Anthony was a monk (251-356) known as the father of monasticism. He also became known for his close relationship with and commitment to God. He was also known for successfully battling demons—who, perhaps knowing the influence he would have on millions of people—sought to take him out. Because of his wisdom, people would travel miles and miles to get his advice and wisdom. A man named Abba Pambo was one of these people. In the midst of their conversation Anthony said something which is absolutely timeless: “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’” When he says that people will ‘go mad’ he means that people won’t be thinking straight. In their twisted thinking, they will see that you are not like them. They will then accuse you of being the one who isn’t thinking straight (not them), and accuse you. Granted, when others accuse you of not thinking straight, you need to make sure you are. Perhaps there are times when you are in fact the one who has adopted an irrational line of thought or, as Christians, an un-loving line of thought. How do we know that we are the ones who are thinking straight? When in humility and love we are thinking and acting in a way that is consistent with the Bible. That’s our measuring rod. In humility and love we need to hold fast to the biblical teachings which are from God himself. But assuming all that is happening, some people will reject you. They may reject you for believing in a God they dismiss. They may reject you for saying things that are unpopular to say. They may reject you for living in a way that endeavours to be consistent with God’s kingdom come and his will being done on earth when it is in heaven. Today’s sermon is an opportunity for us to re-frame how we think about being rejected. Being rejected—and being different because of your beliefs or lifestyle—can be so upsetting that we forget that there is something more important than being rejected. When we keep that more important thing in view, rejection—and being different because of your beliefs or lifestyle—doesn’t seem to be so bad. To help us explore this we look at the rejection Jesus himself experienced, and how he handled it. “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’” Context to today’s text: Jesus’ main message and mission: the kingdom of God Currently in a series of stories about serious opposition to Jesus. How will he respond? 3 stories ago: calming of the storm (casting the chaos out of nature) 2 story ago: dramatic exorcism (casting the chaos out of a man) 1 story ago: healing, resurrection (casting out the chaos that can come into our lives when illness or death comes knocking) Today: Opposition continues, but more specifically, personal rejection. Mark 6:1-13 ESV He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. Explanations: “hometown”: Nazareth, a small village. Some say that it would have been a hamlet of just over a hundred people. Other scholars say that it could have had up to 400. Either way, it would have been very small. A lot smaller than the nearly 80,000 people who live there today. There is no evidence from the first century of it even having any paved streets, but it was obviously just big enough for its own synagogue. In our own day, picture a small village, dirt roads, a corner store, and just large enough for a single-room church. 2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 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. Explanations: “to teach”: his custom. He was most certainly invited to do so. “brother of James and…”: Jesus had at least 6 siblings. Here are named 4 male and at least 2 female. All of them were younger than him. He is the oldest sibling of at least 6. By modern standards it’s a large group. Notice that Joseph isn’t named. He’s probably passed away by now. “Is this not the carpenter…”: Side note: Only here and in Matthew 13 is Jesus referred to overtly as a carpenter. This is someone who works with their hands; it’s a trade. He probably worked with metal and stone as well. “they took offense at him”: Why? Today we don’t think this way. In fact, we take pride when someone from a small town goes out and makes a name for themselves. When you drive into Brantford Ontario the sign says, “Home of Wayne Gretzky.” Just up the road from where I grew up is Huntsville. More recently Dara Howell won a gold medal at the Olympics for freestyle skiing. They put her name on the sign. Why didn’t Nazareth put Jesus’ name on their sign? Let me note three things: Things were different back then. A high premium was put on saying things and doing things that conformed to the conventions of your social status. Carpenters said and did certain things. This disruption threatened to bring dishonour to both his biological family and his hometown. There are also some scholars who argue that “honour” was a limited commodity. Think of it like this. If 10 people are in a room and there are 10 dollars on a table. All things being equal, each person could get 1 dollar. But if one person took all 10 dollars, that would mean that the other people didn’t get any. They would most likely look down on the person who had all 10 dollars. That’s how we can think about honour. Some people thought it was a limited commodity. If Jesus had all this honour—by being called a prophet, by doing miracles, by healing, by teaching with authority, by casting out demons, by raising a dead girl—then it means that there was less honour to go around for everyone else. This story doesn’t tell us what Jesus taught about from the Scriptures. But if this is the same incident recorded in Luke 4, then we know more about what happened. He read from Isaiah 61. Here’s what it says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” The passage is about a chosen servant of God who will do all of these things; it’s about the coming of a Saviour. And after Jesus read from that passage he said: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It might just be that they thought Jesus was incredibly full of himself. 4 And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” Explanations: “A prophet is not without honour”: Jesus quotes a well-known saying. The implication is that the people should recognize a prophet when they see one, even if they had previously been used to seeing him on the playground or at the three-legged-race at the annual synagogue picnic. Let’s not lose, however, how personally difficult this must have been for Jesus. In Mark 3 we already learned about tensions within his biological family. Here he mentions three spheres of rejection: his hometown, his own relatives, and then his personal family from his own household. In 2013 a colleague from a Chinese context told me about something he saw happen in China. Someone he knew converted to Christianity. He decided to follow Jesus and was baptized. But that was not a very popular thing to do, especially in this man’s particular family (who were not Christians). The family got together, brought the family genealogy book with this man’s name in it, and tore out the page with his information in it as a way to say you are no longer one of us. From that moment on he was shunned. Following God’s will will often cost you. In Jesus’ situation, I think he is experiencing a similar thing here. Later, however, some of these brothers will believe in him and become leaders in the early church, and of course his mother will end up supporting him; but as of this moment, Jesus must feel incredibly alone. His name is scratched out from the official register book of Nazareth. 