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This page is in honour of the 'pesky, perpetual, predictable and persistent return of the Sabbath'!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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

This is moving week for clergy serving many different protestant denominations in North America (not just the United Church of Canada.) Many ministers move at this time of year and many congregations and ministers are introducing themselves to one another on this very Sunday. There will be surprises on both sides, I suspect.

It has been just two years since I came here; back to PEI where I was born and raised but where I had not lived full time since 1981 when I went away to university. While I began full time ministry in 1987, I did not even consider coming to PEI until I had been in ministry for a number of years. Some people were perplexed and must have been asking, “why wouldn’t an Islander just be itching to get back home?” or “What real Islander could stay away so long?” I suppose that I was afraid that certain members of my family would always be commenting on how I was doing in my churches - because I know everything that went on would get back to them through the PEI grapevine - because, everyone knows everyone on PEI and if they don’t, they know someone who does.

Another reason, I suppose was that I did not want to be greeted with, “Oh you are Mark’s little girl”, or “You’re Frank’s sister aren’t you?”, or “I hear you’re from Suffolk.” Or “My nephew was in your class in high school. He’s told me ALL about you.” I thought this “knowing” would come with pre- conceived notions and expectations that I would not be able or prepared to fulfill. I suspect I could also have interpreted all of that to mean, “Who do you think you are, telling us what to do? What do you know?”

Yet, when 2007 rolled around, I was ready to come home, or at least somewhat close to home, and I knew who I was, apart from who I used to be, before I left the Island. Being associate with my family isn’t usually a bad thing these days!

(Pause)

We are from the smallest province in Canada and we are part of a relatively poor region of Canada. We all know that famous and important people have to come from somewhere else - like Ontario or Quebec? Right? Yet, on Thursday the country laid to rest the Rt. Hon. Romeo LeBlanc, the only one of our Governors- General to come from the Maritimes. He came from Memramcook, a small village near Moncton, which I think has been described by Marc Lalonde as a small place “at the end of nowhere”. (Actually I’ve been there and driven by the exits to the village hundreds of times, so, with due respect to the Hon. Mr. Lalonde, it’s not THAT isolated!) Someone like him, a mere Maritimer, could not possibly become the queen’s representative, could he? (Pause) But he did and he was.

The itinerant preacher, Jesus came to his hometown of Nazareth and on the Sabbath he preached in his home synagogue. (Now, as for me I would still rather preach to five hundred strangers than to 50 or so in my “home” church.)

At first the congregation of neighbours and family were amazed. And why not? He had done well for himself. Here he was, the kid next door, all grown up. As far as we know Jesus had little formal education. On this day he obviously spoke well. He probably read the scripture well. Most congregations know a really good reader when they hear one! Jesus would have been reading the scriptures in their language of worship, Hebrew. No doubt they would all have been saying, “my, how he has grown!” “We just knew he would make a good preacher when he stayed behind in Jerusalem that Passover time!” “ How they worried about him!” “Joseph would be so proud if he could see him now”, or “Hummm, I wonder if my daughter knows how handsome he has become?”

After he read the scripture he would have sat down to interpret the passage for the day. It was probably at this point that something changed. We are told that they “took offense” at him. Luke’s gospel relates this, or a similar incident, gives us more details about the sermon and then tells us that the congregation heard his words and was “filled with rage”.

Maybe it was who he was or was not. Perhaps Mary and Joseph were not from a prominent enough family. Perhaps they were “from the wrong end of the village” and people did not consider them to have the proper bloodline to produce a rabbi.

I don’t think though that this would produce either offence or rage. Most likely it was the content of the sermon. Why? What could he have said in a sermon that was so upsetting?

One Sunday a few years ago my dad told me “well people don’t pay much attention to sermons anyway!” I did not remind him of the time, when I was just a teenager, and we had a guest preacher that irritated him greatly because of his views on the arms race. Dad was listening that day, for sure!

I suppose that when you are a guest preacher for just one Sunday you can get away with almost anything, but when you are preaching in your home church you should probably stick to safe topics, rather than be strongly prophetic or ask people to take the biblical passages seriously enough to consider changing their own lives or the community, the country or the world. That’s not something the home-grown preacher is supposed to do - but they can do it so well because the home-grown preacher knows them so well! The home grown preacher knows the heart of hope and the heart of despair that beats in each chest. The home grown preacher knows the dashed disappointments and crushing tragedies that have been experienced by people as close as his own family. The home grown preacher knows this; yet dare, s to make the gospel relevant and challenging and comforting and prophetic. Of course preachers “from away” can as well, but the people can easily dismiss it, saying, “that preacher don’t know us”.

Interestingly, the verb used in the text for “take offense” is the same word as can be used for those who begin to follow but then fall away, or those who start walking but then stumble and do not finish the journey. It would be the same word as used in explanation offered for the parable of the sower.

Maybe they said to themselves, “He should know better.” He should know that these things are just pipe dreams designed to keep us hoping. We can’t afford those kinds of pipe dreams. He should know better; he might as well learn now as later.

So while it might have sounded attractive at first, maybe they turned away because, to them, Jesus could not possibly be anything other than the kid next door. He could not possibly have a word of true hope. The scriptures could not possibly have a message that could change their lives completely. No, it’s better not to listen too much; its better to just go through the motions, to put your head down and get by. It’s harder, in the end, if you have great expectations. Just keep your religious hopes focussed on the world of heaven and we can get through this life - that’s the safe way.

If you expect something more - then that opens a whole world of problems along with the possibilities. Then everyone has to start taking the message of Good News seriously. Then it matters, to everyone and what everyone does in this life matters.

I think that some of the problem is that we often equate faithfulness with those things that other people do - clergy especially (because they have no choice but to be really religious) - people who are able to go off and do mighty and important things for God - (such as medical missionaries) (teachers and aid workers in poor countries and war zones) but despite the fact that we think PEI is the centre of the universe we know that really important work such as bringing in the kingdom of God cannot be done by ordinary folks like us, in the midst of our ordinary lives as retired folks on the old age pension, or ordinary working people, students or children.

Perhaps we don’t think we can do anything vital; perhaps we don’t think our God is powerful enough; perhaps we don’t want to take more time for God than this one hour a week - if we can fit it in!

What wee find when we search the scriptures is that what is required of us is quite a bit more: God wants a 24/7 commitment - BUT NOT instead of our regular lives, but in the midst of our regular lives - overshadowing and undergirding our lives. We need to live, eat and breathe faith. What we need to do is to live our whole lives in the light of the gospel, whether we be plumbers or preachers.

Part of the problem with the religious elites in Jesus’ was that they imposed religious observances that only a full-time observer could manage, but Jesus did not advocate part time faithfulness. His model of faithfulness was a model that informed and undergirded and expanded one’s every day life - not something that replaced it.

I know a lot of folks who equate faithfulness with avoiding sin. They say, “Well at least I have never done ........ (and they lists a few of what they consider major sins) - and everyone’s list is a little different! But that is not what the Gospel tells us - keeping our nose clean is hardly anything more than a negative achievement. I have never murdered anyone or committed adultery, but so what!

It’s not what we haven’t done but how we have lived out the faith that lives in our hearts and souls. Do we serve a God of fear so that our only goal is to avoid punishment or do we serve and God of grace who calls us to be the change we would like to see in the world.

Jesus knew the people to whom he was preaching on that day and, no doubt, the message struck very close to home. The message is still as alive and as relevant as it was 2000 years ago, but it is a message in which we must participate, actively.

Are you willing to make the journey?

Amen!

1995- 2009 The Rev. Beth W. Johnston.

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