I met the new neighbors this week. They moved in just down the street-three houses away -- into the McFadzean house. Of course I know that that house was once home to the Neumanns and the basement housed Corned Beef and Cabbage dinners along with other church gatherings--but that was several home owners ago. I shared that bit of house history with the new neighbors. Few of the rest of our cul-de-sac gathered for the annual 4th of July potluck could even remember who they bought their house from let alone previous owners. I probably wouldn't have either if I weren't pastor of this congregation.
There was a time when people seldom moved or
traveled far from home. Scholars estimate that in medieval times
few people ever traveled more than 25 miles from their birth place
their entire lives.
One problem was that there was no AAA or travelocity.com. Maps
were crude and few in number.
A traveler of even a few miles risked getting lost. Pilgrims did
make longer trips to selected holy places
but the danger and hardship made such trips high risk endeavors.
The one thing that you could be sure of was that no one moved
far from home. In fact in most cases the greatest move children
made was from one bedroom to another, or maybe to a place built
out back for the newly weds who eventually were expected to move
into the "big" house when the old couple became too
old to care for themselves. A son might go out to explore or even
see the world but he never went too far, and he was always expected
to return home. So it was that Jesus came to his hometown.
Those of us who grew up in rural communities
know that identity is often given to us by place and past just
as in the first century A.D. The family gathering in Minnesota
for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary two weeks ago reminded
me of this fact. Over the course of the afternoon reception and
open house I was identified regularly as the oldest of Don and
Ona's boys, and if they were local folks
there would be the added identity of being Ole Knutson's grandson.
My parents live on the old Knutson farm-for almost 25 years now--it's
still not the Meyer place--yet. As one of my brothers observed
the land is never really yours until everyone who remembers who
first owned it is gone--and people live a long long time around
here. He should know--he has lived on his place for almost 15
years but it is still known as the Swenson grove, and my sister
has lived for a decade now in the Lindahl house.
Jesus returned to his hometown, teaching in the synagogue where those who heard him identified him as the carpenter because that is what his father had been (Mark doesn't mention Joseph by name possibly because he was dead and it was not proper to speak of the dead, but everyone knew that Jesus was the carpenter's son which meant that he also was a carpenter.) Jesus is also identified by his family--the son of Mary, brother of James and Joses, Judas and Simon as well has having sisters.
Identity is important, if for no other reason than that it provides us with the ego strength we need to make good choices-wise decisions. We know that the single most important factor in predicting the ability of young people to thrive in school and society in general is ego strength which comes most often from a clear sense of identity and centeredness. Children who move communities and schools too often seldom have the ego strength to succeed. They lack a sense of place identity, while other young people from dysfunctional families struggle to find the center of their identity that will enable them to grow and thrive.To have a clearly defined moral and spiritual center is not something that happens automatically.The foundations of faith are laid early--the moral categories defined young. The development of these gifts takes nurture--too easily ignored. There was a time when it was the norm to build one's life from a spiritual center. To explore the world from a faith center. But we are a modern people and many no longer remember where their faith began. It is harder and harder to find our moral and spiritual center.
We know that Jesus moved as an adult from Nazareth (population of maybe 150) to the lakeside community of Capernum, a more cosmopolitan setting of fishermen-stone works, a growing synagogue and Roman soldiers with the supporting businesses. The move was only a few miles but took Jesus from the rural farm community to the more diverse commercial community.
In the first five chapters of Mark's Gospel
Jesus collects his disciples and performs his ministry mostly
of teaching and healing, like the dramatic healing of the Gerasene
demoniac, the hemorrhaging woman, and raising Jarius' daughter
from the dead. Those healed believed and many who witnessed believed,
so we should expect that when Jesus finally enters his own land
among his own people that they would be grateful for his ministry
and receptive to his teachings. This turns out not to be the case.
There may be a certain irony to this rejection because Jesus is
rebuffed not so much because of his message but for the perceived
violation of familial or community standards of some kind. It
is not that Jesus' teachings in the synagogue were wrong-headed
or even heresy. The Gospel writer makes it clear that the hearers
were astonished and maybe even edified. Jesus' offense is that
he said something new and different
in terms of the codes of thought and behavior that were ingrained
in the community of Nazareth.
The issue is not that the people perceived it as blasphemy or
heresy, it is that they perceived one of their own doing or saying
something and "that's not the way we do things or say things
around here."
