TGBC Wednesday, 13 Jan 2021. Mark 6:1-13

 Here's this morning's story, this time from The Voice, a version that's come out in the last few years, in a similar style as The Message, except that The Voice presentation is in "parts" like reading a stage play script. See what you think! It's interesting and appealing to read as a story, though I wouldn't use it for Bible study, because I like to do a "literary criticism" approach that I was taught in seminary, that really needs a more literal word for word translation. My notes are below. 

6 Jesus went back into His own hometown where He had grown up, and His disciples followed Him there. 2 When the Sabbath came, He went into the synagogue in Nazareth and began to teach as He had done elsewhere, and many of those who heard Him were astonished.

Those in the Synagogue: Where did He gain this wisdom? And what are all these stories we’ve been hearing about the signs and healings He’s performed? Where did He get that kind of power?3 Isn’t this Jesus, the little boy we used to see in Joseph’s carpenter shop? Didn’t He grow up to be a carpenter just like His father? Isn’t He the son of Mary over there and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, Simon, and their sisters? Who does He think He is?

And when they had thought about it that way, they became indignant and closed themselves to His message.

Jesus(seeing this): 4 A prophet can find honor anywhere except in his hometown, among his own people, and in his own household.

5 He could not do any of His great works among them except with a few of the sick, whom He healed by laying His hands upon them. 6 He was amazed by the stubbornness of their unbelief.

Jesus went out among the villages teaching, 7 and He called the twelve to Him and began to send them out in pairs. He gave them authority over unclean spirits 8 and instructed them to take nothing with them but a staff: no money, no bread, no bag, 9 nothing but the sandals on their feet and the coat on their back.

Jesus: 10 When you go into a house, stay there until it is time for you to leave that town. 11 And if someone will not accept you and your message, when you leave, shake off the dust of that place from your feet as a judgment against it. On the day of judgment, that city will wish for the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah.

12 And so His disciples went out into the countryside, preaching the changed life as Jesus had taught them, 13 casting out unclean spirits and anointing the sick with oil to heal them.

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Standard procedure, upon graduating seminary I was ordained and assigned to a parish under the guidance of an experienced priest, the rector, for a training period. One of the things I found out was that it was policy never to assign a new ordinand back to his/her home parish, and there is wisdom in this: don't send the little boy/girl back home to be pampered or scorned or to feel like a child again, send the person to a place that will receive her/him as an educated adult. 

Matthew 4:13 tells us that Jesus left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum after being tempted in the wilderness. Here he met Peter, Andrew, James and John, all fishermen, and Matthew (Levi) the tax collector, five of his future disciples. So in the first part, verses 1- 6a, Jesus has returned to Nazareth of his childhood. That he was not taken seriously was almost inevitable, and it was a good lesson for him.

Note that members of the synagogue know his mother and his four brothers and his sisters, though I think the RC church may do some casuistry to preserve Mary's virginity. But after all, it's our story, everyone can tell it any way they want to, though the celibately constrained old men who lay the burden of a chaste marriage on poor Mary Ever Virgin seem obsessed with sex. IDK. An RC clergyman once told me that Mary's husband was the Holy Spirit, not Joseph, that for Joseph to be her husband would have been adultery.  

In yesterday's lesson, Jesus told the bleeding woman that her faith saved her. And it was evident that Talitha's restoration to life was thanks to her father's faith that Jesus could save her. So, I wondered if faith is a necessary ingredient in healing or salvation, and this story seems to answer the question: because of the villagers' lack of faith, Jesus could do little or nothing for them. Sort of fits Paul's soteriology too, doesn't it - - faith alone, justification by grace through faith. 

The second story above (verses 6b-13) seems to set the precedent for sending two people out knocking on doors, in my experience the Mormon boys (now girls too, I think) and Jehovah's Witnesses. Nobody climbs up to 7H to find me, but in houses where I've lived it wasn't unusual for them to knock. They were always earnest and polite folks, and I always greeted and encouraged them with kindness and respect, but AT THE FRONT DOOR or ON MY FRONT PORCH, never invited inside, did that once and couldn't get rid of them and they weren't deterred when I told them that I had my own church and wasn't interested in joining theirs. Anyway, if two are sent, there's company and courage and accountability.

Those sent out - - what are they preaching, what's their gospel? Here (verse 12 above) it says they were preaching the changed life as Jesus had taught them. This is consistent with the prayer/blessing I recalled yesterday: life is short and we haven't much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us, so be quick to love and make haste to be kind. THAT's Jesus' gospel, and it's not the same as Paul's gospel of repentance to obtain forgiveness and accept the faith of Jesus (genitive case) or have faith in Jesus (dative case, not the same) so you can be included when Jesus returns to establish the kingdom of God on earth. As we saw last Sunday, our baptismal covenant is Jesus' gospel, to live by, not to die by.

As for Paul and Paul's gospel, I'm reminded of a delightful line I heard in the eulogy at a friend's funeral recently: he wasn't always right, but he was never in doubt.

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