Mark 6 1-13

To me, its always interesting every time a poll comes out saying that over 90% of Americans believe in God. That can be true, and at the same time, it is my suspicion that all those folks don’t have any faith. It is one thing to believe that God exists, out there somewhere floating in deep space; it is another thing completely to place one’s faith in God. Belief in a God that is sort of out there, who may or may not know or even care about who we are, what we are doing and who we are becoming because of our choices; that has little to do with faith. That’s just belief. Faith is more than that. Faith is that deeper knowledge of God; who He is, what He is like and what He desires for our lives. Faith is dependent; belief is ever subject to ebbs and flows. Let me tell you a story to illustrate the difference between faith and belief. There was a a long time ago a good tight rope walker. He made a big deal about walking over the Niagara Falls, but he was so good he could even push a wheelbarrow across in front of him. At the height of the show, he put a big sack of potatoes into the wheelbarrow, pushed them over to the other side and back. Having done that he asked the crowd, now who believes I could put a person into the wheelbarrow and push it across? The whole crowd roared and cheered, of course believing that he could do so. He had already pushed a big heavy sack of potatoes across, after all. So the tight rope walked quieted the crowd, and said, okay, who is going to volunteer to get in the wheelbarrow and have me push them across? Oddly, there were no takers. They believed he could make it safely, but they weren’t going to put their faith in him.

Faith is always such an interesting concept. Some folks have it, and some folks don’t. And of those who have it, some don’t depend on it all the time. Having faith shows in the toughest of times, but not having faith shows all the time. It shows when we depend on ourselves and our own wisdom; it shows when we panic if everything doesn’t happen according to plan, our lack of faith shows when we don’t ever stop to ask God what He thinks of our lives, of our plans, of our plans for our life. Our lack of faith shows when it becomes all about us. Our passage today is Mark 6:1 and following.

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given to him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed and their lack of faith.

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits. These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff-no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

Let’s pray.

We are looking at Mark, and will be for the next few months. Mark is one of the four gospels, the 4 eyewitness accounts of Jesus life; His ministry, His teaching, His death and resurrection. We are blessed to not have just one account of Jesus life, but we have 4 written by different folks, from different points of view, to different people. So the gospels agree on everything they write, but certain things might be a little different. For instance, Mark does not mention the thief on the cross with Jesus, while Luke does. Is this because Mark didn’t know about him? Well, no. It is most likely because Mark was trying to do something different in his writing, working on a chiasm of some sort, and the thief’s interaction would have messed up the chiasm. So Mark leaves it out. It is because of little things like this that I had always thought less of Mark’s account of the events of Jesus life. But I have been learning about Mark through the teachings of Dr. Ken Bailey, and I am seeing the text holds much more than I had thought. So for me, and I hope for you, this series has been a fun learning and relearning experience.

Last week we looked at two sets of folks who had faith, in fact, whose faith enabled them to be healed. You’ll remember we looked at the woman who had been bleeding a fountain of blood for a dozen years without any success in healing her problem, and Jarius who came desperate to Jesus because his daughter was so sick, and in fact died as he was talking to Jesus. Their faith put them in the position where Jesus could/would heal them. Today is the opposite. Today’s passage is about the lack of faith, both in Jesus’ hometown and when the disciples went out into the world for the first time to proclaim the presence of the Messiah without having Jesus right nearby to point to. Some of the people the disciples were sent to were going to react to their testimony with disbelief, with apathy. Things really haven’t changed all that much. We too are sent into the world each day to live out and proclaim Christ; often our testimony will be met with disbelief and apathy. So we have to remember that being a Christian, in some ways, has always been like this. The disciples are sent out to a world where some will believe, and some will not. Their responsibility is never ours, but is God’s. There will be people who will listen and some who won’t. But before I get off topic, let’s take a look at the first section.

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

This is one of the oddest passages, at least to me, in the Bible. I confess and believe God to be all powerful-if God wants to do something, He can certainly do it. God can stop time, move planets in their orbits, create life where there was none, develop all sorts of species of creatures, heal broken bodies and hearts, anything. But here it is suggested that Jesus, that God works with us to accomplish His goals and purposes in this world. More than that, a prophet isn’t accepted in his hometown. I get this every time I visit my home church. All the old ladies come up to me and tell me they are proud of me, and how they remember me being a little kid at the church. I could never pastor at that church. They would never see me as their pastor. They will never be able to see me as more than the little kid they remember. The same thing happens to Jesus. He comes into town, surrounded by His followers, and he is remembered as the kid who grew up in that town, He is just remembered as Joseph’s and Mary’s kid. They took offense at Him, they were jealous of what He had become, they wondered at where He had learned all that He was teaching. There was no possible way this could be the Messiah; heck we knew Him when…

Their memories blinded them to the truth. They remember the boy who was, and saw not the God in front of them, waiting for them to come to Him in faith. But their past would not let them. More than that, Jesus would not do any astounding miracles for them. Jesus wants their faith in Him. He does not want to wow them with spectacular miracles. He wants their simple faith, which they would not give. Jesus does not want them to believe in Him just because of miracles, because of the spectacular, because the spectacular fades into our memories. It is like a firework show that is great at the time, but over time the memory of the sights and sounds fade in degree of wonder and awe. I’ve seen and met people who have had God show up in amazing ways, who then, over time, lose their faith because the memory isn’t enough to sustain their faith. They haven’t made the effort to follow God in new ways, stepping out in faith again and again. They were content with the one miracle they received, and that forever stunted their growth in the knowledge and love of God. The experience that had been a gift blinded them to new ways that God wanted them to move and grow, much like the people that remembered Jesus from when He was little.

