William Muehl of Yale Divinity School tells of visiting a fine old ancestral house in Virginia. The aged owner was the last of a distinguished colonial family, and she was proudly showing him through the home. Over the fireplace he noticed an ancient rifle which intrigued him. He asked if he might take it down and examine it. She replied, “Oh, I am afraid that wouldn’t be safe. You see, it is all loaded and primed to fire. My great-grandfather kept it there in constant readiness against the moment when he might strike a blow for the freedom of the colonies.” Prof. Muehl said, “Then he died before the Revolution came?” “No,” she answered, “he lived to a ripe old age and died in 1802, but he never had confidence in George Washington. You see, he knew him as a boy and didn’t believe he could ever lead an army!”
I. JESUS HAD THE SAME PROBLEM. Those who had known Him as a boy could not believe that He could be the Messiah. The story about Jesus’ rejection at the hands of His own townspeople gives us a disturbing reminder that it is perfectly possible to have something standing right there before you, and not recognize it or its importance. Remember the often told story of the first casting session of Fred Astaire, and the comment written by the director at the time: “Can’t act; can’t sing; dances a little.” In 1902, the Atlantic Monthly’s poetry editor returned a batch of poems to a 28-year old poet with a bitter note: “Our magazine has no room for your vigorous verse.” The poet was Robert Frost. In 1905, the University of Bern flunked a Ph.D. dissertation because it was fanciful and irrelevant. The young Ph.D. student who received the bad news was Albert Einstein. In 1894, the rhetoric teacher at Harrow in England wrote on a 16-year old’s grade card: “A conspicuous lack of success.” The name on the top of the card was that of young Winston Churchill. (Parables, Aug. 1986)
There is such a thing as being too close to something to appreciate it. People come from all over the world to tour Yellowstone National Park, and yet there is a man living in Livingston, Montana, I understand, just 56 miles away, who never set foot in the park until he was in middle adulthood. There are people in New York City who have never visited the Statue of Liberty. People come from all around the world to visit Disneyland, yet there are residents of Anaheim, California who have never gone the few blocks to visit “the happiest place on earth.” There are those in the Church who know Jesus the same way that an apartment dweller in New York City may know about a neighbor living in the apartment above, but has never spoken to that neighbor in the 25 years they have shared the same roof. One can be too close to something. It may come as a surprise to you, but ministers have a difficult time worshipping. They are too close to the action. They know all of the things which can, (and sometimes do), go wrong. They are too close to the trees to experience the forest. So were Jesus’ townspeople.
Rejection by one’s own people is a human experience which evokes sharp emotions: anger, bitterness, disappointment. The consistent witness of the New Testament is that Jesus was rejected by His own people: first of all, His family; then His friends, then His race and nation. John 1:11 says: “He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.” In chapters 9-11 of Romans, Paul wrestles with the thorny problem of Jesus’ rejection by His own people, the Jews. In Mark 6 there is the same theme. But in this passage, Jesus’ own people are not the Jews as a whole but His own friends and relatives...people in His hometown - even His own family. The passage read this morning sort of wraps up what we found earlier: the attempt of His family to take Him home as a deranged person. Now His whole hometown takes “offense” at Him. Literally, they “stumbled,” or were “scandalized”-that’s what the Greek word means.
I have a hunch that there is much about Jesus which scandalizes us, too. Unfortunately, most of us put up a good front, and listen to His words in church. But I wonder how often we think of them after we leave the sanctuary? I am afraid that far too many of us, myself included, live in not only “split-level homes,” but live split-level lives. There is Sunday morning, and then there is the rest of the week. There is what we do in church, and what we do at work, at home, or at play. Somehow the two realms never quite connect. As the cynic said, “They’re praising God on Sunday, they’ll forget about it Monday, it’s just a little habit they’ve acquired.” Jesus’ family and friends were too close to the forest to see the trees. They did not recognize Him for Who he was.
It might be instructive to couple this Scripture with the one in chapter 3 which suggests that we who claim to be Jesus’ followers are His “brothers and sisters and mother.” We are His family. Commentator Lamar Williamson writes of this passage: “In our context today, ‘His own people’ is best understood as the group that formally claims Jesus as its own, claims to be his, and feels some proprietary rights toward him; namely, the church.”(Interpretation: MARKS, p. 116) The question is: do we understand Him any more than they did? Mark’s solemn words ought not to cause us to ask “Why did not Jesus’ own family, own people, listen to Him?” but rather, “Why don’t we???” We identify ourselves as His brothers and sisters, together in the family of God called the Church. But do we recognize Him and follow Him anymore than they? Jewish philosopher Martin Buber used to ask: “If Messiah has come, where are Messiah’s people?” That’s a good question.
