The Adventurous Lectionary – The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 5, 2015

The Adventurous Lectionary – The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 5, 2015

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 2:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

In today’s lectionary readings, I am focusing on the New Testament readings and their emphasis on the role of faith to transform our lives, and enable us to face creatively even those things that cannot be changed.

The words of 2 Corinthians 12 portray the relationship between mysticism, humility, faithfulness, and divine assurance. Paul describes the mystical experience of an early Christian, most likely himself, who encountered the Holy and was given access to paranormal information. Paul doesn’t describe the nature of this experience, but asserts that it involved certain divine truths beyond the scope of everyday experience. It almost sounds like the “near death experiences” that many persons claim to have experienced in recent years. He also notes that mystical experiences can tempt their recipients to a type of pride, which separates them from other followers of Jesus. Paul goes on to say that despite his own advances in the faith, an ailment was “given” to him to keep him humble and remind him of his unity with all humanity. We are all mortals, finite, and imperfect, depending on God’s grace for our healing and wholeness, indeed, everything of importance in life. The saint is saintly precisely because he or she is connected with humankind in all its wonder and pain.

Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” torments him. While the nature of this ailment is unknown to us, it is a reminder in its vagueness that all of us may face conditions from which there is no escape spiritually or physically. As Alan Jones notes, spirituality deals with the unfixable aspects of life. We must experience God within life’s trials and not by avoiding them. Naturally, of course, Paul seeks relief from this ailment, but the ailment remains. Paul’s ailment and desire for divine cure begs a number of unanswerable questions: Is it God’s will that Paul continues to suffer? Is it simply an intractable chronic ailment? Or are some things beyond our faith to change? Could God have delivered Paul from his ailment, and chose not to?

Paul receives a healing word in the midst of his incurable ailment. God’s grace is sufficient. God’s power and love is present in Paul’s weakness. Within the unfixable situations of life, we can experience grace and healing; we can experience God’s nearness and out of that sense of nearness witness to others, not in our superiority but in our dependence.

Paul is advocating a theology of interdependence in this passage. We can’t make it on our own. We need power greater than ourselves to face life’s greatest challenges. Our strength is not in rugged individualism but graceful relationships in which our responses to God’s call and the support of others give us greater power than we would have on our own.

Mark 6 portrays a curious encounter with Jesus’ hometown neighbors. They believe that they “know” him and can’t imagine how he, the carpenter’s son, can uniquely represent God. Accordingly, they have low expectations from this familiar local that seem to block Jesus’ healing power. Yes, Jesus can cure some, but the divine energy, present in the encounter with the demon-possessed man, the woman with the flow of blood, and Jairus’ daughter, is minimized by their lack of faith.

Faith opens the door to bursts of divine energy. Faith awakens us to new perceptions and an openness that enables God to be more present in our life. Unfaith can close off certain divine possibilities. While we cannot assert a linear one-to-one relationship between faith and well-being or sickness, faith makes a difference. Trust is a factor in well-being and spirituality and physical transformation. This passage begs another set of questions: How important is our faith in shaping our health and the health of others? Is faith part of a larger matrix of causes that can limit the outcomes of our prayers? Does our faith shape, positively or negatively, what God can do in our lives? Is there a partnership between our faith and the form and power of divine activity in our lives and the world?

After Jesus’ hometown encounter, he sends his disciples out on a preaching mission. He instructs them to preach and then let go of the results. They are to go forth in simplicity, without provision, trusting God to supply their needs. God is at work in their lives, inviting them forward in faith. They are not to dwell on failure or the indifference or skepticism of others, but trust God alone for the harvest. They must travel light and this means dispensing with any spiritual or emotional baggage that might stand in the way of their calling as Christ’s followers.

Faith transforms our lives. It is not magic or linear, or omnipotent. Still, it opens the door to new vistas of divine inspiration and energy that can change our cells as well as our souls and enable us to face the unfixable with grace and trust.