Mark 6:1-13
Proper 9 (14)- Year B
What do you make of the charge to the disciples to deal with repentance and healing? Some have indicated that it does not include the believing part, as in "repent and believe" [1:14-15].
Does repentance carry with it the corollary of belief or is that a separate matter? Is simple change of direction sufficient or do we need to also point a direction?
If we were to simply deal with this literally we might find that we don't need to come with answers but questions. It is in finally addressing the heretofore unconscious cognitive dissonant parts of life that we find appropriate responses to the situations we are dealing with. Change is needed in our perception and this is related to healing. We get to that change best through questions rather than positing belief creeds.
What questions do we need to be asking of one another, of the church, of leaders and followers within a state setting? They will probably have something to do with recognizing our dis-ease with the current reality. They will probably have to wrestle with accepted status quo or established paradigms. They will probably have to bring us face-to-face with our weakness.
Now, presume you have been sent by Jesus - Who are you traveling with and how do you raise the important questions of life.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/july2003.html
Who might be "knocking the dust off their feet" against you? Against us?
There used to be a presumption of hospitality and when that was abrogated it deserved a symbolic act of censure. In these days of preemptive dust knocking it is important to ask questions about our openness to holy missions that we are missing because we have our sight so wholly set on our mission.
I can understand my own knocking-of-dust off against those who intolerantly dismiss my life and concerns before walking a mile in these dusty shoes. There is a rightness about not participating after catching on to being abused for another's benefit.
There is a rightness about going ahead to do good rather than sticking around to get beat up some more.
There is a rightness about hospitably offering the same humanity to others that we expect. Hold fast to your own experiential basis of G*D's love and let G*D sort out the varieties of religious experience. (A caveat here, I expect an experience of G*D's love to have some measurable evidence that people are being aided in their journey to wholeness and holiness but such evidence may be more subtle and preliminary than I am willing to wait to come to fruition - so the communal work needed is a discerning patience.)
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/july2003.html
To keep us from being too inflated or elated we are given a thorn - hometown. Here people changed our diapers. Here people saw the bad haircut we gave ourself. Here errors in judgment as we moved through the stages of life are laughed about every holiday. Here people join in expecting to honor a conquering hero to return home.
Out of his own experience at Nazareth, Jesus sends out the twelve and ourselves. They and we find places as humbling as a hometown and new places that become our hometown.
Whether needing refuge and defense or providing such (opportunity for repentance), we stretch our walk with G*D to include folks for whom we are a thorn and folks who are a thorn for ourselves. Mutuality is not just support, but also correction.
- - -
in season or out
learning is in order
learning to live
without surprises
we will receive
hometown adulation
along with
hometown rejection
both are unrealistic
no surprise here
caught up to seventh heaven
or caught on a thorn
in season or out
teaching is in order
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Pentecost question: Where did that wind come from?
Is it from out there somewhere or from in here? Is it Jesus or what others are claiming about him? Did we blink our eyes or is this person the same we have known since Joseph and Mary came back from their “census” vacation?
What does it mean that he did no “deed of power” in his hometown? Healings were accomplished, but no deed of power? Obviously there is a distinction to be made between curing and power.
Presumably power has to do with teaching, with revelation that we are not at a spot we would wish to be at - hence a need for repentance to move a bit closer to our desire.
Presumably the disciples did deeds of power after they taught repentance, named blockages (demons), and anointed as a vehicle for healing.
Peterson names the short-hand of “repentance” as a joyful urgency that life can be radically different. Those predisposed to the process of church seem to be better able to hear the judgment of “repent!” than the beckoning of “joyful urgency”. Translating "urgency" as "!", the one word response to Repent! is Joy!
As long as the repenters hold sway within the institution, it will roll along, eventually slowing down, and stopping. Perhaps we need to read this pericope again from the perspective of Jesus coming to your local “Christian” congregation where he should be known from conception to resurrection as a doer of power and those within the church know him so well that they are able to dismiss any thought or deed outside their current knowledge of Jesus. Congregants have become immune to surprise - a great judgment upon pastors - so take to the road with whomever will travel.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/07/pentecost-6-year-b-mark-61-13-pentecost.html