Scandalous Preachers (Reflections on Pentecost 6, Year B)

Jesus Commissions the Disciples, Ghirlandaio, 1481

How can any American not love Independence Day? Isn’t this a great holiday? I mean, where but in America do average people have the right to get roaring drunk and set off incendiary devices? Ya gotta love it!

Okay. Your Old Religious Guy is rambling a bit. I guess I’m trying to jump-start my brain into coming up with a really clever way to compose a cogent essay which will glue together two thematically different stories from Mark’s gospel. For the Sixth Sunday of Pentecost the Revised Common Lectionary gives us Mark 6:1-13. Marrying verses one through six to verses seven through thirteen would be hard enough, but I’m sure the folks in the pews will expect me to say something about the Fourth of July, too. My church is in Philadelphia after all, and, since we have Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell and the church sits on land which was once owned by a signer of the Declaration of Independence (pretty cool, huh?), I think I’d be remiss if I remained strictly liturgical in my preaching and failed to mention our nation’s birthday.

So here goes: The first six verses of Mark chapter 6 have Jesus and his disciples back in his home town of Nazareth where he’s teaching and preaching and generally creating quite a stir—which is kind of what Jesus always does. Now, you might think that Jesus’ fame would be a source of pride for the folks from Nazareth, but you’d be wrong. Even though the Nazarenes seem impressed with his wisdom and his ability to work miracles, they just can’t wrap their brains around the idea that this neighbor’s kid whom they’ve watched grow up has turned into something special. In fact, they actually resent being preached to by the hometown boy. The Greek (If you’re into Greek. Sometimes I just throw it in to look smart) literally says they were “caused to stumble” by Jesus. The New Revised Standard Version translates this “…and they took offense at him.” This “stumbling” or “offense” is also translated as “caused to sin,” and the Greek word eskandalizonto which Mark uses here gives rise to our English word “scandalize.” These folks were scandalized, offended, tripped up, shocked, appalled, and generally pissed off that this hick kid from their own neighborhood would have the audacity to preach to them—and do it meaningfully at that! How dare he..?!!

Personally, I think they were a little jealous. Or it just could be that they didn’t have enough faith in the goodness of God to believe that God’s word could really come from one of their own. They were trapped in a system and a mindset which told them that only priests or Levites or really important people like scribes or Pharisees and Sadducees could proclaim God’s truth legitimately. God certainly couldn’t speak through a poor blue collar dude from their neck of the woods. You can almost hear them asking, “So who does Mr. Smartypants think he is, anyway..?” (They also refer to Jesus as “the son of Mary,” which—since Jewish men were traditionally known as the sons of their fathers—might be a snotty little reference to illegitimacy.) Of course, the sad part is that whenever people are so locked in their opinions there’s not a whole lot Jesus can do (v.6).

If the working-class neighbor boy’s preaching wasn’t scandalous enough, verses seven through thirteen really make the organic fertilizer strike the air conditioning system (metaphorically speaking). Jesus commissions his disciples to go out and be teachers. Teachers..? Really..? These guys..? They were illiterate peasants, for cryin’ out loud! They were known to curse (Matthew 26:74) and have poor table manners (Mark 7:2). In the world of the text, these men had no freakin’ business teaching, casting out demons, healing, or exhorting repentance. That was supposed to be for the special people.

You see where I’m going here, right? In Jesus, there is true freedom and democracy. (Don’t you love the slick way I’ve tied this in to the Fourth of July theme?) All believers have what Martin Luther would call their own priesthood or priestly calling. There is no divine caste system, no spiritual aristocracy. Luther put it like this:

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant to all, subject to all. (Freedom of a Christian, 1520)

What Luther was saying is that no one has the right to tell another what to believe. The same idea is the cornerstone of American religious freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Similarly, we all are free to express our faith.

Unfortunately, in my own ever-so-humble opinion, American Christians don’t always seem to know how to exercise this egalitarian freedom. I don’t think the rise of secularism in America is causing the shrinking in churches. Rather, it’s the other way around. I think we in the church have been pretty lazy servants, wasting our energy on fluff and neglecting our freedom to be the dutiful servants that comes with our faith in Christ.

If the Ten Commandments are removed from an Oklahoma courthouse, God’s command to love our neighbor will still be empirical truth. If “In God We Trust” is removed from our currency, we will all still find ourselves living by faith in the face of a world which no one really controls. If “Under God’ is stripped from our Pledge of Allegiance, God will still sit on the throne of the universe. We are wasting our time fretting about symbols and neglecting the call to discipleship.

Look, folks, I may be an ordained clergyman, but my baptism in Christ is no more valid than yours. All I have is an administrative job within the Christian community. You have the freedom to read and proclaim the scriptures. You have the freedom to welcome the stranger. You have the freedom to be a voice for the environment, for the poor, for the marginalized. You are called to be healers and prayer partners. You are called to visit the sick and elderly. You are called to cast out the demons of racism, homophobia, and sexism. You. Sinful, insecure, overwhelmed, totally average you. (Scandalous, isn't it?)

The challenge of discipleship—and the challenge of our American religious liberty—is to be the best ordinary Christians we can be.

A happy and safe Fourth, everyone! Thanks for reading.