This sermon was inspired by Mark 6:30-34, 53-56.
The smell was what hit me first. We had not yet even entered into the ragged open air building when I caught a whiff of something so putrid I gagged in my mouth. A wave of sound crashed over my group right as we escaped from the 95°, sun-drenched day. Faintly over the crowd, I heard our group leader saying, “Stay together, the market can get a little bit crazy.” Vendors packed elbow to elbow extending everything from beans to beats, scarves to hats, goats to chickens, and even raw fish… that was of course, I realized from where the smell emanated. As the dark skinned people noticed the light skinned people carving through the overcrowded aisles it was almost like the Red Sea parting, as the vendors made way for some exotic (to them) visitors. There was no snake-shaped staff, instead it was simply twenty wide-eyed college students trying our best to keep a low American profile. The experience still resonates with me, and even though I love our Morgan County Farmers’ Market (I was there yesterday picking up some of Stuart Thornton’s famous pickles), there is nothing in the United States that compares to the marketplaces in the developing world, such as one I walked through in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Going into this bazaar might have been the closest thing to ever entering into the setting of one of Jesus’ healings, like those described in today’s Gospel lesson. At the start of this Good News Jesus attempted to provide for himself and others a time of restoration saying, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Jesus and his disciples had been going at a frantic pace: stopping the suffering woman’s bleeding; healing Jairus’ daughter; feeling the inhospitality of Jesus’ hometown; Jesus sending out his disciples; and the disciples preaching, anointing, and curing. Upon their return it would have seemed appropriate to take a pause to refresh. And yet, as the disciples and Jesus attempted to break, the crowds chased after them like teenagers running behind a pop star, except unlike Justin Bieber or Ariana Grande, Jesus the Christ was not just a celebrity he was the Good Shepherd. Jesus had compassion on the crowds and taught them many things.
Our Lectionary skips ahead to a second section of healing that took place in the picturesque Gennesaret, which means, “the garden of the prince.” While this might sound beautiful, its marketplace was probably as chaotic as the one I frequented in Port-au-Prince, or like so many other commerce centers in developing parts of the world. You will look at me funny, but this town center was like Wall Street, Time Square, and Capitol Hill rolled into one. A tiny market of bartering and exchanging goods seems a little underwhelming; however, make no mistake about it, the sick being brought to Jesus in the marketplace was a big BIG deal.
Our world is the same world in which Jesus walked. Sometimes we forget this. And yet, we still have not moved beyond seeing mostly by outward appearance. We still are trapped by first impressions. We still are caught up in what someone is wearing, what color someone’s skin is, or what kind of car someone drives. In Jesus’ day some of these outward markers were different, but public spaces were the places where people’s status was on display. One Biblical scholar writes that in those days these markets were the places “in which legal hearings, elections, and debates took place, in addition to the buying and selling of goods. Thus the marketplace was the political and commercial center of a city or town” (Elizabeth Webb, Workingpreacher.org). If you were powerful, if you were able bodied, if you were part of the dominant group, then you ruled the economic, religious, and political arena of the day. We might have changed the currency, the religion, and the system of government, but we still fall into the same economy as those in the ancient marketplaces.
“Those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect,” so writes Paul in a letter to the Corinthians. Jesus initiates this practice within today’s story when instead of going along with the practices of the powerful or taking the sick out into the countryside where they will not be noticed, he heals the weakest members of society in the place where the powerful did business. As someone said to me this week, this is like the sick being lined up on 2nd Avenue during 3rd Friday or if the injured were laid out in the lobby of Regions Bank. Jesus restored those who had no place in society so that they could be a part of the communal body. In the process Jesus undermined the way that things had always been done and even the way that we continue to do things.
The Kingdom of God is not just open to VIPs, reward club members, or Prime members; The Body of Christ is not only for Platinum Card holders, Kroger Card participants, or Country Club members; the people of God are not solely the rich, the powerful, the able bodied, the white, the men, or whatever other dominant label that exists. In fact, Jesus says in the Kingdom of God the first will be last and the last will be first.
Today we welcome a new member into the Body of Christ. Thomas Parker Tubb is about to baptized and, like all of us, adopted as a beloved child of God. Callie, Stuart, and Parker’s godparents will make his vows for him promising to believe in Father, Son, and Spirit; to participate in the life and worship of the Church; to resist evil and repent from sin; to proclaim by word and deed the Good News of Jesus; to serve Christ in all people; and to respect the dignity of every human being. These promises are ways that we as the Body of Christ buy into God’s economy.
I so often love the economy of this world. I can so easily go with the flow as a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant who is well-educated and able-bodied. Yet, to be a part of the Kingdom of God means that we are invited to take part in a different economy, a Divine Economy in which we love God with heart, strength, soul, and mind and our neighbors as ourselves. To be a part of the Body of Christ means that we don’t push to the side those who are different than us, who are poorer or richer than us, stronger or weaker than us, more conservative or more liberal than us, darker or lighter skinned than us; we are the Body of Christ and we welcome all who will follow Jesus and we extend our welcome to all whom we meet. To be the Body of Christ means we take part in God’s Divine Economy where there is more than enough for all. In the Kingdom of God the first will be last and the last will be first.
In the name of the Living God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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