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Every town has its hometown hero, someone who grew up among us and went forth to do “extraordinary” things. Where I live in Owen Sound, ON one of the hometown heroes is Canadian World War I flying ace, Billy Bishop. He had 72 victories making him the top Ace of the war for Canada and the entire British Empire. I am daily reminded of him as I share backyards with the Billy Bishop Museum, which is housed in his childhood home. Another hometown hero to the area is the very famous painter, Tom Thomson. He was one of the Group of Seven painters who became famous for their portrayals of the distinctiveness of the Canadian landscape. When you look at Thomson’s paintings you see Canada particularly Ontario. We won’t tell anyone that he actually came from the little hamlet of Leith six miles down the road.
The thing about hometown heroes is that we tend to celebrate them as larger than life good. If anyone has a bad story about them it will usually be laughed off or discredited. People have tried to discredit Billy Bishop’s war record over the years saying he embellished a bit. The official record will say he likely embellished a few accounts but he otherwise tended to play down how skilled he was. And Tom Thomson, there’s a lot of mystery surrounding his “accidental” death on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park and also whether he’s actually buried in the graveyard of the Leith Church. But the stories only add to the mystery, they don’t discredit him. Hometown heroes can do no wrong.
Well, then there’s Jesus, this rule apparently didn’t apply to him. To his hometown of Nazareth, he was anything but a hero. To the communities around Nazareth Jesus was a well-known religious celebrity. He taught with a sense of authority that the rabbis and Pharisees and scribes just seemed to lack. He astounded people with his healings and exorcisms and his message that the Kingdom of God was at hand so much so that people were beginning to think he was the expected Messiah.
Jesus’ celebrity had grown so remarkably that we would expect him to have received a hero’s welcome coming back to his hometown of Nazareth, but not so. It seems that the hometown crowd thought he was little more than a religious upstart who had disserted his family. He was not honourable in their eyes but rather an embarrassment of a firstborn son.
Looking at Mark here, Jesus came to Nazareth and brought some the circus with him – he’s got followers, disciples, like a respected rabbi would. Well, out of respect (maybe curiosity) the synagogue leaders let him teach on the Sabbath. As we would expect, the people were astounded. But…something’s was not sitting right. They just can’t understand how this Jesus, their Jesus, who grew up in their midst could have gained so much wisdom. They knew what he had been taught in Sabbath School and it wasn’t this Kingdom of God being at hand message that he was proclaiming throughout the region and backing it up with healings and exorcisms. We also know from a previous encounter a few months earlier that Jesus’s mother and brothers had come to collect him because they thought he was out of his mind. They likely did that because the townspeople were saying that too. You folks know how the rumour mill works in small communities.
The hometown people were likely saying that Jesus was out of his mind and this was why he was shirking his responsibility as the oldest son. As the eldest son in a family in which the father had died, Jesus should have been providing for the family, teaching his brothers the family trade of basic carpentry. He should have been walking them daily to the neighbouring newly under construction city of Sepphoris where they could make a lot of money framing houses. But instead. Jesus was walking around the countryside of Galilee with a ragtag band of fisherman living off of the generosity and hospitality of others and teaching people about the Kingdom of God which was the responsibility of the priests and scribes. Jesus was shirking his responsibilities as eldest son and also usurping the role of a rabbi.
Though the people of his hometown hear him teach and are astounded, they chastise him for not living up to his obligations. They even take a shot at the questionable paternity rumour that overshadowed him. They refer to him as Mary’s son rather than mentioning Joseph – a totally uncalled for slight. It all culminates with Mark saying they took offense at him which meant that they believed he had brought nothing more than scandal to the reputation of their town rather than the intended hope of the Kingdom of God at hand. Jesus countered their slight by nonchalantly commenting, “Prophets are not dishonourable except in their hometown, among their kin, and in their homes.” That was likely not a helpful thing to say if he was trying to keep the bridge mended.
Taking offence at Jesus is the opposite of having faith in Jesus. Consider the disciples, though Jesus often challenges whether they have faith, they are still faithful to him. They are loyal to him, listen to him, follow him, and do as he asks. That’s faith. But the people of Nazareth, his hometown, are offended by him and the result is that the Kingdom did not burst forth in their midst as it was in the rest of Galilee. Outside of a few healings he could do no works of power there.
Just like everywhere else Jesus went, the people of Nazareth were astounded at his abilities, astounded because he taught with an authority unlike the scribes and priests. But, the “We know this kid” stuff set in and that was that. Jesus could do no works of power there and Mark says that Jesus was, in turn, amazed at their “lack of faith”. Jesus is amazed, which means he’s quite puzzled by it.
