a sermon by Kris Thompson
Elder, Western Presbyterian Church
July 5, 2009
Scripture Reading: Mark 6:1-13
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of each of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, our Strength and Redeemer. Amen.
We make assumptions about people – people we know, people we don’t, friends, family, strangers. We think to ourselves, “he’s really not old enough to take on this job.” “She has always struggled with addiction, I can’t imagine she’s really changed.” Sometimes, we even share these assumptions with others – we say them out loud. “He’s not ready to do that yet – look what happened last time.” “She’s just too set in her ways to make a change.”
We’re like the people in the pews of that synagogue who made assumptions about Jesus. The very human picture of Jesus found in this passage from the book of Mark places him in his hometown with those who knew him as a young person. While the members of this community acknowledge the wisdom and powers that Jesus possessed, they can’t seem to reconcile it with the child and young man they knew from earlier days. To them, he’s a carpenter, not a healer. He’s just one of the several children of Mary. They can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that he’s different than they remember. How can the kid who lived down the street from me growing up possibly have the power to heal someone’s sickness?
And so both Jesus and the people of his hometown are left frustrated. Jesus is “amazed by their unbelief” the story tells us. I can imagine that he was probably even angry that this opportunity to share his message with these people he cares about has been wasted.
By making assumptions about him, by being critical of him, and not being open to who Jesus has become, the people are not able to benefit from what Jesus has to offer them. And, their unbelief has limited Jesus as well. He can’t fully be the healer and preacher that he is called to be while in that place.
We do the same thing when we make assumptions about people. We close ourselves off to the gifts and talents, the relationship that is possible with another. And, in so doing, we limit that person’s ability to share who they are with us. We have diminished someone else and have also diminished ourselves.
When I began my work at Calvary Women’s Shelter several years ago, I was introduced to Shirley by one of my new colleagues. I found myself face to face with this short, sturdy-looking woman with a loud, gravely voice. She didn’t seem too certain about me, and I wasn’t sold on her either. Soon I learned of her aggressive behavior, her jail time, and the problems she was creating with others in the shelter. We all assumed that Shirley might not make it long in the program. And then one Halloween night, she put her arm around one of the staff and announced that she was done drinking. As Shirley stayed sober, her tough exterior started to melt away. She got a job, began volunteering with her church, and eventually moved into her own home. She rebuilt her relationship with her son, and reached a better understanding with her sister. When I saw her recently, Shirley told me about her work caring for an elderly woman who was dying, and how she stayed with her until the very end because the woman had no other family to be with her.
I had been wrong about Shirley. I had made assumptions about what she was capable of based on her past behavior. I had chosen to let those assumptions limit my interactions with her. Thankfully, Shirley wasn’t someone who let my judgments stand in the way of her reaching out to me for friendship.
Throughout Mark’s gospel, there are stories of Jesus performing miracles. There is the story of the woman who has had blood flowing for 12 years who touches his garment. “Jesus feels the power go out of him” as the woman is healed. Jesus feeds five thousand with a few loaves of bread, and he heals a blind man. He casts the demon out of the Syrophoenician woman’s child, and he stills the storm while on a boat with his followers. And he says to those who have come to him, who grasp at his cloak, who ask for his help, ‘your faith has made you well.’ It seems that Jesus’ powers depend upon the faith that others have in him.
And isn’t that true of us as well? While we don’t possess the prophetic powers of Jesus, our faith or lack of faith in someone can have a profound effect on their life. We express “I believe in you” in lots of different ways. When we support our child or our partner as they make decisions that might be different than what we would choose for them. When we do what seems like a simple thing and review a friend’s resume and agree to send it out to our own contacts. When we hold someone in our prayers. Sometimes we even say it. “I have faith in you.” A good friend of mine, someone I had shared some of my plans with, sent me an email this week that said, “I am as excited as I am confident about the next year for you.” His belief in me and his ability to express it have had a powerful effect on me.
Believing in someone doesn’t necessarily require that we like them or even know them well. But it does require that we truly respect and honor their humanity. In the Eastern traditions, it is the practice to greet one another using the Sanskrit word, ‘namaste’, which translates as ‘the Sacred within me honors the Sacred within you.’ I love the discipline of this action - in greeting another, one would consciously recognize the spirit, the gifts, the light of that person. It is a way of saying “I believe in you”. It is a reminder of our interdependence as human beings. And, it requires that we recognize our own “light”, our own Sacredness, in order to fully honor it in another. It is an expression of our faith in God, the one who is the source of the light and in whose eyes we are all Sacred.
Imagine, for a moment, what a day would be like if you began each interaction with the thought, or even the practice, of “namaste”. You greet your family at breakfast. You look at each person attending the morning meeting in your office. You make eye contact with the person who hands you your carry-out dinner. You sit in prayer at the end of the day. Either silently or aloud, you express your ‘belief’ in those around you and in yourself.
I have the privilege of being present as women who are homeless make enormous life changes. The beginning of transformation often starts when someone begins to believe in them and they begin to believe in themselves. And then, they are truly changed. At times it seems a miracle almost. Mark Zaineddin, in a publication called “Join the Feast”, writes “when we begin to believe in the individual worth of each and every person, might it just be that miracles – real or perceived – can happen?”
Francine had spent years in abusive relationships, using drugs and alcohol to mask the pain, trauma and sadness she felt every day. She lived in a downtown park or in a vacant building for years. The first time she came to Calvary she stayed for a few weeks. The enormity of the changes she needed to make in her life were overwhelming to her. She said, “I don’t like all the rules here” and returned to life on the street. But then she got beat up by some guy in the park again. Francine decided that if she didn’t do something different, she was, in her words, going to “end up dead”.
The second time worked. When Francine tells her story, she says that change was possible for her that time because Tim, her case manager, always acted as if she could do whatever she needed to do. Not only did he help her get the resources she needed, but he stood with her as she struggled to get sober. He was there when she started to address the depression and trauma that she had buried and to work her way through the years of life she felt she had lost. Tim stood with her when her old friends and family members, even her children, didn’t trust that she could live a different life and be a healthy person.
Today Francine is raising one of her grandchildren. She is a speaker for a nonprofit organization that provides education and advocacy around homelessness. Francine is a cancer survivor. In many ways, Francine’s life change is nothing short of a miracle. Because of his faith in her, Tim was also changed. He benefited from a relationship with this caring woman, he learned some things about himself, he developed skills related to his work.
Just like Tim’s faith required him to actively support Francine, our belief in others calls us to action. The impact of having faith in others, and acting on that faith, extends beyond interpersonal relationships as well. We have seen the underdog sports team rise to the occasion and work hard to win the game because of the expressed faith of their fans. We have watched the renewal of schools and school systems as the parents and community have said “I believe in you and your abilities” to the teachers and children and stepped forward to bring about change. We have witnessed how Nelson Mandela expressed faith in the people of South Africa and worked diligently with others to help bring about the transformation of a nation.
And so we are challenged to break with the easy pattern of making assumptions, of being the ‘unbelievers’, the cynics. We are challenged to see people through new eyes, to recognize the Sacredness in them that is also in ourselves, to fully understand what is possible for ourselves and for others if we do. We are challenged to make ourselves vulnerable – to express our faith in others, to act on that faith – with those know and those we don’t – in order to be a part of the miracles that are possible.
The Sacred within me honors the Sacred within you. Amen.
