Coming Home - Mark 6

Coming Home

Tony E Dillon Hansen

10 June 2018

A reflection based upon Ezekiel 2:1-5 • Psalm 123 • 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 • Mark 6: 1-13

Link to Scriptures

Will you pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Rock, Our Redeemer.  Amen.

Our text from the Gospel of Mark tells us a familiar story of homecoming. It is a homecoming accompanied with a stubborn rejection of one’s acquired knowledge and skills. 

There are many stories that I could think that are relative to this situation. When I came home from college full of new passions and newfound understanding, I just wanted to share with everyone.  The reception was kind of neeah, “we love ya Tony, but we know ya.”

Those who go on a retreat may come back to a lukewarm reception as well. Soldiers returning from overseas understand this dilemma full well.

You see, while we have been growing and learning on our personal journey, the rest of home have went about life business as usual without so much as an occasional burp.

We may have returned from a good journey full of newfound knowledge and hot passions, but everyone we know also remembers who we were before we left (aka the good, the bad, and the ugly.)

In these experiences of being on journeys, even our friends and family may not realize what has changed in us or why that is important to us. These circumstances invoke the adage, “familiarity breeds discontent” because people, over time, become complacent and inert to change -- even when that change may be literally what the doctor ordered.

We have become accustomed to the way things are rather than worrying about what they should be.  (No one likes to worry so I can understand.) Yet, We have allowed injustice and misery to become normal to us rather than speaking out or even truly living our faith.  We have become accustomed to living something different than living the truth :  we all belong to community and that we are all deserving of grace. Some even cry foul when our brothers and sisters come to their senses and ask for their rightful part of equality and liberty.

This return from our recent ascent  and journey invokes the inertia because we have changed the dynamic of our being, but the familiar routine has not changed.

Question is, why allow inertia to rule us? Why allow inertia to take away God-given rights and happiness from ourselves or our neighbors?

Inertia is resistance to change, and yes, we will find that resistance in those closest to our hearts because small or big change disrupts the routines.

No matter how good our intentions, or how hot our passions, humanity enjoys routines and thus resists change. (I understand this as I enjoy being able to sit and relax once in a while.)  What if the doctor says we have to get up and do exercise, stop drinking, stop smoking, or eat differently, is that when we should invoke inertia? So when the wisdom of Jesus tells us to love for our neighbors, do we just ignore  like we do the doctor?

Sometimes, this “change” could be simply asserting what is already there, like boundaries. Perhaps, we have allowed people to cross our boundaries, push us around or ignore our thoughts. Perhaps, we have allowed society to ignore our fundamental rights and allowed apathy towards oppression of brothers and sisters.

Complacent people get so used to living with oppression and with injustice.

Change may simply be saying “I have had enough.”

We may feel that we are called to action, and yes, many may not share that enthusiasm. Our scriptures tell of the sending of the disciples to remind us there are people willing to share this enthusiasm when we are willing to go out and find them.

There are people out there right now that need help, need hope and yearning for a path.  Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is being threatened all around us.

We need to be awake to the plight of our brothers and sisters whether it is racial injustice, immigrant family separation or gender inequality. We do not have to blindly accept when society wants to take what little we have or to force us into something we are not. 

Maybe it is time for us to say, “I have had enough.”

I have seen this journey because it took decades of worry, hope and work to get to the place we are today. I am watching our world dismantle the love and grace that our country can be into a sweltering pot of anxiety and hostility.

When people get singled out like is happening to immigrants today (for doing nothing more than trying to make good homes), justice suffers and the love of God is being ignored.  What are we teaching our next generations about love and justice? That exclusion is ok and the hate is God’s way?

If we say nothing, and let the injustice rule today, it is only a matter of time before they start knocking on the doors of other Americans and telling them to get into the boxcars and the concentration camps? Will inertia rule that day?

We may do the right thing and have learned valuable truths, but sharing that wisdom to people unwilling to receive it is like throwing the good news in a fire.  Maybe people are suspicious or a bit jealous, but we cannot let them burn the love of God, that is we cannot let them burn what’s good in us, in the fire of hate and discontent.

Yes Maybe it is time for us to say, “I have had enough.”

For those not ready to receive wisdom, this sharing may appear to be trickery and nonsense since the wisdom may not conform to our (valid or invalid) perceptions. When we play the role of truth teller, being a prophetic voice can be difficult.

Injustice is happening and boundaries are being crossed. We cannot ignore the reality.  We cannot let the service and sacrifice of so many of our honorable go in vain. They served and sacrificed for an ideal greater than themselves that is liberty and justice for all. Let that not be in vain. We must be willing to be love and justice.

We must be willing seek out God’s love and justice in our own hearts and minds. Then we will find recipients of that love and justice when we share the story of our journey just as Paul does with Corinth. 

Paul reminds us that wisdom starts with personal trials and lessons, and we should share our passion so long as we lift up our friends and families experiences in them.

God’s love and justice needs a friend in these times. We cannot risk more inertia to the suffering of our brothers and sisters. Say no to harmful injustice to our communities.

