Readings for Pentecost 5: Proper 9B:
Ezekiel 2:1-7; Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-6
July 9, 2006
The Rev. Mary Blessing
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino, CA
The other day I was looking for an image to represent today’s gospel story of Jesus -- the young man who came home after his first venture into the “real world.” After searching, but failing, to find an image of a young “coming of age” Jesus, I began sorting through some books donated by one of our parishioners. And there on the cover of a little paperback, was an image -- not what I expected, but this was the image I needed to use. It wasn’t a 30-something Jesus standing before his dejected mother, flaunting independence. It was an image so familiar I almost missed it. It was a 15th C. Renaissance painting of Madonna and Child -- an anonymous painter offering yet another image of the baby Jesus on his mother’s lap, looking at each other with adoring eyes. You probably know the one, where baby Jesus gently holds a little bird in his hand. But I had to do a double-take, because in this picture the baby Jesus was holding something else, not the expected bird. As I looked closely I saw that he had a TOY in his hand, a little wooden toy TRUCK!! “Where did this painting come from?” I wondered.
It turns out that the author of the book, an Italian Catholic priest, decided one day to take the famous painting of the Madonna and Child holding the bird and he just painted the little truck over the bird! A little truck that the painter said “ ... might have been carved by St. Joseph from some left-over piece of wood.” (p. 1, Blessed Are You Who Believed) He doesn’t know exactly what compelled him to do so, but one day he decided to paint the truck over the bird, partially because his family name in Italian means “truck”, and because he wanted to show the “ordinariness” of Jesus. A baby holding a toy truck helps us see the “ordinariness” of Jesus. Somehow, when we carry images of Jesus as being so unusually special, it makes it harder for us to grasp that we are to be like Jesus, ordinary people with an extra-ordinary faith in God.
Mark’s gospel doesn’t tell a story of baby born in a manger, or of a 12 year old boy lingering in the Temple in Jerusalem. Mark jumps right into Jesus’ life as an adult, baptized by John in the River Jordan. After the baptism and 40 days of wilderness temptations, Jesus gathers a few disciples, then begins a ministry of healing and teaching throughout Galilee. But he uses Peter’s fishing village of Capernaum as “home base”, not his mother’s home in Nazareth. Jesus was quite popular as a teacher-healer in Capernaum. But, when he went back to Nazareth, the place of his childhood, to teach in the synagogue, he was rejected.
Mark doesn’t tell much about Jesus’ childhood. Mark’s gospel simply reports that his hometown remembers Jesus as the carpenter’s son. He has a mother, brothers and sisters. He’s an ordinary man. So, why is he back in town, preaching in the synagogue? Where did he receive training as a rabbi? The people of Nazareth were skeptical about the authority of Jesus’ teaching. Not only that, they seem to have resented Jesus for leaving his mother and siblings. In Jesus’ culture, the oldest son was supposed to care for his mother in the absence of a father. Earlier in the Gospel, Mark told the story of Jesus refusing to see his family as he healed people at Peter’s house in Capernaum (Mk. 3:31) Now perhaps the people of Nazareth are not impressed with Jesus’ prophetic words, because they see only a young man who they believed dishonored his mother. Perhaps he is a disappointment to the community.
Or perhaps the people of Nazareth questioned Jesus’ authority simply because they knew him to be an ordinary human being. How can an ordinary human being do such extra-ordinary things? What they didn’t get is that it is not the “extra-ordinariness” of a person that counts, but it is the “extra-ordinariness of GOD” that counts. And, when an ordinary person puts “extra-ordinary” faith in that “extra-ordinary God”, then “extra-ordinary” things happen.
Scholars believe Jesus worked most of his young adult life as a carpenter in the Galilean area. He helped build Gentile cities, serving wealthy, well educated people. Jesus received knowledge not through academic training, but by crossing paths with travelers from all over the world who traded goods throughout Palestine. Jesus was just like the people of Nazareth, working a trade, neither rich nor poor just an ordinary man. For the readers of Mark’s gospel, some 30-40 years later, away from Nazareth, this was comforting. A comfort, because if an ordinary person like Jesus could live with an extra-ordinary faith, then maybe they could, too.
But where did this ordinary human, Jesus, get this ability to have such an “extra-ordinary faith”? Dare we point to the very mother whom he now holds at arms’ length? For, as Jesus grew up an “ordinary” child in Nazareth, wasn’t it his mother who started her young adult life as a person of “extra-ordinary faith”? This once young teenage mother put her entire trust in God, the one God of Israel, the God of her fathers. Certainly it was an extra-ordinary faith that gave Mary the strength to say “yes” to God under extra-ordinary circumstances. And now her beloved son displays a similar extra-ordinary faith in the One God of Israel. And through him, whether Nazareth is prepared to accept it or not, extra-ordinary things happen.
And now the question becomes: How do WE have extra-ordinary faith in God? We live in a world that mocks those who put their faith in things unseen. But if we are to take our Christian life seriously, we must do as Jesus did. We must give ourselves permission to find places to practice an extra-ordinary Faith in God. Safe places. Places that honor faith. Places that allow God to do God’s extra-ordinary work through us. What better place than a place that welcomes people “whoever you are, where ever you are on their journey of faith”? This place, our beloved “spiritual oasis where lives are transformed”, here at St. Jude’s. This is a safe place to practice “extra-ordinary faith.” And when we experience God’s extra-ordinary presence here, we are free to go out into the world to practice extra-ordinary faith elsewhere.
In just a few weeks I will end my ministry at St. Jude’s. I will move on to a new “call” as Vicar of St. Philip’s, Scotts Valley. Before I go I want to remind you that throughout my 6 years of ministry here I extended you a very simple invitation. It is the invitation to be as Jesus was -- to share in this extra-ordinary faith in the One God who loves you infinitely. If you accept this invitation to participate in extra-ordinary faith, you will find your hearts filled with a deep love that removes all fear. A love that will carry you through every dark hour. A love that is already connected to the eternal presence of God in such a wonderful and full way, that the concerns of this temporal world will be transformed from worry to prayer.
We do not yet know who will be called to serve as your next Associate Rector. No doubt it will be another ordinary person, like you and me, who, by the grace of God will participate in this amazing act of living an extra-ordinary faith. Perhaps you can be like the young mother of Jesus, who first lived an extra-ordinary faith, and passed it on to her son. Perhaps your faith can lead the way.
AMEN
| Updated 7/10/06 |
|