Saturday, July 7, 2012

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 14)

My Grace is Sufficient

Readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Psalm 48; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

There were some people whom Jesus simply could not reach. He was preaching in his hometown synagogue. His message and ministry there were heckled and rejected. People were not able or willing to understand how he could speak with such authority and wisdom. “Where does it all come from?” they ask. After all, isn’t he just a carpenter, the son of Mary, Jo’s boy? Don’t some of his brothers still live in the town? While they acknowledge his wisdom and power they cannot really accept it. After all, they knew him when he was growing up.

Jesus doesn’t really give it a second thought. He doesn’t let it consume him. He simply comments: “Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their kin, and in their own house.” Jesus is simply saying that this is the way things are.

Families and people who have known us our whole lives have a habit of cutting us down to size, sometimes gently, often harshly. You can grow up and mature and have a respectable position in the community and still be remembered as the brat who was always getting into a fight. You can be a dependable parent yourself and still be reminded about your teen years when you tried your parents’ patience by coming in late. People can even take offense at your achievements. Human nature being what it is, rather than admit blindness to someone’s growth and change we can become angry at their achievements. How dare he or she prove our assumptions so wrong?

Jesus knew that his disciples would also face rejection. He prepared them for it. He gave them some directions, some rules. They had to take care of their own travel. That is what the staff and sandals were for. But for the rest of their needs they were to depend on the hospitality and resources of the community.

What was it that Jesus wanted the disciples to learn as he sent them out? He has nurtured them. Now he gives them responsibility and the opportunity to decide and respond and to act on their own. He sends them out in pairs. We need mutual support and encouragement. How important it is to have feedback on how your ministry is going! But most of all he is teaching them that they are to rely on God. They are to have no reliance upon their own means. Messengers who wish to provide for every emergency simply do not have enough faith. How can you believe the word of a person who relies on their resources rather than on the message they proclaim? They are to make use of what is provided, but things are in no way to become a hindrance to them.

Most of us do not have the ability or opportunity to come to such an understanding as the disciples did through an experience provided for their learning. I have to say, I did have such an opportunity when I was studying theology. I did a course in Urban Ministry. One of the requirements was to spend two days living on the streets of Toronto. I kept telling myself that I didn’t really need to do it, but it was made clear that if we did not participate we would not pass the course. And so one cold November weekend I set out with only the clothes on my back. Now I had prepared myself. I talked to the street people with whom I was working. “You’ll never survive a weekend on the streets,” they told me. But they helped me to prepare, giving me good advice. “When you ask for money,” they told me, “look for a couple. Look down. Speak to the woman. Have a good story ready. She’ll give you a lecture about finding a job, but then she’ll turn to her husband and tell him to give you something.” I must say, it worked every time.

I knew that in the cold of November I could not sleep outside on a grate. And so I planned on staying in a hostel. I had been working that year in a Food Bank. I remember seeing people pacing in front of the building. I would think to myself, “Why don’t they just come in? We always help them. We always give them something.” Then I found myself pacing in front of a hostel. I must have wandered back and forth for fifteen minutes before I went in. I realized that the most difficult thing for me to do was to say “I need help”. But when I did, the help came. They found me a place to stay.

Over that weekend I questioned whether it was the right thing to do, the ethical thing. But I know that without that life changing experience I could never have learned the things I learned about myself, about ministry, about human nature, and most especially about my need to rely on God. I needed to experience that God’s grace is sufficient for my needs.

Unfortunately in our human fallibility, it takes the crunches, the difficult times of life to bring us closer to God. It is times of affliction, trouble and adversity that cause us to seek refuge and dependence on a higher power.

For one it might be a diagnosis of cancer. How does one deal with the initial shock of the illness? How does one deal with the resulting treatments that leave one physically and emotionally spent? How does one deal with friends who find such illness threatening? How does one face one’s own sense of mortality?

For another it might be the death of a loved one after a long illness, the prospect of a life alone. How does one fill lonely days which have been spent in the care and nurture of one who has been ill? How does one deal with feelings of inadequacy and guilt? How does one deal with anger at being abandoned?

For another it may be the loss of a job after a life-time of dedicated service. How does one begin again? How does one face the financial crunch of being out of work or the feelings of inadequacy as one gets turned down for job after job? How does one even get up in the morning knowing that there is no job to go to? It is the crunch times of life that bring us to the point where we admit that we need God.

It was a crunch time for the apostle Paul that brought him to know that he could depend on God for his needs. He shares at a very deep level about a spiritual experience in his life. It is far from clear just what he experienced, but such things are often beyond words. Then he admits that it was the thorn in his flesh and not the mystical experience that caused him to put his reliance on God. He kept asking God to remove the “thorn”. Finally he accepted God’s response. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

By ourselves we are inadequate to deal with our brokenness. The things that happen to us, the tragedies and difficult times, cause us to question our faith. Can that same brokenness which leads us to seek God help us in some tangible way to cling to God? Can the memory of our brokenness help us to hold on to that sense of dependency when things are going well? Can the reminders of our brokenness prevent us from going backwards in our faith journey?

Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest and the author of the book “The Wounded Healer”, explains that it is our brokenness that allows us to minister to others. It provides us with an understanding of the brokenness of others. In our brokenness we reach out in compassion to others.

I can well imagine that it was Jesus’ compassion for those in need, which led him to give authority to the twelve whom he had chosen. He certainly intended that in this first period of preaching, they would learn that his power extended beyond his presence and could even be delegated to them. They would learn to depend on God for their needs. They would learn that God could supply their temporal needs. They would learn that despite opposition, God would not fail them. They would learn that even in their weakness they could depend on God.

“My grace is sufficient for you,” God is saying to each one of us. Can we open ourselves to God working through our weaknesses? Can we see God’s grace at work in our lives? Can we learn that reliance on God will help us, not only in our daily lives, but will allow us, in compassion to reach out to others? Amen.



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