Stumbling Blocks
A doctor and a lawyer were talking at a party. Their conversation was constantly interrupted by people describing their ailments and asking the doctor for free medical advice. After an hour of this, the exasperated doctor asked the lawyer, "What do you do to stop people from asking you for legal advice when you're out of the office?" "I give it to them," replied the lawyer, "and then I send them a bill." The doctor was shocked but agreed to give it a try. The next day, still feeling slightly guilty, the doctor prepared the bills. When he went to place them in his mailbox, he found a bill from the lawyer.
The above joke reminds me of a home situation. You may be aware that I am the eldest of four daughters. Two of my sisters are doctors, one in South Africa and the other is a head of department in Tallah hospital Dublin. From time to time my father asks my sisters for medical advice. Their reply is always the same: “Go to your GP.” For this reason, he was reasonably upset to find out that I was given extensive medical advice and a list of medical treatments I could use. He wanted to know why I received medical advice from my sisters while he was merely told to “go to his GP”. Reflecting, I suggested to him that the difference between him and I was perhaps that I took advice while he argued with and then rejected similar advice.
A doctor’s professional advice is received with respect in an hospital environment while it’s doubted in the family home. Similarly, Jesus says he is a prophet is without honour – he is disowned by his family.
Jesus, a prophet with honour except within the home context, is unable to be the transforming presence he wants to be: “He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.” It is a chilling assessment to consider the ways in which we prevent prophets and other ministers from being effective. We could consider the following questions:
· What are the ways in which I might be blocking the effectiveness of God’s spirit in me?
· What are the stumbling blocks in my heart or this community they may prevent a full working of God’s power?
· What are the ways that I choke faith?
· Is my unbelief preventing a full experience of God’s work?
Holman Hunt’s painting has Jesus knocking on a door, but the latch is on the inside. The door can only be opened from the inside. With God there is no forcible entry. The decision to allow God to work in our lives is ours.
In Mark 6 Jesus preaches in the synagogue, is rejected, and withdraws. Jesus then re-engages his mission by sending his 12 disciples out in 2’s into the villages. The disciples return joyous at their success. Mark 6 continues the pattern of engagement and withdrawal seen in Mark 1 and 3. In all three chapters Jesus engages, is rejected, withdraws, and then regroups and continues. The purpose of this pattern is to remind the reader or disciples that despite failure the story must go on, discipleship must continue. Remember that Mark’s Gospel is manual on radical discipleship, on non-violent revolution, on disrupting the status quo where some accumulate wealth at the expense of the many. As disciples who partner with God in mending creation, failure is a given. Mark’s Gospel inspires the resilience to continue with a vision of a transformed society in the face of failure.
Jesus is rejected by his family, his relatives, and his own household. Stripped of clan and tribal support Jesus continues his itinerant mission in the village. The word apostolein means to send out. From apostolein we derive apostles. The apostles are sent out into the village with the mission of Jesus. What is their equipment for this mission? In our context they would require WWCC, Faithfulness in Service certification, Safe Ministry Certificate, Police Clearance, evidence of training, references, a role description indicating who they are accountable to and supervised by and a relevant license for ministry. Jesus instead equips them only with the means of travel: a staff, and sandals, but nothing else. Instead, the disciples are to rely solely on the hospitality of the villages they minister in. The hospitality does two things, I think. It keeps the disciples respectful and disables any attempt to impose their views of ministry with force.
Secondly it is reminiscent of Exodus 16. In the same way that the spiritual ancestors under Miriam and Moses relied on the hospitality of God in the wilderness so too must the disciples in Mark rely on God’s hospitality through others. In Exodus 16 God’s people rely on God’s hospitality through Manna. Manna is aphid poo. Aphids are scale insects who eat tamarisk leaves and defecate 130 percent of their body mass. Even today Bedouin shepherds collect “man” or “manna” for food. In English manna is sometimes called honeydew. By relying on manna Moses and Miriam and the escaped slaves learned to live off the land and deprogrammed their reliance on slavery, over consumption and hoarding.
Similarly, Israel was invited to affirm its identity as descendants of escaped slaves at every harvest. The covenant renewal ceremony is outlined in Dt. 26: 5-9, which literally in Hebrew began “Arami oved avi”: a wandering Aramean is my ancestor. Oved is wandering but can also be a “stray,” a “wanderer”, someone who is feral, wild or a maroon, like an escaped slave ("If you look at how the word 'maroon' came about, you will recognise that it was a derogatory term which described the slaves who leave the plantation and did not return). The liturgy at harvest festivals says, in the words of Jim Perkinson:
“we are a social movement of folk who claim as “father” or “mother”—as our ancestral line—anyone in history who has dared to “exit,” to jump away from empire, to leave the oppressive city-state system, re-learn skills out in the wild with herd animals as teachers, live on the land like escaped slaves making common cause with indigenous dwellers who still know how to do such.”
Today is the beginning of NAIDOC week. In our Australian context I often think that the First Nations people are the true prophets who like Jesus are without honour in their own land. Like Jesus the First Nations people have been treated as a ‘scandalion’ by us white colonisers. Should we learn to listen to the God given prophets in our land, the First Nations peoples, much can be learnt.
I spoke earlier of the stumbling blocks to God’s power working in our lives. Australia is one of the most secularised nations. Secularisation and its lack of appreciation for symbol, metaphor and ritual is a significant stumbling block to spirituality flourishing. First Nations people with their wisdom and connection to country and spirit are much needed prophets who can help us to reconnect with what is most real. A closing prayer:
God of all wonder,
We pause in the busyness of our days to listen deeply to the wisdom of this land and those who belong to it.
May our minds be open to dialogue,
May our hearts be open to transformation and
May our hands do the work of reconciliation.
We ask that the Spirit accompany us on our journey of healing on these lands, seas and waterways; We also ask the Spirit of peace be with all those who are living a life of fear, dispossession and distress. We make this prayer in the name of Jesus our brother and friend. Amen.
Sources:
Jim Perkinson, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Detroit. https://radicaldiscipleship.net/tag/jim-perkinson/page/2/. Meyers, Ched. Binding the Strongman.
https://www.cns.catholic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/NAIDOC-Week-for-Parents-2020.p