Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Mark 6:1-6 July 5, 2009

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Then he went about among the villages teaching.

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There's a song that was popular in the sixties which you probably haven't heard in awhile. Written in 1962 by Malvina Reynolds, it captured the spirit of protest that was so much a part of those times. The song was called "Little Boxes." Maybe you remember.

Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky,

Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same.

There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one,

And they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses all went to the university.

Where they all were put in boxes, little boxes, all the same.

And there's doctors and there's lawyers and there's business executives,

And they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.

I don't imagine very many of you think of yourselves this way. We are unique individuals not lifeless stick figures leading plastic lives inside little ticky-tacky boxes. It used to be, if you wanted to make someone angry in a hurry, all you have to do is act like you've got them pegged. "Oh, I know you. You feminists are all alike. You baby boomers are all self-centered. You Wall Street types are only in it for the money." And, my personal favorite, "You ministers are all bleeding heart liberals." I've heard that one a few times. And let me just say that the fact that I do actually happen to be a bleeding heart liberal is entirely beside the point. None of us likes to be put in a box.

But sometimes not wanting to be put in a box can go to extremes. Maybe you've seen the wonderful old film, "Man On the Moon." It tells the life story of the comedian Andy Kaufman, who is played, in the film, by Jim Carrey. I don't know anything about Andy Kaufman other than what was in the film, so I can't say how accurate it is. The movie though, tells a fascinating story of a man who spent his whole life trying to avoid being put into a box.

He starts off by telling his manager that he wants to be the biggest star in the world. He wants his name up in lights. He wants to play Carnegie Hall. But, he insists, he wants to get there by being entirely unique, entirely his own person. He doesn't want anyone pigeon holing him as just another comedian. He thinks it's okay if people laugh at him, but what he really wants from people is a reaction. As far as he's concerned he would be just as happy making people angry, as long as they react. And in trying to get a reaction, much of his humor involved playing elaborate practical jokes on his audience. He seemed to get a kick out of pulling everyone's chain. Even his closest friends and family often couldn't tell when he was being serious; so much so that when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, at first he couldn't get anybody to believe he was actually sick. At one point in his career, his behavior became so outrageous that people turned away from him in disgust. He lost his position on Saturday Night Live and even the folks at the retreat center where he went to meditate asked him not to return.

As his career goes into a tailspin, Andy becomes depressed. There's one terrific scene which shows him lying in bed in the middle of the day with the covers pulled up to his chin. His girlfriend comes into the room intending to cheer him up. She says to him "I brought you some Hagen Daz (ice cream)." Andy says, "I don't deserve Hagen Daz. I'm a bad person." "You're not a bad person," she tells him. "You're a complicated person." Then Andy says, "You don't know the real me." She laughs. "Andy," she says, "There is no real you." Andy stares at her for a moment and then he replies, "Oh yeah. I forgot."

It's a very poignant moment in the movie. No question, Andy Kaufman was a complicated person. "There is no real you." Can you imagine how you would react if someone said that to you? Can you imagine agreeing with them? More likely, we would want to insist, "Of course there's a real me. I'm a doctor. I'm a lawyer. I'm a business executive. I have two children in high school. I grew up in Hoboken. I live in that little yellow house over on ticky-tacky lane. Of course there's a real me." Ironic isn't it? On the one hand, it's certainly true that none of us likes to be stereotyped. We don't want anyone shoving us into some little box with a label on it. But it's also true that when push comes to shove, we aren't terribly comfortable outside the box either.

There is a part of us that wants to be authentic, real, true to our essential selves. But we also want desperately to fit in, to be accepted, to be one of the gang. The truth is though, we make all kinds of little sacrifices in our lives in order not to be rejected. One of my favorite old cartoons is a Dagwood Bumpsted strip from a few years back. Dagwood's son tells his dad that he wants to have his ear pierced so that he can wear an earring. Dagwood, true to form, goes ballistic. "Absolutely not! Why on earth would you want to wear an earring!" he yells. To which his son gives this classic reply; "But dad, I just want to be different like everyone else." Isn't that just exactly the way it is? We just want to be different like everyone else. For some though, it seems to be their fate to need to be different unlike everyone else. Andy Kaufman, apparently, was one of those. But when you think about it, so was Jesus.

Sometimes you hear people say that you can never really be an adult in your parent's house. This morning's reading is a beautiful illustration. Jesus came to his hometown, and the elders of his community all nodded and smiled and said isn't it wonderful that Mary's little boy has grown up to be a preacher. They were all warmly welcoming of Jesus - right up until he opened his mouth. Then they were scandalized. Jesus, it seems, had some things to say to his elders that they didn't want to hear. We don't know exactly what he said, on this particular occasion, but whatever it was, Andy Kaufman would have loved it. Jesus managed to get quite a reaction.

"Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" It's interesting, this outrage of theirs. It sounds like they had some very definite ideas about who they thought Jesus was supposed to be. And when he had the audacity to be someone else, they reacted by saying, in effect, "How dare you be someone other than who we expect you to be! How dare you climb out of the box we put you in! We know you! You are not allowed to be different!"

It is hard, if not impossible, for any of us to be adults in our parent's house, sometimes even in their entire hometown. But Jesus wasn't about to play the good little boy his whole life. He needed to be more than they wanted him to be. He needed to say more than they wanted him to say. He was determined to open people up to a larger vision of God than they were used to. God, in Jesus' eyes, was more compassionate, more loving, more healing, forgiving and tolerant than his people had come to believe. God was more interested in faithfulness to the spirit than to the letter of the law. God was more welcoming of women and children, lepers and Samaritans, tax collectors and sinners than the Temple authorities wanted to admit. Jesus, in short, was constantly calling people to think outside the box of their narrowed down vision of God. And, I think it's safe to say, he still is.

Much as we don't like to think of ourselves as having settled for life in a box, the truth is we all too easily do become comfortable with our habits and assumptions, our pre-conceived notions and low self-expectations. We all too easily settle for security and familiarity, even when it means sacrificing our freedom of spirit. We all too easily accept the conventional wisdom that what one person can accomplish is so inconsequential that it's hardly worth the effort. Then, when someone like Jesus comes along and challenges us to expand our vision, it can be hard to take. It can be very threatening. How dare he expect us to be more than we are comfortable being?!

But part of what Jesus knew, that we often either forget or didn't know in the first place, is that we are all capable of greater things than we give ourselves credit for. Jesus knew that in the grand scheme of things, even the smallest contribution can make an enormous difference. Jesus knew that, not only God, but we ourselves all have it in us to be more compassionate, more loving, more healing, forgiving and tolerant than we have come to imagine. We all have that spark of the divine in us that calls us to reach out beyond ourselves into the vastly larger realm of God.

One of the classic old theological statements about Jesus is that he was both perfectly human and perfectly divine. Well, I believe that one of the most important lessons he tried to teach us is that we are all also both human and divine. And being both human and divine, we should probably resist the temptation to settle for less, because there is certainly much more to us than will fit in the little boxes we normally put ourselves in.

Let me close with a poem I've come to love over the years, largely because it so well embodies this reaching out beyond ourselves Jesus tried to show us. It was written by Flight Lieutenant John Gillespie Magee, Jr., who was the son of American Missionaries to China. The inspiration for the poem came while he was flying a jet at an altitude of thirty thousand feet above England. Shortly afterwards, at the age of nineteen, he was killed while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force. His poem is called, High Flight.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumblin mirth

Of sun-split clouds--and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew-

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Amen