The past several months, you might have read information in the eNews and/or bulletin regarding the various ways in which you can get (and/or we can get) involved as a faith community in our local neighborhoods this summer. For example, the Fitchburg Library is offering free English lessons and free lunches to the kids each week. In addition, they are coordinating Community Nights from 5-7 pm each Tuesday at Leopold Park, one of the neighborhoods targeted by the city of Fitchburg’s Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative. During the announcements on Sundays, you might have heard me invite you into a ministry of presence, a “showing up,” for the Leopold Community Night activities on Tuesday as a way that we can… you can… connect with our neighbors.
This past Tuesday night, I participated in the Community Nights as a volunteer. I had previously met with the coordinator and arrived that evening anticipating that I was going to be helping with a certain task, but found myself reassigned to… WATER ACTIVITIES. You know that God has a good sense of humor when you are called to the ministry of:
1). Supervising the giant rainbow unicorn sprinkler, which just happens to be underinflated, resulting in everyone (even the adults) getting soaked and…
2). Tasked with monitoring 2 large coolers full of water balloons. Which meant that I became the gatekeeper of hundreds of water balloons. The gatekeeper… as 50+ youth swarmed to grab as many balloons at one time as they could. Which, of course meant… once again… the pastor got soaked.
That night, as I stepped into a supervisory role for each of the water activities, a nearby adult said, “and watch that one… he’s a trouble maker,” and pointed to a young boy around 8 years of age. Just as they predicted, this was the child that pushed others away in an attempt to be the first to snatch a water balloon from the cooler. He was also the one that smacked a water balloon into another child’s face from just inches away. As I engaged with him that night, he began to talk, ask questions and… at the end of the evening… brought me a freezie, one of those long, cold, ice treats. Unexpected, inclusive hospitality from a child. Relationship building. Reframing, changing, shifting the narrative.
Maybe even a “repenting” of sorts. A turning around. The writer of the book of Mark tells us that Jesus sent the disciples out to teach and heal which they did proclaiming, “all should repent” (Mark 6:12, NRSV). In the original Greek, the word for “repent” is metanoeō. Strong’s Lexicon defines metanoeō as “to change one’s mind.” Repent.
In Jesus’ call to go out, to live fully into a way of radically inclusive hospitality, to live as the disciples did… into a way of accepting radically inclusive hospitality for ourselves, what “change of mind,” repenting, might we be in need of today?
Think about the story of Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth. The lack of hospitality. Jesus getting slammed, shamed, bullied, by those in his home town. The people use the phrase “the son of Mary.” Not a respectful comment (for the time) such as “he is the son of Joseph,” but no, they slam Jesus’ birth from an unwed, teenage mother saying he is, “the son of Mary.” Who is this simple woodworker they have known since childhood? THEY know what kind of family HE comes from. What authority does he have to preach, teach, heal? At this point in Mark’s story Jesus has returned to his hometown after having just stilled stormy seas, being followed by crowds, healed a person tormented by demons, and a woman who had been sick for 12 years, and then brought a young girl who had been proclaimed dead, to life.
And now in Nazareth, this small town of maybe 150, or two hundred people, which included the extended family of Jesus, age-old rumors are stirring up dust. “And they took offense at him.” Jesus, in turn, seems to have also taken offense as “he was amazed at their unbelief” (Mark 6:6, NRSV). Here, in Nazareth, opportunity for an extravagant welcome was thwarted. Jesus’ authority was questioned, the flow of God’s power lessened. Acts of inclusive hospitality, extravagant welcome, suddenly dried up and became elusive.
Yet immediately after this unsettling story in Nazareth, Jesus ups the ante on the faith practice of hospitality, pushing back on closed doors. He tells the disciples to “go out.” Take nothing. Go out and take a risk on finding a radical welcome in unanticipated places. Go out, amongst strangers.
Look around. Here we are, right where we should be the most comfortable, in our own home, our own neighborhood—our own Nazareth—and some of us are feeling depleted, drenched in negative comments, accusations, and rejection from family and friends. Here, amidst his own rejection, Jesus basically tells the disciples, and tells us, that “this is exactly what discipleship is going to look like—(this is) what we are called into as well.”[1] Go out. Take a risk. There is inclusive hospitality, radical welcoming, in unexpected places.
All too often, the dust of fear and anxiety is stirred. The gut wrenching dryness of hopelessness. Division. Hate. Inclusive hospitality becomes shattered once again. Does that negative cycle need to be inevitable? In Jesus’ call to go out, his charge to take that risk… to accept for ourselves an extravagant welcome from those we do not know, what “change of mind,” what repenting, might we need to act on today?
This is a good time to remind ourselves that we read scripture and reflect on the words of our biblical ancestors through the lens of our own place and time. One of the ways life has dramatically shifted through the individualism of our American culture, is that of locked doors. The pride imbedded in the phrase, “I can do it by myself.” Our “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” independence.
