectation-- for me and for other preachers?
            For most preachers, inviting this kind of conflict, controversy and rejection is a little hard to stomach.  Conflict and misunderstanding, and most certainly rejection, are not things that we wish to court actively and openly.  Very few of any of us, and probably rarer still among preachers, wish to invite rejection.  After all, we are supposed to be preaching the good news and inviting others to join our merry and affirming way of life.  Aren’t we?
            Well, today’s lesson—as so many in the Gospel of Mark—throw a little wrench into our conventional way of doing things and into our conventional understanding of faith and what living a life of faith demands.  And, Mark is as stark as ever.  Jesus offers his teaching, whatever it may have been, and he is soundly rejected by the hometown crowd.  But, does he not alter his message?  Tone it down a bit?  Put a more positive spin on it?  Apparently not.   Obviously, he hadn’t been to preaching class.  Jesus is amazed, astounded, at this unbelief, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”  That’s how Jesus responds.  It’s hard to know how this fits in with modern notions of Christian family values, but that’s a subject for another day.
            And, then as if his own rejection was not enough, he sends out the disciples—in pairs—and prepares them for the great difficulties that they will experience in spreading Jesus’ message.  They were to take nothing with them, except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money.  And then, “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.” 
            The mission seems almost impossible and one gets the sense that for every convert won, many more rejected the life that Jesus and his disciples were teaching and promoting.  Is the path really just for the few or for the many that we now consider among our numbers?
            As I thought about this difficult message—about Jesus’ role modeling of the sparking of controversy and his courting of conflict, I will admit a definite sense of wishing that I had chosen another passage.  What was I thinking when I chose this one from the four passages offered for this morning?  What was I trying to do with myself?  What struck me as important and valuable when I read through the passages?  What message could I make, acknowledging my own queasiness in trying to spark obvious controversy and courting rejection?  Could I find a way of staying true to this passage while also at least making some attempt at putting a more positive spin on it than Mark?
            After a few days of letting all of this roll around in my head, I was finally struck in a clear and amazing way of the lessons of our tradition.  Our tradition—the United Church of Christ and the Congregationalists who helped to form the United Church of Christ—has a long history of sparking controversy and welcoming rejection, when the Holy Spirit is so felt as to move this little part of the Church in a particular direction that is not felt by other Christian traditions in our midst.
            The founding of the Congregationalist tradition in the New World was, after all, a decisive rejection of what was happening in the Church of England in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  Both the Pilgrims and the Puritans felt that the Church of England had not appropriately followed the work of the Reformation.  So, each group sought to develop a church with a more direct link between God and people, with a closer alignment with the Bible—that Jesus Christ should be the Head of the Church.  So stalwart they were to make this claim, to make the statement that they felt called to make by the Holy Spirit, that they boarded little wooden boats in which to cross the vast Atlantic Ocean to create their vision of Church in the New World—first Pilgrims and Puritans separately, and then together.
            The Congregationalists aimed to create a model for a just society lived in the presence of God.  Their leader, John Winthrop, prayed that “we shall be as a city upon a hill . . .  the eyes of all people upon us.”
            Then, in 1700, the Congregationalists were among the first Americans to take a stand against slavery.  The Rev. Samuel Sewall wrote the first anti-slavery pamphlet in American, “The Selling of Joseph.”
            In 1773, a young member of the Old South congregation in Boston, Phillis Wheatley, a poet, became the first published African American author.
            In 1839, enslaved Africans broke their chains and seized control of the schooner Amistad.  Their freedom was short-lived, and they were held in a Connecticut jail while the ship’s owners sued to have them returned as property.  The case became a defining moment for the movement to abolish slavery.  And who was there in the middle of it all?  Congregationalists and other Christians organized a campaign to free the captives.  The Supreme Court ruled the captives were not property, and the Africans regained their freedom.  Some of you may have seen this story dramatized in the movie Amistad.
            In 1853, Antoinette Brown was the first woman since New Testament times ordained as a Christian minister.  She was ordained by Congregationalists.
            Today, the United Church of Christ leads the way among religious traditions to gain rights for gays and lesbians.  Within our ranks and from outside, we face rejection, misunderstanding and conflict.  Though this is painful and difficult, it turns out that it is a part of who we are.  It is a vital part of our history and it is a vital aspect of who we continue to be.
            We have long been a tradition which, as Mark reports in his Gospel, takes seriously the directive to spark controversy and to invite conflict and to welcome rejection, when it happens.  We do this as we are moved and awakened by the movement of the Holy Spirit in our midst.  We believe that God is still speaking and that God has something to say in this violent and troubled world and sometimes God chooses us to speak these things—even those things that are controversial, even those things that might invite rejection.
            This is our calling.
            On a practical level, though, we know that this is much harder to embody.  To list off all of our accomplishments in the name of good and righteous things leaves out the disagreement and conflict and controversy that has long been part of who we are as a religious tradition, as a people of faith.
            We know amid the latest issues of controversy that feelings run deep about important issues and that agreement is seldom easy to come by.  Even before the conversation really begins to take shape, someone may very well just take themselves out of the conversation, rejecting even the need to discuss controversial topics and issues.  This has always been a part of who we are, for good or for bad.
            Our long list of accomplishment is impressive, but not one of those things was achieved through uniform consensus and agreement.  Within the church, people argued and disagreed.  And beyond our church tradition, we have been ridiculed and rejected by others.
            It turns out that this is a part of who we are.  And, it has its roots are firmly settled in the life of our beloved Savior, our Friend and our Redeemer, Jesus the Christ.  Jesus himself sparked controversy and conflict.  And, he sent his disciples to do the same.  So, too are we called.
            In the coming weeks, you will be hearing more about the controversial issue that will be discussed once again at our Maine Conference Annual Meeting in September—whether or not the Conference should take a stand on the issue of gay marriage.  After some discussion at last year’s meeting, the issue has been expanded to encourage all of our UCC churches to discuss the equality and quality of all marriages.
            The Conference is also trying to set a tone regarding listening.  How do we listen to one another, how do we speak to one another in the midst of topics and issues that are controversial and difficult?  We, as church members, as churches, as Associations, as a Conference, would like to avoid the scenario that Jesus offers to his disciples—to shake the dust off our sandals in testimony against those who will not listen.  I think we can all agree that we would like to move and grow in a way that does not begin with such a framework.
            We can work together, listen and speak to one another, about issues that are difficult, controversial, misunderstood.  That is our history.  That is our calling.  And, our calling speaks to us to move forward with improved understanding and a willingness to be better listeners and speakers, seeking a healthier path.
            We are not going to do these things today, however.  But, I would encourage you to begin thinking and pondering and, most importantly, praying.  Meditate and pray about how we should deal with issues that cause us discomfort, issues about which we disagree.  Consider and pray about these things.  I would eager to hear about how God is speaking to you about such things.
            Individually and as in groups, I hope that we will find ways of being in conversation with one another.
            This is our history.  This is our calling.  May we continue to feel God’s presence, God’s call, God’s speaking to us and among us and through us.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[Many thanks to William Willimon who provided inspiration and some substance to this sermon in this sermon, “On Not Meeting People’s Needs at Church” found at the Duke University Chapel website.]