2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Mark 6.1-13
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| Minnesota Cornfield |
In one of the most striking moments of the New Testament, it says of Jesus, he could do no deed of
power there … he was amazed at their unbelief.
Jesus relies on the faith and hope of others … time and again, Jesus says, Your faith has done you well …
“Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.”
“Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”
“According to your faith let it be done to you.”
“Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”
At this point, we wonder …
How much faith does it take?
How big is a mustard seed?
Says Jesus, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘move’ … and it will …”
A little faith goes a long way …
So, let’s get back to the story.
A roadblock in his hometown … of all places.
Those closest to him,
from childhood on …
they know his family …
they know him as a carpenter …
he builds tables and chairs for them …
wagons and carts, chariot wheels … doors and windows … storage buildings for grain, towers for defense and siege machines for the Roman Army.
Jesus is a busy man … and then, one day, he takes it upon himself to speak to the people, of things glorious and grand, turns the world in new directions …
They’re amazed … they wonder how in the world he came to have all of this knowledge, this wisdom …
In a moment, it all goes south … they take offense at him … Who does he think he is?
Jesus says:
Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometowns, and among their own kin, and in their own house.
They know Jesus too well … but truth be told, they don’t know him at all.
Every Sunday, we try to push through what we know about Jesus to what we don’t know … maybe we know too much … maybe some of what we know needs to be tossed aside … “Oh, I know all about Jesus …” but maybe we don’t …
There is good news embedded in the story:
Jesus goes to his hometown … he wasn’t invited … he shows up by his own choice; he makes the first move … and that’s more than enough to excite my wee little Presbyterian heart …
God shows up, first …
God loves us, first …
God does what we cannot do.
God carries the cross for the whole broken world … God dies and goes to hell, into the far reaches of sorrow and death … My God, my God, says Jesus, why have you forsaken me?
On the third day, the powers of heaven roll away the stone of death … Jesus strides forth into life anew … and says to each one of us, Come along with me!
The hometown crowd is a rough one … they know so much … the know the drill … they’ve all been to Sunday School … they even read their Bibles … and haven’t learned a fresh idea in 25 years.
In the summer of 1967, my wife and I left after our wedding for a summer assignment in Florida … a church in Venice Gardens for 6 weeks, and a church in Miami for six weeks … in our light green ’63 VW bug.
In the Miami church, we lived in a large manse with the minister and his wife - and when they went on vacation, he said, “Be sure to use my office for your work.”
I did … as I looked at the shelves of books, and thumbed through some them, checking out the date of purchase if recorded … I noticed something odd … there were very few books purchased after seminary … I thought, “Here’s a man who stopped learning.” He was a good man, for sure … a little odd, or so I thought, but, then, who isn’t a little odd, now and then?
He rested on his laurels … content with what he knew … he closed the door to the future.
The hometown crowd does just that - they close the door to the future … they know too much, and they don’t know Jesus at all.
When Jesus commissions the disciples for their work, he reminds them: You need the faith and hope of others … in partnership with those to whom you proclaim the gospel, in partnership with people of all sorts and types, then the work of the Kingdom moves ahead.
Learn to lean on others, take nothing for your journey except a staff - we don’t want you stumbling and falling … take no bread, no bag, no money - when you’re hungry, knock on a few doors … wear sandals - we don’t want sore feet … and wear one tunic - if you get cold, you’ll have to lean on others for a blanket or two.
Jesus makes it clear: it doesn’t always work …
trust is disappointed,
kindness rebuffed,
love trampled in the mud …
Even the disciples will fail:
Judas betrays …
Peter denies …
the rest run away.
If it doesn’t work, don’t fret about it, says Jesus … shake the dust off and move on … it will work … some of the time, and when it works, it works very, very well.
For all of us here today:
- Keep on learning … whatever you know of Jesus is good, but there’s so much more to the story …
- Don’t fret about how much faith you have or don’t have - it doesn’t take much … whatever faith you have is more than enough for God.
- God needs us … yes, God makes the first move … that’s the gospel, but somewhere along the line God says, Come along with me, because I need you … the next step, our step, your step, to follow Christ … because God, leans on us.
- To the elders: lean on one another … don’t try to go it alone … you don’t know it all … you can’t do it all; none of us can … those who try to live out their life alone soon discover they haven’t sufficient strength to withstand the storms of life.
I close the sermon with an image - a Minnesota cornfield … if you know anything about corn, you know that the individual stalk has a shallow root system … with the simplest push, a stalk of corn falls over … but when you at look at a cornfield, you see the power of leaning on one another … acres of corn can withstand tremendous storms … each stalk leans on the other … together, they’re strong … together, they beat the odds, together, they withstand the onslaught of the storm.
Ben Franklin said it well: “We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”
Lean on one another. Build the fellowship of faith … link arms when you can, hold hands when you’re afraid … learn from one another … what we do best is what we do in the company of others.
It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it works well … and in those moments, strange and wonderful, when God leans on us and comes to our homes, our workplaces, our schools, let us be strong and let us stand tall - “Yes, God, you can lean on me!”
I give you my faith, my hope, my love!
Hallelujah and Amen!
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