You
probably know the story of the time there was a big
flood,
and people had to climb up on to the roofs of their
houses to escape.
One guy thought this was a remarkable
opportunity to demonstrate, so he thought, God’s power,
so he
prayed “Dear Lord, please come and save me.”
Just
then, someone came past in a rowing-boat and said
“Climb in,
we’ll take you to safety!”
“Oh, no thank you,”
said our friend,
“I’ve prayed for God to save me, so I’ll
just wait for Him to do so.”
And he carried on praying,
“Dear Lord, please save me!”
Then along came the
police in a motor-launch, and called for him to jump in,
but he
sent them away, too,
and continued to pray “Dear Lord, please
save me!”
Finally, a Coastguard helicopter came and sent
down someone on a rope to him, but he still refused, claiming that he
was relying on God to save him.
And half an hour later, he
was swept away and drowned.
So, because he was a
Christian, as you can imagine, he ended up in Heaven,
and the
first thing he did when he got there was go to to the Throne of
Grace, and say to God,
“What do you mean by letting me down
like this?
I prayed and prayed for you to rescue me, and you
didn’t!”
“My dear child,” said God, “I sent you
two boats and a helicopter –
what more did you want?”
In
a way, that’s rather what happened to Jesus in our Gospel reading
this morning.
He has
gone home for the weekend.
Big mistake!
Because
on the Sabbath Day, he goes to the synagogue with his family,
and
because he’s home visiting for the weekend,
they ask him to
choose the reading from the Prophets.
Luke’s version of this
story tells us that he read from the prophet Isaiah,
the bit
where it says:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on
me,
because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the
poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to
proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for
the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favour
and
the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who
mourn.”
Mark doesn’t go into such detail,
but he
does tell us that Jesus’ friends and family were amazed.
“Where
did this man get these things?” they asked.
“What's this
wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles!”
And
we’re told they were rather offended.
“He’s only the
Carpenter’s son, Mary’s lad.
These are his brothers and
sisters.
He can’t be special.”
And they were offended,
so we are told.
Luke says they even picked up stones to throw at
him to make him go away.
But Mark says that he could do no
miracles there, just one or two healings.
And he was
amazed at their lack of faith.
After all, they thought,
what did he know?
He’s just a local lad, a builder.
Ought
to be home working with his brothers,
not gadding about the
country claiming to be a prophet.
They couldn’t hear God’s
voice speaking through him.
They didn’t expect to, and they
didn’t want to.
Like the man in my story, they had very
definite ideas about how God worked,
and working through a
local boy they’d known since childhood wasn’t one of them!
So
Jesus leaves them alone,
and goes off on a tour of the local
country, teaching and healing as he went.
And then he starts
to send out his disciples, two by two, giving them authority over
“impure spirits”.
They are sent out with literally only
their walking-staffs,
rather like modern-day trekking poles.
No
food, he tells them, no money, no bag –
you can wear sandals,
if you wish, but don’t take an extra shirt.
The disciples are
to rely on God’s provisions for them,
staying wherever they
are first welcomed –
and not moving next door if next door’s
cooking is better!
And if they are not welcomed, they are to
leave at once, without comment, but shaking the dust off their
feet.
And, we are told, that’s just what the disciples
did.
They drove out evil spirits, they anointed people with oil,
and healed people,
bringing the good news of God’s
Kingdom far and wide.
We aren’t told how long they were
on the road,
but I imagine not more than a couple of months.
We
are told that when they came back,
Jesus tried to take them to
a quiet place to debrief them,
but so many people were
following them all by this time that it became impossible,
so he went on teaching the crowds,
and eventually fed
them with the contents of a small boy’s lunchbox!
For
the disciples, this must have been an exciting interlude in their
lives.
But in the other gospels we are told that when they were
able to tell Jesus that even evil spirits responded to them,
Jesus
said that really, what mattered was that their names were written in
the Kingdom of Heaven.
A modern paraphrase puts it:
"All
the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but
in God's authority over you and presence with you.
Not what you
do for God but what God does for you –
that's the agenda for
rejoicing."