Yet scripture is packed with examples of how our biblical ancestors, the nomadic Israelites, the wandering Rabbi, the traveling apostles, completely relied on strangers, and were often dependent on the hospitality of the other. Jesus sent the disciples out with nothing more than faith and the authority of the Divine. He “ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, (no suitcase) no money (no charge cards)…” (Mark 6:8). Hebrew Bible scholar Rolf Jacobson suggests that, “One of the evangelical habits the Church needs to relearn is the habit of being guests who rely on the hospitality of the stranger. To get outside of the building and the house… get out into the neighborhood. Rely on other people’s hospitality… this is… to (Rolf)… the most important ancient habit that we have forgotten.”[2]
Yes, I said it—Evangelical. A word that I believe the Church… however you describe the United Church of Christ… needs to reclaim. Our national denominational leaders point out that “Hospitality grows churches. (And) Radical hospitality nurtures vitality in churches. Hospitality is evangelism in its simplest form.”[3] For… inclusive hospitality is life giving. Hospitality both of the stranger—and of the self. The apostle Paul sits amongst us today and wrestles with this “thorn in his side.” An unknown affliction with which he has been struggling. Jesus talks about the dry, faithless places, in which we sometimes find ourselves. There, he tells us to “shake off the dust that is on your feet” (Mark 6:11b).
Hospitality. Extravagant welcome. One of the primary practices of our faith. Of the Way. Jesus’ Way. In our time of scorn, discord, hatred, violence, fear, and anxiety, Christine Valters Painter points out that, “God became flesh. Christ’s Incarnation points to embodiment as one of the most important spiritual journeys we make, and its effect is felt in multiple relationships.”[4] Herein lies a shift, a “repenting,” a change of mind that I want to share with you today. And it arises out of the life of someone who lived 900 years ago. Hildegard of Bingen “a theologian, visionary… preacher, and healer”[5] who lived in Germany in the 12th century. In her faith journey, Hildegard developed an understanding of viriditas (var-it-i-das). Paintner writes, “Viriditas, which means the ‘greening power of God’ … It is what sustains and animates us. Greenness is not just a physical reality but a spiritual one as well… The sign of our aliveness is this participation in the life force of the Creator… For Hildegard, viriditas was always experienced in tension with ariditas, which is the opposite experience of dryness, barrenness, and shriveling up…”[6]
So… Kick off the dust. Turn around. Embrace that ‘change in mind’ from what is dry, dusty, life draining, faith depleting, God limiting, to that life-giving greenness of the Spirit that nourishes us. Builds community. Shift into full hospitality. That extravagant welcome. A taking of the necessary risks to follow Jesus out onto the streets. Can we… can you… can I… shake off our dusty sandals and seek the ever-present “life-giving greening energy”[7] of God? Paintner reminds us once again that, “So much of our depletion comes from a sense of scarcity… Can we celebrate that there is more than enough? Viriditas reminds us again and again that there is no lack. It is offered to us… freely.”[8]
And then become aware. Become aware of how practices of hospitality weave into your day to day life. The life of Being Church. Because they are there… all around us. All the time. And then ask, “… where have I experienced dryness… a sense of feeling stretched, overwhelmed, or depleted?”[9] As you go through the activities of your day, also ask through the lens of faith, “Is this truly nourishing? If not, can I shift what I am doing? If I can’t change what I am doing, can I shift my perspective?”[10]
And then finally… take a risk… and stretch those questions to the church and ask, “where does our faith community experience dryness, dustiness? Where do we encounter a sense of feeling stretched, overwhelmed, or depleted?” And where do we experience greenness, renewal, laughing, joy—hope? And how do we, as people in covenant with one another and with God, walk together in this Way… the Way of Jesus… in the dusty world around us?
Then go out. Take the greening power of God’s love. Go out and take a risk on finding a radical welcome in unanticipated places. Go out, amongst strangers.
But go out.
Amen.
~Pastor Kris
Reflection on Mark 6:1-13 offered on July 1, 2018.
[1] Lewis, Karoline. “Sermon Brainwave.” #613 – Seventh Sunday after Pentecost. June 30, 2018. Accessed July 3, 2018. https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx.
[2] Jacobson, Rolf. “Sermon Brainwave.” #613 – Seventh Sunday after Pentecost. June 30, 2018. Accessed July 3, 2018. https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx.
[3] “Extravagant Welcome | A Training Guide for Greeters.” UCC Resources | UCC Resources – United Church of Christ. Accessed July 06, 2018. https://www.uccresources.com/products/extravagant-welcome?variant=1133881332.
[4] Paintner, Christine Valters. The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2017. 3.
[5] Paintner, Christine Valters. The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2017. 15.
[6] Paintner, Christine Valters. The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2017. 16.
[7] Paintner, Christine Valters. The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2017. 16.
[8] Paintner, Christine Valters. The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2017. 20.
[9] Paintner, Christine Valters. The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2017. 22.
[10] Paintner, Christine Valters. The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2017. 18.