Well, Jesus’ response to this rejection is to keep on keeping on at what he was called to do. He took the crew and the Kingdom elsewhere. He also upped his game by empowering his disciples to also do what he was doing – proclaiming, healing, casting our demons – and he sent them forth two by two. He also made them travel light resulting in their having to depend on the hospitality of others. He told them to go to people’s homes rather than tell the people to come out to the synagogues. And so the Twelve went proclaiming that all should repent and they cast out many demons and cured many sick anointing them with oil. The hometown rejection didn’t hinder things.
When I think of what it is to be the church in our world today, I think we’re in a situation that’s kind of like Jesus’ hometown rejection. In North America up until quite recently Christianity was the “hometown” religion. The institution of the Church provided the standards for what made for right and wrong. Christian faith played a role in family cohesion. Parents taught Christian beliefs and practises to their children. A Bible could be found prominently displayed in most houses. Civic events usually commenced with a prayer. There was the Lord’s Prayer in schools and Ten Commandments in courthouses. People didn’t work on Sundays. But today, people are largely ignorant of the Christian faith or misinformed or see the church as irrelevant if not a hindrance to healthy living. People can be ambivalent or apathetic in the least or as we are seeing more and more, people are taking offense at the church. In the wake of these discoveries of the unmarked graves of Indigenous children, churches particularly Roman Catholic churches are being burned down.
We have to ask how it is that the church is largely rejected in the hometowns of North America when it was a cornerstone of community not so long ago. It is more so the case here in Canada than it is the States. The national Censuses of the last four decades clearly demonstrate first, a turn away from denominational identification but still having a Christian identification; then, to being Christian but having no church involvement; and now to where the most recent Censuses are showing a strong growth in no religious affiliation at all. People left the church and are now renouncing having any faith at all. How has this happened?
The answer to that is multi-faceted and complicated, but this is how I would very broadly give an answer. Frederick Douglas was an escaped slave who wrote and spoke extensively on the role Christianity played in enabling slavery. He spoke of two kinds of Christianity – the Christianity of the land and the Christianity of Christ. He, like me and many of you, was perplexed by how the teachings of Jesus and the Bible could be so twisted and misused by those who claimed faith in Jesus as to undergird the institution of slavery and we could say the same thing about the Church’s role in the institution of the Indian Residential Schools here in Canada. Douglas wrote:
“What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference – so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, woman-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”
My broad-sweeping generalized answer to the question of how Christianity has become the rejected hometown religion of North America at which people are taking offence is that it is the Christianity of this land that is being rejected rather than the Christianity of Christ. The Christian faith that’s rooted in the Christianity of Christ does not get rejected when we do the acts of unconditional, non-judgemental compassion that Jesus calls us to – except by the Christianity of the land. If you love the enemy, the immigrant, the refugee, the homosexual, those different than the status quo it is the Christianity of the land that will lead the way in reject you.
The Christianity of the land is getting rejected and here are some reasons. It stepped into the hypocrisy of doing compassionate things and attaching a coercive price tag on it. “You can have this plate of food if you will sit and listen to me tell you how you’re going to Hell unless you accept Jesus and become just like us.” The Christianity of the land is getting rejected for saying God is on the side of particular political parties and politicians rather holding our elected officials accountable to the biblical prophetic standards of seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God when the bend of the political sphere tends to be seeking power, loving privilege, and cowering before those more powerful than themselves. The Christianity of the land is being rejected because we have spent billions upon billions upon billions of dollars building extravagant houses of worship all the while competing over who can make the best desert at the potluck when billions of people all over the world including our own communities do not have adequate housing, clean water, enough food, and proper health care. The Christianity of the land has believed and propagated lies rather than acted according to the Way, and the Truth, and Life of the unconditional love embodied in Jesus Christ. The Christianity of the land is being rejected because it is indeed offensive.
The Christianity of Christ – well let me say this – I like small congregations. It is easier to build a culture of loving community in a smaller group of people because smaller groups are so insanely relational. We are privileged to be smaller congregations because it easier to love one another unconditionally and sacrificially as Jesus commanded when we can actually get to know one another. We don’t have to be “all that” like the big program churches have to be. We just have to love each other and find one way to unconditionally and sacrificially bless to the community around us. When this land is done rejecting the Christianity of the land, it is my prayer that what will be left is the Christianity of Christ embodied in the loving community of small congregations such as ours, small congregations maybe still meeting in buildings or maybe only meeting in homes; small congregations that will be beacons shining forth with the sacrificial, unconditional love of the One who gave his life that all may have life abundantly. Amen.
