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All Alone In A Crowd
Ezekiel 2:1-5 and Mark 6:1-6
by Jim Westmoreland
If a husband makes a decision on his own, and his wife is not there with him,
is he still wrong? My non-scientific poll of both men and women on this question indicates
strong agreement that the answer is Yes, He is still wrong!
This story is related to another question that has been often asked, If a tree falls in
the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, did it still make a sound? Based on our
readings this morning, I'm inclined to say Yes, it still makes a sound.
The lives of Ezekiel, Jesus of Nazareth, the disciples and followers of Jesus, call us to
stand with the prophets of God throughout all times. And, when we do that, sometimes, we
may feel like we are All Alone in a Crowd.
Ezekiel tells us that the "spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard
him speaking to me. He said to me, 'I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation
of rebels who have rebelled against me . . . The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I
am sending you to them. And you shall say to them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD.' Whether
they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there
has been a prophet among them."
To have a personal identity and purpose that both hears and speaks forth a "Thus says
the Lord GOD," means that we have shifted our ultimate sources of approval and
recognition from family and friends, from job performance, even from community and
national identities to what Jesus described as the Kingdom of God.
But just when we start to take ourselves, and what we stand for, seriously, we discover
that no one is listening. Ezekiel felt that and was told to speak whether they hear or
refuse to hear. Sometimes, Kingdom living looks like we are all alone in a crowd.
How many parents feel like you talk, but no one is listening? How many employees, how many
bosses, how many husbands and wives, how many sons and daughters feel like you try to say
things that others just do not hear?
There is a story told of President Franklin Roosevelt, who often endured long receiving
lines at the White House. He complained that no one really paid attention to what was
said.
One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment. To each person who passed
down the line and shook his hand, he murmured, "I murdered my grandmother this
morning." The guests responded with phrases like, "Marvelous! Keep up the good
work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir." It was not till the end of the line,
while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard.
Nonplussed, the ambassador leaned over and whispered, "I'm sure she had it
coming."
We are reminded that our job is not to win a popularity contest, but to be faithful in
standing up for mercy, justice, our faith in God and in sharing the love of God revealed
in Jesus. Our job is to do our part, even if we feel like we are all alone in a
crowd and no one is listening.
But sometimes, we may be the one guilty of not listening, whether it be to God or to those
around us. Writer Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few
days. He got nervous and tense about it. "I was snapping at my wife and our children,
choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions
through the day," he recalled in his book Stress Fractures.
"Before long, things around our home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up
style. It was becoming unbearable.
"I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter,
Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that
day. She began hurriedly, 'Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin' and I'll tell you really
fast.'
"Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, 'Honey, you can tell me --and you
don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly."
"I'll never forget her answer: 'Then listen slowly.'"
Surely, Jesus must have wished that his lifelong friends and neighbors in his hometown of
Nazareth would have been willing to listen slowly before coming to their conclusions. But,
people who stand for God are hard to figure out, especially anyone whose ministry can be
described as prophetic. Now, there were "popular" preachers all through Israel's
history, always verbally scorned by the prophets that God would send. But these
"popular" preachers said what the people wanted to hear. Everybody felt good
when they had finished speaking. In his book, How to Become a Bishop without
being Religious, Charles Merril Smith satirically passes on his formula for
success to new ministers with his 3-points to remember in preparing a sermon: "Make
them laugh; Make them cry; Make them feel religious." Smith exposes
the temptation to pander to the popular desire for convenient, "feel-good"
religion. The true prophet and messenger of God seeks to boldly proclaim, "Thus says
the Lord GOD." And, we feel the holy tension between God's love for us and His claim
on our lives as sovereign LORD. As we humble ourselves in worship, this tension leads us
to repent and to re-commit ourselves to faithful discipleship.
Jesus' experience in Nazareth was similar to Ezekiel's experience centuries before. He
wasn't taken seriously. No one wanted to really listen. And though, he had grown up there
and everyone knew him, here He was--All alone in a crowd.