Do we have definite ideas about how God
works, I wonder?
Do we expect to see God working in the
ordinary, the every day?
Or do we expect him always to come down
with power and fire from Heaven?
Do we expect Him to speak to us
through other people,
perhaps even through me,
or do we
expect Him to illuminate a verse of the Bible specially,
or
write His message in fiery letters in the sky?
Because we
are human, we do sometimes
long and long to see God at work in
the spectacular,
the kind of thing that Jesus used to do when
he healed the sick
and even raised the dead.
“Oh, that
you would rend the heavens and come down!” as the prophet says.
And
very occasionally God is gracious enough to give us such signs.
But
mostly, these days, He heals through modern medicine,
guiding
scientists to develop medicines,
and vaccines,
and
surgical techniques that can do things our ancestors only dreamed
about.
And through complementary medical techniques
which
address the whole person, not just the illness.
And through love
and hugs and sympathy and support.
We do need to learn to
recognise God at work.
All too often, we walk blindly through
our week, not noticing God –
and yet God is there.
God is
there and going on micro-managing His creation,
no matter how
unaware of it we are.
And God is there to speak to us through
the words of a friend, or an acquaintance.
If we need rescuing,
God is a lot more likely to send a friend to do it than to come in
person!
Another story concerns two men who were talking in
their club.
“Haven’t seen you around lately,” said the
first man. “Have you been away?”
“Yes, I went on a trip
to North Africa. It was very hairy! I got lost in the desert – my
own silly fault, of course – and ended up calling on God to save
me!”
“Oh really. How did God do that? I mean, obviously
you were saved, as you’re here now.”
“Oh no, God didn’t
need to do anything, because just at that moment a caravan appeared
on the horizon, and they saw me and came to the rescue!”
We do
need to be open to how God is working!
And conversely, we
need to be open to God at work in us, so that we can be the friend
who does the speaking, or the rescuing.
Not that God can’t use
people who don’t know him –
of course He both can and does
–
but the more open we are to being His person,
the more
we allow Him to work in us,
to help us grow into the sort of
person He created us to be,
then the more He can use us, with
or without our knowledge, in His world.
Who knows, maybe the
supermarket cashier you smiled at yesterday really needed that smile
to affirm her faith in people, after a bad day.
Or the friend
you telephoned just to have a catch-up with was badly needing to chat
to someone –
not necessarily a serious conversation, just a
chat.
As a friend of my daughter’s who was going through a
tough time once said, “So nice to talk about general shit, not just
the shit shit!”
You will never know –
but God
knows.
We are, of course, never told “what would have
happened”,
but I wonder what would have happened if the people
of Nazareth had been open to Jesus.
He could have certainly
done more miracles there.
Maybe he wouldn’t have had to have
become an itinerant preacher, going round all the villages.
Maybe
he could have had a home.
I think God may well have used the
rejection to open up new areas of ministry for Jesus –
after
all, we do know that God works all things for good.
And,
finally, what happened to the people of Nazareth?
The answer
is, nothing.
Nothing happened.
God could do no work there
through Jesus.
Okay, a few sick people were healed, but that
was all.
The good news of the Kingdom of God was not
proclaimed.
Miracles didn’t happen.
Just. . .
nothing.
We do know, of course, that in the end his
family, at least, were able to get their heads round the idea of
their lad being The One.
His Mother was in the Upper Room on
the Day of Pentecost.
James, one of his brothers, was a leader
in the early church.
But were they the only ones?
Did
anybody else from Nazareth believe in Him,
or were they all
left, sadly, alone?
I think that’s an Awful Warning,
isn’t it?
If we decide we need to know best who God chooses to
speak through,
how God is to act,
then God can do
nothing.
And God will do nothing.
If he sends two boats and
a helicopter
and we reject them because we don’t see God’s
hand at work in them,
then we will be left to our own
devices.
As the people of Nazareth were.
“Not what
you do for God but what God does for you –
that's the agenda
for rejoicing.”
And if you don’t allow God to do anything
for you,
in whatever way,
what then?