It is a phrase too often repeated: "We
don't do things that way around here"?
or maybe "The way we always do things is." Most of us
have spoken such words or at least thought them, maybe about something
in the worship service-or Sunday school or choir, maybe about
something in the community or our work. It is part of the way
we relate to our families and community. We develop routines and
expectations of behavior. We can tell a Smith by his dress
or a Jones by her vocation or a MacDonald by their denomination.
Many a family member (and not just in-laws) are given marginal
identity because they don't really fit in to the style or expectations
by which the family majority identifies itself. (I will forever
be known as "the one from Chicago"
who lives more than 100 miles from home.)
Some psychologists and sociologists tell us that culture depends on some sort of categories for its members to identify who is friend and who is foe--who is one of us and who might be against us.
Brian Childs of Columbia Theological Seminary
suggests that what gives us our identity as believers
Is the story we tell about ourselves and our relationship with
God. We also create stories to help us identify those around us.
The simplest stories are based on place--she's from Madison-he
grew up on a farm in Indiana--or based on work or family-he has
two boys-she works for Anderson. He is a carpenter from Nazareth.
Home town knowledge packages us prematurely--limits who we are--what we have become-what we are capable of being and doing.
Jane Santana was a successful New York psychologist. After high school she left her small town origins for college--graduate school--an excellent New York practice followed, but when her mother became ill she decided to come home and take care of her. She reasoned that she could develop a practice in her home town but no one came to her office-ultimately she had to move back to the city. It seemed no one could forget the quiet, shy little girl she had once been--they could not imagine her helping them with any problems.
I think of classmates of mine and wonder--would I be able to be comfortable with the classmate who became a surgeon operating on me when I remember the way he mowed down the neighbor's flower bed that one summer, or how about the optomologist performing that delicate eye procedure when everyone remembers that fumble that cost the game back in '69. We lock people into their past sins and triumphs, and we limit the present and close off the future.
Based on what the hometown folks knew about Jesus we are told their unbelief closed them off from the miracles and wonder he brought and proclaimed. It is often tempting to embrace Jesus by what we can claim about Him. We know Jesus-many of us have known him all our lives--we are old friends from Bible camp-confirmation retreats. We have our stories to tell about him--Sunday school stories actually that provide for us a Sunday school faith. What is your earliest memory of Jesus? More importantly, what is your most recent experience with Him? When Jesus stood before his old friends in Nazareth he was not a past memory but a present reality. Unfortunately, few could see the one who stood before them. Each Sunday-each day-we are confronted by the words and power of the present Christ--but like the people of Nazareth it is easy to interpret the present through the filters of comfortable past memories. And Jesus was amazed at their unbelief.
We don't like to see our world change--most of us are overwhelmed by change. We like to hold on to some things the way they were--to the order of things the way we like them. But people move on--Our God moves on-into the future. That is what life is all about--change--not always in the ways we would like or prefer.
A woman went with her husband to the doctor's office. After the doctor finished his examination of the man, he took the wife aside and said to her: "If you want your husband to live, there are some things that you're going to have to do. First, each morning, get up and fix him a healthy breakfast and send him off to work in a good mood. Second, each evening, fix him an especially nice meal and don't burden him with any household chores. And finally, you need to satisfy his every wish. If you want your husband to live, those are the things that you're going to have to do." On the way home, the man asked his wife what the doctor had said. The wife replied: "Bad news, dear. You're going to die."
We do not give up our old ways easily. The changing world brings us to new understandings of life with God.
We know Jesus--we know our God. We know when and where to look for justice-grace-miracle and healing--yet we limit our ability to see-hear-experience-this Jesus.
It is only by God's grace that we can embrace the present and open ourselves to the future.
That's what grace is all about--Jesus standing
in the hometown synagogue. Jesus in the most familiar places and
most expected moments surprising us in word and deed, inviting
us to discover new ways of seeing what we think we already understand.
Encouraging us to welcome new neighbors to share in God's table
of grace. Opening our hearts and minds to discover new meanings
to familiar old sayings.
Familiar sayings about--love of neighbor--life everlasting--hope
in the face of despair.
It is still important to come home now and then--to remember where we come from. To know whose we are--baptized by grace. To know where we come from-God's table of grace. To know where we are headed--God's kingdom awaits.
With this sense of place, purpose and direction Jesus sent forth his disciples--Jesus sends us forth.
Amen.