Homecoming

(Scriptures:  2 Samuel 5:1-7, 9-10, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 Mark 6:1-13)

This weekend was the annual Arts Festival at Penn State. It’s a big annual alumni event on campus, in which the art displays are almost secondary to the chance to meet with long-ago classmates and catch up. I’ve kept in touch with a few classmates over the years, and of course when we get together, out come the old stories, often stories that I’ve long since forgotten, but that were memorable for my classmates. I missed the festival this year – with the extreme heat, I really didn’t want to be outdoors stomping all over campus – but one couple keeps in touch with me regularly via Facebook and shares memories – “hey Dave, remember that time in college when we tried to feed you cat food.” (I told them that with the economy what it is, I’d probably be eating plenty of cat food after I retire; no need to start now.) We’re 30 years older and, at least in my case, many pounds heavier, but our strongest memories of each other date from when we were age 20 or so. I’m not the same person I was when I was 20 – thank goodness! - and neither are my friends, but while our lives have moved on, our memories of one other are, to some extent, frozen in time.


Our Scriptures this morning are also, in part, stories about memories, about how memories of the past live and give shape to the present. Our Scriptures this morning give us two contrasting homecoming stories – David in Hebron, being acclaimed as king by a grateful people who remembered that during the reign of Saul, it was David who, like a shepherd, “led out Israel and brought us in.” And Jesus, in his hometown of Nazareth, being dismissed by those who knew Jesus when he was growing up, who were perhaps grateful for his skills as a carpenter, but had no time or patience to hear his God-talk.

You see, the crowd at Hebron knew David, and the crowd at Nazareth knew Jesus – so they thought. Reasonably enough, the crowds expected that past behavior would predict future performance. For those at Hebron, the grateful tribes of Israel expected that as David had led them successfully in battle, he would be at least as successful in providing civic leadership as their king. And, for the most part, their expectations would be met, as future generations would look back at David’s reign as the golden age of the united kingdom of Israel and Judah. And the crowds at Nazareth? They expected Jesus would continue to make tables and chairs, and couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to run all over the countryside, healing who knows how, and teaching who knows what.. Mark tells us that Jesus’ previous visit to his hometown had been less than auspicious – Jesus’ family tried to have him locked up, and some visiting religious leaders basically accused Jesus of being Satan’s little helper. Not exactly a Kodak moment. The hometown visit in today’s Gospel reading was even more of a letdown – the crowds turned on him, and Jesus found that his power was limited by their lack of faith. A sentence in our Gospel sticks in our mind: “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.” Jesus, the Son of God, who had cured the Gerasene demoniac, healed the woman with internal bleeding, and raised Jairus’ daughter, was reduced to near-powerlessness by the unbelief of the hometown crowds.

At our Bible study, more than once the question has come up, “why don’t we experience healings and miracles like the ones in the Bible?” Perhaps our lack of faith limits God’s power to act in our lives. In the words of James, “we don’t have, because we don’t ask. We ask and do not receive, because we ask wrongly, to spend what we get on pleasure.”

Memories have power to confine, or to liberate. The Apostle Paul writes of a powerful vision he was granted, a spiritual experience in which he was seemingly caught up into heaven and granted extraordinary revelations, too wonderful to repeat. Along with the revelations he experienced physical limitations as Paul said, to keep him from getting carried away with himself, to keep him grounded and dependent on God’s grace, made perfect in weakness.

“God’s grace is made perfect in weakness.” Few people would describe Emanuel Church as a powerhouse congregation. Our building, while lovely and full of holy memories, will never be mistaken for the Vatican or even for the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul down on the Parkway. Our congregation, even in its heyday, was never a megachurch, and even less so today. From a worldly, materialistic point of view, weakness abounds. Perhaps it is in just such a congregation as ours, amid such apparent weakness, that God’s grace can be seen most readily. We can be present for one another and look after one another in a personal way that isn’t always available in larger congregations. With no particular worldly clout to throw around, God can – and I believe, does - use our small congregation as a channel of grace to reach those in need of grace, one person at a time, one family at a time – when we believe, when our faith gives God enough room to act. And when we are willing to act on our faith – by welcoming those God sends our way, by sharing what we have, however little, with those in need. Even if we may not be able to do great things in a worldly sense, by God’s grace and in God’s name we can do small things with great love.

In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes
The rest sit ‘round it and pluck blackberries.

Here at Emanuel Church, we cherish our memories, our stories of those holy moments in which God met us in the past. Like Paul’s memory of being caught up into heaven, like his memory of the encounter with Christ on the Damascus road, may our memories inspire us, but not limit us. May our faith leave space for God to continue to do new things in our midst. May those who visit Emanuel Church come away saying, “Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.” Amen.