Dealing with Rejection – Mark 6:1-13

When I read the accounts preserved in the books of the prophets of the Old Testament, it makes me wonder why anyone in their right mind would even consider allowing themselves to be spokespersons for God.  I don’t believe there is one prophet from the time of the kings of Israel and Judah and down through the time of the exile and into the restoration of the people back to their homeland who has not experienced rejection – be it mild or so severe as to endanger their very life.  Yet there is not one among them who ever chose not to offer themselves in service to God.  Their stories of how they came to be prophets are different but the result is the same.  The path they take as they come to the moment when they give their prophecies are different but the result is the same.  Each of them experiences abuse, ridicule and rejection.  In each case they find themselves living among people who profess to believe in God and yet have shown by their actions that they do not respect or love the Lord their God.  In each case the prophets live in challenging times where faith seems to be in short supply and people are  willing to follow only those parts of God’s laws that they find acceptable.

The prophet Ezekiel writes his account in the first person. This is a personal recollection of how God appeared to him and how he was called to be a prophet for God in his time.  Ezekiel was called during the exile of the people from the northern kingdom of Israel. Remember that by the time that the exiles began, the nation had been divided in two and there was a king of Israel in the north and a king of Judah in the south.  The Chaldeans were the people who had conquered and exiled the people of the north.

While most of the prophets were not priests, we are told that Ezekiel was a priest. His encounter with God in a more personal way began with a vision of which he will have many over the years of his life.  In this vision he sees what can best be described as a chariot coming out of the north in a great cloud of brightness and fire.  The faces that he saw in the middle of the chariot were human, lion, ox and eagle.  Then he sees a dome over the four creatures and above the dome he sees a throne and seated above was what he described as something that seemed like a human form.  A fantastic vision and one which caused him to declare this to be the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.  The impact of the vision causes him to fall on his face to the ground.  It is then that he hears the voice of someone speaking whom he comes to know is the Lord himself.

He is commanded to stand up on his feet so God can speak to him. But it is not of his own strength that he stands.  He is raised up to his feet by the Spirit of God and then God speaks to him.  He tells him that he is sending him to the people of Israel with a message that they may or may not be willing to hear.  Ezekiel is not to be afraid of their words or their actions.  He knows that the words he speaks will no doubt be rejected and yet he will go.  He is then given a scroll. What the scroll says is not recorded but what is recorded is that Ezekiel is asked to eat the scroll – which he does.  Surprisingly, it tastes as sweet as honey. And so the word of the Lord that Ezekiel is to speak to this rebellious people will come from his gut.  He will speak the word of God from the depth of his being.  Ezekiel’s time as a prophet will last for a long while but none of it will be easy.  He will experience persecution and he will find himself unable to speak or act except as the Lord will give him the words and the opportunity to speak.  Truly his life will belong to the Lord but he will deal with the rejection of the people trusting in the One who spoke to him in that vision.

In Mark chapter 6 we find the record of Jesus teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath.  His teaching astounds those who hear it but they are left wondering how or where he acquired such knowledge.  Jesus was known to have come from a humble family – a carpenter’s son with siblings who were not among the highly educated.  And it is recorded that they took offense at him.  How dare an uneducated carpenter’s son presume to be so wise as to teach them about God. His credentials did not match his wisdom or the power he appeared to have to heal.  And if you don’t have the credentials, you must be a charlatan – a fake.  The hometown boy was all that the people of his village could see. They could not even begin to imagine that the Spirit of God had descended upon him and that he spoke with the authority of the Spirit what God desired the people to hear and learn and understand.  This was a different rejection from that of Ezekiel – at least it was different in this moment – this was an apathetic rejection.  They simply chose not to believe and so Jesus leaves his hometown unable to convince them that he was indeed sent by God to teach a deeper truth and to bring healing, forgiveness and release to those made captive in mind, body and spirit.

And so he gives the twelve disciples the opportunity to go and spread the word he had received from God to as many as would listen and he gave them the authority to heal those who would be open to receive.  They were to take only a staff, one set of clothes and a pair of sandals. They would be totally dependent on the charity of those they would meet for their daily sustenance.  They were to find one house in each place and stay there until they moved on.  If they were not welcomed, they were not to argue but simply shake the dust off their feet and move on.  That is how they were to deal with rejection.

It is clear from a study of the accounts both in the Old Testament and the New Testament that there has never been a desire of God to impose his will on any who are unwilling to listen and accept his will for them and for this world.  It is also clear that God has ever been willing to offer people the opportunity to respond to his invitation to listen and learn and receive.  It is also clear that God is willing to move on from places or people unwilling to listen and learn and receive.

To those of us who have come to value the wisdom of God and seek to order our lives according to that wisdom, we can find it most troubling that people would be willing to reject the wisdom and the invitation of God but God knew that not all the people of this world would be willing to accept his words.  He made that clear to Ezekiel, Jesus made it clear to the disciples and the disciples discovered that truth as they went about their first missionary journey.

There will ever be people in this world who will refuse to listen, to learn or to accept the word  of God for this life and the message of reconciliation granted by God through forgiveness of sin and the grace and mercy of God to love us no matter what.  We are to expect such refusal, we are to expect such rejection and we are to deal with it as Ezekiel and so many other prophets did, as Jesus did and as the first disciples did.  We are to be faithful to speak the truth that we know, to offer the opportunity to accept that truth and the strength to carry on when our words or our actions are spurned.  This is one time when that phrase “it’s not personal” is really true.  It is not the prophet who is being rejected, it is not the disciple who is being rejected – it is God. May we ever do all that is within us to be responsible bearers of the word of God and so be encouragers to those who will find it difficult to believe in the word and love of God.

AMEN