Pentecost 7 Mark 6v1-13 Healing, homes, hospitality

If we change just a few small things in our life on a regular basis we can make 

a difference to our own lives, other peoples and the planet. For example if we 

take one bus a month instead of using the car we would save one billion car 

journeys and two million tons of co2 every year. 

Or walking even five minutes a day increases your heart rate from 70 to 100 

beats this is good for our heart. Also walking lubricates our joints and reduces 

stiffness, and it reduces our blood pressure. The more we walk the healthier 

we will be. 

Life is complex so we have to work out what is of vital importance. One man 

decided it was flossing his teeth. If he did that every day he was happy! 

This passage is about what was vital for Jesus task on earth. 

There is growing trouble after the raising of Jairus’s daughter. 

Jesus leaves Capernaum to preach in the villages of Galilee and begins 

twenty-five miles away in his hometown of Nazareth. At first his teaching in 

the synagogue astounds them (a Mark word!) but they cannot forget that 

though he is a good teacher now, and popular, he grew up with them and was 

a carpenter like his father. There is a shift of mood as Jesus' ministry begins 

to deepen. 

So Jesus left his hometown Nazareth, with a group of disciples. When the 

Sabbath came he began to teach. In the early part of Jesus' ministry he went 

to the local synagogue and was invited to speak. Most people were amazed. 

This amazement quickly becomes rejection and unbelief. They become 

scandalised by his teaching. "Where did this man get these things? Does his 

wisdom and miracles come from God or Satan?" There are references to 

Jesus brothers and sisters and his mother Mary, and then to his father Joseph 

and his own trade, a carpenter-builder. They are local. They are suspicious of 

him. Jesus is insulted by the crowd, his neighbours. He is only Mary’s son, 

perhaps indication Joseph was dead or that he was illegitimate; A carpenter, 

whose mother, brothers and sisters we know. The brothers are named. The

sisters are not. 

So they refused to believe in him and his teaching. "A prophet is not without 

honour except in his own country." Would you accept someone you knew 

from childhood telling you how to live your life! 

Even Jesus had limitations and could not do anything there except heal a few 

people by laying hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. So he

changed his strategy! And we need to hear this! Because the churches need 

to change their strategy. He left the synagogues and moved to the villages. 

Tis was the last time he went to his hometown Nazareth or to the synagogue. 

He called twelve of his inner circle of disciples and sent them out in pairs to 

give the good news, taking a walking stick, no bread, no bag, and no money 

in their pockets. "Wear sandals, but only take only the clothes you are 

wearing", he told them. "When you enter a house, stay there until you leave 

that town. 

If the people in a certain place refuse to welcome you or listen to you, leave 

that place. Shake its dust off your feet as a warning to them." 

So he regroups his and apprentice disciples are sent out to exorcise demons 

and heal the sick. What an apprenticeship! 

So the disciples went out. They encountered many people disturbed with 

demons and put oil on many sick people and healed them. 

Despite failure Jesus and the disciples had regrouped to continue their 

mission. What a message to the churches today. Despite apparent failure we 

must regroup and continue the mission of Jesus. 

The disciples were completely dependent on being housed and fed by people 

in the villages they were visiting. A model of hospitality. No salary, no houses, 

just hospitality. It is expected they will be rejected by some people. Its 

inherent in their mission that there will be rejection. 

They are to take just a walking stick and their sandals. Sandals are a logo of 

discipleship in Mark. So it is houses and villages that are the basis for

mission, not the synagogue or the church. 

So maybe we need to look at our model. 

1. Maybe we need to focus on healing more 

2. Maybe we need to focus on homes more 

3. Maybe we need to focus on hospitality more 

Like other daily habits these habits of healing, homes and hospitality could 

change the church. 

Discipleship consists of calling/naming/sending. 

Discipleship depends on hospitality for sustenance-we could be entertaining 

angels unawares 

Mark 5v21-43, Acts 2v42-47, Pentecost 6, Fascism

 

Bridges and Barriers 

The magpies near my garden can often be heard collectively complaining about my 

cat, sometime joined by the robins. When a magpie dies, the magpies that live in that 

area, come together, check it is dead and then engage in a long mourning process 

standing around the body. It is a well reported phenomenon. Magpies have 

empathy, collective empathy and they mourn their dead. 