5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching. Explanations: “could do no mighty work there”: This confuses people. If Jesus is so powerful, why can’t he do mighty works? First, he does in fact heal some people (as the rest of the verse tells us); it’s not that he does nothing, but just not everything. Second, Jesus chooses to act when there is faith. Verse 6 says there is a lack of faith; therefore, he doesn’t act. When it’s present in people he heals from a distance or casts out a legion of demons. In this case, there is no faith and he chooses not to act to the same degree. 7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. Explanations: “the twelve”: this refers to the first disciples. They are sent out two by two (for mutual support, and also because the reporting of two people was more reliable than one). Jesus gave them authority over the unclean spirits. Again, this is spiritual war. It is a clash with the kingdom of darkness. 8 He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts— 9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.[a] 10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 11 And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” Explanations: “He charged them…”: They are not take a bunch of supplies. They are to rely on God. They are preaching about the coming kingdom of God—where God reigns and rules in the midst of his people, and where people are reclaimed from the kingdom of darkness. When they cast out demons and when they heal the sick, those actions will be confirmation that the kingdom of God is coming with power. “if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you”: shaking off the dust that is on your feet is a way of saying ‘I wash my hands of you.’ If you reject this message from God, it’s not on me, it’s on you. 12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. Explanations: “repent”: central to their teaching is repentance. It means to acknowledge your sin, to confess it to God, ask for forgiveness, and to quite literally turn from that way of life and commit to a different way of life. My Louw-Nida lexicon defines it like this: “to change one's way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness.” It’s to reject the ways of sin and to embrace the ways of righteousness. Do you want to know how to make friends fast? It’s to talk about the necessity of repentance. People love to talk about that! ☺ And yet, Rosaria Butterfield says, and she’s right, that “repentance is the threshold to God.” A threshold of a house welcomes you to the riches of that house, of everything within it. That’s what repentance is like. It’s about honesty, stopping pretending, dependence, humility, a willingness to learn and grow to be more like Jesus. We’re not praying for my kingdom come and my will being done on earth, but God’s. 13 And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. Explanations: “And they case out many demons and anointed with oil…”: Their mission is successful. Pastor: This is the word of the Lord. All: Thanks be to God. Jesus experienced continual rejection. In this story he experiences the rejection of his hometown, his relatives and his own household. He also anticipates rejection for his apostles as he sends them out on mission. “if any place will not receive you,” he says. In other words, he gave instructions for them about what to do when they faced rejection because he knows the human heart and he knows that many people are not going to what to hear about the kingdom of God. As mentioned previously, today’s sermon is an opportunity for us to re-frame how we think about being rejected. Being rejected—and being different because of your beliefs or lifestyle—can be so upsetting that we forget that there is something more important than being rejected. When we keep that more important thing in view, rejection—and being different because of your beliefs or lifestyle—doesn’t seem to be so bad. So, what is that more important thing? It’s quite simply doing God’s will. Jesus desired to do his Father’s will more than he desired the admiration of the people. William Min is the Youth Coordinator here at Westminster. Recently we were praying together and he used a great phrase. He prayed that God would help us “hold the things of the world loosely.” What does that mean? The “things of this world” are the things that are temporary. They don’t last. They are the things that you can’t take with you after you die. You can’t take with you that new iPhone, or your house, or your new watch, or how many likes/hearts you get on your social media posts, or whatever is in your bank account, or that shirt that you think complements all your right features. The statement that we should “hold loosely” to those things is the idea that we shouldn’t spend too much time and energy on them. After all, they won’t last. Things we should also hold loosely are the negative things people say about us when we are trying to follow Jesus with humility, love and truth. Hold the things of the world loosely, but the things of God firmly. Henri Nouwen tells a story about a woman who was clutching something tightly. She clearly wasn’t doing very well. In her day to day life she was dealing with challenges that none of us would want to have to deal with. But she was clutching something so very very tight. It was the sole focus of her energy. Her caregivers knew they had to help her. Several people came around her and tried to assure her that everything was okay and that she needed to stop clutching her hand so tightly. It was hurting her. They eventually released her fingers only to discover that she was clutching with all her might… a penny. It was barely worth anything. But to her it was, for whatever reason, the most valuable thing. What are your pennies? What are those things that you spend all your energy clutching onto, but when in reality they’re not that valuable in the long run? Yes, there are physical things, like the ones I mentioned. But there are also non-physical things—things like popularity, fitting in, and what other people think about you when you are trying to follow Jesus. As you think about what others think about you: Hold the things of the world loosely, but the things of God firmly. As you come into a busy time of year and all the craziness it often brings: Hold the things of the world loosely, but the things of God firmly. As when other people think you’re mad because you strive to follow a resurrected Redeemer, hold the things of the world loosely, but the things of God firmly. “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’” That’s okay. Our job isn’t to be like them; it’s to be like Jesus, even when people think we’re mad. Amen.