Building Prophets

Mark 6:1-13

May the words of my mouth be acceptable to you, O Lord, and encourage us to be ‘sent out’ to spread the Good News. Amen.

We heard in the Gospel:

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 him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? 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. (Mark 6:1-3)

He was REJECTED by the people who knew him the most – his own hometown! His own neighbors refused to accept his teaching. Imagine if you went home to visit and everyone said:

“We know exactly where you come from, boy! Remember your place!”

As my grandmother used to warn me when I got high and mighty:

“Don’t get too big for your britches!

Jesus went back to preach and teach in his own hometown, and the people there—his own neighbors—refused to accept his teaching. They were listening to the message; they knew he was speaking with wisdom and acting with the power of God, but they rejected him anyway! They got hung up over His social status – he was one of them, not some famous rabbi or theologian. He was a common person, with whom some of them had played, went to school and, even got in trouble.

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things - Jesus was indeed doing some extraordinary things, though he was quite ordinary. He was healing people; he was driving out demons; he was challenging the status quo and confronting the religious establishment.

The people in Jesus’ hometown acknowledged this or at least some of this. They said,

“What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands.”

So what was holding them back? Why couldn’t they join in and be part of the movement of Jesus’ teachings? Why couldn’t they participate with Jesus in what he called the kingdom of God?

They rejected him – afterall,

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon, and

are not his sisters here with us?”

Then Mark added,

And they took offense at him.

They took offense.

Why?

Because they knew his family; because he was a carpenter by trade; because he was so ordinary. How could someone so ordinary be so extraordinary? And this astounded them.

The text says that Jesus was

“amazed at their unbelief”

They could not believe because they could not see, and they could not see because they couldn’t get past how ordinary Jesus was. They couldn’t get past their limited worldview, their narrow vision of reality, and so they couldn’t believe that Jesus could be more than a boy from Nazareth!

But, being rejected did not stop Jesus from following his mission on earth - he kept preaching and teaching his disciples how to follow in his footsteps after he was no longer on the earth. The disciples were not ‘getting it’, but he never gave up – he kept on teaching and preaching and healing.

We all face rejection in our lives, sometimes because of some skill we lack, because we say something that isn’t mainstream, or we support others who may not be a member of ‘the gang’.

What can we do when we face rejection?

Clebe McClary is a wounded Vietnam Veteran who lost an eye and an arm fighting for our country. He had an acrostic he lived by: F.I.D.O. He said it stood for “Forget It and Drive On.”

• Bad things happen in life, he said, and when they do,

F.I.D.O: Forget it and drive on.

• You meet some bad people in life, and when you do,

F.I.D.O: Forget it and drive on.

• You don’t succeed in a task; then,

F.I.D.O: Forget it and drive on.

F.I.D.O: Forget it and drive on.

Theodore Roosevelt once said,

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat” [1].

That same advice applies to each of us – as we try to live in the way Jesus wants.

Even if we don’t recognize them, we have prophets/disciples/apostles in our very midst – they are not always famous or noteworthy or even members of the uppercrust. They may be the person sitting next to you or living on your block.