Memorial United Methodist Church

---

Mark 6:1-13

He left that place and came to his home town, and his disciples followed him. 2On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary* and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offence* at him. 4Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ 5And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6And he was amazed at their unbelief.
Then he went about among the villages teaching. 7He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10He said to them, ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’ 12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

One of my children, when he was in college, was enjoying a relationship with a person from another country. He was invited to this person’s home town. When he got there he discovered that this person had a relationship with someone else also. This was not the nature of relationship my son wanted. He called me from Europe and started a conversation with a basic theological affirmation, “Dad, rejection sucks.”
I agree with my son. All of us know about rejection – in personal relationships, in the midst of divorce, in employment situations, in college applications, in political struggle, in work that is publically criticized and in many other areas. In today’s passage Jesus faces rejection and teaches his friends how to respond to rejection.

Jesus is Rejected

Jesus had been very successful and has just healed a woman who has been hemorrhaging for 12 years and revived a 12 year old child. He was gathering very large crowds. Word of his successful work has gotten back to his hometown where he has returned to teach in his own synagogue. To say the least his home congregation is filled with scoffers.

• Some say his villagers are upset that this oldest son has abandoned his mother. Jesus has at least 6 brothers and sisters. His father has died. His responsibility is to support his mother and family by continuing the work of his father’s carpenter shop. Instead he has run off to be an itinerant preacher, healer, mystic and organizer. You can hear his hometown people saying, “He thinks he is so important, but he is just avoiding what he needs to do for his mother and family. They accuse Jesus of economically abandoning his family.
• Some say his villages are struck by his ordinariness. How can Jesus be this renown person? He is Joseph’s son. He is Mary’s son. They know his brothers and sisters. They know his carpentry work. Yet -- Jesus has a sense of vocation that is different from their expectation of him. His villagers think it is beyond what anyone from their simple roots should consider.
• When Luke tells this story he adds an element not found in Mark. Jesus hometowners are so upset with Jesus that they try to throw him over a cliff. They want to end his exaggerated sense of himself and even his life. In this story Jesus walks through this angry crowd and continues on his way, never returning to his hometown. He is never again in Nazareth but is forever known as a Nazarene. Many wonder, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” The people of Nazareth seem to feel the same way about their town. In some ways, they reject their own home town.

Jesus prepares his friends for rejection

Jesus moves on from Nazareth, he teachers his friends how to deal with rejection.

• They are to travel simply – only a staff for walking, one pair of sandals and one (not even two) tunic.
• They are to depend on others for food – taking no bread or money and not even a bag to carry such things in.
• They are to be totally dependent on hospitality for food and lodging, not even taking an extra tunic for warmth for sleeping out at night.
• If they go to a home and they are rejected there they are to simply get up, shake the dust from their shoes and go on to another place. In other words, they are not to let detractors divert them from their mission – to heal, to feed, to teach, to be “people for others” as Jesus is the “person for others.” Scoffers, rejecters and detractors had the ability to stop the Jesus movement if Jesus let them do so. He did not. Jesus left his hometown rather than engage with detractors and he advises his friends and followers to do the same.

How do we deal with rejection

This is the 4th of July weekend. We are celebrating our country. Who are we? The United States is made up of people who have been rejected.

• We are people who came here from Europe where our ideas and beliefs were rejected. *We are indigenous people who were here before the Europeans and were and are rejected by the very ones we welcomed. We are rejected by the rejected ones we welcomed.
• We are Africans brought here in slave ships to provide free labor and were and are rejected by the ones who brought us here as property.
• We are Chinese brought here to build a railroad.
• We are Filipinos brought here to work in sugar fields.

Throughout our history people have come here exiled from their own countries or fleeing to here for freedom or opportunity. The story doesn’t stop. Each generation more people arrive or emerge seeking to live freely without rejection. And we still, as a country, have to be honest about the historical and continuing rejection of Africans and Native Americans.
In this land of people who have experienced rejection we are called to be a congregation of acceptance – to live as Jesus and his community of friends lived. Like them we are to stay on our mission and not diverted by scoffers, detractors and rejecters. Part of our work is to help our country also be a place of acceptance – of people of all races, sexualities, interests, cultures, abilities, ages and religions. We are a congregation of those rejected and people who side with the rejected.
I recommend the choruses of two songs as we try to live in the face of rejection: the first by Chumbawamba, which I heard a lot when one of our children was still home; and the second by Ted Warmbrant, which we sang recently with the Walkabout Clearwater Chorus in Germany.


My son is correct. Rejection does suck. But it does not have to keep us from living the lives we are called to live. It didn’t stop Jesus. And Jesus teaches us to face rejection and live.