'Our God Reigns' - transcript of Sunday's Sermon

Sermon St Anne’s Brown Edge

Ezekiel 2.1-5 Psalm 123
2 Corinthians 12.2-10  Mark 6.1-13

Imagine you had a non-Christian friend who you were encouraging to read the Bible, in particular the story of Jesus.

What do you think they would make of this passage from Mark’s Gospel?

And how might you begin to answer them if they asked you to explain what is going on here.

Mark’s Gospel we know clips along at a fair pace and so by the time we get to Chapter 6 which we are looking at today, Jesus has already had a very full and effective ministry.

He has healed the Gaderene demoniac and sent two thousands pigs for a swim.

He has calmed the storm out on the Sea of Galilee.

He has healed a paralytic and had to mend a hole in the roof as well.

He had cured Simon’s mother-in-law and cast out demons and healed many more.

But now here he is in his home town.  If he thought he was going to get some sort of hero welcome he was badly mistaken. 

Jesus said, “Prophets are honoured by everyone, except the people of their hometown and their relatives and their own family.”

Then we also heard about the sending of the twelve in pairs, to carry his message to the surrounding villages.

Today we also heard about another prophet, the prophet Ezekiel.

And the words we heard today echo and rattle around the Jesus story we are considering.

 He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ ‘Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

And in sending out the twelve Jesus said, If 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.’ 

And from Paul in the passage we heard from 2 Corinthians, he is also struggling to get a fair hearing and lists a catalogue of the hardships and privations he has endured to ensure the Gospel is preached to all nations.

And tucked away in Paul’s litany of trials and tribulations there is this little gem…

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

And it is here in the words of Psalm 123 that these various threads begin to come together and present themselves.

 To you I lift up my eyes,
   to you that are enthroned in the heavens.

  As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
   or the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,

 So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God,
   until he have mercy upon us.

The Jesus story, Ezekiel’s prophecies and Paul’s proclamation all carry behind them one very important question.

By whose authority are you doing or saying these things?

To whom are we ‘lifting up our eyes’

Power, authority and rule are part of the warp and weft of life, but we humans have taken it to whole new level.

Chimpanzees can apparently come together and communicate in a group containing a maximum of fifty.

We humans learned to do a whole better than that with our highly developed means of communication.

So in a contest between a bear and one man there is no real contest.

However take 10 men or even more, communicating with each other and using tools developed by communication, and the bear doesn’t stand a chance.

Power, authority and rule.

However, just who rules and gets to make the choices is something men and woman (and animals) have been fighting over since time began.

I am currently reading an historical novel by James Mace that tracks the time in 69AD when  following the death of Nero on the 9th June 68AD Rome had four  Emperors,  Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian - and a bloody civil war. 

The question people were asking is who is Emperor, who is now leading the Roman Empire, to whom should we be lifting up our eyes?

And it was the last of these, Vespasian, whose son Titus, destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in AD69.

A time that Jesus speaks of in chapter 13 of Mark’s Gospel.

This is important to remember especially when we consider our hypothetical friend I mentioned earlier who was searching to know more about Jesus.

Jesus sits in a verifiable historical context.

And Jesus had a lot to say about power, authority and rule.

And our readings for today are all about authority, power and rule.

The people of Jesus’ home town can see he has authority, but from where and from whom.

‘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!

They begin to look in the most natural place but got it all wrong.

They look first to his human family – nothing there that would warrant Jesus acting and speaking in such a way.

Then they think back to him growing up and becoming their local handyman.  That doesn’t seem to be likely source of such wisdom, power and authority.

This question is one that is constantly put to Jesus, and on one occasion he is even accused of being in league with the devil himself.

Then there is that dramatic moment when Jesus stands before Pilate who caries all the full weight of the Roman Empire, all of its might, power, rule and authority.

Back to Mark chapter 6 and we read that sadly their lack of receptivity closed down their hearts and minds to receive from Jesus healing and wholeness, with perhaps the exception of a very few desperate souls.

I wonder if there are some people we have rejected because they didn’t fit into what we expected and so we have missed out on a true blessing from God?

Jesus’ death, resurrection and the destruction of the Temple all come together to demonstrate the validity of Jesus’ claim to have all authority in heaven and on earth.

And it with this authority that Jesus sends out the twelve apostles.

They are sent with a great sense of urgency and purposefulness.

However, we mustn’t suppose this is a model for mission we are to emulate to the letter. 

There have been those who have done just that, we think of St Francis for example.

In contemporary terms we have ‘The Walk of a Thousand Men’ – now better known as ‘Through Faith Mission.’

https://www.throughfaithmissions.org/

Quite literally the men would set off walking carrying little by way of provisions and seeking hospitality and shelter wherever they went. And as they walked they proclaimed the Gospel and prayed for the sick.

While this might not be a continuing model for mission and ministry, we are called to emulate that same sense of urgency, that same sense of being willing to give up everything and to go to wherever God leads us. 

And we go with that same authority, that very same power that raised Christ from death, the very power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

For although the Temple in Jerusalem was raised to the ground we are now the temple of God, the place that heaven and earth meet, the place of healing, wholeness and forgiveness.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 1 Cor 6.9

And we, like those first disciples are sent out into our mission field.

That might be a calling to a particular place or ministry, but more often than not, it will be to our own town, to our own family and friends and work colleagues.

Then we may just find this little story about Jesus’ rejection in his own home town carrying a very strong resonance.

We find both staying and going in the Gospel.

Think of the woman at the well in John 4, if anyone wouldn’t be believed by her own community it was her. Or the Gaderene demoniac who begged to follow Jesus but was told to go home and tell everybody what marvelous things God had done.

Going or staying are two sides of the same coin but with the same currency.

‘They went out a preached repentance.’

Repentance we always need to remember is so much more than feeling sorry, but a turnaround of 180 degrees and going in another direction.

It is to say along with the Psalmist,

To you I lift up my eyes,
   to you that are enthroned in the heavens.

  As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
   or the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,

 So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God,
   until he have mercy upon us.

We are those who look to God as the supreme power, authority and ruler over all the earth, over all the heavens and over all of the cosmos.

We are those who believe all that power, authority and rule was squeezed into the human person of Jesus, a person whom we can solidly root in history.

We are those who believe Jesus was raised from death, showing that God has the ultimate authority even over death itself.

Remember the story of young David facing Goliath.

David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

So, we don’t go alone!

Let me close with Chief's Consecration Prayer.  

(The Chief being Prebandery Wilson Carlile, Founder of Church Army 1882)

Now and here I give myself to you,
and now and here you give yourself to me;
and now and here I find your love within.
Break through me, Lord, that others I may win;
your wounded body and your life blood poured
impel me forth to live and preach you, Lord.