Rejected

1 Samuel 8: 4-11
Mark 3: 20-35

Every one of us has experienced rejection in some form or another. That is what makes these two passages we read today so powerful. We can really relate to what is happening to each person and we can feel their pain and confusion like it was our own. The Mark text is particularly interesting because we see both an extreme acceptance as well as rejection and how Jesus deals with both are important.

Jesus enters a home with his disciples to sit down and eat a meal after a long day. They had walked many miles and helped many people. So many people, in fact, that now a large crowd has gathered outside of this home. Close your eyes and picture this.

It’s dusk and you’re sweaty and dirty and hungry. You’ve been up since dawn and you have not had a moment of rest or alone time all day long. People have clamored to be healed and to be taught, wanting more from you even as you try to give them more. You walk into this home, hoping for a moments respite to eat and wash the dust of the day from your person. Instead, as you sit down to eat this meal you hear the people gathering outside. Their voices are loud, jarring; preventing conversation from occurring inside the house. Then you hear a knock on the door and you try to ignore it, but it just gets louder as does the talking and cries for help.

Jesus’ family hears about the commotion his actions have caused in the town and they are angry and scared. They’re angry because they are worried about what Jesus’ actions will cause to happen to not just him, but to them. They are scared that the crowds will turn on Jesus and turn on them if he does not live up to their expectations. They do not understand what is driving Jesus. They do not understand what possesses him to make such a spectacle of himself in their tiny town. Talking to each other, his family decided that Jesus must not be thinking straight and so they go to tell him what he should be doing.

Mark, in two sentences, puts Jesus in an awkward position. Here in the first sentence we see a crowd of people that adore Jesus and what he has done for them, so much that he cannot even eat a meal in peace. In the very next sentence we see Jesus and his mission rejected by his own family. We have obsession from strangers and dismissal from loved ones. Jesus is in the middle of a battle and neither side offers him rest and comfort.

Jesus walks outside, ignoring the dinner he had wanted to enjoy just moments before and greets the crowd. Inside of the crowd are a group of Pharisees who believe Jesus to be casting demons out using Satan’s name. Another rejection by the very people who should recognize him as the Messiah, but are too wrapped up in their own lives and jealousy to understand the truth.

At this point, what would you have done? We all have days like this, where it appears as if the world is coming down upon our shoulders and all we want to do is take a moment to relax and instead, more is heaped upon us. If you were Jesus, would you have walked away or would you have stayed to help?

Jesus stayed. He began to teach the people in an effort to get them to see how ridiculous their argument against him truly was. He says, “How can Satan drive out Satan?” We can almost see the Pharisees thinking frantically, “If you’re possessed by a demon, you can probably get other demons to listen to you and that’s how you heal the people.” But what Jesus is saying in modern terms is if you have an infection, and you go to the doctor to be healed; does the doctor give you another infection to drive out the first one? No. The doctor gives you an antibiotic to rid your body of the poison infecting you.

But Jesus is making another point as well. If Satan drives out his own demons from people, then he is dividing his resources and therefore he will lose. Also, if Jesus is not possessed by a demon then he has truly healed the person. Jesus has neatly trapped the Pharisees in their own web of jealousy because with what Jesus says here he clearly points out that no matter if Jesus is possessed by a demon or not, Satan cannot possibly win since he would be hurting his own cause.

At this point, Jesus’ mother and brothers arrive and when someone tells him that they are there, he says that here in this crowd are his mother and brothers and sisters. He says all who do God’s will are his family. This, now, is Jesus appearing to reject his blood family and accepting his spiritual family. On the surface it seems as if Jesus rejects those who would reject him and he accepts those who accept him.

Could Jesus really reject his own family in favor of strangers who won’t even let him eat a meal in peace? How are we as Christians supposed to understand this, should we too reject our family in support of strangers?

Jesus is making a point to everyone. The ones in the story that are doing God’s will are Jesus, the disciples, and the crowd that are so hungry for God’s word that they cannot even let Jesus rest for a moment. The ones who are opposing God’s will are the Pharisees who are telling lies out of jealousy and his own family who refuse to understand what Jesus is here to do. Jesus was not rejecting their caring and concern; he was rejecting what would happen if he gave into those cares and concerns. If he listened to his family and went with them back to their home, God’s will would not be done.