Moses is dealing with a similar issue right now. In Africa, many people are coming to faith because, and only because, of signs and wonders. Their faith is built on magic essentially; what happens when times are tough, and no miracle comes? What then happens to faith? The answer they are seeing in Africa is that faith is chucked out the window as a superstition, as something that doesn’t always work. Truly, sometimes God shows up with signs and wonders, but other times people aren’t healed, trouble does not just go away. People cannot control God, even though many try. The Prosperity gospel folks in Africa, like many people in America, want a God who is controllable; who will show up when there is need and will back off when there is some fun sinning to do.

For many in Africa, especially new converts, God is simply a doer of signs and wonders. That is all the use they have for God. He is not the supreme ruler over their lives, He is not the Savior or Lord, He has been reduced to a doer of magic. And God will not be reduced to just that. God is the Creator, He is the Savior, He is the one true God and will not allow Himself to be reduced to a magic maker. You know, back in Jesus day there actually were people who were workers of magic. There were traveling folks who could wow an audience for a little money. But Jesus isn’t in the wow business, He is in the business of saving people by grace through faith. Don’t allow you past to define your future relationship with God. Don’t box Him in, don’t say you can’t or won’t do certain things as His follower. Don’t let past pain blind you to God’s love and presence. Jesus redefined nearly everything. But these people wouldn’t let Jesus redefine Himself to them; they thought they knew who He was. They were wrong, but wouldn’t bend a knee to see with new eyes who Jesus really was.

Don’t let your past define your future with Jesus. Don’t let your past conceptions of God cloud His relationship with you. Don’t miss out on knowing Jesus simply because of what you thought He was like in the past. We are sent into the world to proclaim a saving knowledge of God is possible through Jesus Christ, without the preconceived notions, without the past coloring our perspectives. And just like the disciples, we are also sent into the world.

I’ve always wondered about the shaking the dust off the feet action. It never really made sense to me. I know that shoes and feet are considered very dirty in Middle Eastern culture, but the shaking the dust off never connected. Dr. Bailey talked about this and his answer to this different than I would have thought. Dr. Bailey thinks this is a failure ritual. Some people when they fail drink, some slam their heads into a wall, some stew in frustration. Instead, Dr. Bailey feels like when the disciples weren’t accepted, their testimony about Jesus was discounted or mocked, instead of dwelling on the failure, the disciples would shake the dirt of their feet and travel to the next town. It was a way of dealing with failure in a healthy way. Failure is a part of proclaiming Christ, even this far back. Not everyone we talk to about our faith, about Jesus, will listen. So what can you do about that? Beat yourself up? Just move on. Knock the dust off your feet, and get moving onto the next town, the next person because they might believe. That’s true for us as well, I think. We are to proclaim the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. But we aren’t responsible for the results. If someone doesn’t want to listen right now, it’s okay to back off, and head off to a more fruitful place to share about faith.

The really interesting thing is that Jesus sends out these folks with nothing. They went out with a buddy, but nothing else. An extra cloak would have been used to sleep in at night, in a pinch. They didn’t even have that. In effect, they needed the people they were sent to. They needed the folks to support them with a place to sleep, something to eat, give them the necessities of life and in exchange they would give them the path to life eternal. This passage reminds me of Jesus and the woman at the well from John 4. Jesus needed the water she could draw, but even more the woman needed the living water Jesus was offering. The same is true here. The disciples needed the necessities of life, but even more the people they were sent to needed to know there was real life, true life through faith in Jesus Christ. The sad truth was that some people weren’t going to see their need for what the disciples testified to. Some people, back then and now, don’t feel the need for a Messiah, don’t feel like they are that bad. The disciples might have reacted by hitting their heads into a wall, but instead, as Jesus told them, they just shook the dust off their feet and left to tell others.

We all need in faith in Christ. Faith is what keeps us going in the tough times, faith gives us someone to thank in the good times. Even deeper, faith is what propels us forward into the arms of God who can cure what ultimately ails us, sin itself. Humans are born into a sinful nature. Sin isn’t something we catch, like the flu; it is something fundamentally wrong with all humans. We were born broken, in a sense, because of the sin of Adam and Eve. Their sin changed the rest of us who inherited their brokenness. That brokenness will be fully healed once we are in God’s presence forever, but in this life faith helps us see times and places when God is really moving in our lives. Jesus on the cross made Himself available to each of us, if we accept Him into our hearts in faith, to heal