“Keep on trusting!”

This is the manuscript from the sermon preached on 7/8 July.  The accompanying scripture is Mark 6:1-12.

           

“Jesus was amazed at their unbelief.”  That’s how Jesus reacts to the home town crowd.  He is amazed at their unbelief.  Jesus, the mover and the shaker, the calmer of storms and bringer of new life, the one who comes with healing in his hands, can get no more than a tepid applause from those in his home town.  Yes, he lays his hands on a few people and he is able to cure them, but beyond those isolated incidents, the people just look at him in disbelief.  His own people, his family, his distant kinfolk, cannot believe what they are seeing or what they are hearing.  So Jesus just shakes his head and walks away. 

This is an important moment for the movement of Mark’s Gospel.  We should not tread lightly here, even though it seems convenient to glaze over this issue of the home crowd’s unbelief and pass it off as them being too familiar with Jesus, with the boyhood Jesus or whatever other image they had of Jesus.  Something much larger is at stake. 

So far in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has only been rejected by the demonic forces he encounters, the religious leaders who are plotting to kill him, and folks from a gentile town who watched in horror as Jesus ran their herd of pigs into the sea.  This moment occurs in Jewish country, the home town folk, and begs us to look deeper.  This moment was not expected, but in the long arc of Mark’s Gospel, it foreshadows the ultimate rejection of Jesus, the Messiah, by the very people he was sent to serve.  This is a moment that foreshadows the cross. 

The word at the center of this moment is unbelief, ἀπιστίαν, but I think that it is better translated as “lack of faith.”  The root of this word is πίστις, the word we translate as faith.  It is the lack of faith by the home town crowd that hinders Jesus from his ministry of teaching and healing.  It is a lack of faith the keeps Jesus from the deeds of power that he has performed up to this point in the story.  It is a lack of faith that stops the kingdom of God in its tracks in the home town of Jesus and causes him to walk away.  The home town folk do not seem to have faith that Jesus can help them and so he is left powerless in their midst.  And it is heart breaking.   

            And what is so heart breaking about this lack of belief, this lack of faith, is the lack of response by the people.  Jesus comes to town offering a relationship and is met with silence.  In every healing story so far in Mark’s Gospel, at the heart of what takes place, is someone reaching out to Jesus and Jesus responding with grace and healing.  The kingdom of God breaks into the world through Jesus taking interest in people and their well-being.  The kingdom of God is about giving people new life through love and service.  And that’s exactly what Jesus offers.  He loves people.  He reaches out to meet their needs.  Jesus is all about forming relationships.  But in his home town he is met with no response.  The sick are left at home.  The troubles are left on the shelf.  No one comes forward for help of any kind, as if there is nothing wrong in the world which is laughably untrue.  And Jesus is amazed at their lack of faith.            

Because faith has everything to do with action.  Faith is not static or stationary, faith is on the move.   As Frederick Buechner writes, “Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession.  It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all.  Faith is not being sure of where you’re going, but going anyway. ” Faith is not something we have, it is something that we live out with our lives.  Faith is about relationships.  Faith is about trusting God and others.  Faith and trust lie at the heart of our relationship with God and one another.   

Last week we heard the story of Jarius the Synagogue leader and his dying daughter.  I am sure Jarius believed in Jesus, but it was faith and trust that led Jarius to seek out Jesus and fall at his feet.  And when the bad news came from the house, I am sure Jarius’ faith slipped away, but Jesus was right beside him.  “Do not fear.  Keep on believing.”  Or to get at the heart of what Jesus is saying; “Do not fear!  Keep on trusting!”  Keep on trusting Jarius.  Because if Jesus can raise the bleeding woman to new life, then surely he can raise your daughter.  There is enough power to go around.  Keep on trusting.  That is faith.    

Faith and trust give us the courage to take the first steps of the journey of following Jesus.  Yes we may believe in Jesus and believe in what he has to say, but he is asking us to follow.  Jesus is asking us to trust him as we walk along the way of discipleship.  Jesus is asking us to trust him as we participate in the kingdom of God by loving and serving our neighbors.  And friends, we are empowered for the journey.  Just as he sent the disciples out with his authority, he sends us out empowered and set free to follow and serve.    

A little over a year ago I was invited to preach at my home church.  I went to preach to the home town crowd.  At the time my home church was engaged in a heated debate that was dividing the faith community.  I was scared out of my mind.  Clearly it was a moment that I knew I would be accepted or rejected for, but it was a moment where the rubber met the road of taking the steps of faith and trusting that Jesus was already part of the journey.  Trusting that God’s kingdom is already at work in our world.  To this day there are people who will not speak to me or acknowledge my presence, but the good news was shared and the kingdom was proclaimed.  Jesus calls us not to dwell in the moments of rejection.  He empowers us to move on and keep spreading the Gospel.  Not to worry over being rejected, but to rejoice in the kingdom.  To rejoice in God’s love for all.  To let go and trust in God. 

Is it risky to live out our faith by following Jesus?  Yes.  Will we be met with opposition as we spread the good news about God?  Yes.  Might we be rejected when we try to love and serve others in the name of Jesus?  Clearly!  If today’s story from Mark is any indication, the way of following Jesus will be filled with both acceptance and rejection.  If we follow Jesus, there will be times when we will be both loved and potentially hated for loving and serving God.  But Jesus is right there beside us, “Do not fear!  Keep on trusting!”     Jesus has empowered us, just as he empowered the disciples, to spread the good news of God’s kingdom with all whom we met.  Jesus calls us to respond to what we believe by taking the steps of faith and trust!

            Dear friends, we have been entrusted with the good news of God’s kingdom and have been called to share that good news with the world. Through our baptism into Jesus Christ, we have been empowered to take the steps of faith and to follow Jesus along the way of discipleship.  We can trust that Jesus will be with us as we love and serve our neighbors.  Do not fear people of God, keep on trusting.  Keep on following Jesus.  May God stir up your faith, this day and always, as you share the good news of God’s love with the world.