From the Daily Office for Tuesday in the Third Week after the Epiphany
Mark 6:1-13
He left that place and came to his home town, and his disciples followed him. On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.
Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
Some say the truth hurts. Clearly in Mark’s Gospel, perhaps more than the other three, the truth is vigorously opposed. In Mark even Jesus’ own family suspect that Jesus is off his rocker. Perhaps it is the seductive illusion that there is comfort in the status quo; that change and the coming of the new somehow challenge our notions of well-being.
We see in our own time, in our own culture, those who reject the truth even when it is plain as day. What do we do with that? Jesus tells his disciples that if anyone disregards the “Good News,” then “shake the dust off your feet” and move on.
As people who follow Jesus we are witnesses to the truth, the unvarnished and hard truth… that power corrupts, that there are those among us, through no fault of their own, who lack human dignity, that there is no justification for violence, that self-interest is destructive, that abundance is meant to be shared. We have been initiated into a community that believes that the world is in need of healing. We believe that loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is the bedrock of a viable and sustainable society. All that seems so very noncontroversial, and yet, such an ethos is opposed, even hated.
I am reminded again of Jesus’ metaphor of “the sower.” We are to plant the seeds of truth, and trust that those seeds will germinate and bear fruit in due season, that love will ramify beyond our expectations. Love will keep us in the truth, and love is the only means by which the truth may be told. So it matters how we speak, how we act. We are witnesses to God’s vision of the good. That will require all of our skill, our compassion, and our empathetic imaginations, but most of all it will require our proximity to where falsehood does its damage the most. We are to be among the poor, the brokenhearted, the shamed; they are the ones who are ready and willing for the truth of God’s saving love. They are the fertile soil from which the seeds we sow might bear fruit.
There is no compromise in this work. May we have the patience and the courage to persevere. May the truth be told, and may those with ears to hear… hear.
A Prayer for Mission (BCP p. 230)
Keep, O God, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
