Who Do You See?
Zephyr United Methodist Church
Early First United Methodist Church
July 16, 2006
Rev. Eddie Smart
Mark 6:1-6 (NRSV)
He left that place and came to his hometown, 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 offense at him. 4Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, 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.
Who do we see when we look at Jesus? Do we spend enough time with Jesus to know who he is? Have we lived with Jesus and experienced life with him?
Jesus comes to his hometown. He is followed by his disciples. Now you would think that people would see a man with disciples as someone who was worthy of listening to. You would think the hometown folk would be impressed, and as we read today's text there was that brief moment that you thought they saw the unexpected in Jesus. There was a moment that you felt like they knew they were in the presences of the Son of God, the Savior, the Messiah. There was that brief moment.
"On 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!" (Mark 6:2)
But wait a minute! This is a carpenter, the son of a carpenter? If you want to know about wood, construction, or carving, he's your man, but if you want to know about things sacred...well he's only a carpenter. We wouldn't expect him to know about such stuff.
We have learned in Mark’s telling of the gospel that:
Jesus has already taught in the synagogues of Galilee.
He has healed lepers and paralytics.
He has freed a man from demons
and calmed the stormy sea.
He has healed a woman with a hemorrhage of 12 years
while on his way to bring life to a dead girl.
The hometown boy
has taught with parables about sowers and seed,
taught acceptance of the unacceptable.
He has brought new meaning to the law
introduced by Moses.
But wait, we know his brothers, we can call them by name. Why his mother even grew up in our village! This man is a carpenter. We don't expect anything earth shattering out of him.
What we see depends on what we choose to see. When the people of Nazareth looked at Jesus, they didn't expect very much, so they chose not to see very much. What do we expect? Who do we see when we look at Jesus?
Martin Marty is a Lutheran pastor and teacher of pastors. As the contributing editor to The Christian Century, he once wrote about visiting a Benedictine abbey in Richardton, North Dakota. In his article, he was responding to a New Yorker article that concluded with the words, "Dakotans are losers." Marty thinks otherwise.
He recalls that, in the mid-70s, some of the good Christian folk of North Dakota decided that they wanted to establish a Jewish-Christian dialogue, so they asked Marty to bring them a Jewish theologian. Marty invited his friend, Rabbi Samuel Sandmel. They flew together to Bismarck and then drove to the abbey at Richardton. The further they went, the more nervous Rabbi Sandmel became. Marty was convinced that the good rabbi had never in his life traveled northwest of Chicago.
[The rabbi didn't know what to expect? Or maybe he had expectations.] Driving through the Great Plains can be pretty scary, because you are so alone. What happens if the car breaks down? Will anyone ever find us? Are there coyotes (pronounced kai-oh-tees)? Do the coyotes eat people? Are we going to die?
The abby is a cluster of lovely old buildings dominated by a grand Romanesque church, in the middle of nowhere. Around the abbey, fields stretch as far as the eye can see. If you ever want to make a retreat, the abbey in North Dakota looks like a great place to do it.
But there isn't much to do there at the end of the day. After dinner, Marty suggested to the rabbi that they sit on the patio. The rabbi looked at him as if he had lost his mind–what was there to see while sitting on the patio. It was as if Marty had invited him to take a walk through the cornfields. Marty reminded the rabbi that they had watched seascapes happily enough, and there isn't really much to see there either.
So they went to the patio and sat down to share a bottle of wine. They noticed a couple of lights in the distance–and some cattle feeding on prairie grass. But then the rabbi noticed the scene changing moment-by-moment as the sun began to set. "Now it's orange-turning-to gray-to-black," the rabbi exclaimed. "Think of what Monet would have done with this sight!"
The next evening they went to the patio with another bottle of wine. The rabbi kept up a running monologue, describing the subtle beauties of the place.
Later, as they traveled back to Chicago, Marty noticed the rabbi didn't seem nervous anymore. And then, a week later, the rabbi's wife called Dr. Marty. "Martin," she asked, "what did you do to Sam? He wants us to spend our next vacation in North Dakota!"
[When one expects to see only a boring prairie,] one person sees only a boring prairie, another sees a landscape worthy of Monet. What we see depends not only on our eyes–but also on our hearts and our minds.
It wasn't until the rabbi took a chair on the patio and gave the
prairie his full attention that his eyes–and his heart and mind–were
opened to see its beauty.
We can all ask ourselves, "Have I taken the time to sit at the feet of Jesus, giving him my full attention?"
Is he just a carpenter
or is he Lord of my life?
Is he just the son of Mary
or is he the Son of God?
Is he just a hometown boy
or is he my Savior?
Who do we expect Jesus to be in our lives?
What do we expect Jesus to do in our lives?