A Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Have you ever been underestimated? When you were in school or in your workplace? By your family or your peers? Because of a learning disability or your gender? Was it your youth and lack of experience that made them doubt your skill, or was it the Southern drawl in your voice that made them overlook your intelligence? If we had the time, I bet we could go around this room and every single one of you could share something someone said to you that was devaluing, unkind, and untrue, despite your earnestness and your actual skill. As a five-foot petite woman in ordained ministry, who looks younger than I actually am, I’m all too aware of the need to explain myself, defend my place in this pulpit.
And I often think of all the saints before, from Noah to David and Daniel, Sarah to Hannah and Esther, all people who loved God and listened to God’s call on their life yet were underestimated and overlooked by those around them. Just because we are doing what we are meant to do, and our intentions are pure and we are walking with God, does not mean that we will be met with ease and success and understanding. As we see in our Gospel today, not even Jesus the lord and savior himself had an easy time of it.
He’s on his homecoming trip, making his debut appearance back in his hometown for the first time since he has gotten on the ministry circuit. Surely they’d heard of what he’s been up to as an adult, but it’s not until now that he stands in the same streets he used to play in, before the same people who watched him grow. They are at first sort of impressed but also they are so quick to shut him down, to remind him of his family trade as a mere carpenter, and to point out that he is Mary’s son, that he has no proper father to speak of. That he better stay in his place and stay in line. I imagine them raising their eyebrows and getting rowdy and irritated and maybe even spitting at him just to drive home the point that they are unimpressed and uninterested in what he has to say and do.
What a letdown! A huge contrast to the “hometown hero” story that this could have been. No parade through the street, no ceremony with the mayor presenting the key to the town. Just a bunch of haters who have gone and made up their mind about exactly who this guy is.
In a way, their unbelief that Jesus, who is the Son of God, is anything more than the illegitimate son of a teenage girl, limits what he can do there. The gospel writer notes that he could do no great deeds of power there. How can he show them his healing power if they won’t let him in, let him know them, let him touch them?
His trip home is a failure. Their disparaging comments and their doubting minds have gotten in the way and Jesus’ great opportunity to show and teach them about the wonderful work of God in him and in this world is squashed.
But, BUT, the narrator Mark sneaks in that, well, he actually did lay hands on a few people and cure them. And, oh yeah, he did have all his disciples with him, and they were able to go out on his behalf. Despite the hostile hometown and the unwelcoming neighbors and the general unbelief of all those they encountered, they were still able to accomplish great works, casting out demons and anointing the broken and curing the sick.
So, on the one hand, we are looking at a bust here. No parade, no mass conversions. Jesus’ lack of success seems tied to the lack of trust and faithlessness of these people… On the other hand, he still did some healing and the disciples gained some authority and they cured some folks and the fact of the matter is that God. still. showed. up. Maybe not in some GRAND way, but in a more subtle sense.
Despite all that was stacked against them that day, God broke in. Even when the belief of the people fell through, God came through. Even when their faith failed, God proved faithful.
Because that’s the kind of God we have. Not one that is bound to the perception of the people. If that was the case, then the gospel would have made it no further than Bethlehem on the night Jesus was born. If that was the case, then Jesus’ death on the cross would have put a halt to it all. If that was the case, then all those men and women in scripture and those modern-day saints among us who have been mocked and misjudged would have been on a mission to nowhere.
But it is the persistence of God’s people and the power of the Spirit and the grace of Jesus Christ at work in this world that, together, makes things happen, that casts out the evil and binds up the brokenhearted and heals the sick among us.
Often, really, the healing in this world happens in spite of this world. As Paul points out in his letter to the Corinthians, whether it’s our unbelief, our being misunderstood, or our own misunderstanding, whether it’s the calamities of our natural world or the hatred from the hands of another or the weakness of these bodies and souls, there is plenty to get in the way of goodness and life. But Paul also reminds us that it is precisely these things which highlight the grace and the power of God in Jesus Christ. It is precisely when all seems lost and we are faced with failure that we are finally, finally, able to see that it’s not up to us to be made well.
It is when we’ve reached our limits that God shows us his limitless goodness and love and mercy. And it is then when we can acknowledge our utter dependence on God. And it is there that those who have yet to know God might no longer be able to deny the holy at work in the world, because the only way that healing and joy and love and grace and light could possibly break through in this crazy place is by the unending, unlimited, and undeterrable power of the divine, the three in one, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev. Kilpy Singer