2 Samuel 5.1-5, 9-10
Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 12.2-10
Mark 6.1-13
Sunday 7th July 2024
©Suzanne Grimmett
“I am the patron saint of mediocrity” says the character of Antonio Salieri in the 1984 movie, Amadeus, afictionalised biography of Mozart. Salieri as created in the screenplay is a man of some musical talent, but whose real genius lies in perceiving genius, and he is awe-struck by the prodigy that is Mozart. The character of Salieri complains to God that he has only been given ‘the ability to recognise the incarnation’ and not the ability to create that same beauty himself. Woody Allen once said, “My only regret in life is that I am not somebody else.” This is the tragedy of Salieri’s character, and it is the tragedy of so many of us in cultures that worship fame and success. Salieri cannot escape this despair and sets himself up in hatred and defiance of the God who is indiscriminate in blessing; the God who showers gifts on the unworthy and honours the lowly.
The problem is, our judgement of what makes for greatness is shaped by our cultural lens and our vision is clouded by the anxieties of our human condition. Holiness, when we encounter it up close, is often hidden from our sight. Greatness is not announced with a fanfare or skywriting. Revelation of the holy can sneak up and catch us unawares.
‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?’
Seems the good folks of Nazareth were a bit caught out by their proximity to the holy. Jesus was, after all, so terribly ordinary. I think we should have some sympathy for the doubters- try picturing that neighbourhood kid you grew up with, or that snotty-nosed child who used to turn up with your children for afternoon tea after school. Now imagine you find out he or she is working miracles and people are telling you that he or she is the new Messiah….then perhaps we might get somewhere close to what the Nazarenes felt when they looked at Jesus.
We have done a lot across two millennia to make Jesus anything but ordinary. In the centuries after Jesus’ earthly life new stories of miraculous actions in his childhood appeared. Any object that may have touched Jesus’ body became a relic capable of supernatural power and religious institutions seized the power to mediate the divine so that ordinary people were protected from getting too close.
By making Jesus into a wholly transcendent other, we protect ourselves against the shock of the incarnation. With the distance of history to protect us from truth, we begin to imagine the time of Jesus as some other-worldly time, when supernatural things happened. We look at the torture of the crucifixion but forget that far from being unique, this particularly gruesome death was dealt out by the Romans to tens of thousands of other victims before and after Jesus. Movies like Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” draw out the suffering of Jesus in vivid bloody detail on the screen, as if Jesus is remarkable by virtue of the extraordinary agony he endured.
But here’s the thing- the shock and the scandal of Christianity is that Jesus was ordinary. This peasant with fish in his beard is the same man who says come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. The one forgiving our sins is the same one put so easily to death like countless others in the most degrading way possible. We draw back from the paradox of the God-man, because if Jesus was ordinary, then maybe we who are ordinary could also be called to do the extraordinary. If these people of Nazareth are witnessing the power of God work through their hometown boy Jesus, then maybe God could work through them as well. So they ask in their fear and confusion, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him?” Give us a Messiah, but for heaven’s sake don’t let him be just like us!
The shock of the incarnation should never be resolved or domesticated. The startling truth of the incarnation is that it demands our involvement, our part in the ongoing creation of the kingdom of God. Our everyday experience in this physical world has been infiltrated by the glory of God and we are called to look with new eyes for the holy all around us, hidden in our midst, and even hidden in ourselves. Because you see we, like the Nazarenes, can miss when Christ appears amongst us, clothed in ordinariness. When we begin to see the holy in the ordinary, we can begin the important work of giving up on who we think we should be and who we pretend to be and begin the downward journey of learning to become who we were created to be.
So much of our striving for greatness- so much of our wishing we were like someone else or that we were someone else- comes down to a misplaced sense that we have to achieve to be loved and be successful to be blessed. But Jesus came hiding the glory of God in the ordinary, and the power of God in weakness and humiliation.
When we encounter this Jesus, we are strengthened to embrace our own powerlessness and learn that in this is perfect freedom. So often the good news is communicated as God coming in Jesus to show us our faults and failures. To paraphrase John Philip Newell, this is not good news, and it’s not even news. We already know this stuff about ourselves, and probably have spent no small amount of energy hiding, justifying and covering up. Jesus comes to reveal the love and mercy of God and the image of the divine found in all of us. When we have nothing else to lose and simple trust in knowing that our true self is hidden and held in the love of God, we have nothing to protect, nothing to defend, nothing to hide. And we can begin the work of being ourselves.
It means we understand like St Paul that the grace of God is sufficient- that only in weakness are we strong. There is in everyone’s lives that which torments us- things we would prefer to keep hidden or causes of personal struggle. It seems this is true also of Paul. Yet he sees in the centre of his struggle the birthplace of hope and new life where God’s power is revealed in weakness. Holiness is hidden in brokenness.
The very next thing Jesus does after experiencing the unbelief in Nazareth is to send his disciples out, two by two. The kingdom is coming not by might, not by institutions, not by elaborate programs but though a grassroots movement of presence and of relationship. In fact it is deeper than grassroots, for the movement of the kingdom begins first within each one of us. There is an inextricable connection between embracing our own brokenness and healing the brokenness of one other and the brokenness of our world. This place of grace is the creative wellspring of all movements for peace and justice and the birthplace of the courage to speak the truth.
For you see, while we keep hiding in our own perceived importance, keeping up appearances, hiding our secret sins, the kingdom will not come.
While we are trying to be great, we can never seek justice for the downtrodden and oppressed.
While we are looking down on others, we can never recognise how lonely we are and can never comfort another in their loneliness.
While we are wishing we had what someone else has, we can never live from a place of gratitude, which is the birthplace of generosity.
While we are trying to be anything other than ourselves, we cannot truly love.
The kingdom of God comes when we finally understand that there is power in weakness, and that in the average, ordinariness of you…of me…can be revealed the glory of God and the hope of the world.
+Amen.