Pentecost 6 July 10 2012

Pentecost 6 (Mark 6:1- 13) “A prophet is not without honor except in his own home….”

Familiarity breeds contempt.

The people who knew Jesus best knew him least. They remembered the child attending school at the synagogue. They remembered the teen who never married because of scandal in the family over his birth. They remembered the young adult working in the carpenter shop building tables and chairs, repairing homes and fences. They knew his extended family by name even as they questioned how exactly he was related to them.

One reference we miss is the statement that Jesus is the son of Mary. This is an insult in that time and that culture. A man is always the son of his father. To refer to a man as the son of his mother is to state unequivocally that his father is unknown- that he is illegitimate.

The people of Nazareth not only thought they knew everything about Jesus, they knew they knew everything. In that presumption of knowledge they missed the most important qualities of Jesus. They missed the fact he never sinned. They missed the way he honored his mother and made the worship of his heavenly Father his first priority. They missed his personal holiness, his kindness to others, his compassion for all people.

The people of Nazareth knew Jesus from rumor and presumption. They missed the reality of who Jesus is. They saw what they wanted to see and ignored everything else they did not want to see. Presumption is a barrier to faith.

Presumption refuses to accept the evidence of our own senses, our own reason, and the testimony of Moses and the Prophets in the scriptures.

It was all there for the people of Nazareth. They missed it. They just didn’t accidentally miss it. They willfully missed it. As with so many others of that generation they could not and would not believe God was visiting them in person.
Modern people sometimes complain that if God is real he fails to demonstrate his reality. They want evidence. They want proof. The people of Nazareth had evidence. They had proof. They had so much more. They had in their midst the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father. And still they missed it. And still they refused to believe.

Presumption is a sin that derives from pride. It is deeply rooted in our species. It is near the root of the original choice our species made to separate from God. The soul in separation is a soul that is willfully and spitefully lost. In that place of self will and pride, people simply refuse to acknowledge the obvious.

The Bible never seeks to prove the existence of God. Moses and the prophets report their personal experience of God. St. Paul teaches that the beauty and order in nature proclaims the reality of God. The beloved apostle John observes that Jesus is the very pattern of the universe, our species and each one of us.

Nevertheless, for many who knew Jesus personally none of this made any difference. They were lost in their own preconceived ideas about God. Those ideas came to them from their culture, religion, political ideology and most importantly from the demand of self will and pride.

There are currently three main witnesses to the reality of God: the spirit, the water and the blood.

The spirit is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Eternal Triune God. He is actively working in the world today. The Holy Spirit speaks to everyone and invites everyone to recognize the problem confronting our species and each of us individually. He invites everyone alive, all seven billion of us, to receive the solution to the problem. The solution is Jesus Christ, the eternal love of the eternal God in human flesh.

In Hebrew and other Middle Eastern languages the word for spirit is the word for breath. We live only as we breathe. The breath is the reality of life that reminds us of the immanence of God and the Real Presence of God. God the Holy Spirit is as close to us as our next breath. The Holy Spirit just doesn’t give life, He is life. He is the breath of life for organic beings and He is the real presence of eternal life for our souls.

The water is the basis of life on this planet. All life is water based. All life requires a simple molecule of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Water is the witness of the Logos: the rational active dynamic creative principle of the universe.
It is no accident that Jesus chose water and infused water with sacramental grace to accomplish what no law, religion or ideology could accomplish. Through the sacramental waters of baptism a lost and separated soul is reunited to the Infinite and Eternal Triune God. The water that makes organic life possible on earth makes eternal life possible in Heaven.

The third witness is blood. The Old Testament speaks of blood being life. Since blood is life it is sacred. In the sacrifices God commanded Moses no one was permitted to taste blood. The priest offered the blood of the sacrificial animal to God and only to God.

The blood that flows through our bodies carries oxygen, nourishment and healing to our cells. Blood also removes carbon dioxide, waste matter and disease from our cells. As with air and water, blood reveals the divine pattern of the logos. As breath testifies to the presence of the Holy Spirit and water to the sacrament of reunification, so blood witnesses to the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Life is in the blood. Jesus now invites us to partake of that life in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. He infuses his body and his blood into our souls to transform our minds, our hearts, our wills.

People still encounter the three fold witness of God. People still reject the three fold witness of God. As for the people of Nazareth so for the people of our time. The witness is there. Jesus is real. The invitation to reunification and transformation is universal.

Only human pride and presumption prevent us from receiving the gift and enjoying the gift.

We are formed in a culture that rejects God. We need to be aware of this. The witness of the Holy Spirit through the Bible and in the breath, the water and the blood can help us identify how and where we miss the Real Presence of Jesus in our daily lives.

Jesus offers us the gift of Himself. In Jesus we have eternal life here and now. Eternal life is abundant life. We can experience the wonders and delights of that new life as we surrender our preconceived ideas to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in word and sacrament.

Where are you not in truth? Where today and at this minute do you miss the blessing of faith because of an attachment to some rigid inflexible uncompromising world view? That is exactly where the Holy Spirit is meeting you and speaking to you.
Jesus’ neighbors in Nazareth refused to question their assumptions about Jesus. In the pride of knowledge they simply rejected the evidence of the breath, the water and the blood. Jesus still reached out to them. He still healed some who wanted to be healed. He still reaches out to us. Jesus was amazed at their unbelief. They had a unique opportunity and privilege in the Plan of Salvation. They made a different choice.

What choice do we make? What choice do you make? Choose wisely. Choose love. Choose Jesus.