The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr

 Mark 6:1-13 

I rarely use vending machines, but I think many of the vending machines of today take credit and debit cards and some even allow you to use mobile wallet apps like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. These are days of convenience. Some of you may remember, like I do, years ago that vending machines only took coins. Then they were replaced by the new and improved machines that could take dollar bills. No more searching in the bottom of your purse or in the cushions of the seat of your car for a quarter. Now, your thirst or hunger could be satisfied by a single dollar bill. That is, unless it was a bill with a rip, a crease, a dog-eared corner, or maybe a bill that was a little faded. Those bills were rejected. They were no good. I remember, standing in front of the machine, feeding my bill into the little slot until the tiny belts gripped my bill and I watched it slowly go into the slot. As it would disappear, I’d look away to make my selection, and out of the corner of my eye, my bill would roll back out, rejected. It was no good. The bill did not meet the vending machine’s standards. So, I’d try again. Maybe I just fed it into the machine wrong. The belts would grip the bill, and slowly take the bill in and just as quickly, it would spit it back out. I’d take the bill, look it over once or twice and then, using both hands, I’d rub the bill back and forth against the corner of the machine, trying to make it acceptable for the bill slot. But, to no avail. Rejected again.  

Have you ever been rejected? Rejection can be hard to take and hard to accept. Today, Jesus was rejected in his own hometown. Rejected in the place where he grew up. You don’t expect the people who have known you all your life to reject you. But that’s just what the people did. They remembered Jesus as the carpenter’s son, not the Messiah. They knew Jesus as one of Mary’s children. Where did Jesus get all this authority to heal and all this wisdom to teach? If he was truly the Messiah, he’d be conquering those Romans as they expected the Messiah to do. This kid who just a few years ago was running the streets, maybe doing a little ding-dong-ditch in the middle of the night with his friends, was the Messiah? No way. Rejected. Rejected by his own townspeople.  

 How do you handle rejection? What is your response when you are rejected? For Jesus, he was amazed that they did not believe. But it didn’t stop him. Mark tells us that he still “laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” And despite the rejection, he sent out his 12, two by two. He told them they are not responsible for how people react to them. They have no control over how the people respond to them. Their job is to help them to understand the seriousness of their decision. The disciples are doing the work of God and people can decide whether or not to believe, follow, and participate,   

 

I asked those who attended the Wednesday healing service if they had ever been rejected and how they handled it. To my surprise, everyone who shared a story talked about a time they had been rejected in church. They shared stories that I never considered as being a sign of rejection. One person shared that years ago, when they visited St. Thomas, they would go to fellowship after church and sit there by themselves. No one would come up to speak. But if they came to church with their spouse, people would speak to them. When their spouse was not there, they felt rejected and felt that they were not being seen. Another person shared that when they were traveling, they visited a church and during the peace, no one came up to shake their hand. They felt rejected and not included. It had never occurred to me that in those situations, people could feel rejected.  

Rejection involves a decision whether it’s in our conscious or sub-conscious, it’s a decision we make as to whether or not we reject another. Whether or not we love someone. Whether or not we care for someone. Whether or not we care for someone in need. In the case of the vending machine, when my dollar bill is spit out, all that is wrong with the bill is that it has not passed some litmus test provided by the vending company. The bill doesn’t meet its standards. I do all I can do to make my bill meet the standards, but nothing will work. It wants something clean and perfect, with no flaws. And when my bill is spit out, I remain hungry and thirsty.  

But I can take that same bill to the convenience store on the corner, crumpled, faded, and wrinkled, and it will spend just fine. There, they will take my flawed money. I can hand it to the cashier in a balled up clump, and I can get my drink and snack, and I will no longer be hungry or thirsty.  

Jesus was teaching and healing. Jesus feeds us, the hungry and the thirsty, the balled up, crumpled, faded and wrinkled people we are.  

Rejection can be painful, but it does not mean that when we are rejected that we have no worth. It means that we did not meet some random standards put forth by the person or group rejecting us. Jesus was rejected and died on the cross and we preach his Gospel every day. Even though rejected, he did not change his mission. He taught us how to live through rejection. And when we are rejected, Jesus never rejects us. In our 2 Corinthians reading today, Jesus said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” And Paul responded, “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Even when Paul faces rejection, with Christ, he is strong.  

We cannot control how people respond. We may be rejected because of our faith, because of our beliefs…there are thousands of reasons why we may be rejected. We cannot control how people respond but we can control how we respond. We can control how we respond to others. As individuals in our everyday lives and as a family at St. Thomas, God wants us to spread the Good News. To be welcoming and caring. To accept and love all God’s children. Even those who are faded, wrinkled, torn, and crumpled up. There is no litmus test. No one gets rejected.   

This week, I’d like you to think about how you respond to others. Are you finding value in them or are you rejecting them? How are others responding to you? If you are being rejected, how do you respond?  

In her book, Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown writes this, “True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.” 1 God wants us to be who we are and accept others for who they are. We cannot control how people respond but we can control how we respond. In God’s house, no one gets rejected. Amen