The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth
6He
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.
The Mission of the Twelve
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.
I am indebted
to the inspiration I have received from Professor William Barclay for these
sermon notes.
My text today
is written in Mark 6.12:
12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.
Jesus was
rejected because he was too ‘ordinary’ – he was just a carpenter. In today’s
world, he would probably be seen as a handyman – very skilled – but nothing
special and Barclay adds the telling point that …
“
… God, when He came to earth, claimed no exemptions. He took upon Himself this
common life with all its common tasks …”
Jesus would
have been rejected today as well, because people evaluate people by externals
and not because of their inherent worth as individuals.
Jesus never
left Nazareth until he was about thirty. Why? Because his father had died young
and he was needed to support his mother and his brothers and sisters. It was
only when they were old enough to fend for themselves that he felt free to leave.
Even God’s mission had to wait. I find this truly wonderful; God being there in
the ordinary in every respect.
Because Jesus
had lived in this little insignificant place for so long, and because he was so
well-known that he was rejected. Barclay writes: “Some times we are too near
people to see their greatness.”
It is sad that
Jesus could therefore do no mighty works in Nazareth and this itself reminds us
of an important truth and that is that some things simply cannot be done if the
atmosphere is all wrong.
Firstly, no
person can be healed if they refuse to be healed. Without the will to live,
even the best doctors can do nothing. I will always cherish the memory of
Trish’s lovely father who was broken by the tragedy of the death of his son
followed by the deaths of his brother and closest friend – all in a matter of
months. He simply broke and on his death certificate the cause of death is “…
of a broken heart …” He lost the will to live – but he is with our Lord and is
now at peace.
Secondly, there
can be no preaching in the wrong atmosphere. Barclay contends that
congregations preach half the sermons. I find this to be so true. If people
engage with me as the preacher I feel a real sense of liberty and can preach
well, but if they are hostile, everything falls flat. We all had this
experience in South Africa when challenging Apartheid from the pulpit,
sometimes the hostility was palpable!
There can be no
peace-making in the wrong atmosphere. If people come together to hate, they
will hate. If they come together with the conscious decision to love Christ and
each other, it will always work. Barclay concludes:
“There
is laid upon us the tremendous responsibility that we can either help or hinder
the work of Jesus Christ. We can open the door wide to Him – or we can slam it
in his face.”
When
doing God’s work – something we are all involved in – our reading this morning
offers some important guidance.
William Barclay
points out that one can summarise what the twelve did as follows:
(i) They were heralds of the message of Jesus
– they did not create a message, they ‘brought’ it. They did not tell the
people what they believed or considered probable – “… they told people what God
had told them …” They were like their prophets of old and could begin what they
said with the words: “Thus saith the Lord …” I know this is difficult, but we
need to be able to do the same.
I love reading
the sermons of the great thinkers, because this is when one really gets to the
essence of their wisdom. There is something about the preached word, the
dynamism, the inspiration from the Holy Spirit, the response of those listening
as God moves in the place, and one can even get this from reading the sermons
afterward.
It is this
conviction that led us Methodists to answer when we are asked: “What are your
doctrines?” we reply that they are contained in John Wesley’s sermons.
I vehemently
disagreed with Paul Tillich – until I read his sermons – and the same applied
to Rudolf Bultmann.
(ii) They preached the message of Jesus which
had at its core: “Repent!” There is a need to change. This is bound to hurt
and be unpopular, because it implies that we are getting things wrong. It
requires that we are ‘disturbed’ and most people like being kept in their
comfort zones. But repentance is the most positive thing anyone can do –
because it means that we can change and become more like the people we want to
be – deep down – by becoming the person God wants us to be. It is for our sake
– not God’s sake. Repentance needs to be at the core of our message and until
it becomes so, the Church will continue to decline.
Like it or not,
a central feature in Jesus’ message was the need to repent – because he knew
that, by nature, we are all selfish and in order for things to become better
for all – we need to undergo radical change. Barclay illustrates this by using
an example from the novel “Quo Vadis” where a young Roman falls in love with a
Christian girl. Because he is not a Christian, the girl will have nothing to do
with him. He tries to find out more and so secretly follows the Christians to
one of their meetings and listens to the sermon preached by Peter. Barclay
writes:
“He
felt that if he wished to follow that teaching, he would have to place on a
burning pile all his thoughts, habits and character, his whole nature up to
that moment, burn them into ashes and then fill himself with a life altogether
different, and an entirely new soul. That is repentance.”
And most people
in Britain today simply do not want this. They just want to be left alone.
Because this is a lovely country in which to live and because by far the
largest majority of people are not guilty of robbery, theft, murder, adultery –
what Barclay refers to as the ‘glaring sins’ – they believe they are good
people. And by the standards of the rest of the world, they definitely are. But
the standards for a disciple of Jesus are much higher, because they require a
complete paradigm shift from being self- centred (which our society largely is)
to being God-centred and this requires change, and if there is anything British
society does NOT like, it is change!
Barclay
concludes:
“Repentance is
no sentimental feeling sorry; repentance is a revolutionary thing – this is why
so few people repent.”
This passage
ends with the way the disciples brought with them the ‘King’s mercy’ – help and
healing. They brought liberation from demons and illness; they desired to bring
health to both body and soul, what Barclay refers to as ‘whole salvation’ and
not just ‘soul salvation’. There is great significance in the way they anointed
with oil, because in the ancient world oil was regarded to have great healing
powers. In the hands of the disciples, an old remedy therefore took on new
significance, because the spirit of Christ gave it new virtue and power.
The twelve
brought to the world the message and the mercy of the king, ‘… and that remains
the church’s task today and every day …’
How are things
in our lives? I believe that, if we are honest, we will all acknowledge that we
are not perfect; in fact we are far from perfect. Perhaps we need to take the
advice of those first disciples and repent, allow God to transform our lives,
so that we can become the people God wants us to be. Mark put it this way:
12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.
Amen.
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