“Where did this man get all this?” they asked. “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 they took offense at him.” (6:3) A few weeks back I said that, according to the Gospel records, Jesus had a rather large family. He had four brothers and at least two sisters. In our lesson of the morning, they are named. At least, the brothers are named. The sisters go nameless - (except which probably reflects the prejudice against women of the day - which is not all gone yet. But note: He is called the “Son of Mary.” Joseph is not mentioned. Some believe that this affirms the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. It may be so. But more likely, it merely suggests that the ancient tradition is right when it says that by the time Jesus reached His maturity, Joseph was dead. If that is true, then we have a clue as to why Jesus waited so long to begin His preaching ministry. St. Luke says that Jesus “was about thirty years of age,” when He began His ministry. (3:23) Thirty was a rather advanced age for that time. Why did He wait so long to start His work? Probably because Joseph died while Jesus was a small boy, and as the first-born He took upon Himself the support of His mother and brothers and sisters, and only when they were old enough to fend for themselves did He go forth to preach and teach. It is at least a plausible explanation.
“Is this not Mary’s Son?” the townspeople asked. Yes, of course...but He was also the Son of God, and that great Mission took precedence over all other family relationships. And that is what caused Jesus and His family so much pain. He was more than Mary’s Son, and more than “only a Carpenter.”
Now, there is some doubt about the correct translation of “Carpenter.” The Greek word is tekton, which means simply “builder.” Perhaps Jesus was a stone-mason by trade...for most things were made with stone in that day, and there was always plenty of building material around. How many of His parables are about stones? Perhaps we should think of Jesus as a muscular, strong, virile hulk of a man, wrestling huge hundred-pound blocks of granite, instead of the rather wimpy picture many people have of Him. Most portraits of Jesus make Him look as though he would blow over in a strong breeze. But the traditional translation has been “Carpenter.” And there is nothing wrong with being a carpenter. It is an honorable trade. And one can be a deeply religious and committed person in whatever trade one is in. Being in a so-called “religious” profession does not necessarily make one more religious; nor does being in a secular profession make one less religious. Everything depends upon the attitude which we bring to it. We used to talk about God calling certain people to “full-time Christian service,” meaning by that term the ordained ministry, or at least a missionary to some foreign land. We do not use the term much anymore, because we have come to understand that all of us are called to be full-time Christians wherever we are and at whatever trade we find ourselves engaged.
II. “HE COULD DO NO MIGHTY WORK THERE,” Mark says about Jesus in His own hometown. Those are blunt words. Too blunt for Matthew, who softens them into “he did not do many mighty works there.” (Matt. 13:58) But Mark is probably right. Even he shrinks back from such a blanket, sweeping statement, and adds an “except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them.” (6:5a.) It is almost a footnote, no big deal, an afterthought, but I imagine that for the folks who were sick and were healed it was a big deal!
“He could do no mighty works there,” Mark says. Are there things Christ cannot do? Yes, of course. He cannot be other than love. He cannot act out of character. (Although later on in Mark’s Gospel we will have to deal with at least one occasion in which Jesus appears at first glance to act out of character. More about that when we come to it.) But there are some things Christ cannot (or will not, if you prefer) do. For instance, He will not force Himself upon us. He calls, but He will not coerce. He called to His own townsfolk, but they refused to listen.
It is possible for us to hear and refuse to listen, also. Sometimes we know everything there is to know about our Christian faith except to experience it for ourselves. We’ve got it all neatly arranged up here in our heads, but it hasn’t gotten deep down into our hearts. I recently came across a story of a group of religion editors of secular newspapers who were meeting in the Hyatt Regency hotel, and they were in the elevator on their way down to dinner. They had on their badges words that identified their convention as a “Religious Editors’ Convention.” A man stepped into the elevator swearing and carrying on. When he noticed the badge on his elevator neighbor, he apologized profusely to him.. “Don’t worry about it,” said the editor, “I am not religious, I am just a religious editor.” Some people are like that: they go through life being “religious editors.” They report on what God is up to in everybody’s life but their own. They are “sermon samplers,” wandering from church to church, quick to pick up a grammatical error in a bulletin, more concerned about syntax in a sermon than about sin in society. These are the people with whom Jesus has a hard time, and for whom He can do no mighty work. He wants to do so much for them, and they will let Him do so little. They are “religion editors,” not religion experiencers.
