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Sermon Delivered to
Dighton United Methodist
Church
July 9, 2006
Scripture: 2nd Corinthians
12:2-10; Mark 6:1-3
We just heard how Jesus was rejected and
shut out by his home town folks. They couldn’t believe he could have
anything to share with them that really mattered. That is probably an
important message for a brand-new lay speaker to hear as he delivers his
first message before his friends and neighbors. Was it just coincidence
that scriptural passage was scheduled for this week?
It may be surprising that Jesus was
rejected, and yet we know that’s just the way that folks are. We tend
to deny or overlook the potential in that which is too familiar. A man
must be at least 50 miles away from home before he can be regarded as an
expert. It has also been said that prophets are best when they are far
away and long ago, but here the people of Nazareth had of one of their
own in their midst, speaking with great authority. But they didn’t know
Jesus as we now do. They didn’t know him as Jesus the Christ, Jesus the
Messiah. To them he was just Jesus, the apprentice carpenter from down
the street, saying and doing things he had no right to be saying and
doing. And don’t you just know that after he spoke in the synagogue
that day, there was someone that said, “I’m sorry, but that new preacher
just didn’t do a thing for me.” But their rejection of Jesus isn’t the
most surprising thing about this passage. The really surpising, even
amazing thing, is this: “He could do no deed of power there, except that
he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” He was able to
physically heal a few folks who were open to his touch, but it is
obvious that he intended and wanted to do much more. He wanted to
minister to the spiritual needs of the people, to provide them with
spiritual growth and healing, which is so much more important than
physical growth and healing. And yet, “he could do no deed of power
there”, and “he was amazed at their unbelief”. Wow. The power of
Jesus, the power of God, was blocked by the resistance, the
indifference, the unbelief, of the people. Isn’t that something?
Divine power can be effective only when we are open to it and have
faith. The current slogan of the United Methodist Church is surely
true. We must have open hearts and open minds in order for the Holy
Spirit to work in and through us. Divine power is not unilateral, but
instead it is relational. It depends on openness on our part. Its
effect depends on our response and our faith. It has been said that
God’s power goes unused if we are not faithful enough to accept what God
offers us. One summer a drought threatened the crops in a small
community. On a hot, dry and windy Sunday, the pastor told his
congregation “There isn’t anything that will save us except to believe
in the power of Jesus and pray for rain. Go home, pray, believe, and
come back next Sunday ready to thank God for sending rain.” The people
did as they were told and returned to church the following Sunday. But
when the pastor saw them he was greatly saddened. “Go back home,” he
said, “We can’t worship today. You do not yet believe.” “But,” they
protested, “we prayed, and we do believe.” “Oh yeah,” said the pastor,
“Then where are your umbrellas?” Are we like that congregation? How
deep is our faith?
So does this mean that if we only have
enough faith then our prayers will be answered, and we will be healed
and the rains will come? No, the example of Paul is a demonstration
that this isn’t true. Paul has some serious affliction that is
bothering him greatly. Bible scholars have speculated about what this
might have been, but no one knows for sure. It might have been a
chronic disease such as malaria, or maybe migraines, epilepsy, partial
paralysis, or even continual temptation. But whatever it was, he
doesn’t just pray to God about it, he pleads with God to remove it, not
once but three times. Well, God answers his prayer, but his answer is
no. In effect God tells him, “I love you and I know your affliction is
serious, but I want you to learn to deal with it. I know you have the
capacity to be an effective apostle even in spite of your affliction,
and in the end it will make you stronger.” So we can’t expect that our
prayers will always be answered in the way we want them to be answered,
no matter how much faith we have, but a hardened heart and a stiff neck
makes it very difficult for divine power to operate in our lives. It
occurs to me that we are like the Nazarenes in another way as well.
Think about our prayer list for an average Sunday. Usually it is
composed mostly of requests for healing and comfort for those suffering
physical infirmities. Physical wellbeing is important and shouldn’t be
overlooked, but just like in the case of the Nazarenes, Jesus wants to
do much more in our lives than merely heal us physically. The
unanswered question is whether we will let him.
When we hear that Jesus was amazed at their
unbelief we can sense the disappointment he must have felt. But he
accepts it and moves on. He organizes his disciples to go out into the
surrounding towns in groups of two and spread his message. But look at
how he tells them to prepare. He says take nothing but a walking
staff. No food, no money, not even a spare tunic. Isn’t that strange?
Why would he do that? He is setting his disciples up to be dependent on
the people they will be ministering to. They have no food or money, so
they are going to have to depend on strangers in the towns they visit to
provide for their daily needs of food and shelter. How will that
happen? They will have to make friends; they will have to develop
relationships with the folks in those towns. And Jesus understands that
then the townspeople will be more receptive to the disciples’ message.
He understands that when the disciples are willing to humble themselves
to the point of being dependent on others that they begin to form a real
relationship with them. And when a relationship exists, the townspeople
are more open and willing to be ministered to. Instead of
self-sufficiency, Jesus wanted to emphasize and demonstrate communal
dependency. Note also that by sending the disciples out in this
fashion, Jesus is encouraging them to have faith as well… faith that
God, working through the folks in the towns they visit, will provide for
their daily needs.
We know that as Christians each of us is
called to be in ministry to others. And although we sometimes like to
pretend that the Great Commission, “go into the world and make disciples
of all nations” applies only to pastors and missionaries, we know that
Jesus was actually speaking to each of us who would call ourselves
Christians. And yet we find ways to rationalize our inaction. I can’t
address a crowd, we say, but Moses was a lousy public speaker. We are
distracted by physical problems, but Paul persevered in spite of his
afflictions. We may say we are too old, but Abraham was quite old.
When we concentrate on excuses such as these we are falling into the
same trap that the Nazarenes did when they overlooked the potential in
Jesus. We are overlooking the potential in ourselves. But God knows it
is there, and he is ready to use that potential if we will only have
faith. God doesn’t see you in terms of who you are right now and where
you’ve been, he sees you in terms of who you can be. Let it not be said
of us that “he could no deed of power there”.
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