Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: Holy Communion
Mark 6:1-13
Peter: Um, Jesus?
Jesus: Yes, Peter?
Peter: You know what you just told us, that stuff about going out in twos and entering houses and proclaiming things about turning round and coming back to God?
Jesus: If you don't want to go with Andrew, you can always pair up with someone else.
Peter: No, it's not that, John's said I can go with him. It's something else.
Jesus: Well?
Peter: This is going to sound really horrible, and I don't mean it that way, but... how on earth can you send us out like that after how they treated you in the synagogue just now? I could see how much it hurt when that idiot started going on about your mother, and dragging your whole family into it. And that saying you came out with about prophets being... what was it?
Jesus: Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.
Peter: Well, that was right on the money. You could see from their expressions you couldn't do anything to impress them. And the worst thing was, they were right! All you did was heal a few people. I've seen you do so much more - remember that little girl you brought back from death? And now you're asking us to put ourselves on the line to be laughed at like that?
Jesus: Peter, remember when I first called you?
Peter: We were out fishing. I remember we'd just thrown out our nets, and you came along and interrupted Andrew and me. And then you said something so weird I had to take notice.
Jesus: Namely?
Peter: Come with me, you said, and I'll show you how to catch people instead of fish.
Jesus: And what did you make of that?
Peter: I remember thinking, He'll need a much bigger net.
Jesus: Preserve me from literalists!
Peter: But I know you can't have meant that really. You must have been talking about God's kingdom.
Jesus: Good, Peter! Why do you say that?
Peter: Every time you say something I don't understand, you're talking about God's kingdom. But as well as that...
Jesus: Stop teasing me, Peter!
Peter: Well, it seems to me you're putting out little ideas about what it's going to be like in God's kingdom, and waiting to see what our reaction is - like a fisherman casting out bait to see what bites. Every year of my life I've seen sowers at work in the fields, but it took you to show me that's how God works too, spreading good news patiently in every sort of soil, time after time, and seeing what grows.
Jesus: You're getting the hang of it!
Peter: But not everyone wants to take notice of what you say and do. That crowd in Nazareth, all they saw was a local boy grown too big for his boots. I see God's power at work in you. And that scares me.
Jesus: Why?
Peter: Because I'm not like you. I'm ordinary. I don't know God the way you do, and I can't tell anyone else about God the way you can. If you send me off to talk about God, all I can do is get it wrong. And I hate not being able to do things right.
Jesus: Do you remember the man who couldn't walk, whose friends let him down through your roof?
Peter: Do I remember! It took me three days to mend that roof.
Jesus: Do you remember what I said that caused such a fuss?
Peter: You said... hold on... you told the man his sins were forgiven. The Pharisees didn't like that. Only God can forgive sins, they said. But you said what was harder, healing him or forgiving his sins? And you told him to walk off with his bed, so looks like you did have the authority to forgive him.
Jesus: You know what happened. So you know I can forgive people who make mistakes - even you! But how are people who weren't there going to know, unless someone tells them?
Peter: So that's why you're sending us out, because we know what you've told us about God, and we can tell other people?
Jesus: Got it in one!
Peter: But what if it's like Nazareth, and they're not interested?
Jesus: It hurt when they didn't believe in me at home, but God never comes into someone's life uninvited. If they're not interested, just walk away and talk to someone else instead.
Peter: I still don't feel I can do this.
Jesus: When you first went fishing, did you catch a lot?
Peter: I was so nervous, it was amazing I caught anything at all! But my dad knew a good place to go, not too far out, and we made a good day's catch. I learned everything I know about fishing from the old man.
Jesus: Peter, try trusting your heavenly Father too, and give this trip a go. You may be surprised at the results!
R&S 518, a more modern way of describing our reliance on God, was copyrighted in 1975, words and tune, by Jenny Hewer.
R&S 454 is by far the oldest of our hymns today, translated by Alan Gaunt from the fourth-century Liturgy of St James. In the Orthodox liturgy it is sung immediately before bread and wine are brought in. The tune Picardy comes from 17th century France.
Called to your service is one of Alan Gaunt's own compositions; the tune Som Stranden is of Danish origin, by Lars Lundberg.
Everyone has their weaknesses: and I'll tell you one of mine - no, not chocolate, you already know about that. My weakness is wanting to do things well or not at all. If you're kind, you may call it perfectionism; if you're not, you may mutter ‘control freak', but either way, it's something I've had to get used to in myself. Why is that a weakness? you may wonder. Well, if
I know I don't do something very well, I may be demotivated from moving out of my comfort zone and trying at all. And some things just don't go right from day one, but take time and effort and practice to get right. So
I keep a sharp eye on myself, in case I avoid trying things just because
I may get them wrong and look like an idiot in public. That, I tell myself firmly, wouldn't be the end of the world.