III. “HE MARVELED BECAUSE OF THEIR UNBELIEF.” Mark says about the people back there. (6:6) Today, I marvel at what people do believe. All sorts of things are coming back into fashion: astrology, ouija boards, tarot cards, lucky talismans.”Forward to the 15th century.” seems to be our motto. We believe in all sorts of weird things, from astrology to “channeling.” We are sort of like the high school student who, when asked about an astrology book on her coffee table was asked whether she believed in astrology. She replied: “I believe in everything a little bit.” That sounds like a lot of us. A campus chaplain named Chad Walsh wrote a book some years back titled “Superstitions of the Irreligious.” His message was that simply because people did not attend any particular church, or follow any formal religion, that did not make them less gullible. Many folks have an almost blind faith in science, for instance. Or in progress. Or in “the American way of life.” Or in their political party. And they become very nervous whenever someone challenges their firmly held faith.
The clear implication of this Gospel record is that if Jesus’ townspeople had believed in Him more, Jesus could have done a lot more with them. That is still true. The spiritual climate of a congregation, its sense of expectancy, its openness to the power of God at work in its midst through the Holy Spirit, will have a great deal to do with just how much Jesus Christ is able to accomplish here and now - through us. Our unbelief does not render God impotent, but it can have a dampening effect. I have a hunch that God could do a lot more in and through this congregation, if we would only let God do so. But our theme song seems to be: “Take my life and let it be.” Period. Sometimes we appear to be like the church where the pastor listed the hymns and after each one noted whether they were to be sung standing or seated. One of his hymns came out one Sunday: “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me,” seated. Most of us are quite content to let Jesus pilot us...providing we can remains seated. As long as it doesn’t cost us too much, inconvenience us too much, then we are quite willing to be His followers, His family. But the minute a cross rears its ugly head, and we are asked to make a sacrifice for our faith, like Jesus’ friends and family of old we become scandalized. Would it not be tragic if the record were to say that Jesus was not able to a great work here in Ann Arbor because of our unbelief? We rant and rave about those “godless Communists,” and we print “In God We Trust” on our coins, but from God’s perspective perhaps it isn’t that clear just who trusts God and who does not. Perhaps God has a difficult time telling us apart. Are we any more influenced by Jesus and His Spirit than they? (Even Gorbachev referred to Jesus recently. He got his facts wrong, but he mentioned Him. That’s more than some of us do.)
E. Stanley Jones once said: “Breathes there a preacher with soul so dead, who hasn’t been called a Red?” There are some folks in every community who criticize anything unpopular a preacher may say (even if the preacher is quoting Jesus) and dismisses his/her words with a shrug and “Of course, you know he/she is a Communist.” Well, at the risk of being called a “Communist,” I’d like to share with you a statement by a Communist this morning. In fact, one of the very first Communists. His family name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulanov, but you and I know him as Nikolai Lenin. Late in 1921 he became ill, lost the power of speech, and was obliged to let others rule in his name. Among the things which he wrote in that period were these remarkable words: “I made a mistake... Without doubt, an oppressed multitude had to be liberated.. But our method only provoked further oppression and atrocious massacres. My living nightmare is to find myself lost in an ocean red with the blood of innumerable victims. It is too late now to alter the past, but what was needed to save Russia was ten Francis of Assisi’s.” (Quoted in WHY JESUS NEVER HAD ULCERS by Robert M. Holmes, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986, p. 89) Or one Jesus Christ!! One Carpenter from Nazareth.
In the old University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. there was a Carpenter’s Workroom located deep in the bowels of the basement. I know, because that is the route I had to take to find my way through a maze of corridors and eventually to the elevator which would take me to the patient’s floors. (I love the smell of new wood, wood being sawn, donUt you?) One Christmas season, as I was walking through the basement corridor opposite the Carpentry Shop, I noticed that someone had tacked a whimsical little sign on the door. It read simply: “Kiss a Carpenter. $1.00” I thought: “That’s a good idea for a sermon!” So here it is this morning. Little did the comedian who posted the sign know that some years later it would appear in a sermon at First United Methodist Church. But here it is. Does that not sum up the message of St. Mark, the message of the Gospel? We are all invited to “Kiss a Carpenter” - one Carpenter in particular: Jesus of Nazareth. “Simon, do you love me?” Jesus is reported to have asked the Big Fisherman at the end of His earthly journey.(John 21:15,16) It is a question he asks each of us again and again. “Do you love me? How about a kiss?” The only kiss He ever got, according to the Gospels, was from an enemy. But He wants a kiss from His friends. In a sense, that is what we do every time we commune. We embrace Christ, and He embraces us. “Only a Carpenter”....No, Jesus is much more than that. But He wasn’t a bad carpenter. After all, He made a Communion table which has lasted for nearly two thousand years!