Mark 6: 1-13

July 5, 2009

Christmas 1955.  I was 10. I was having trouble with my eyes. I wanted a Bible with large print so it would be easier to read.  This is the Bible I received that year.  It is a King James Version.  I grew up in a church where the only approved Bible was the King James.

After high school I continued studies at a Bible College, a Bible Institute in West Virginia.  All the students there majored in Bible.  I was so excited when I went to my first Old Testament Survey class.  I had my trusted and much-loved King James Version with me, ready for study.  The professor greeted us, raised his Bible, and said, “I want all of you to purchase the 1901 Authorized Version for study.  It is the closest translation we have to the original.”   What? How could this be?  Who did he think he was saying that? I found myself stumbling over everything he said. Actually I was offended that he would suggest another translation. I do not remember the rest of that class.

What was I to do?  Did he mean that we would not be using the King James Version?  I was stunned, shocked and fearful. I had heard my whole life that the King James was the closest to the original.  I believed it.  I had to make a decision:  would I respond with openness to hearing God in this situation or would I respond with my fear and remain defensive?

In the gospel story today Jesus is teaching in the synagogue in his home area.  Mark doesn’t tell us the content of what Jesus was teaching, but he does tell us about the response of some of the crowd that day.  They were astonished as they listened to him, buzzing among themselves: “What? This isn’t what we had been taught. Where is he getting this stuff?  Who does he think he is talking like that? We knew him when he was still in diapers.  Isn’t he the carpenter’s son?”

The word for carpenter is tekton – it can mean someone who works with stone or wood.  They were usually itinerant workers because there was not enough work in the small village.  Some scholars say this might also signify a common day laborer, or it could mean a craftsperson who travels to various jobs.  What ever the precise meaning, the message is that Jesus was not from a family that was high in the social structure.  How can God be speaking through this guy? 

They took offense at him.  The word offense used here is stumbled.  They also stumbled over Jesus’ words. He was upsetting some of their ideas about God. This tripped them up and as they regained their footing, they had to make a decision. . .would they be open to hearing God in new ways or would they give in to their fear and anxiety and remain defensive?

Researchers today say that fear can produce neurological changes in us so that we get locked in the present and lose our ability to think things through.  Fear can trap us. Fear can paralyze us. Fear can deafen us.  Perhaps this was happening in that crowd at the synagogue. It seems that they had their minds made up and their ears plugged to Jesus’ views.

As human beings, it really is hard to keep an open mind.  When we hear one member of a political party talk, we tend to make up our mind even before we hear what they have to say.  Or when someone from a different perspective speaks, we usually start plotting a come back before they can finish. This impulse often comes from fear.  Fred Craddock, a former professor at Emory said that “When we are of a fearful heart, we forget the plot of the story . . .that God is at work.”  

In my last year of Bible College just before graduation, my favorite professor, Dr. Perdue, came into class.  Looked at us and walked to the blackboard that stretched the width of the classroom.  He picked up a short piece of white chalk.  He wrote a big G, then an O, and then a D.  The letters were huge and covered the entire blackboard.  Then he said, “ No matter what you have learned, no matter what trials or stresses come into your life - - -Remember GOD – God is at work in your life.”

Beloved, Dear Friends – We are the people of God.  May we remain open to see God in each other regardless of beliefs.

The Rev Mary Wetzel

July 5, 2009

Grace Calvary