We have no idea what Paul's weakness, his thorn in the flesh, may have been. Some people speculate it was a disability, like the loss of eyesight, or a tendency to epilepsy; some that he is referring to an opponent who won't stop attacking him - though surely that could never happen in church circles? Anyway, it seems perfectly reasonable for Paul to ask God for its removal: surely if this thorn weakens him, that means he can serve God less well? Three times he appeals for God's help; but finally he concludes that, instead, he must learn to trust God in his weakness as much as when he is feeling strong.
This is not an obvious conclusion. I've been watching some of Wimbledon, and the constant call to poor Andy Murray was to strengthen his first serve. If you detect weakness in yourself, surely you should eliminate it? If I were cynical, I might suggest Paul gives up praying about his thorn in the flesh only when it became apparent that it is not going to change and decides: what can't be cured, must be endured. Again, in this whole letter he is trying to defend himself, seen by the Corinthian church as a spiritual weakling, against so-called superapostles who have impressed the congregation with their spiritual powers. But there is more than this at work.
There is something very strange about the Christian way of portraying God through the person of Jesus. Compared with the Muslim view of God as totally almighty, it doesn't make sense. The creator of all that is chooses to enter creation as a baby. The wisdom of God chooses to become a wandering teacher in a small backwater of the Roman Empire, whose hearers can choose to jeer at or ignore him. The power of God chooses to demonstrate his strength by hanging on a cross and being walled-up in a tomb. Incredible as it may seem, the God whom we as Christians worship seems to find something valuable in weakness. How can this be?
I don't know your weaknesses, but my guess is that like me you don't enjoy the way they make you vulnerable. For that can be an invitation to others to attack and destroy. And is God not the most powerful we can imagine, and more? What is the point of vulnerability for God?
Maybe, just maybe, that incident in the synagogue at Nazareth, followed by Jesus' instructions in how to start spreading good news about God, give us some insight. Jesus could have chosen to make his message irresistible. Evidently he did not. He could have given his followers superhuman powers of persuasion. But since the first Christians left in the Gospel instructions about what to do when people rejected his message, we can deduce he did not do that either. Instead, he left them free, as he leaves us free, to accept or reject him and his teaching. God never pushes into someone's life unasked. God leaves us freedom of manoeuvre. And we have room to exercise this freedom because of God's chosen weakness.
At times, the Christian church has not been quick to follow Jesus on the path of weakness and vulnerability. During the golden age of Christendom, ever since the Emperor Constantine made Christianity a state religion, churches have been tempted to exert political and moral power over people's lives. Some of our ancestors in the URC felt the force of such power when we protested against having to use a particular prayer book, or to follow the lead of bishops, and paid a heavy price for that protest.
Now churches are much more vulnerable than before, more vulnerable than at any time since the days of Constantine. We have less money, we have less status, we have less power. This congregation has known some of that increasing weakness; gone are the days when the Master Cutler was one of our members and St Andrew's knew many of the city's movers and shakers. Yet now, however painful our loss, I believe we are following Jesus more faithfully than for the many years when our riches made Jesus' instructions about travelling light difficult to follow.
What about the other main theme of our reading from Paul's second letter to Corinth? I suspect that some here might find the visionary language of the Jewish mystical tradition almost as difficult to take on board as the language of weakness. It is code for an experience which cannot really be put into words. Indeed, as Paul hints, it may be wise not to make such experience a matter of public comparison. As someone mentioned to me recently in the context of talking about prayer, it's all too easy to come across as boastfully pious or spiritually one-up, like Paul's superapostle opponents in Corinth. Yet we would be foolish to cut off the possibility of God's communicating with us in our spiritual lives. John Calvin believed that every time we receive Communion, God's Holy Spirit catches us up to heaven to encounter God, and Christians from other traditions are also blessed by God's mystical presence in the bread and wine we share. Such an idea may be out of our comfort zone; yet if we can be inexpressibly blessed by contact with God through music or poetry, natural beauty, human love or our sharing of bread and wine, may we not find that the whole world acquires a mystical dimension, feeding our spirits?
And if we do dare to open ourselves to God in this way, it will become good news for us and for others. For Christianity is no religion for masochists. We do not make ourselves weak to please God. But there are advantages to our vulnerability. When we are feeling strong, in need of no one's help, God may not be able to attract our attention. Yet when we are weak through no choice of our own, God can touch and bless us with the strength we need - if we give our permission. And that is a story others need to hear from us.
