Lighting A Pile Of Wet Sticks

Sermon-Year B-Proper 9-5thPentecost July 5, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
So we’re at my high school reunion, sitting at a table with three other people. We were at one of the few tables available and every once in a while someone would come over to sit with us. Just as they were about to sit down, one of the people at the table would teasingly say to them, “You better be careful what you say, HE (pointing at me) IS A PRIEST!” And the person would sit with us for about 30 uncomfortable seconds and then move on. I think they may have been a little um, “intimidated”. I was tempted to swear or say something rotten just so people would stay and talk.

Always, always, we should begin every gospel (in year B) with this question, “what did Mark want us to see?” Because he is always, always is trying to get us to see connections, associations, links between every set of stories. For instance, Jesus is ignored in his home town, and then he commissions his disciples to go out 2 by 2 into the world. Doesn’t appear to be a connection, right?
Jesus has calmed storms on the sea, healed people, cast out demons, and he goes to his home town, and, as one commentator writes, Someone surely left Capernaum that day saying, “I’m sorry, that new preacher just didn’t do a thing for me.” Jesus comes home and people are not happy. They knew him! Where does he get off pretending to be someone special? Preachers, me, are always talking about accepting the stranger, but here we see that the hardest person for us to tolerate isn’t the person we don’t know-it’s the person we have known all our lives. 5And he could do no deed of power there…
Listen to this quote: Barbara Brown Taylor employs a wonderful metaphor in her sermon on this text to illustrate why Jesus couldn't work the same "deeds of power" in his hometown, where the people refused to respond to him. Jesus was still Jesus, she says, and "still had power to share with them, only he could not do anything with it because they would not let him." She compares it to the experience of trying to light a match to a pile of wet sticks: "It does not matter how strong your flame is: what you need is something that will catch fire. So call this an 'un-miracle' story, in which Jesus held the match until it burned out in his hand, while his family and friends sat shaking their heads a safe distance away."
That’s a great image to describe Jesus at his home town synagogue: trying to light a match to a pile of wet sticks.
And then Mark follows this seeming defeat with the sending out of the 12. Jesus finds that he is almost powerless with people who won’t believe in him, and yet he decides at this time to send out his followers 2 by 2 to do wondrous things. Does that seem odd to you? The timing is all wrong. You don’t send these guys out AFTER your most recent defeat. You have just failed in front of your friends, your family! They’ve seen Jesus with limitations and powerless, and now, now he sends them out? -not after the calming of the storm, not after the healing of the woman, nortafter the raising of Jairus’ daughter-but NOW. It makes no sense why he would do this, now.
Except. They see what the good news cannot do. The gospel does not win over everyone. Jesus cannot change people who do not want to be changed. They have just seen the boundaries, the limitations. And yet Jesus sends them out. Did you ever wonder why Jesus chose 12 people to teach, to walk with him, to be his disciples and later apostles? Why didn’t Jesus do everything on his own? Why use these other people, Peter, James, John, all the rest? especially considering how often they failed? It is after they see how Jesus can’t or won’t do it all, that he sends them out. And he sends them out with so little: a staff. Period. No food, water, clothes, money. It’s as if he wants them to realize that the gospel, the good news is utterly dependent on others. These disciples aren’t so strong, so independent, so autonomous that they can live without people. And neither is the gospel. Everything in today’s teaching is about how much the good news needs open ears to exist, and other people to flourish. In the ancient near east there was a philosophical movement called Cynicism. The cynic believed in total self-sufficiency. They carried a staff-like the disciples, and then they carried everything else that they needed in a bag over their shoulders. They never wanted to be reliant on anyone. Their goal was to live completely self-reliant-without the help or assistance of others. Contrast that to what the disciples are told- they were told to be COMPLETELY dependent on others. And it’s after Jesus showed this side of himself in his home town that he sends them out. After Jesus sees that the gospel cannot work, cannot shine, cannot exist-unless people are willing to listen, does he send them out.
It’s as if he wanted them to know that the gospel, the good news, wasn’t just something that was dumped on people-take it or leave it. It is only as powerful as people allow it to be in their lives.
We are tempted to believe that the gospel is about the teller, only, the person who shares the good news, but it’s also about the listener, too. Matches don’t light wet sticks. First the disciples see Jesus fail at home, and then they are given their walking papers. They are sent out to do deeds of great power-cast out evil, heal the sick -and at the same time they are told to be totally dependent on others for food, and shelter.
The good news is a powerful message, a life saving message, an invitation to come into relationship with God through his Son. But it can’t light wet sticks. For those who refuse to hear it, those who don’t want to be touched by it, Jesus says, just move on.
What a strange turn the Gospel takes this week. Jesus seems powerless, and the disciples are told to be needy. It’s a good lesson for us who always see the Gospel as just the opposite-Jesus as all powerful, the disciples as completely self-sufficient. Good lessons for us to hear about two stories that do not seem at all related. And a good thing for us to learn about the good news-if people don’t listen, no good news is told. And if we appear so holy and independent, no one will ever want to sit at the table with us. Matches can’t light wet sticks. If people don’t sit down at the table, there is no reunion. If people are afraid, no good news is heard. The world needs the gospel. And the Good News needs the world. Amen.

Amen.

6He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” 5And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6And he was amazed at their unbelief.
Then he went about among the villages teaching. 7He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.