Lighting Wet Wood

Mark 6:1-13

Jesus 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. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Jesus had thought he would do his teaching, healing, casting out demons thing for his own home town.  But for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit, had not yet lit a fire in Jesus’ own home town.  So, in a move that is meant to be a lesson for you and me, Jesus didn’t keep trying to set fire to the soaking wet wood pile called Nazareth he THOUGHT should be on fire, but instead moved on and found where the Spirit HAD already lit a fire and went to work fueling THAT fire, in THAT place instead. 

When I was in Maine I hooked up with some Episcopalians and soon it was clear those five churches were in the same boat as my one Lutheran church… all struggling… all needing some "deeds of power.”  The fire I THOUGHT the Spirit should light was in these churches!  Together they would have the people and resources to do the deeds of power our town needed!  And Augusta needed some serious deeds of power to be sure!  Manufacturing jobs shipped off shore, one of only a couple of places in the state where people with mental and developmental difficulties could find services AND on top of all that, it was quickly and unexpectedly becoming a place for refugees from Syria and Iraq to settle as well.  MY plan for Augusta made complete and total sense, just like Jesus’ plan for Nazareth… and just like for Jesus… it was NOT AT ALL where the Holy Spirit had chosen to light a fire!  Instead the Spirit had lit lots of little, very different looking fires, among unexpected people… all in places we couldn’t immediately see.

   

One of the Episcopal churches had a little fire going.  The rest were soaking wet for that moment.  Instead we found little fires in the local synagogue, with the neighborhood Catholic priest and in the leadership of the growing Muslim community.  Not at all what was expected… but then, what Jesus and the disciples found in Nazareth wasn’t what they expected either! 

For Jesus and the disciples they did what little they could and then just moved on.  In Maine, we did the same thing, although it took us a lot longer than the couple of paragraphs it took Jesus!  In Maine those strange little fires were eventually found and then slowly grown into something called The Capital Area New Mainers Project.  It all started with tiny, little fires set by the Spirit in unexpected places coming together, growing bigger and bigger, and eventually it was a fire burning wider and brighter than anything any of us could have imagined at the start.  

Fast forward now a half dozen years or so to about a month ago.  One of those other Episcopal churches never did dry out and catch fire.  They held their final services and closed.  Sad, but not unexpected.  Much less expected was the announcement that The Capital Area New Mainers Project had been given their property by the the diocese.  This week they were already at work renovating the fellowship hall to create an apartment for a newly arriving Syrian family of nine.

Do you see?  God’s deeds of power get done!  Healing from the horrors and scars of war were being done AND they got done right in the middle of the soaking wet pile of wood in which we couldn’t even strike a spark!  The demons of religious and ethnic bigotry and xenophobia were being cast out as Christians, Jews, and Muslims came together to love one another and grow a new Augusta!  Seeing God’s powerful deeds being done… not in my time or in the way I had envisioned them…  but in God’s time and with God’s much more expansive vision… seeing all that come together six or so years later has finally, I think, worked this particular lesson through the very big cracks in my very thick skull… at least for today.  

My prayer is that we all canlearn this lesson… to look up from the fires we try to start in wet piles of wood, and instead see the unexpected fires that the Spirit has already started all around us.  Learn to trust God’s timetable for doing deeds of power, more like Jesus learned it… in just a couple of paragraphs… rather than the way I learned it… over a half dozen years, and that we would remember this lesson as we walk into our future here.  So remember:  the Holy Spirit is always lighting fires.  Those fires are almost never in the places or in the people or on the time table WE think they should be.  And remember it’s better to fuel the fires that the Spirit’s started, than trying to set fire to a pile of soaking wet wood that just isn’t yet ready to burn. Amen.