Swallowsrest

Pentecost 7 – 2018

Mark 6:1-13

Marian Free

In the name of God, who doesn’t value our worth by what we achieve, but by who we are. Amen.

In our culture one’s reputation is as much determined by the expectations that others have of our role as it is by what we do and don’t achieve. People are judged differently according to the organisation they represent, their occupation or the influence they are deemed to have. So for example, a Church official who behaves inappropriately is rightly condemned for not living up to expectations and his or her reputation (especially in Church circles) may be permanently damaged. Today’s sporting heroes are considered to be role models to the young and face intense criticism and even humiliation if they do something that is considered to be a bad example (take drugs, beat their wives, cheat).

When it comes to politicians and rock stars however, society demonstrates something of a double standard. Both John Kennedy and Martin Luther King were known womanizers, yet their reputations as great visionaries and reformers have remained in tact. In their case, the good that they did allowed the public to turn a blind eye to what would otherwise be considered immoral behaviour[1].

In the first century Mediterranean honour and shame were dominant cultural commodities that determined a person’s place in the social hierarchy.  A person’s honour was ascribed by their birth and was closely guarded and people (men) behaved in such a way as not to compromise their honour or to allow themselves to be shamed.  At the same time, honour was a limited commodity – there was only so much to go around. That meant that the only way for a person to increase their honour was to diminish another or to place them under obligation. In the New Testament, the religious authorities appear to be continually trying to undermine, expose or humiliate Jesus. In other words they were trying to maintain their honour and to ensure that his did not increase at their expense.

Jesus’ responses to their attacks demonstrate that he is well able to defend, if not increase his status (honour) within the society.

According to Mark’s telling, after the raising of Jairus’ daughter – an event that caused much amazement, Jesus returns to his hometown.  On the Sabbath he goes to the synagogue and begins to teach. Initially many of those who hear what he has to say are astounded – though perhaps they are also puzzled. “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![2]” In their confusion they seek to determine Jesus’ place in their community, his status or honour.  To do this they identify his profession and his parentage. They remember that he is only an artisan after all. Workers in wood and stone were not respected as we might think. There would have been no work for a craftsman in a community the size of Nazareth. A tradesperson would have had to travel to find work, leaving their family at home and without protection. Those who had to make a living in this way were considered to be “without shame” that is, without the requisite sensitivity to protect their honour.

According to his fellows then, Jesus is not deserving of honour by virtue of his trade and certainly not by virtue of his birth. The villagers classify Jesus through his mother (not his father which was the norm.) This suggests that there was a question mark around the identity of his father and therefore around the honour of his mother.

The questions voiced by the crowd then, do not express their amazement or even their familiarity. Instead they are an attempt to put Jesus in his proper place, to refuse him the honour that seems to have been granted him in the previous scene.

The problem is that there is only so much honour to go around. Jesus’ status can only be increased at the expense of someone else’s, something that these poor villagers cannot and will not allow.

Home, it appears is not a place of welcome for Jesus. During his first visit home his family try to restrain him in the belief that he “is out of his mind”. Now, when he returns home having demonstrated his power over nature, over demons and even over death those who know him best remain unmoved, even skeptical of his growing status in the wider community. In the one place in which we imagine that Jesus would want to restore people to health, he finds that he is unwelcome and that the lack of welcome limits what he is able to do.

In our time and place honour is not such a rigid commodity. People can and do achieve the unexpected, people can and do overcome the limitations of birth, lack of education and poor connections.

That said, just as Jesus’ contemporaries wanted to box him in and keep him in his place, so too do we. Jesus’ contemporaries could not see the extraordinary in the ordinary person before their eyes. They refused to see the presence of God in this tradesperson of uncertain ancestry. We too are guilty of failing to see the transcendent and miraculous in the commonplace and in the everyday routine of our lives. We are tempted to look for God in the amazing and the extraordinary, the inspirational and the other-worldly when, as the life of Jesus demonstrates, God is just as likely to be found in the ordinary and the mundane – even among those who are considered of little worth.

God, in Jesus, entered the whole experience of human existence – the exciting and the unexciting, the exhilarating and the boring. If we don’t see and experience God in every aspect of our lives, it is not because God is not present, but because we choose not to notice.

[1]The tide is changing as we begin to demand higher ethical standards of our public figures and as women confront exploitative and abusive behaviours.

[2]The exclamation mark is in the English text, perhaps it too should be a question.