6th Sunday After Pentecost – Ezekiel 2:1-5 and
Mark 6:1-13
Rev. Michael Fry preaching
at East Bethany PC
July 8, 2012
Five years ago the Washington
Post featured a news story about a street musician playing his violin in a busy
metro station in Washington D.C. He
played six classical pieces of what some consider to be the most beautiful and
complicated music ever written, for a total of 45 minutes while 1,097 people
walked by on their way to work, oblivious to what they were hearing.
This ordinary looking street musician
was actually Joshua Bell, an internationally acclaimed virtuoso who often plays
for sold out and standing room audiences, typically people pay a lot of money
to watch and listen to him play. But on
this day his performance received no applause, no recognition, and he collected
$32.17 from those who tossed money into his violin case. Remarkable, for a man whose talent can
command $1000 a minute.
This was an experiment of
“context, perception and priorities.”
Would people recognize and appreciate beauty in an unconventional
setting and would they stop to listen?
The Post discovered their results through a hidden camera and follow up
interviews with the commuters who passed by.
The comments of the commuters
were telling. They were busy, had other
things on their mind, some were listening to iPods, and others talking on their
mobile phones talked louder to be heard over the music. One person said, “Nothing about him struck me
as much of anything.” Another man waiting in line for his lottery tickets commented
that the music “sounded generic” yet, he remembered every number he played in
the lottery that day. Some analyzed him
financially wondering how he could make a living doing this.
During this concert seven people
stopped to listen, twenty-seven gave money, and the other 1,000 people walked
on by.
One man stopped for a few
minutes sensing that this was something special. Even though he was not into classical music
and had never given money to a street musician before, he found himself tossing
a contribution into the violin case. He
said that the music made him feel at peace.
Every time a child passed they
slowed down, trying to stop and listen but each time their parent moved them
on.
One fellow, realizing the
quality of the musician, stood for nine minutes and was baffled that no one
else paid him any attention. And one
woman actually recognized it was Joshua Bell and wondered what on earth was
going on. [1]
>>>
Our context and setting
determine a lot of what we see, what we hear, and what we expect. The people in the metro station were on their
way to work, not a classical music recital.
And who would expect to hear extraordinary music in this otherwise
ordinary place?
The people in Jesus’ hometown
have the same challenge. To them Jesus
was their neighbor, they knew his family – Jesus was Mary’s son, an ordinary
carpenter, who suddenly was teaching in the synagogue with wisdom and had the
power to perform miracles. How could
this be? Where did this power come
from?
As twenty-first century
Christians we realize that this power comes from the Spirit of God working in
and through Jesus. But to his neighbors
he was a fellow villager who was becoming famous – suddenly he had this insight
and authority when he taught and healed.
And rather than celebrate and say yeah I knew him when… They treat him with contempt, because they
think they know him – after all it takes a village to raise a child.
Just as only a few people
recognized or heard the music being played in the metro station during rush
hour, a few people recognized what was going on with Jesus. Scripture tells us that he was able to heal a
few people.
And I imagine that what drew
these people to Jesus was something similar to what drew the select people who
heard the music in the subway.
- A childlike curiosity.
- The sense of deep peace they felt in Jesus presence.
- And the quality of steadfast love that radiated out from him.
In the article Joshua Bell observed
that the hardest and most awkward part of playing in the subway was the time after
one piece had ended and before he started the next one. Usually he receives a standing ovation and
here there was no applause, no affirmation, no validation for what he had
done. It made him wonder if he was a
successful musician after all.
What about Jesus? Was he successful?
In his hometown Jesus receives
no applause, no affirmation, no validation for his teaching or who he is – they
do not realize that there was not just a prophet among them, but God. Yet Jesus continues on, he provides an
example of brushing the dust off his feet for his disciples, for the mission he
is sending them on – a mission that will include danger, disappointment, and rejection.
For we learn that to be a
follower of Jesus will require danger, disappointment, rejection, and even
death. If we continue reading on in Mark
6 from verses 13-30 we discover the price of following God, from the example of
John the Baptist, who is beheaded because of the message he was preaching against
King Herod’s wife.
This is a story that prepares us
to expect rejection as Christians, to expect to not be successful or welcome,
and yet to persevere so that the Good News can continue to be shared.
Maybe we need to re-think or
re-define what it means to be successful as individuals and as a church.
Does success as a church mean
filling the pews, having a large budget, a thriving Sunday school program, or a
full-time minister?
Or does it mean being faithful?
Does success mean faithfully
caring for one another, our neighbors, and strangers? Does it mean being rejected or taken
advantage of because we are faithfully answering God’s call? Does it mean being faithful to God and dying
– dying to ourselves so that we may live for God?
Does it mean being faithful in
small things, so that we may then be entrusted with greater things?
Because if we are honest we are
the rebellious people God sends Ezekiel to, we are Jesus’ neighbors who are
contemptuous of Jesus message and power.
We are so wrapped up in our own world, seeking our own success, trying
to get to work or a meeting on time, distrustful of other people, trying to set
ourselves apart from our competitors and colleagues so that we might get noticed. We get so wrapped up in these things that
sometimes we fail to hear the wonderful music, we fail to hear the Spirit
calling us into service.
Jesus did redefine what it means
to be successful because in his weakness and in his death he showed such strength
– the strength of God’s love for the world – love not just for those who loved
him but also for those who rebelled and rejected God.
In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus
gave us a definition of success that is pretty much the opposite of what our
culture considers success to be when he told the people assembled, whom God
blessed in the Beatitudes (Matt 5:2-11).
Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are
those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart,
blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who are persecuted for
righteousness’s sake, blessed are those who are reviled, persecuted, and against
whom all kinds of evil is falsely spoke.
Why? Because…
- the Kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are poor in spirit,
- the meek will inherit the earth,
- those who hunger for justice and righteousness will be filled,
- the merciful will receive mercy,
- the pure in heart will see God,
- the peacemakers will be called children of God,
- to those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake belongs the kingdom of heaven,
- and when people criticize us, despise us, persecute us, and lie about us because of our devotion to Jesus we are to rejoice.
Rejoice because our reward in
heaven is Great! For in the same way they
persecuted the prophets who came before us and they will do the same to those
who come after us (Matt 5:12).
We are to rejoice because when
people do this we have touched a nerve; we have made them aware of the heavenly
melody God calls us to follow instead of the seductive musical score of the
world.
We are to rejoice because our
reward is not in this world and cannot be found here. We are to rejoice because we are God’s
children and our reward cannot be taken away from us. And when we finally receive our reward we
will be filled with such peace that no music played or written by human hands
can ever capture.
For this is the peace that
passes all understanding and the loving embrace of God from whom we cannot
separated, for we are his beloved children – this is our reward, this is our eternal
blessing, this is our everlasting inheritance.
Amen.
[1] Pearls Before Breakfast: Can one of the nations’ great musicians cut through the fog of a
D.C. rush hour? Let’s find out. By Gene Weingarten, in The Washington Post, published Sunday,
April 8, 2007.
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