Loving On Purpose

Mark 6:1-13

When many of us say the word "hometown" are we really sure about what we're saying, these days? Most people think of a hometown as being a place where you grew up; a place where most of your friends and relatives live; a place where your mother and father may still live. And, if we are going to use such a definition, some of us don't even have a hometown. If you were to ask my children, for instance, where their hometown is, they would have a hard time telling you. After all, they have lived in at least seven different towns in their lives -- Strawberry Point, Iowa; West Bend, Iowa; Williams, Iowa; Centreville, Michigan; Linden, Michigan; Corunna, Michigan; and now Dundee. So, it would be hard for them to identify a particular hometown that has their roots.

And not a whole lot of those of us sitting here could really call Saline our home town, except for the fact that we now make our home in the town or in the area of Saline. There are only a few of us who can say that we were actually born here or even grew up here.

So, the concept of a hometown has changed a bit from what it used to be. There was a time when most people were born, lived, and died in the same hometown; a time when hardly anyone moved away from his or her hometown. It was a time when everyone knew everyone else's family history; a time when there was a lot of pressure on young people to grow up and be something their family and hometown could be proud of. And woe to the person who shamed his family by doing something stupid or immoral in such a way so as to "blacken" the family's name in the community. And, yes, we might call those days when hometowns were so important "the good old days," because society is now so mobile that we just don't think of hometowns like this anymore.

But, there is a downside to the concept of the hometown. Since everyone who has grown up in a hometown usually knows everyone else's family history, a lot of judgments and sterotypes are made about each family that are difficult to change. In my mother's hometown of Hudson, Michigan, for instance, there was one family that everyone knew was a bunch of dunderheads, so that when any of the kids in that family went to school all the teachers just knew that all they were going to do was cause trouble, get lousy grades and eventually drop out. And so, of course, that's exactly what happened. And even if that family somehow managed to produce a child with normal or even some exceptional intelligence, those teachers still remembered that child's older brothers and sisters and cousins and were able to make school difficult for that child. And so, sure enough, the kids in that family would drop out of school, one by one, and go out and get the lowest paying jobs, or get on welfare, believing that they were, of course, the dunderheads of the community, unable to do any better even with their own children. And the people of the town, comforted in the realization of their prejudice, would shake their heads and say things to each other like, "Well, what else did you expect? Everyone knows that they're the dunderheads of the town."

But, that's what sometimes happens in hometowns. If nothing exceptionally great has ever come out of the Jones family, for instance, then no one can believe it when something exceptional comes out of that family. . . .And that's kind of where Jesus found himself in the scripture lesson that was read this morning. Jesus went back to his hometown and started to say and do some exceptional things. And the townsfolk wouldn't tolerate it. After all, they knew his mother and father and his four brothers and his sisters very well. Since they were all average, how could Jesus be exceptional? And if it turned out that Jesus was exceptional, wouldn't it change the position of his family in the community? Wouldn't their attitudes, their prejudices, and even the pecking order of their community be turned up-side-down?

This is what Jesus experienced when he went back to his hometown of Nazareth after his baptism. He faced rejection based upon prejudice. And, yet, there's something wonderful about Jesus in this story: In spite of their rejection Jesus continued to love these people. In spite of the fact that they took offense at him, he only told them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." Jesus continued to love them. He continued to heal those who were sick. In spite of their meanness and stubborness, Jesus did the unexpected. Instead of lashing out at them and condemning them or whatever, he loved them back. And that's what I call "loving on purpose."

In many ways, Jesus' loving response to those who rejected him in his own communtiy was indicative of the way Jesus actually lived and died. His teachings about loving your enemy, going the extra mile, praying for those who persecute you, giving someone you don't like the shirt off your back, and even his words upon the cross, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" remind us of how Jesus went out of his way to love people. Jesus was one who made loving on purpose the center of his life.

And, of course, isn't this what Jesus calls us to do as we follow him? Loving on purpose usually requires a change in our own attitudes about people. There may, after all, be persons living in this town or persons you work with or know in some other way that you would just as soon go out of your way to avoid. I mean, just about all of us know people like that, don't we? Either we have had an argument with that person, or maybe that person insulted us in some way, or maybe that person symbolizes some kind of a challenge to us so that we would just as soon forget that that person even exists. And, so, when we see that person in the supermarket, we make sure we look the other way or duck down an aisle as that person walks by. Loving on purpose, on the other hand would challenge us to make peace with our neighbor even if it means becoming humble to do it. Loving on purpose requires that we do something to initiate reconciliation. Loving on purpose may mean struggling with some attitudes or prejudices that we have harbored for years about someone or even a whole group of people. Loving on purpose means going out of your way to break down barriers that separate people and creating lines of communication and cooperation and understanding and nurture.

There is an old story that you may have heard about a man who had just arrived in Heaven. He told St. Peter how grateful he was to be in such a glorious place, and asked Peter to give him one glimpse into Hell in order that he might appreciate his good fortune even more.

So, St. Peter took the man down the elevator to Hell where he saw a long table extending as far as the eye could see, laden down with the most delicious of all varieties of foods. But everyone around the table was starving to death. When asked for an explanation, St. Peter replied, "Everyone in Hell must eat with splints on their arms so that they are unable to bend their elbows, you see. As a result, no one can get the food from the table to his mouth. And that's why everyone here is suffering from starvation."

Quickly they went back up the elevator to Heaven and there the man saw an identical table, laden down with identical foods, but everyone around the table was happy and well fed. But the man noticed that these persons had splints on their arms, as well. When he asked St. Peter about this, St. Peter replied, "In Heaven we feed each other."

Loving on purpose may mean the difference between a community or a life that is full of heaven or feels like hell.

In the Gospel lesson that was read today we see how Jesus sent his disciples out, two by two, giving them what they needed for ministry and telling them to take nothing more for their journey than the bare essentials as they went forth to share the good news of God's love. What is this saying to us? It says that loving one another is not passive but is, rather, something that requres us to go out of our way to do. Loving on purpose may certainly begin with a simple assent of the mind, a basic decision to follow Jesus, but it cannot stay at that level. Rather, loving on purpose is an activity that involves some planning, some strategy, and an actual "going forth".

There is an old story that I have used before about St. Francis of Assisi. We're told that St. Francis was terrified of leprosy. If someone with the disease came down the road toward him he would always give as much distance to that person as possible as he passed by. This bothered St. Francis, knowing that he had such an attitude, so he prayed that God would heal him of his fear. Then, one day, as he was walking down a narrow road he saw, horribly illuminated in the sunshine, a leper! Instinctively his heart shrank back, recoilingly, shudderingly from the contamination of that loathsome disease. But then he rallied; and ashamed of himself, ran and put his arms around the sufferer's neck, gave him a kiss, and then went on his way down the road. A moment later he looked back, and there was no one there, only the empty road in the hot sunlight. All his days thereafter he was sure it was no leper, but Christ Himself whom he had met.

Loving on purpose. God knows how hard it is to do, especially in one's own hometown. But Christ gives us what we need (and we don't need much) to share the love of God.

Amen.