One minister pictured the scene of Jesus coming to Nazareth like this. Martin Singley
gives us a very human picture from the point of view of Mary:
One hot summer day, Mary's oldest son comes home. Isn't married. Doesn't have
a job. With him are twelve weird guys he met up at the lake. They don't have jobs either.
Her son told them to quit their jobs and come follow him. And they did. And tagging along
with this scruffy crew is a strange assortment of equally scruffy people - prostitutes,
tax collectors and sinners.
Do you get the picture? Wouldn't you love to have your kid come home with a crowd like
that?
And they all show up at Mary's house one afternoon, and knock on the door. And her son
calls out, "Ma, I'm home!"
You can only imagine the family's reaction! I can mentally hear one of Mary's other sons -
she had four other boys you know, and at least a couple of daughters - asking his brother,
"Sowhat are YOU doing these days, Jesus?"
Now St. Mark, who writes about this odd hometown reunion, describes the event this way.
Upon hearing from Jesus first at home and then in the synagogue, the neighbors ask,
"Where did this man get all THIS? What is this this wisdom that's been given HIM?
Where did he get this supposed POWER? Isn't this the CARPENTER, Mary's SON - James, Joses,
Judas, and Simon's BROTHER?"
St. Luke adds the fact that, after Jesus got finished preaching to the home crowd that
day, they tried to throw him off a cliff! . . . Sometimes, you see, the Good News
comes across as pretty bad preaching! Mark, puts it this way: "They took offense at
him."
And not only the church people and the neighbors, His family, too! They thought Jesus was
off his rocker. So, Jesus finally shrugs his shoulders and says, "A prophet is not
without honor - except in his own hometown, and among his own relatives, and in his own
house." And Jesus, with his motley crew of unemployed followers, leaves town,
marveling at their unbelief.
Now, before we turn on Jesus' family, and the people of Nazareth for
rejecting the Lord, let me challenge each of us with this thought: Jesus is still rejected
today by us, the members of his own church, by us, the members of his own family. And our
rejection of Jesus comes in much the same form as it did back then. Many of us do not want
a Jesus who is larger than our own hometown understandings! And so, we limit God by being
closed to Him.
Yes, the Gospel is a source of strength and comfort, and Yes, the Gospel calms our fears
and gives us peace within, but the effect of the Gospel is also to move us, to stretch us,
and even, to make us uncomfortable in certain areas of our personal lives, our church
outreach and evangelism, and with peace and justice issues in our own community, nation
and world.
It happened 2,000 years ago, and it happens every day. It is hard for us to get past our
prejudices about who Jesus really is. Sometimes, all we want is an easygoing carpenter.
The people of Nazareth were comfortable with the carpenter, but not more. In fact their
dismissal of Jesus left them with a very different kind of burden and loneliness.
In Greek mythology Atlas was condemned to carry the weight of the entire world on his
shoulders. That was as harsh a punishment as the ancient Greek mind could conjure up.
Today, it seems, we have volunteered to play the role of Atlas. We have not offended God, we
have dismissed him, told him we were grown up enough not to need his help any more,
and offered to carry the weight of the entire world on our shoulders. The question is,
when it gets too heavy for us, when there are questions too hard for human knowledge to
answer and problems that take more time to solve than any of us have, will we be too proud
to admit that we have made a mistake in wanting to carry this world alone?
When we say Yes to being God's servant and prophet, we may feel alone at times, but we
stand with a great host of witnesses and within a deep community of faith. When we say No
to God and his witnesses, we dismiss God and end up carrying the world alone?
This morning, let us not only listen as the people of God, let us stand tall and strong as
God's messengers to minister with our voices and hands the life-changing Good News of
Jesus' love and forgiveness and call to repentance. Let us support one another so that no
one stands alone because we are all standing together!
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