July 9/2006 Shame in your own town and no frills mission

Mark 6:1-13 http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=19288918

The people were not questioning neither Jesus’s wisdom or his deeds of power, the question for them was authenticity, was this from God or from whom? How this transformation took place, how Jesus became a rabbi/scribe, who was his teacher? Where did he go to study?. He grew up with the staple local synagogue preaching and study of Torah, which everyone else in town got, so from where he got the guts to talk so incredibly daring. In a society where you have to be a pupil for a long time before going solo in any profession we know nothing of Jesus’s teachers. Where does the power [deeds] and wisdom [teaching] of this man, they knew to have a “proper place” in their village, comes from, where and who provided him with this new honor of teacher, beyond the honor he was entitled and born for like building houses or tables?

In order to understand the outrage of Jesus’s fellow villagers is important we take a look at the issue of shame and honor in 1rst Century Palestine:

"Honor" is a positive social value. It is the status which a person claims, in combination with the social group's affirmation of that claim. Conversely, for a person to make a claim of honor and then be rebuffed by the community results in the individual being humiliated, labeled as ridiculous or contemptuous, and treated with appropriate disdain. In other words, honor is not simple self-esteem or pride; it is a status-claim which is affirmed by the community. It is tied to the symbols of power, sexual status, gender, and religion. Consequently, it is a social, rather than a psychological, value. How Honorable! How Shameful! A Cultural Analysis of Matthew's Makarisms and Reproaches K. C. HANSON Fortress Press

Conversely, Jesus has not paid his dues in town to lay claim to an honor higher that his social status of builder could allow him to. And as consequence his fellow villagers rebuffed him and by doing so, remind him of his place in town: You are a menial worker (tekton, carpenter), a bastard (Son of Mary) and you should be here helping your large family. This is where you belong.

Any one so shamed, needed through verbal dueling to re-establish his honor or face to the consequences of disrepute. So Jesus retort is very important in this context.

“Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” It looks he was quoting Scripture, but he was not, we do not know the source of the quote, which by the way has gone into mainstream western culture. My guess is that he was quoting a saying, a piece of practical wisdom that flourishes in the heart, in the crumbling “old quarter” of any culture, refined through many years of trial and error, of accumulated experience.

His rebuttal deprives his hometown villagers, his kinsmen and his own close family of any claim to his newly acquired honor. Dominic Crossan comes to our help to explain:

If Jesus was a well-known magician, healer, or miracle-worker, first, his immediate family, and, next, his village, would expect to benefit from and partake in the handling of that fame and those gifts. Any Mediterranean peasant would expect an expanding ripple of patronage-clientage to go out from Jesus, through his family and his village, to the outside world. But what Jesus did, in turning his back on Nazareth and on his family, was repudiate such brokerage, and that, rather than belief or disbelief, was the heart of the problem.

Then if we are to understand that Jesus ministry of both teaching and healing is not based on the patronage-clientage dynamic, nor his honor was to bring wealth to his hometown or family. One can understand then what follows with his no-frill mission.
Jesus response to this challenge to his honor is go on doing mission. Then he went about among the villages teaching, he entrust the disciples with the two jobs that have caused scandal among his neighbors in the village, his relatives and his family they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. And they were to do that, not by hoarding the gifts with they were empowered but by relaying entirely on people’s hospitality. Total reliance on the other, no bread, no bag, no money. One tunic, a par of sandals and a staff that was the only things permitted.

He was not speaking just for his neighbor, his relatives and immediate family but he was setting up a foundational mode in which his ministry and the ministry of the disciples and by extension the ministry of the church was to operate.

Healing and teaching were part and parcel of ministry, not just repenting but also restoring wholeness. Service and Word were not to be competing partners but one and the same part of Christian ministry. The second point I want to make is that ministry was not a commodity that culture could trade following the laws of the marketplace.

What are the implications, if any, of this passage for this community as it tries to both serve and minister to Astoria, New York City in the