11 July 2021
Last weekend you may remember the gospel ended with:
“And he was amazed at their lack of faith.”
Actually a better translation might be “pained, hurt.” Hurt. He was hurt.
Part of what we missed there last weekend was the fact
not just that they didn’t have faith in him.
That’s a mild interpretation on what went on there.
What went on there was they ridiculed him.
They called him names. “Son of Mary.”
In that culture to be referred to by your mother’s name was a grave insult.
He was pained, hurt, and that is how we left him last weekend.
He’s hurt and he’s unable to do anything right?
And then, in almost the next breath the Marcan author tells us this story.
We would miss it’s significance if didn’t understand what just happened.
Jesus is hurt and can’t do anything–and so he calls the twelve.
And he says: “You, you go out and do it.
You go out into the highways and byways,
And you be as good as God for one another,
for strangers.
And the Twelve must have been reeling from seeing Jesus hurt so,
And powerless–for the first time they see him powerless–
And you can imagine how they walked away from him that day.
And then a great miracle happens,
foreshadowing what we think will be a greater miracle
when we hear it in two weeks.
They can do what he cannot. They become him.
The lesson this summer weekend is simple and straightforward:
Some times when God can not do something, we can.
The disciples start out on that road today with nothing,
and not even a lot of confidence in Jesus.
And they accomplish more than they would have ever thought.
Their lives were changed.
And, they changed lives.