Jesus refused to meet with them not because he didn’t love them, not because he didn’t appreciate their love for him; he refused because to do so would be to go against God. What Jesus is telling all of us is that he did not come to bring peace, but a sword. He did not come to live an easy and peaceful life; he came to cause strife and discord. If the people were stirred up and anxious, that meant they were thinking and feeling and living. Jesus was not after a meek and passive group of followers. He wanted people who had a passion for God’s word and a drive to hear it no matter the time or place.

The church is a place where we can either choose to be active participants and eagerly listen and watch for God’s word, or we can be passive and restrained in the way we worship and love God. Jesus may understand why his family is so upset with him, he may understand why they do not want him to do the things he is doing, but he does not let that stop him. If he let them stop him, he would be going against God. Sometimes we must choose to do the radical and crazy thing instead of the calm and rational because it is the RIGHT thing to do. Sometimes we must choose to do God’s will over humanity’s even if they think we are ‘out of our minds’ like Jesus’ family considered him to be.

As we look at our lives and at our church, which group are we in the story? There are some that would be in the group that could not leave Jesus to eat a meal in peace, but I have a feeling more of us would have been nodding and approving of his family coming to take “Jesus in hand” because that boy was out of line. I could see many of us thinking that Jesus was causing unnecessary trouble.

Christianity has evolved over the many centuries since Jesus was teaching the disciples. Religion should evolve and change and adapt to the new circumstances otherwise it would grow stale. However, I have to wonder if we have tamed and watered down our faith to such an extent that Jesus would have rejected it as he rejected his family’s good intentions. After all, many of the things we do are done with good intentions, but Jesus seems to care more about God’s will. Shouldn’t we as well?

Amen.

Made Clean

Isaiah 6: 1-8
Romans 8:12-17

The passage in Isaiah is a very well known text to most Christians. The song of Holy, Holy, Holy is used by many denominations during Communion and the hymn, “Here I am, Lord” comes from this text. It is a scripture passage that speaks of glorious things, Isaiah sees God and the Seraphim and he is so overcome with God’s holiness that he becomes completely awakened to his own uncleanly state.

There is so much raw emotion in this vision of Isaiah’s that it can be overwhelming to us readers. Here we see the need to acknowledge our sins, and we find that God has an answer to our unworthiness. We read about how Isaiah is cleansed and as soon as he is, God begins to call him to new and glorious things. With his heart now pure, Isaiah can say without subterfuge, “Here I am, send me”.

Isaiah shows us all the need to realize our guilt and sinfulness. When he has his vision of God who is so big that only the hem of his robe fills the temple, he is besieged by God’s glory. There are winged creatures flying everywhere, singing praises to God and Isaiah for the first time sees himself clearly.

 Isaiah probably considered himself to be a good person. He probably thought he was a good Jewish man who loved God and was willing to do what God commanded him. He may have even prided himself on keeping the commandments and knowing a lot about the Old Testament.  At the moment of this vision, everything Isaiah knew about himself was flipped on its head.

 Face to face with God, Isaiah knew he was not a good person. He understood for the first time that the things he had always prided himself on, were not relevant. If we are created in God’s image, Isaiah was seeing a very distorted view of who he was and who he should be. It made him cry out in pain and despair, “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips!”

There is a seminary professor who often told his classes that he compared people to the two brothers in the Prodigal Son, the good son being the one that stayed to help his father with the farm and the bad son being the one who leaves the farm in search of adventure. At the end of the story, the prodigal comes back and is welcomed with open arms by the father, and it is the good son that stayed that watches on the periphery as the bad son is given such a warm welcome. The professor stated that it is not the people who know they are sinners that he worries about, it is people like the brother in the story who consider themselves good people and yet are not in the Father’s embrace.

There are many people who consider themselves Christians and to be fairly decent folk. They are the ones that fulfill their responsibilities, they go to work and come to church and they help others. The danger in being a person that is relatively good, is that sometimes we forget to depend on God. We forget that a sin is a sin and so even if we are not out stealing or killing people, that holding grudges, lying, and spreading gossip are also sins. Compared to what some people have done, they may seem minor and insignificant.

