July 7, 2024
Rev. Mary Erickson
2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13
The Journey Ahead Requires Some Foot Dust
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
The bishop was interviewing a senior seminarian, assigned to his district. He asked the seminary student where he would like to be assigned to his first call. The seminarian said, “Oh, Bishop, anywhere but New Canaan!”
“Why not there?” the bishop asked.
“Well,” the seminarian answered, “that’s my hometown -- and we all know that a prophet cannot be honored in his homeland.”
The bishop consoled the seminarian by assuring him, “Don’t worry my friend, nobody is going to confuse you with a prophet.”
Ouch!
In our gospel reading today, Jesus’ ministry hits an impasse. Prior to this, his ministry in the northern region of Galilee had gotten off to an explosive start. He’d healed many sick people. People sought him out wherever he went. He taught to huge crowds.
Now he was returning to his hometown of Nazareth. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue. He began to preach with the same astounding wisdom he’d been sharing throughout Galilee. But the effect in his hometown was much different than he’d received elsewhere.
Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase translation of the Bible in The Message captures the fickle views of the hometown crowd:
He left there and returned to his hometown. His disciples came along. On the Sabbath, he gave a lecture in the meeting place. He made a real hit, impressing everyone. “We had no idea he was this good!” they said. “How did he get so wise all of a sudden, get such ability?” But in the next breath they were cutting him down: “He's just a carpenter – Mary’s boy. We’ve known him since he was a kid. We know his brothers, James, Justus, Jude, and Simon, and his sisters. Who does he think he is?” They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling. And they never got any further.
These people had known Jesus since he as an infant. They knew his family. They knew his extended clan. We can hear their indignant tone when they dismiss him as a lowly carpenter who works with his hands. They know full well his level of education and his socioeconomic status. And by calling him “Mary’s boy,” with no mention of a father, it sounds as if their long memories might still recall the questionable origins of his birth.
Jesus marvels at their lack of faith in him. But what he does next is most telling: he leaves! Jesus doesn’t get bogged down in his failure at Nazareth. He simply moves on to the neighboring villages and continues his ministry.
We hear a similar refrain in his instructions to his disciples. Jesus expands his mission by sending his disciples out in groups of two. Before they leave, he gives them instructions. And his instructions include directions for what to do when things go wrong. “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that’s on your feet.”
His advice to them is the same thing he’as done at Nazareth. Just move on! Jesus remarks that shaking off the foot dust is a testimony against the people of that community. But there’s another purpose to ridding oneself of foot dust.
In getting rid of the foot dust, the disciples aren’t taking any of that old baggage with them. They’re leaving the failure behind them and moving forward. Jesus is saying, “Don’t carry it with you. Let it go. Get rid of the irritating pebble in your sandal.”
Failure can bog us down. When our hopes and plans go awry, it can have a paralyzing effect. We get stuck on that past failure, and we can’t move on. Alexander Graham Bell remarked, “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Being stuck in the past was the same difficulty the people of Nazareth were having. They couldn’t see past the Jesus they knew. They couldn’t see him in the present because of all their preconceived notions of who he was. They’d labeled him, and that was that.
When we get stuck in past failure and can’t move on, the same words could well be written of us: “Jesus could do no deed of power there.” Our regret for the past and fear that the future will be filled with more of the same prevents us from believing in the new future God has in store for us.
The promise of God’s abundant forgiveness is how we are invited to shake the dust off our feet. The transgressions of yesterday are swept away by God’s grace. Let us be assured of this! We don’t need to carry with us the guilt of yesterday’s regrets and shortcomings.
Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque was a French nun and mystic. At an early age she began to have visions of Christ. In one of her visions, she was told to seek out Father Claude de la Colombière as her confessor and spiritual director.
So she went to see Father Claude. When hearing of her visions, he remained quite skeptical. So as a test, he directed her thus: “If Jesus appears to you again, you ask him what the last mortal sin was that I confessed. If you can tell me that, then I’ll be your spiritual director.”
It wasn’t very long before Sister Margaret Mary had another vision of Christ. Afterwards, she reported back to Father Claude.
“And did you ask him my question, Sister?” he asked.
“Yes, Father, I did,” she replied.
“And what was his answer?”
She replied, “Father, these were his exact words: ‘I don’t remember.’”
Christ’s forgiveness is absolute. As the Bible tells us: “For I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more.” When Jesus forgives, there is no lingering residue. You are completely forgiven. You are made new.
In Christ’s forgiveness, we are able to brush off the dust from our inner struggle. Through confession, Christ bids you to brush off the sins that have traveled with you. And in hearing the words of his total absolution, believe that they no longer cling to you. You have been cleansed, as pure as new snow.
This for the inner dust. But there is outer dust that clings, too. Jesus sent out his disciples to be his agents in the world. We, too, are ambassadors of his kingdom. We proclaim his message of healing reconciliation. We act as agents of peace in a strife-torn and unjust world. We serve with the compassion and generosity of Christ.
But the world will not always respond favorably to our actions. We may be met with resistance. It may seem like our efforts are a drop in a bucket compared to the needs of the world. Our spirits sag. We become downhearted.
It’s a tremendous task we’ve been given by Jesus. It’s a monumental calling, and at times it seems overwhelming.
I’m reminded of the words of German theologian Dorothee Sölle. Sölle was very concerned about the intersection of faith and the world, how our faith in a loving and compassionate God informs a world steeped in violence and injustice. Working for world peace is no simple task!
Someone asked her where she found the strength and endurance to continue her efforts. She responded:
“I am thinking of a friend’s answer to that, when he talked about the cathedrals which were built during the Middle Ages. Most of them were built over 200 years, some over 300 years even, and some of the workers in those cathedrals never saw the whole building, they never went to pray there, they never saw the glass and all the beautiful things they gave their life for. And then this friend said to me, ‘Listen Dorothee, we who are building the cathedral of peace, maybe we won’t see it either. We will die before it is completed, and yet we are going to build it. We are going on even if we won’t live in that building.’”
In our journey in Christ’s name, we will get dust on our shoes. There will be regret; there will be disappointment; there will be setbacks. But Jesus’ instruction is to shake off the dust and be on our way.
What Jesus is trying to convey with the foot dust is that the past does not define us. Even the present doesn’t define us. From a faith perspective, the future defines us. And the future belongs to God. God has, in fact, already defined our future. God is shaping a new future for us, and God will accompany us all the way.
Shake off the foot dust and move on. This is what Jesus knew. It’s what he instructed his disciples and now us. Regret and despair lie in the past. But hope makes its home in the future. Brush off the foot dust and move on. Move on into the hope of God’s good future. We know our destination.
Jesus didn’t let his failure in Nazareth to stop him. He moved on to the next village. And eventually, his journey led him to Jerusalem. He entered that capital city to a king’s entrance. But in less than a week, he would be swallowed up by failure. He was betrayed by someone in his inner circle. He was arrested, beaten, and condemned to a criminal’s death.
Jesus’ ministry ended in utter failure. But it was exactly through this failure that God achieves victory over sin and death! God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
God is at work, whether in failure or in success. To either end, God’s kingdom is coming and entering our midst. We walk, knowing our final destination. We walk, knowing that in Christ, all things work together for good. We walk, knowing that all our roads will lead to Christ. Thanks be to God.
