I subscribe to a number of on-line newsletters, and I received one the other day while I was starting to prepare today’s message which I’d like to share with you.
Have you heard about the four men who were bragging about how smart their dogs were? One man was an engineer, the second man was an accountant, the third man was a chemist, and the fourth was a government worker. To show off, the engineer called to his dog. "T-square, do your stuff." T-square trotted over to a desk, took out some paper and a pen, and promptly drew a circle, a square, and a triangle. Everyone agreed that was pretty smart.
The accountant said his dog could do better. He called to his dog and said, "Spreadsheet, do your stuff." Spreadsheet went out into the kitchen and returned with a dozen cookies. He divided them into four equal piles of three cookies each. Everyone agreed that was good.
The chemist said his dog could do better still. He called to his dog and said, "Measure, do your stuff." Measure got up, walked over to the fridge, took out a quart of milk, got a ten-ounce glass from the cupboard, and poured exactly eight ounces without spilling a drop. Everyone agreed that was pretty impressive.
Then the three men turned to the government worker and said, "What can your dog do?"
The government worker called to his dog and said, "Coffee Break, do your stuff." Coffee Break jumped to his feet, ate the cookies, drank the milk, claimed he had injured his back while doing so, filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions, put in for worker' compensation, and went home for the rest of the day on sick leave. They all agreed that was brilliant!
The author went to add: “Do you think the fourth dog was brilliant? Okay, maybe it was. However, it's unfortunate that we often adopt the same perspective...” Then he quoted selected portions of verses 3 through 11 from chapter 2 of Paul’s letter to Philippians:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness...
“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
And thus, I began to redirect my thoughts. Reading this passage suddenly brought home to me a stronger meaning of the words of today’s Gospel lesson.
When we read the first six verses of this passage, we tend to settle in on the words, “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house’.” It is almost as though we are wanting to see this as a time of failure in Jesus’ early ministry. But it is not. Actually, it is a reinforcement of respect for human freedom. God, in creating human beings, gave to them the right to make choices. God made it possible for man and woman to choose NOT to listen to God, NOT to obey God’s will, and NOT to follow the commands of God. In the Hebrew scriptures, the Prophets were more readily listened to by those who did not know them, than they were by the people from their own towns and communities. It may very well be, that those who were called to be prophets were ordinary individuals chosen by God to carry forth God’s special message. But when these ordinary individuals, as some commentators have asserted, left their homes, their families, and their usual positions, they were looked down on by their neighbors as abandoning the needs of their families. The rejection would sometimes become violent, resulting in the untimely human demise of the prophet.
It was this, I believe, to which Jesus was alluding here in Mark’s Gospel. Here he was, a son of a lowly carpenter, who has left his mother alone (presumed now to be a widow). Though he held the traditional responsibility as the eldest son, to take care of her and see to her needs, he left her, and traveled off to become an itinerant preacher. This was unthinkable. It was considered an attempt to be something more, something better than one’s status in life. And because the people of the community felt this way, they rejected him, perhaps even despised him, and did not have any faith in Jesus or of his relationship with God. Thus he was not able to affect any of the wonders of God that he had been able to do in other places. So he left that place to go minister elsewhere.
Those words of Paul to the people of Philippi would have stung Jesus’ countrymen to the quick: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Had they understood what Jesus’ mission was all about, they would have realized what Jesus did was exactly what Paul said everyone should do. But they didn’t, at least not at the beginning.
When Jesus later takes his disciples and prepares them for their first mission out into the countryside, his words to them convey this same idea. They are to travel light, taking nothing with them save the clothes on their backs, the sandals on their feet, and a staff; everything else was to be left behind. They were to rely on the people of the communities to which they carried Jesus’ message to provide for their needs along. They were to appeal to the people as being better than themselves, humble servants only doing that for which they had been sent forth. They were to preach repentance, and to cast out evil as Jesus taught them. Should the message which they were carrying not be accepted in any town which they visited, they were simply to “shake off the dust. . .” that was on their feet as “. . .a testimony against them,” or as the New English Bible translation puts it, “. . .as a warning to them.” They were not to condemn those who did not listen,; they were to respect the rights of such individuals and leave cordially, departing with the simple encouragement to consider the importance of what had been spoken to them.
I believe that what Mark records about Jesus here, about what the disciples were sent out to do, and were able to accomplish, gives us direction for our own individual “missions for God.” When we feel called to do something, when we get that gut feeling to do more than what we are doing, we should take the time to listen for God to speak to us and teach us what we need to know, then like the disciples, carry that message forth, be in word or by deed, ad accomplish for God what God wants us to accomplish.
The words of Paul to the Philippians serve as a reminder of the attitude that we are to take in our service to God. We should never take ourselves so seriously that we try to make ourselves better than what we are. We are simply one of God’s many creations, being neither better nor greater than anyone, and upon whom God has given the ability and responsibility to care for, and minister to the needs of, our fellow human beings.
We should approach our relationship with God in doing that very task in the same manner in which Jesus approached his relationship with God in following God’s will for him: though Jesus was by nature God, he did not consider being equal with God as something to which lay claim, but rather took on the nature of humanity and became a servant. Likewise, we who are brothers and sisters with Christ should not presume to be equal to God or to Christ Jesus, but need adopt an attitude of humility, seeking only to serve God with unselfish devotion.
If we strive to accomplish that to which God directs us, and I say strive to accomplish, because we know that it is not by our vain attempts of doing, but by our willingness to allow God to work through us that our tasks are accomplished, we will then know the joy of eternal kinship with Jesus and with God, our Creator. For God will give to us our place as sons and daughters in his kingdom, and we shall be honored and satisfied beyond measure.
Amen.