It is Isaiah that reminds us during this vision that he is just like us sitting in these pews. He was a good person; he was like the older brother in the story who fulfilled his responsibilities. And yet, when face to face with God, Isaiah could recognize that he was still unclean.  He is a sinner. We may not like acknowledging it and we certainly try to pretend to others that it isn’t true, but we are all sinners in this room. We have all done things that when we come face to face with God, we too will cry out, “I am a person of unclean lips!”

But God knows that. God knows us better than we know ourselves. God sees you. God knows you. There is no hiding the truth from Him. And so when we cry out our guilt and shame and remorse, when we confess our sinfulness, in that moment we are freed from it. Isaiah confessed his guilt and his people’s guilt and the Seraphim flew to him with a live coal and placed it upon his lips, making him clean.

All it takes is a confession, an acknowledgement that we are far from the perfection of God and that is when God takes mercy upon us. This is why we confess our sins within the first ten minutes of church. Once we have confessed our guilt, we are given the freedom to worship God in peace. We are free to open ourselves up to the Spirit of God so that our souls may be refreshed. We are reminded of the gift Jesus gave to us when he died for us so that our sins would be forever washed away. In those moments of confession and pardon, we go from being outside the Father’s arms to being held securely in His embrace.

For Isaiah, after his confession and cleansing he is then able to hear God clearly. Now, in that moment of righteousness, he hears God say, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Isaiah lives among a people of unclean lips, he has been cleansed but they have not. God has given a gift to Isaiah by making him righteous, and now God has called Isaiah to help the rest of his people to also be righteous.

It is not enough for just one person to be saved. God wants us all to be saved. This is the reason for all the prophets and why Jesus was constantly sending his disciples out to spread the Good News. This is why his last command before ascending to heaven was to tell the disciples to spread the Gospel to all four corners of the earth. Jesus did not sacrifice himself for just the Jews. God did not send his son for just those of us sitting in church today.

Every person is worthy of being saved. Every person has the ability to receive eternal life. Every person deserves the chance to choose God or to walk away. That means for every person saved, that is another person God will ask, “Whom shall I send? Who will go?” God tries to send us all out, but how many of us are willing to go?

Not everyone is given the task Isaiah has been given. God is not asking everyone in here to become pastors or missionaries. God is asking each of us to not hide our light, the light of the Spirit given to us on the day we said, “I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.” God is asking us to not be afraid to be different from the crowd. God is asking us to think for ourselves and to pray to Him for guidance instead of the world. God is asking us to not be meek but instead to own who we are in Christ. God is asking us to be willing to step out of our comfort zones and to stand by Him.

God wants us to love Him as he loves us. God is asking us to not be ashamed of Him or to be ashamed of being a Christian. If we are to change the way the world looks at Christianity and Christians, then it has to be through what we say and do. If we stand idly by while others call themselves Christians and then do ungodly things, we are letting God down.

I’m a Christian and I don’t hate Muslims. I’m a Christian and I don’t judge others. I’m a Christian and I try to always love others. I’m a Christian and I have gay and lesbian friends. I’m a Christian and I believe in pro-choice. I’m a Christian and I try not to be a hypocrite.

The world is tired of Christians saying they follow the bible and Jesus, and then they do the complete opposite. People are angry at our inability to see our own sinfulness. People are angry that the bible shows Jesus as loving and accepting, and yet his followers are often the most judgmental and hardheaded of people.

The only way to change the world’s perception of us is to make sure we acknowledge our sins. The only way to be different is to admit that sometimes we don’t have all the answers and that God needs to lead the way. The world will not accept us or Jesus if we cannot say, “Woe is me! I am a person of unclean lips!” because they will see we are liars. We are lying to ourselves, to them, and to God when we pretend we are better than them. God wants us to admit our faults and then move ON so that we can help others as we have been helped.

God’s calling to us all now, “Whom shall I send? Who will go?” Are you willing to give as you have received? Are you willing to bless as you have been blessed, or will you forever be a hypocrite?

Amen.