Fifth Sunday of Pentecost

July 9, 2006

Sermon by Pastor John Marboe

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark: (Mark 6:1-13)

[Jesus] came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On 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! Is 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 offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If 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.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.

In our Gospel today, Jesus returns to his hometown after having been out and about, establishing a ministry of preaching and teaching, healing the sick, doing some very remarkable things: casting out a legion of demons into swine that ran into the sea—that happened the chapter just before this—and even raising a little girl from the dead. So he returns to his hometown, and he goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath and begins to teach there. And the people are “astounded,” it says. “Who is this?” “What is this amazing message that he’s teaching?” “But, wait a minute. Isn’t this the carpenter?” “Yeah.” “Isn’t this Mary’s son. you know, the kid that grew up on the street with our kids?” “Aren’t his brothers here and his sisters right here among us?” “Isn’t that his house right over there?”

And the most natural thing in the world happens—they are not impressed. The people of the hometown are not impressed with the hometown boy who has come back, supposing himself to be special. So they don’t believe him. And, as a result, it says, Jesus was unable to do deeds of power there, except he laid hands on people and cured a few who were sick. And Jesus, it says, was amazed at their unbelief, and he leaves. He goes off to other villages.

This, I think, is a very good story for us, to look at the whole question of belief, or faith, which is the same New Testament word – faith, belief. What is faith? What is belief? What isn’t it? And what does it do? In a way, we want to ask this morning, “What do we believe about belief?”

First of all, our story underlines and highlights the point that faith or belief is not something that we can decide to have or that we can self-generate. Belief is prior to decision; belief decides our decision. Belief is our most basic stance towards someone or something. It is involuntary. Jesus rarely, if ever, tried to convince anyone to believe in him, which is curious. In this story, he doesn’t try to convince anyone, even these people who are some of his closest friends and relatives from his hometown. He’s met with unbelief; he shrugs his shoulders; he goes away. It says he was amazed, but he moved on.

Belief, in the Biblical sense, was something that Jesus either encountered in other people or didn’t—people either believed in him or they didn’t. In his hometown, most of them didn’t, at least at that point in time. And that’s the way it is with belief. We don’t decide to believe or not believe. Our belief shapes instead what we decide.

Those people in Jesus’ hometown could no more decide to believe in Jesus than they could decide to be taller or shorter. So, at least for now, Jesus did not strike them as a prophet, and certainly not as the Christ. He was the kid who grew up next door, the carpenter, the son of Mary. This is what they believed about Jesus; nothing more.

A friend of mine from years ago when I lived in London was in college when I met him, and he grew up in a household that didn’t practice Christianity. He grew up without any kind of Christian upbringing. And while he was in college, he became a Christian. He came to believe in God in the Christian way.

Well, I left London, and about ten years after that he was traveling in the United States and he came and looked me up. And since that time he had earned his Doctorate in Astronomy and had become one of Britain’s leading astronomical researcher scientists. We got together for coffee, and he looked at me and he said, “John, I want to tell you something. I no longer believe in God.” He said, “After all that I have studied, my understanding now of science and my understanding of the Bible, they just don’t go together. I can’t believe in God anymore.” His belief had changed. And I knew somehow that anything that I might say would not change his mind. It was simply where he was. And I knew somehow to simply accept that from him. He was being honest about how he really felt.

Well, it’s been about ten years since then, and I don’t know how he feels about God now. But this I can say: that the God I believed in way back then, some 25 years ago, is no longer the God I believe in today, at least in the same way.

Our beliefs change as we live and as we grow. It’s not a choice. They are our most fundamental convictions about life. They evolve, sometimes they shatter, but they never remain the same. Our beliefs change as we live and as we grow. Christians make a big deal about faith, about belief, and rightly so. Luther said the most important thing in the Christian life is faith. But the minute we make faith a rule, something we are supposed to believe, it’s something else, but it’s not faith. But this, of course, is just what we do. We make faith into a law, on the basis of which we are either rewarded or punished, and then it becomes—to use the old Lutheran lingo—“work’s righteousness,” the very trap faith is supposed to get us out of.

Some months ago, I met a young man in the Los Angeles airport; his name was Jake. He was young, he was rich, and he was traveling to see his girlfriend in Minnesota. Evidently, Jake had had a few beers at the bar and he was more than willing to talk, to anyone. I was there. He began to tell me about his life, about his family, about his girlfriend, and then about religion. It turns out Jake’s mother is a somewhat famous tele-evangelist, who is very, very interested in the “end times.” Her whole ministry is about teaching about the end times, how the end of the world is going to happen according to the Book of Revelation. And so Jake began to tell me all about this understanding of how things were going to get worse and worse, and then suddenly, at some instantaneous point in time, Jesus was going to take every believing Christian up into the sky, while the rest of the world would languish in plagues and pestilence and war.

He said, “Have you ever heard of this?” I said, “No. Tell me more.” I wasn’t going to let him know I was a pastor. It was too interesting. I said to him, “Now, who exactly are the people that are going to get plucked into the sky?” “Well,” he said, “those who believe.” And I said, “Well, believe what, exactly? Exactly what do they have to believe in order to be raptured into the sky?” “Well, they have to believe that Jesus is their Lord and Savior.” I said, “Is that all? Do they have to believe anything else?” “Well, they have to believe the Bible.” I said, “All of it?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, that presumes you would have to read it, I suppose.” He said, “Oh, absolutely.” I said, “Have you read it all?” He said, “Well, almost, almost all of it. I’m planning to.” “Do you have to believe that the end of the world is going to happen in just the way that you’re telling me?” He said, “Yes. Yes, I think so.” I said, “Can you doubt?” He said, “Well, everybody doubts.” I said, “How much doubt is okay? A little bit of doubt? Can you doubt one day a week and believe the other six? Can you doubt two days a week, three days a week? Can you really believe on Sunday and kind of doubt the rest of the week?” He began to get a little uncomfortable, but I was trying to find out exactly what he thought the criteria were.

Now, this is a fairly extreme example of this sort of belief. But I would suggest to you that many and perhaps most Christians think of faith in roughly the same way as Jake—as a set of things we are supposed to believe and on the basis of which we will be judged by God. That is not faith. The second that belief or faith becomes something you are supposed to have, it’s no longer faith.

What then is faith? Luther said, “Faith is trust,” like a little child feels toward a loving parent. Such faith is powerful. Such faith can never be coerced; it can never be the result of an “ought” or a “should.” Such faith arises organically in the mysterious experience of relationships.

Jesus, it says, could do no powerful thing in his hometown because he was met with unbelief. They were simply unable to trust his words. So he shrugged, and he left. He didn’t condemn them. They were simply unable to receive what he had to offer them, because of how they saw things at that moment.

Jesus came to reveal something about God to those who could receive it: that God shares our humanity; that God suffers with us; that God is love and not law. This is not something you should believe, but it is something that those who do believe already have. In this way, faith is not the ticket to salvation; faith is salvation.

Amen.