Coming Home

This sermon was preached on Sunday 4th July 2021; the morning after the England football team qualified for their first semi-finals in the Euros in 25 years! The gospel that morning was Mark 6:1-13.

In today’s Gospel we heard the story of what happened when Jesus – after travelling throughout nearby villages, towns and cities, performing miracles, healing the sick and bringing God’s good news – much like football, came home.

 

Coming home (well, I had to, didn't it?)

You’d think that ought to be a joyous occasion, seeing family and friends again after so long, welcomed back to a home-cooked meal and perhaps even praised as the famous celebrity preacher everyone has been talking about, but… things were quite different.

 

Jesus, it seems, was none too popular back home.

We all know this story – a favourite of many a teenage Christian: ‘a prophet is not without honour except in their home town’. Except this is actually more than a belittling; the people aren’t just dismissive of Jesus – they’re offended by him.

In their astonishment at his teaching in the synagogue, we hear the hometown crowd say “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!”, and we assume no value or bias other than astonishment in their questions. But, when we hear in the following verse Mark specifically call out that they ‘took offence at him’, perhaps we should put some emphasis in their questions:

“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!”

What is the cause of this offence, though? There is a clue in what they say next: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary…?” Notice he’s not called out as the son of Joseph, which would be the normal way to refer to someone, especially as they call out that he’s following in Joseph’s profession. No – he’s not mentioned as Joseph’s son, or even Mary & Joseph’s son; he’s just Mary’s.

Now, of course, knowing our Bible, we read into that the context of the virgin birth. But that’s not what the people of Jesus’ home town are thinking. They remember Mary thirty years ago as an unwed pregnant girl, and the scandal and shame brought upon their village still stinks. So, just who does Jesus, her illegitimate son, think he is? He up-and-left their community, to go parading around the country, coming across as the Big I AM, and now he’s back. They know where he started from, and he is no better than any of them. The village has turned against him.

But surely, even though his home community rejected him, his family were there to support him? His brothers and sisters with whom he grew up would not think of that scandal in the same way, and would be there for him, wouldn’t they? That’s what families do, after all, isn’t it? They’re there for each other.

Not so, it seems. For Mark calls out they were also part of that crowd in the synagogue. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Jesus has returned home to his family in Mark’s gospel – and it didn’t go so well for him last time either. Last time Jesus was here, the talk was all about how he’d actually gone mad, and the religious people were saying he was possessed by the devil. And Jesus family believed the crowds. His family came out to – as Mark calls out – restrain Jesus. And when they sent someone to get Jesus, saying his family were asking for him, Jesus disowned his own family. “Who are my family?”, he asked – and gesturing to those sitting with him he said “Here; this is my family. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Harsh.

It’s clear there’s some tension here. And I’m not so sure it’s undeserved. Jesus is rejected by his community and his family, but only because he rejected them first – or at least the trappings involved therein.

Now, I think of family and the life of a local community as a great thing. I hope you do too; but we need to be aware this is not always the case. A close-knit family or community can be an absolute blessing when they’re looking out for – and after – each other. But when that close-knit group places itself above the needs of the individual, it can be limiting, stifling or even dangerous; dictating things like who you must or must not marry, how you spend your money, or how you chose to live your life.

It’s this notion of family and local-community that Christ rejects; one that obliges and traps, and also excludes. Christ calls us instead to a wider, more open vision of family – a community of people who do the will of God; a family of freedom, inclusive of all. It sounds idyllic, but remember, Jesus practising that very thing led to people thinking he’d gone mad, and that he was possessed by the devil. When you include the excluded; when you allow people the freedom to be who God calls them to be, and when that community of misfits and oddballs and rejects love each other as family, then that new type of family can look like a threat to ‘traditional’ village or family life. It can be messy and uncomfortable too. It will lead people to ask, just as they did of Jesus, who do these people think they are? But… that new type of family can truly be transformative; a representation of God’s kingdom on Earth.

In the past few years, we’ve all faced questions of what it means to be a real family in a virtual world, of what community looks like when we can’t meet communally and how we can include those members of our society who are unable to partake in online catchups and meetings. As we look towards the horizon of leaving covid restrictions behind, we have an opportunity to renew and redefine our own vision of community here at St Michael’s, to choose to be Jesus’ brothers and sisters and mother, and to see each other as the same. Let us take it.

 

Amen.