Readings 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 Mark 6:1-13
I am tempted to test this thesis on the Organist and Sub Organist. The thesis is that all musicians know the occupation of Joseph Haydn’s father. Haydn was the son of a wheelwright. His father was a reasonable singer who also served as a sexton in his local church. For completion his mother had been a cook. I could continue this examination of paternal activity and again am tempted to test it on you all. The occupation of the new Prime Minister’s father was a toolmaker. I believe he mentioned it a couple of times in the recent campaign. For completion, and those who have suffered my company too closely will know, my own father’s occupation was a custard maker. I often follow it with a lame joke that if you cut me I am yellow.
Wheelwrights, toolmakers, custard makers as occupations and identities of the family home may or may not have had an influence on the future identities of the children who became a composer, politician or a priest. Indeed, one of the reasons I recall Haydn’s father’s profession is that music teacher friends of mine would despair if any essay on Haydn began with that fact (lifted often from Grove’s dictionary of Music) as they would ring it in red, “So what!”
Jesus goes to his home town and despite the wisdom and insight that he shares, people say, “is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary?” The tone of the comments is not one that celebrates Jesus’ background. This is no casting back to a romantic image akin to John Everett Millais’ of “Christ in the House of his Parents” with his father working on a door assisted by a woman and two slightly older boys with Mary and Jesus central, his hands marked with stigmata. Or even the theological reflection of William Holman Hunt’s “The shadow of death” where the cross is prefigured. The one who will carve and hew salvation through the engagement of himself, wood and metal. No, the tone of the comments and the combination of the wider family names is one of limitation and constraint. “Prophet are without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”
Our past of course is part of our definition. Formative years and experiences both positively and negatively shape our identity and personalities. There can be many factors from our family and formation that are fundamental to who and how we are. The music teacher’s question still rings true, “So what?” This is not to discount these observations and the psychological and sociological insights that can be gained by looking at past experiences. It is more to engage both with the present and future definitions that need integrating.
Limiting Jesus to his immediate past, that of his wider family and his recent occupation was done by the crowds to inhibit not only their own engagement with the wisdom and insight he was sharing, but also Jesus’ own activities. He was being bound by familiarity to how others viewed his identity. Holman Hunt’s “The Shadow of Death” in pre-Raphaelite romanticism being played out by words and attitudes of the immediate community, pinning Jesus down to that which is of wood. An action that at the local level appears to lead to the death of his radical and life-giving message. With a few exceptions, “he could do no deed of power there.”
The Nazarene Carpenter moves on. Jesus is not to be limited by a domestic or familiar definition. It is into the wider world, the outlying villages and beyond that his ministry is to develop, along with that of his disciples and the immediacy is to be redefined from that of kith and kin to the Kingdom of God. This new definition requires of those engaged with it a level of belief and faith that is not dependent on that which has been acquired from the past. Nor is it to be embarked upon in isolation.
Thus, the disciples go out in pairs and limited physical resources. A staff, a tunic, and a belt, no bread, money or spare attire. They are to be reliant on those to whom they are sent, to show fidelity to those whom they encounter and if that is reciprocated to remain. To use a word popular today, they are to be fully “present.” Their persona is not through what they carry, or what they were, but through an interaction shaped by what can be. Thus, demons and sickness that all too often are legacy issues are to be banished and healed. As the disciples show their faith to be rooted not in inheritance, so too those among whom they are sent, are able to gain a fresh definition as they turn away from that which was missing the mark. This repentance, is not a simple refutation of past errors, it is a reorientation to being defined by God rather than the world.
Our backgrounds, whether of wheelwrights, toolmakers, custard makers, carpentry or whatever is integral to who we were. However, it is not a limitation as to who God knows us to be called to be. It is all too tempting to explain away our own actions, or those of others because of their past. Or to note the baggage that we and they carry and to be able to point to how that shapes the actions and viewpoints. The Kingdom of God whilst a current reality is also a future hope that we are all called to engage with. It is to be our new and true definition. The “So what?” question that could be asked of Haydn’s father being a wheelwright becomes a “So what?” question as to how we live out being disciples of Christ defined by the Kingdom.
Does all that we are, our thoughts and actions reflect this new reality or are we seeking a false refuge in something else? Do we strive to see those who are in pain, or beset by that which inhibits them to be healed and delivered? Or are we content in their discomfort and thus failing to see what Christ is about? This is not an easy calling, many who have known us will seek to inhibit or prevent this new identity. Our gospel reminds us that they did this to Christ, and thus will do it to his disciples. May we have the faith in what he gives us, and to trust not in our own resources, but in him. We are not simply children of Wheelwrights, toolmakers, custard makers and the like. We are adopted daughters and sons of God, we are defined as the new sisters and brothers of Jesus. The one in whom words wisdom and signs of power are to be found. Amen.
Michael Everitt