Sermon for July 7, 2024
Pentecost 7 B
Mark 6:1-13
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
The boys and I got to tag along with Beth Ann on the last big trip of her sabbatical. We flew to Seattle, then rented a car and drove 4 hours through the mountains. We parked at Lake Chelan—a 50-mile long, narrow lake, 1300 feet deep at its deepest, surrounded by mountains on both sides—and we boarded a ferry on this lake. We sailed 1 ½ hours on the ferry, while our eyes feasted on the views. To the west were the lush green forested mountains of western Washington State. To the east were the brown arid mountains of eastern Washington State. We got off the ferry on the western side, at a small dock. An old yellow school bus was waiting for us. We got in the bus and slowly rode 1 ½ miles up steep switchbacks on a dirt road. When the road flattened out a bit, we rode 10 more miles deep into the Glacier Peak Wilderness. After 30 minutes the bus stopped and we were greeted by about dozen people waving colorful banners and cheering for us. We had finally arrived at Holden Village.
What is Holden Village? That depends on who you ask! We actually have three of our House of Prayer members who’ve been there: Kathy Bennett spent a summer 59 years ago working as a nurse; Key Keske volunteered there for 2 weeks many years ago; and Roger Clark has visited a couple of times. They might enjoy telling you about their experiences later. But here’s my impression: You could call it a church retreat center, and you’d be right, but that only begins to describe it. If you drew a Venn diagram—you know, with the circles that intersect each other—and you included a Lutheran church camp; an old mining town; a Swiss village nestled in the Alps; a wilderness hiking outpost; a school of art, music, and theology; a learning and retreat center for renewal and refreshment; an intentional Christian community; a Scandinavian spa; a mountain hippie commune; and a social gathering for people from many places, walks of life, ages, religious backgrounds, identities, sexualities, spiritualties, hobbies, and ice cream preferences—and if you somehow found the point where all of those things intersect—then you’d be on your way towards describing Holden Village.
All of that stuff, however, is put in service of the primary mission of the place: to be a ministry of hospitality. Now, we were only there for 3 days, but I’d say they do their ministry well. About 200 people were there, and maybe half had been there before—some of them had even been coming for 60 years! For them Holden Village felt like home, or at least a home away from home. About half were there for the first time. For myself, as a first time visitor, I definitely felt welcomed, and everyone was so friendly; you could start talking with anyone and they were so open to having real conversations. I also felt conscious of being a guest, like I was visiting someone’s home and was unfamiliar with their customs and ways.
But what made me realize that I was truly a guest in need of hospitality was this: On our last night there, the sky was clear and dark, so I decided to go out stargazing. I walked out of our building along with my flashlight, out of the main village, across the creek on a footbridge, down an open path to a clearing where I could get the best view of the sky. I spent about 10 minutes looking up and around at all the stars. At one point I thought maybe someone else was coming to join me. I thought I heard someone—looked around—just me. After 10 minutes, I began walking back, got near the bridge, and with my flashlight saw something on the ground that hadn’t been there 10 minutes earlier: a giant pile of bear poop! Yes, I was certainly a guest—and not only me, but everyone at Holden Village. We were guests of the bears, deer, marmots, chipmunks; guests of the trees, wildflowers, creek, rocks, and mountains. It was their home; we were just guests there.
And that was a good thing. That may even be the most important thing of all, because it’s exactly what Jesus teaches in today’s gospel. In Mark chapter 6, we hear how Jesus goes to his hometown (Nazareth) to teach in the synagogue. Now, he is certainly not a guest there; they’ve known him his whole life, and all of his family. And their reaction to Jesus, the local boy who made good? They say, “Who does this guy think he is?!?” Mark’s gospel describes the effect this had on Jesus: “He could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” Jesus was still able to care for people who were open to his ministry, but most of the people who already knew him at home refused to believe in him.
So Jesus basically says, “if I can’t fulfill my ministry of teaching and healing and reaching out to share the love of God, then let’s take the show on the road. Let’s leave Nazareth and go to the outlying villages. And I’ll send those 12 disciples of mine out in pairs, and instead of being dependent on familiar people and places, wherever they go they will have to be guests.”
How can you be a good guest? Well, first you expect that your host will meet your basic needs (to the extent that they are able), and you will also want to be of assistance to your host to the extent that they find you helpful. So the disciples followed Jesus’ instructions and traveled light: no food, no bag, no money, no extra clothing—they were committing themselves to being guests. They were putting themselves at the mercy of whoever would host them. By doing this, they showed us that to be a good guest you need a spirit of humility and simplicity. Have a humble heart because when you are a guest, your host will do things differently than you do in your home. And keep things simple, don’t make it complicated by demanding more than meets your basic needs. You’re not following Jesus to gain glory or feed your ego.
Through the example of Jesus and the disciples, Jesus is teaching us that as the Church, we can embrace the attitude of being guests in the world; even in our community. After all, on a deeper level, as Christians we are all guests in this world. Everything belongs to God, so the earth is not ours to control and do whatever we please; it’s God who gives us the responsibility to care for it. And our eternal home is with the crucified and risen Christ in heaven.
In heaven, we’ll be continually accepting the grace of God’s hospitality. We can start preparing for that now by putting ourselves (from time to time) in situations and places where we need to accept the grace of other people’s hospitality. When the disciples did this, that’s when their ministry really took off! “They cast out many demons, and anointed many with oil who were sick and cured them.” They were able to do all the things that Jesus was not able to do in his own hometown! Jesus was only able to cure a few people; the disciples were able to cure many. Because they embraced their role as guests who needed to accept hospitality from others, they experienced the truth of what the Lord told St. Paul in 2 Corinthians (12:9), “My grace is sufficient for you, for God’s power is made perfect in your weakness.”
The value for us as Christians in embracing the role of guest is that by getting out of your comfort zone, you learn how to make authentic connections with others—you learn what makes them tick, what’s important to them, how they experience the world, how they get through life each day. And you begin to learn and grow together. All of this is essential for following Jesus, and reaching out to people, and caring about them, and sharing the love of God. By being a guest, you can become more observant as you look for signs of God’s presence with the people who are being your hosts, and then you can join Jesus in doing the things God is doing there. Amen.