Mark 6:1-13, from Proper 9 (14)
I don’t know about your town, but mine could easily match Mark’s description of Nazareth in Chapter 6.
Spotting Jesus making his way up Main Street, most folks here would remark that they had grown up with him. They’d recall singing those fun little songs with him in Sunday School:
“Jesus loves the little chilllll-dren. All the children of the worrrrrrld …”
“Deeeeep and wiiiiiide. Deeeeep and wiiiiiide. There’s a fountain flowing deeeeep and wiiiiiide …”
Back then, they’d say, he spent a lot of time sitting on a big rock in a green pasture, cuddling lambs, and smiling at kids. And they’d remember gobbling Vanilla Wafers with him and swigging Kool-Aide – but never before first saying grace – and turning construction paper and glue and pipe cleaners and Popsicle sticks into Bible-themed crafts that would hang on the refrigerator until Mom secreted them into the trash can.
Things got a little more serious later, they’d say. They’d remember Jesus warning them against running with the wrong crowd, against giving in to temptations, against “backsliding” from all the moral progress they had made. He’d said all of that and much more like it, they’d insist. And they’d be equally sure that aside from a few exceptions not worth going into, they had followed his advice. Having seen the truth, they had tossed their stick in the last-night-of-camp bonfire or walked down the church aisle as the music played. In one sequence or another, they had prayed the holy prayer and had gotten dunked in or sprinkled with the holy water. They had done it all and had gone to church regularly ever since, some of them just about every Sunday, some of them just about every Easter and Christmas.
So they would be confused when he told them to repent and believe, as if they hadn’t done both already. And when he tried to lay hands on them to heal them, they would brush away his touch, insisting that they were fine, just fine, thank you very much. And the more he said and did such things, the more their confusion would give way to indignation, then anger. Just who did little Jesus think he was, now that he was all grown up? And if he’s so dense about who stands where with God, they would think, maybe he isn’t the great prophet he’s thought to be among those who don’t know his back story the way we do.
Like Matthew’s version, Mark’s account of Jesus’ return to Nazareth ends mildly. Jesus and his former neighbors simply part ways. They’re offended by Jesus’ words. Jesus is amazed at their lack of faith. But things get more heated in Luke’s version, assuming Luke is describing the same incident. There, the townsfolk get so angry they try to toss Jesus off a cliff. I don’t know whether my town would go that far, but I doubt most people here would appreciate being told they didn’t, in fact, have God all figured out and squared away, like a fixed-rate mortgage or a recipe for buttermilk biscuits. I think a God who might challenge their habits or critique their politics or diagnose their maladies might just find himself run out of town, if not over a precipice.
And for all I know, I’d be in the thick of the mob, or maybe at its head. Because I grew up with Jesus, too. I sang those songs and assembled those crafts and tossed a stick into the fire and walked down the aisle and got baptized and avoided the wrong crowd and went to church regularly and got told in a hundred ways what a fine young man I had turned out to be. I like thinking I’ve got God all figured out and squared away. Maybe the lesson for me in this passage is that while God’s presence can be comforting and even chummy, it is more typically disruptive and humbling and convicting. Repenting and believing are ongoing acts, not finite ones, and next time I hear myself saying, “Well, I’ll be darned if it isn’t little Jesus, come back for a visit,” I’d be wise to drop my assumptions and prepare to accept whatever he might say.
