Click Here For Sermon Audio
When
I lived in West Virginia, I lived in a small town of about 900 people. I absolutely loved it. The sense of community was so strong. There is security when everybody’s face is
familiar and over the years you get to know who everybody is. You know, I feel the urge to sing a song
about small towns.
Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Prob'ly die in a small town
Oh, those small - communities
All my friends are so small town
My parents live in the same small town
My job is so small town
Provides little opportunity, hey!
Educated in a small town
Taught the fear Jesus in a small town
Used to daydream in that small town
Another boring romantic that's me
But I've seen it all in a small town
Had myself a ball in a small town
I brought my big city wife to this small town
Now she's small town just like me
No I cannot forget where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be
Got nothing against a big town
Still hayseed enough to say look who's in the big town
But my bed is in a small town
Oh, that's good enough for me
Well I was born in a small town
And I can breathe in a small town
Gonna die in a small town
Ah, that's prob'ly where they'll bury me
That
is Small Town by John Mellenkamp.
He’s nostalgic and sometimes sarcastic about the good side of small town
life. But, he left out one thing – small
towns are great, if you fit the mould.
Mellenkamp says, “Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town and
people let me be just what I want to be.”
That’s true if “what I want to be” meets expectations. Not meeting small town expectations is a
different matter. That’s why Jesus was
rejected by his hometown, the small town Nazareth.
Nazareth
was like any other small town. It had about
500 people. If you were an economically
comfortable observant Jew, it would have been a great place to live. But there’s that thing of everybody knows
your story. Nazareth was hometown to Jesus’ mother Mary and everybody would
have known that there were paternity questions surrounding Jesus’ birth. But, Jesus’ “father” Joseph was apparently a
honourable man and did right by them.
His “Chesed”, act of loving kindness, in not disavowing Mary helped to keep
the rumours at bay.
As
far as employment goes, Nazareth was on the edge of the agricultural heartland
of Israel, the Jezreel Valley. But,
Nazareth was also only a three-mile walk from the big Roman city of Sepphoris,
which during Jesus’ teens and early adult years was the most significant
building project happening in Galilee.
It was likely that Jesus, Joseph, and probably his brothers too worked
construction in Sepphoris.
As
for his growing up in a small town of observant Jews, we know that Jesus was
well taught in the Jewish faith. Luke
tells us that when Jesus was twelve he and his family were returning from their
annual visit to Jerusalem, he snuck away and went to the temple and gave a
schooling to the rabbis. This childhood
story shows that Jesus was precocious, with rebellious streak, and apparently
out to make the point that he new there were some questions about his
paternity.
As
for his adult life, we know that at some point Jesus’ father Joseph died. As the oldest son Jesus would have had to
assume responsibility for the family especially for providing for his mother
and his sisters. But at about the age of
30, Jesus suddenly left his stable employment and his family responsibilities and
became a wandering miracle working preacher who proclaimed the imperial Gospel,
“The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent
and believe the Good News.” This is
where Jesus fails to live up to small town expectations. Trouble begins.
So
looking at Mark, after being away from Nazareth on his Kingdom of God mission,
he returns and his precocious, rebellious side comes into play. One Sabbath morning he assumes he can just
get up and start teaching in his hometown synagogue that the Kingdom of God is
at hand and they need to get on board with it.
This was not a honourable thing to do.
Though his teachings were amazing, the leaders who had known him all his
life began to take him to task for dishonourably shirking his family obligations.
“Where
did he get all this wisdom and
miracle working power? He’s just a builder. Isn’t this Mary’s son?” The fact that
they didn’t call him Joseph’s son here was their way of saying the bastard son
isn’t doing right by his mother. I
apologize for not being so polite their but that’s what they were saying. To heap a little more shame to the pile, they
name each of his brothers who have had to step up in his place to provide for his
mother. Finally, they mention that the
village was having to look after his sisters for him. “Are not his
sisters here with us?”
Mark
tells us the people of Nazareth took offense at Jesus. Basically, that means that they could not
accept the validity of his message that the Kingdom of God was at hand because
of his dishonourable conduct in leaving his family obligations behind to go on
a Kingdom of God mission. I suppose they
were thinking that if Jesus and his message really were from God, then Jesus
would not have left his family obligations behind contrary to Scripture.
Jesus
bites back on them, “Prophets are not without honour except in their hometown,
and among their kin, and in their own house.”
It’s the people who know a prophet the best who can’t see past who the
prophet is to accept the prophet’s message from God. The people of Nazareth could not get past the Jesus they knew to accept Jesus the Messiah and so the Kingdom of God didn’t appear so at hand there. Jesus could only do a few healings.
An
interesting thing happens after this hometown, small town rejection. In order to help the hometown crowd to see
past him to what their God was doing in their land, Jesus begins to send the
twelve out in two’s to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God being at
hand and to demonstrate it by casting out demons and anointing the sick to cure
them and they indeed proved his point.
This
story is applicable for the church today.
For over fifty years now, the people of North America have had a hard
time seeing Jesus and hearing his message that "the Kingdom of God is at hand, so
get on board" because they can’t see past the church. Like people who can’t see the forest for the
trees, people cannot see Jesus for the church.
One
of the reasons for this is our own fault.
For centuries the church was that institution in our culture that
defined the "expected” behaviours and then presumed upon the authority of God to
enforce them. Just as in small town
Nazareth where the Law-observant element of the ancient Jewish faith shaped the
expectations of how people were to behave, so has the Church done in Western
culture. Yes, there have been times when
the church, like Joseph, demonstrated the chesed
of God, the loving kindness of God, but for the most part we have been usurping
the authority of God to police our moral expectations of people in order to
maintain a place of standing in our culture. We have been the Christian Empire rather than the Kingdom of God.
Too
often we have policed morality for our own political gain. Take North American Evangelicalism and its
political behaviour the United States since the 1920’s as the example. They will support immoral and unethical
politicians because they claim to support the same “moral” “anti’s” and
“pro’s” on their respective political agendas.
For
those who pledge allegiance to Jesus and his Kingdom, there is a way out of
this predicament where people can’t see Jesus for the church. Just as Jesus sent his disciples to go forth
with his message and empowered them to manifest the Kingdom as his ambassadors,
so we must go forth as his sent disciples into our small towns or our urban
neighbourhoods and show people the love of God.
What would happen if we really loved our neighbours the Jesus way. We must find ways to make our buildings
become community space rather than our own private property that we dub sacred
space. We must cease policing morality
and the judgementalism that task demands and instead, just as God listens to
everybody’s prayers, so we must start listening to the real hurts of the broken
people around us and let compassion rule the day. Amen.
