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Photo by Cris DiNoto on Unsplash
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Sermon Preached on July
8, 2018
Proper 9B RCL
The Rev. Vicki K.
Hesse,
Director of the
Whitaker Institute, Episcopal Diocese of Michigan
Good
morning. My name is Rev. Vicki Hesse and
I serve
the Diocese as the Director of the Whitaker Institute.
The
Whitaker Institute is the educational arm of the Diocese.
Our overall purpose is (slowly)
to form disciples to carry on the ministry of Jesus Christ.
(that’s a big mission but we have a big God!)
We do this forming in three ways:
by educating, equipping and empowering
members of our faith community with lifelong formation.
Three programs you may know include:
Safe Church courses (now being revised),
“Academy for Vocational Leadership,” a local school for ordained
ministry and
“Exploring Your Spiritual Journey,” aka EYSJ,
for anyone (lay or called to ordination) to learn how God
is calling them.
These are only three of several programs.
Perhaps there will be time at coffee hour
to learn more about learning and working together
for mutual transformation.
So thank
you Priest Nikki, in absentia, for your invitation to be here today.
Now, we
take a deep breath and remember
we are
always in God’s loving presence.
May the words of my mouth
and the mediation of all our hearts be
acceptable to you,
O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
Intro: Story of
Archbishop Tutu not being welcomed
Usually,
a small town celebrates, or even exaggerates,
the
success story of a local who has made it big.
So isn’t
it curious when the opposite is true?
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu is and was respected
around
the world
for
his courage and witness
during
Apartheid in South Africa.
But
did you know that at home, in South Africa,
Archbishop
Tutu had a different experience?
His
own people wondered who he thought he was.
Matthew
Willman, documentary photographer,
interviewing
Archbishop Tutu[1],
once asked:
“You were often protested against,
wrongly quoted and many times lied about
during the long years of apartheid.
Many believed what the newspapers wrote, …
did this influence your character and goals
in life?”
Tutu responded:
“In fact no, I would have hoped…
that to some extent, the main aspect of who I was,
was already in place.
What many people would not easily believe
is that actually, I am in fact I am quite reserved.
They will say, ‘What?! that exuberant outgoing
Bishop? that very abrasive guy?”
(laughing out loud) but it’s true…..
Tutu continues,
“[That time] was painful but I learnt to try to
develop
a skin of a Rhinoceros.
I will tell you this: the reason why it was painful
was because … one of my weaknesses, one of my
several weaknesses,
is that I love to be loved and nothing could
have been more excruciating
than to be vilified as a matter of cause.’
Tutu concludes,
“… I mean Our Lord Himself said
‘A prophet is not without honor except in his own
country, his own City.’
So it wasn’t surprising and to some extent it
attested to the authenticity of what [I was] doing.”
Even
Archbishop Tutu offended, repulsed, even scandalized some people.
TT: They took offense
at him. Who does he think he is?
Today’s
gospel reading begins
with
this story of Jesus in his hometown.
Does
it strike you as strange, that the people of Nazareth
rejected
Jesus?
Many
were astounded at his teaching
and
wondered, “where did he get all this knowledge?”
In
those days, the society ruled by honor and shame
“fixed”
your social status based on your status at birth.
This
defined who you would always be.
So, perhaps
they considered it impossible
that
Jesus would amount to anything.
The
low-status, manual laborer: the carpenter.
The “son
of that Mary” (with questionable fatherhood)
with those
other brothers and unnamed sisters…
It is
clear from this reading that
Jesus
offended, repulsed, even scandalized some people.
Eugene
Peterson’s “The Message[2]”
translation
provokes
a fresh perspective, offers that
the
people who think they know Jesus,
ask,
“who does he think he is?”
TW: We take offense at
him. Who do we think he is?
This
translation is very convicting, for what about us? Who do we think he is?
Who is
this simple, brown-skinned manual laborer,
this
son of Mary, this refugee from Egypt,
this
immigrant in our midst?
Is
this Jesus really the one who can heal us from our grief, from our illness,
from
our wounded hearts and broken relationships?
Is he really
the one to take our fear away, to calm the storms of our lives,
to
cool our sun-baked garden with refreshing waters of life?
Is
Jesus really the Son of God whom we proclaim with our whole heart?
For if
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life,
how
can his teaching guide us, St. Michael’s congregation to nourish God’s people?
According
to the 2018 Kids Count Data Book[3],
released
by the Annie E. Casey Foundation,
Michigan
state’s rankings have fallen or stagnated
in the
four areas of
1.
Economic wellbeing,
2. Education
3.
Family and community
And
4.
Health
The
numbers reflect the priorities of our state’s leaders –
for if
we Michiganders want a talented workforce in the future,
then early
childhood education and
deeper
relationships between communities and families matter.
However,
this report tells the story
of undercounting
about 62,000 kids in Michigan
who
live in high-poverty areas.
Now
more than 1 in 5 children live in poverty.
If
Jesus teaches that we are to reach out to those who are hungry
and to
let the little children come to us,
are we
offended, or spurred into action, by this report?
Who do
we think he is?
Is he
offending, repulsing or scandalizing us?
GT He called them to
get over it, go out and proclaim
And
when we see ourselves in this light,
perhaps
we can empathize, then, with the twelve
who
were then called, sent out and given authority.
Jesus,
in response to this rejected stance by the people,
offered
the disciples a holy invitation.
Get
over it – get over the fact of this unbelieving, broken and crying world:
get
out there, he implied.
Jesus invited
and ordered the disciples
to a
simple yet hard, transient evangelical life of service,
living
on the kindness of strangers and
trusting
that Jesus does know what he is talking about.
Although
he did not shake off the dust when they rejected him, (his human side)
he
told the disciples to do just that when their message was refused.
For
Jesus knew that the human nature of disciples
was to
believe through their experience.
And that
once they experienced transformed lives and healed hearts and bodies,
once they
did the work and proclaimed the good news of Jesus’ expansive love,
then they
could know in their soul
the transformative
power of Love and grace and forgiveness.
GW He calls us to get
over it, go out and proclaim
And
that also applies to Jesus disciples today – us!
He
calls us to get over ourselves,
and go
out and heal the hurting, broken world through our service:
forgiving
those who hurt us
and
comforting those who are in pain,
standing
up for people made poor
by
engaging our community, families with children,
and joining
with people who are outcast or are refugees
like
those whose gardens fill St. Mike’s plot.
For it
is with the loving, liberating and life-giving Love of God that
we can
know who Jesus is..
“We do
have one thing the disciples did not,
and
that makes all the difference.
We
have experienced
the
faithfulness of God in Jesus crucified and risen.
So, we
may marvel at the unbelief around us,
but
still, we go forth –
proclaiming
and practicing our faith in Christ.”[4]
Your
actions matter – they do!
not
because you are earning God’s favor,
but because
you are responding to God’s holy invitation.
God
has chosen you, through your baptism,
not
only for salvation
but
also for meaningful, consequential lives here and now.
What
you do matters and this week,
Jesus
anoints you and commissions you
to be
agents of grace.
God
blesses all of your actions – profound and ordinary.
God
blesses you to do God’s work in the world
with
joy and love and grace.
Amen
[1] Cited by Martha Spong at this cite on
July 1, 2018 https://marthaspong.com/2012/07/07/shake-the-dust-off-your-chucks/
[2]
Cited at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+6%3A1-13&version=MSG
on July 5, 2018
[3]
Cited at http://www.aecf.org/resources/2018-kids-count-data-book/
on July 6, 2018
[4] Mark G. Vitalis Hoffman, Commentary on
Mark 6:1-13 cited at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=339 on July 2, 2018
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