Mark 6:1-13

Year B - Pentecost +6 or Energy to Witness ⁶

July 5, 2015

Mark 6:1-13

Isn’t it the truth that we usually have more trouble from and disappointment in our allies than our enemies. Ever has it been the case. Allies who claim their truth needs to be our truth are the cause of fightings and fears within any movement. Our greatest battles are with ourselves and our allies. Read again Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

What is needed in a movement is an appreciation of the variety of skills, gifts, and strategies needed to be successful. There is no one way forward. We travel on many paths at the same time, evolutionarily leaving some behind and investing more heavily in others. But without each way having value, we are the poorer to leave change to authorized channels, even unorthodox authorities.

Here a strand of a larger movement in an occupied land (religiously as well as militarily, politically, and economically) known as the Jesus Way moves into outlying and foreign territories. The instructions about going out two by two and their provisions opens an interesting conversation about a contrast between Jesus and the Cynics. You can read more about this in chapter 5 of Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan.

Those sent out were to rely upon the generosity of a new community, not their individual moral strength and wisdom. They were to proclaim a baptismal message that takes a village to complete and heal both individuals and communities.

A significant task always before us is identifying who the actual allies are that can be counted on and leveraging that to deeper resolve (lived repentance) and revelation of this through healing (not necessarily curing).

And so a little post-Pentecost test: What conversation about mystery and wonder are you taking part in across the usual boundaries and intersections? If we are just preaching to a choir or demanding accepted responses to deep questions always moving on from last a last response, we are already losing our Pentecostal Power. Remember, Be Glad, and Move Outward.