Pentecost 6

Pentecost 6 (Mark 6:1-13)

“He was amazed at their unbelief.”

It takes a lot of effort to resist the obvious. It takes a strong will. It takes an all pervasive pride.

When Jesus returned to his home town he encountered opposition and contempt. It was an illustration of the principle that for many people familiarity breeds contempt.

The people had known Jesus since he was seven years old. They identified him as the carpenter. They referred to him as the son of Mary. We miss the insult in this description. In that time and culture a man is always referred to as the son of his father. So, properly speaking the people should have referred to Jesus as the son of Joseph. They didn’t. They had heard the stories that Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus. They concluded that Jesus was illegitimate.

Of course, they had no way of verifying this. That didn’t stop them from believing it. They used this belief to avoid the obvious about Jesus. He was indeed not the biological son of Joseph. He was the legal son of Joseph and as such heir to the throne of David. He was also the Son of God.

In the gospel readings this summer the universal church invites us to consider how belief distorts fact and blocks faith.

According to the customs and beliefs of the time an illegitimate son is by definition unrighteous. He is under the condemnation of God and the judgment of God. It doesn’t matter who he is or what he does. He is condemned, excluded and unworthy of attention. His very presence in society is an affront to the righteous and a threat to their righteousness.

According to the law he has no inheritance in the nation or family. According to custom he is disqualified from marriage. He lives on the very fringe of society. His sole function in society is to serve as an example of God’s judgment. He is tolerated only to allow the righteous to shine brightly against his darkness.

Sadly, this attitude is not unique to first century Judean religious culture. It stems from a misunderstanding of who God is and what righteousness means. The great tragedy of this misunderstanding is that it subverts our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation.

The co-eternal Son of God united his divinity with our humanity in Jesus the Christ. He came to seek the lost who do not want to be found. He came to proclaim the Good News that God is universal unconditional love. This Good News is completely consistent with the teaching of Moses and the prophets. It was completely contradictory to all forms of religion of the time.

The Law based religion of first century Judea manifested in condemnation and exclusion. It drew on the power of original separation from God to define God as an impersonal judge of an eternal law. It cultivated the pride of righteousness based on a rigid inflexible uncompromising set of beliefs and behaviors. It asserted the will to impose this form of righteousness on every one in society through a system of religious law, religious police and religious courts. It longed for the day when God’s righteous Messiah would empower them to conquer the world and impose this form of law based righteousness on everyone.

Tragically, the law based righteousness of judgment and condemnation could not agree which form of the Law was the true righteousness. They argued incessantly amongst themselves even as they condemned the vast majority of people who did not embrace their beliefs. Even more tragically, when the righteous Messiah of God appeared in their midst they were incapable of accepting him. They refused to listen to him even though he spoke the language of Moses and the prophets.

Jesus gives us an insight into their resistance when he comments that the judgment we use to condemn others is the judgment we will use to condemn ourselves. Jesus brought Good News. The righteous people preferred judgment. Jesus brought universal unconditional love. The righteous people reserved their right to condemn.

Jesus forgave sin. The righteous people were invested in a system of rewards and punishments that defined a person by his sin. Jesus brought liberation from separation and stagnation. The righteous people drew back in fear that Jesus was somehow changing the rules and overturning the religious values of their ancestors. Jesus embodies the reality Moses and the prophets observed over the course of centuries. People, even religious people who invoke God, resist, reject and repudiate God when he makes himself known.

God offers his blessings to everyone. God does not impose himself on any one. Mark comments on this principle when he records that Jesus could do no deed of power in Nazareth. The people held him in contempt.  He was not the Messiah they wanted. They defined him by the rumors they had heard about his birth. They defined him out of their lives. And, Jesus was amazed at their unbelief.

They had heard his teaching drawn from Moses and the prophets but they rejected it. They had heard of his miracles but they refused to accept the eyewitness accounts. They had experienced his integrity and compassion but were unmoved.

They, and so many others in their time and in our time, rejected the personal transforming relationship with God that Jesus offered. They defined God, their society and themselves in the categories of pride and self-will manifesting in the attitudes and actions of judgment and condemnation. They insisted on their rights as the righteous. Their demands deafened their ears to the Good News of divine love. They were lost. They were lost in belief. And Jesus marveled at how insistent they were in refusing to hear and receive the Good News he proclaimed and embodied.

God was right there with them and they refused to believe the evidence. And so, “He was amazed at their unbelief.”