Hospitality - 14 Sunday, Year B ( Mark 6: 1 -6)

14 Sunday, Year B 

 

Hospitality is a key virtue of the Christian life. As followers, disciples, of Jesus Christ we are called to be a welcoming people; people who reach out to others, who provide them with a place to rest, refresh and renew. In the gospels we can see many examples of Jesus both giving and receiving hospitality such as: 

 

·     Sharing a cup of water with the woman at the well (John 4: 1 -42).

·     The hospitality he received at the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus in Bethany (Luke 10: 38 – 42).

·     Turning the water into wine (John 2: 1 – 11).

·     Eating with the tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 9:19 -17; Mark 2: 15 -22; Luke 5: 29-39).

·     The last supper (Matthew 26:17–29; Mark 14:12–25; Luke 22:7–38; and I Corinthians 11:23–25)

·     And most movingly the washing of the disciple’s feet (John 13: 1 -17). There are of course plenty more examples of hospitality in action not alone in the New Testament but throughout the bible. 

 

In today’s gospel reading from Mark (6: 1-6), we hear of one of the times when welcome and hospitality was decidedly absent. Jesus returns to his hometown to preach on the Sabbath and this seems to take the local people by surprise. They are at first astonished and then offended. The Greek gives us a deeper insight into how they really felt – What we translate as ‘they took offence’ can also be translated as they found ‘a snare (trap) in their path or they found ‘a stumbling block’. Either way it was something dangerous for them that they couldn’t easily get past.  The stumbling block was this – these hometown people couldn’t quite get their heads around the fact that this man – this preacher who seemed to be very wise and making a lot of sense – was the also the local lad they had known growing up. The key issue for them is that they thought they knew who Jesus was. They had it all decided and they wouldn’t accept any other version of reality. They had seen him grow up; they know his family. They saw Jesus through the lens of their own limitations and fears. He was one of them – or so they thought.

 

We don’t know what Jesus preached that day however whatever the message was that Jesus brought to that town, it seemed to hit a nerve. If we look at some of the sermons and parables in which we hear Jesus preach to groups of people, we can see the kind of things he tended to said: 

 

1.  He always spoke to the people about their own context – if he was in a fishing community, he spoke to them using fishing terminology and examples of empty nets or full nets.  

2.  He always challenged the status quo – just think of the example of the sermon on the mount when he turns the entire social order on its head and calls the meek, poor, widowed, oppressed – blessed. 

3.  Finally, Jesus cut to the heart of the issue and challenged whatever group he was speaking to, to wise up, wake up and stand up for what it right. We just have to recall the turning over of the tables in the temple to see this. 

 

When Jesus had one to one contact with a person it always about healing – the woman at the well, the woman with the haemorrhage, the sick girl, the blind man… the list goes on.

 

When Jesus was in contact with an assembled group of people, he still tried to heal them, however the healing wasn’t always so apparent. It was there but this kind of healing only could only come about if the group let go of the things that were holding them back. This kind of healing required the group to first change something about themselves. Oftentimes when they heard such a message preached to them, they were like the group in today’s gospel – astonished and offended, especially, like today, when this message came from this man that they knew so well. As far as they were concerned, he had to go and take with him is poisonous message. They wanted to be left as they were. They didn’t need this man telling them otherwise. 

 

As today’s gospel ends, we hear that although Jesus was amazed at the lack of faith he met in the group, he continued to reach out and heal the individuals who came to him. Jesus didn’t blame or hold against the faithful the sins and the blindness of that group of closed hearted and narrow-minded people. No, he allowed the Spirit to flow freely towards those who wanted their lives touched by the healing Presence of Jesus. 

 

Let us pray for each other this week that we will have the faith to reach out to the Lord and not be put off by what others might say or do. Let us trust that the Lord reaches his hand towards us first offering a welcome filled with healing and peace. Amen.