July 5, 2009 Sermon
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Proper 9 - B 2009
July 5, 2009 Allan Conkling
It is one of the blessings of the summer months for many in our congregation to be able to get away from San Angelo, and have a break from the routine, if even for a little while. We are creatures of habit, yet an occasional change of pace is healthy. When we get away and return home things always have a new perspective. In this morning's Gospel reading Jesus was not on vacation, but he too had been away from his home town for a while and was now returning. And what a difference the time away made!
When I say, he had "been away" it is really only in a manner of speaking. So far as we know his entire life, with the exception of the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt, was lived out in an area of no greater distance than from here to Abilene. The majority of his adult ministry as recorded in Mark took place just about 15 miles or so from his home town of Nazareth. That makes sense since people did not travel much in those days. We speak of our freedom- of having an inalienable right, as John Wayne famously said in his speech in the movie, The Alamo:
"Republic...it means people can live free, talk free; go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose."
That of course was not the case in Jesus' day. In a town like Nazareth with only a few hundred people everyone knew everyone else, and everyone new his or her place in life and what was expected. So when the carpenter's son, turned itinerant rabbi, came home you can bet that there was much debate and not a few comments. "Who does he think he is?" "Where does he get the notion that he can cure the sick, calm the storms, or (God forbid) raise people from the dead?" "He is nothing but a son of a carpenter."
None of us likes change. Change causes anxiety and stress. But life does go on. It has to. It is a fact that if for example, you if you are confined to a hospital bed for too long, you get weaker simply from inactivity. Life is growth and growth means change. Stop growing and changing and you die. It was precisely this call to change and seeing life from a different perspective that the message of Jesus was all about...and what got him into trouble.
None of us stays the same forever. As the old hymn says:
"Time like a rolling stream bears all our years away. They die forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day."
Anger over change and fear of change is what has propelled a lot of religious groups to embrace fundamentalism. It is at the heart all of the internecine warfare that has happened in our own Episcopal denomination. The endless laments over the state of religion just like the nation have become stale and predictable: Liberals blame conservatives, Conservatives blame liberals. Christians blame the Jews or Muslims…and of course everybody blames the atheists. We forget that without change and growth, we languish and drown in the backwater of banality.
I don't want to get too preachy here, but it is interesting that Mark says that Jesus could do no deed of power in his hometown, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them(!) Imagine what he could have done had they been open to him? Imagine what he could do here, now if we would fully open our minds, hearts and hands in Christ’s name?
These are the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. We long for the moments when we can sit back, be lazy, and let life pass us by. But just like in a game of sandlot baseball, it’s the occasional change-up or curve ball that is going to keep us on our toes.
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Revised: 07/19/09