We know that we are broken and have failed, but our failure does not have to continue.  We are much more than that. Together, we are blessed to be the goodness of love and justice that unites our community. Together, we believe in the good that we are.  Together, we grow to share love with children and families of white people, immigrants, black people, LGBT people, Native Americans and many more.

Real wisdom, passion and justice are right around the corner for our use. God is ready to light our passion and bring us together.

Thanks Be to God.

When We Fail - Mark 3

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When We Fail

Tony E Dillon Hansen

10 June 2018

A reflection based upon 1 Samuel 8 • Psalm 138 • 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 • Mark 3:20-35

Link to Scriptures

Will you pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Rock, Our Redeemer.  Amen.

There are a couple themes that are prominent in these darker texts today. We could talk about the failure of people in 1 Samuel or we could talk about the token villains of Mark’s Gospel in the scribes. How are these related ? One theologian suggests that 1 Samuel kind of sets up the problem in the Gospel of Mark.

What do we do when we fail.  In Samuel, the people fail to remember the experience of the tyrant pharaoh and demand a new “king”. In Mark, the scribes fail (or refuse) to see God at work in Jesus. Even Jesus fails to persuade the intolerant scribes of this.

Ever have that happen to you?  Ever walk into a conversation or event thinking I am going to wow them only to be totally rejected.  You walk away with mixed emotions: hurt, distrust, and even some anger. How could they be so blind as to not see the Truth?

I kind of understand the dilemma that falls upon Jesus as I have had similar experiences.  Jesus goes before the elders to make a case about Gods work and what the mission of God means.  Perhaps, Jesus expected a fair hearing of his testimony, but instead, he is condemned by the elders.  He is sent out of the meeting linking wounds. Subsequently, Jesus knows that his mission lays not in that religious institutions.

Through their rejection of Jesus, the scribes actually prefer human power and tradition over the transformative and restorative power of God’s work and God’s love today. I have witnessed this kind of rejection from the Church, and it causes one to question the whole idea of Church.

Church is run by people, and like all human institutions, they are fallible (I included). 

Yet we are called to God’s work. It is up to us to speak against injustices like slavery, destruction of Native American people or the exclusion of LGBT because we, as Christians, must speak for all of God’s children, no matter where they are on life’s journey.

We are called to church because church is a place of good and hope. We can find the community of God here. Through God, we can find liberation, restoration, forgiveness and true grace. We have to be willing to see it, grab it, hug it, and to hold on to it because God’s love can take us for an awesome ride.

Failure can be our greatest teacher: when we let it teach us. Here, we acknowledge our brokenness, imperfection, and need for providence. We may even witness God at work during that failure-- working to teach us something. We have to be willing to listen  and be willing to let the moment be a teaching one rather than to perpetuate wrongdoing (aka mask with a flimsy excuse or worse.)

If you lie to yourself, are you helping yourself or causing yourself more problems? People may end up believing in our own lies because they never accepted our failure. That can lead down the path they call the “unforgivable.”

If we poison our minds with delusions of power, false righteousness or believe our false excuses, then we risk losing the connection to the greater power of God and the community. If we consume ourselves  with our own desires and interests like a narcissist, we leave no room for true enlightenment and grace that could build us. Thus, if we keep going down that path, as to be unredeemable, we may forsake all the real good and real potential that is around us -- the real love that binds our community.

These are moments in life that teach us about human fallibility whether an institution or us as a person, and still God is there to lift us and forgive us.

Our love binds us and moves us forward throughout all of this.  That is a point of the last part of our Gospel when Jesus reminds us of the value of our connections as family.

Families, or our real connections, become important to us when all else does not seem to go our way. When we are rejected, we go to those closest to us for reassuring.  In those moments, we Question like What did I do wrong even though I did nothing wrong?

We know that when we face rejection and obstacles we turn to those we trust: our family (not just family of blood).  Our “families” in life turn out to be those that share life, breath, joys, concerns and pains. That is where we may find the restoration and liberation of God right here on Earth: that in our best friends. They believe in us and lift us when we need that help, just like God. If you look closely, you just might witness God in them.

So despite our best efforts, intentions and ignorance, we fail. We have to get back up and keep going. We just reach out and God will be there waiting for us --to restore us and renew us. In the midst of summer celebrations and parades, these scriptures remind us to be penitential when we do wrong, recognize when good happens, and to enjoy the graces we get -> and to remember from where those graces arise.

In these penitential verses, there is also a call to remember your family, those who support you and those in your community. We are all broken, need to heal and we can begin the healing by forgiving others. We are here for each other and we can extend a little of the grace in our lives to our family, and our community.

Then, we can do the work of liberation and justice called of us by God because we have God’s grace and forgiveness always.

I did not realize how personal this sermon could get or how hard it would be to write. Yet, the message was timely and I was almost crying as I finished up because I needed a little uplifting.  As I wrote, I could look up and smile again as I saw God all around us …restoring us

Thanks Be to God.