So we humans are not the only ones to have empathy for our loved ones and our 

fellow species. Jesus uses his empathy always, to demonstrate Gods concern for us 

and it is often the pivot of his interaction with people in the gospels. 

In the gospel reading in Mark we hear that Jesus has been begged by a religious 

leader to go and heal his little girl who is very ill and he goes off to do just that. The 

man was a male, a leader in the synagogue, head of his family, therefore socially 

acceptable and talks to Jesus as an equal, but also worships him. But on the way to 

the mans home, Jesus is touched by a woman who has been haemorrhaging for 12 

years. She is a woman, she is unclean, poor and an outcast, anonymous. She has 

been exploited by private health care. She touched Jesus, breaking the purity code. 

He feels the energy goes out of him, something I’ve only come across very rarely: 

the woman is healed. Finally he continues on his way to Jairus home. The mourners, 

outside the religious leaders house, laughed when Jesus said the girl was just 

sleeping. Their disbelief wasn’t helpful. So Jesus put them out of the house and 

heals her. 

The pivot for all Jesus actions was compassion. Compassion for those who were in 

need, emotionally (demoniacs), physically (healing miracles and feeding of 5000) 

and spiritually (the rich young man). But he was opposed by many religious people. 

2,342 Mexican children have been separated from their parents on the Mexico/US 

border between May 5 and June 9th. The children have been held in cages, 

temporary shelters and tents. The older children are looking after the younger 

children, some who are in nappies. 

This week a US senior judge laughed at the stories of separation and called critics, 

lunatics. 

So in these strange and disturbing times what would Jesus do? It seems that this 

question is very divisive. There are two realities in the US and in the UK and across 

Europe. Our ideologies divide us. 

Some 18 months ago I preached about the Church under Fascism. As we 

increasingly encounter people giving Nazi salutes on our streets this is more relevant 

than ever. Madeline Albright has recently written about populism and Fascism. So 

have others. 

What is Fascism? 

Fascism developed in Europe, in the early 20th century. Instead of focusing on class 

conflict, like the socialists, fascists focus on races and nations, purity of nationhood 

and citizens. Fascists talk of national rebirth. Oppressive policies deliver national 

rebirth. 

The church under Fascism divided into two camps; 

Firstly those who supported the idea of a Church composed of just pure white 

people, ein Volk, one people. One American leader has talked this week of regaining 

a “White” America. 

Secondly there were those who protested against the Fascism and said it was anti-

Christian stance, and anti-Semitic, discriminating against Jews. Jews were being 

murdered along with gypsies, gays, black people-over 7 million were gassed to purify 

the nation. 

We are in the same situation today. 

Muslims, migrants and asylum seekers are associated with being criminals, visually 

in the press with big front page headlines describing people as swarms and through 

narratives/stories gossiped by the media. 

So you have a narrative of denigration. They are less than us, these people. 

Therefore we do not treat them as equals. Therefore we can treat them without 

compassion, even babies and children. The law is superior to grace. The law says 

they are subject to authority. 

The passage in Acts tells us how Christians lived shortly after Jesus died. These 

were holy people, amazing things were happening, and they shared what they had 

with one another, They sold stuff to give to those who were in need, They ate 

together, prayed together, and were good to people they met. And their number 

grew. 

The Roman historian Eusebius has a vivid description of these people some 100 

years later. (Stevenson, J.S, The New Eusebius, p58) 

They were accused of being cannibal’s because it was thought they were eating the 

body and drinking the blood of Christ. When they shared wine they remembered that 

Christ had died for them and his blood had been shed as he had predicted in the 

Last Supper. 

Jesus came to abolish the Law and replace it with Grace, with love and with

compassion. “Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your mind, 

and love your neighbour as yourself” Mark 12v28-34

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/18/us-border-families-separated-

audio-recording

What would Jesus have us do? 

I think that Jesus would want us to build bridges and not create barriers or build 

walls, or detention centres. I think he would want us to do what those Christians in 

Acts were doing, to pray, to share, to give to others, to help those in need. As the 

Roman historian Eusebius shows us that was a political act that undermined the 

Roman Empire and people were arrested and killed for simply living as Christians. 

So be wise my friends, because these are difficult times and there are strong strident 

voices and people once again raising hands in Nazi salutes and talking of taking our 

country back and telling people they are not welcome. We like the magpies have the 

choice of empathy or apathy. 

Ask yourself what would Jesus do?