- February 21, 2010
“A Sacrament of Failure” (Mark 6:7-13)
Dr. Dan Ivins, pastor

This story follows the one after Jesus blew it in Nazareth. Unlike John’s Gospel, Jesus is most human in Mark, who doesn’t apologize for Jesus’ failures, nor that he expected his followers to do so as well. So it’s not a story for control-freaks. The paucity of what Jesus thought we need to follow him is stark, compared to what we’ve come to rely on: security, cash, insurance, suitcases and boxes full of stuff we hoard, shows we’re a lot more afraid to fail than God is.

But too much security leads to sterility. So Jesus advocates “creative insecurity.” He’s interested in neither safety nor protection when he sent his disciples out 2x2, to do what he’d been doing: preaching the gospel, healing the sick, and attacking evil. “He advises them to travel light. Take nothing but a walking stick, no bread, no beggars bag, no money in their pockets. Wear sandals, but not an extra shirt.”

There was no agenda to show what they were to do, or a map to show where they were to go, or any instructions to tell them how-to-do it. It was living on the edge, and learn by doing. And because they wouldn’t always succeed, he provided them with a sacrament of failure. He didn’t send them out to fail, but provided them recourse for when they did. “If the people aren't hospitable, don't waste any time on them. Shake the dust off your sandals, do what he did in Nazareth -- go someplace more receptive. They’ll answer to God for their recalcitrance.”

Shake the dust off your feet! I don’t know, it strikes me as a bit cold, or giving up too soon on somebody. Do ya’ll think there’s such a thing as “godly impatience?” For sure, God has his limits. If somebody’s rude or disinterested in what you have to offer, don’t sweat it. Just “shake off the dust” and move on. When he could “do no mighty works” in Nazareth, he went over to Capernaum, where he was effective, and never went back home again.

Because the gospel moves forward by persuasion, not coercion, there’ll always be those who want nothing to do with God. We can be sad about it, but not so sorry, that their lack of interest slows us down. God gives us the freedom to turn him down.

Does it surprise you that Jesus told them, “To shake the dust off their feet and go on?” To “not to cast their pearls before the swine?” Can this be the same Jesus, the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to find the one that strayed away, or the long-suffering father who waited on his prodigal son to return home? The Bible argues with itself about this. How does Jesus’ restraint square with the “sermon on the Mount?” Or the unconditional love of God?

Mark presents us with a “common-sense” Jesus who knew the importance of letting go. He’s realistic about the complexity of life and recognizes that there can even be faithfulness in letting go. And there will be times when the best thing we can do is to “shake the dust off,” and do what comes next. And that's hard for those obsessed with the inevitability of change, who try to hold-on, no matter what. Even if it hurts them and others.
Tiger Woods’ staged confession raises the issue of a 2^nd chance for celebrities. But there’s the other side of knowing when to let go. Especially with our kids, our bodies, our houses, our marriages, payday. People will put up with miserable conditions, because they can’t let go. Our fear of failure makes us reluctant to admit reality; or that our time of responsibility has ended.

So what does Jesus mean when he taught his followers to “shake the dust off their feet? Apparently he believed there’s grace in going the 2nd mile and wisdom in knowing when not to. In-between there is improvisation. The disciples were sent out to announce the good news with a sense of urgency, and no contingency; to jettison everything that provided their security and be exposed, why? To learn how to depend only on God. “You're on your own, boys. Go out there and make something out of yourselves. Be contributors. Preach, heal, exorcise, but don't bother to pack a bag. You won’t need your Master Cards or your dress shoes. You can’t anticipate every possibility you might meet. So live by faith. If anybody rejects you, don't worry, just keep on going and trust God.” Improvise. The Sacrament of failure. The freedom of servanthood.

But that’s not to say “flying-by-the-seat-o-y’britches-discipleship” means we need not prepare ourselves for our calling. Or that Brett Favre’s improvisation is better than Peyton Manning’s planning. Or teleprompters are better than hand notes. Nor does it mean we just proceed blindly and everything will fall in place effortlessly.

Soon after I made a difficult decision to become a preacher, my wife and I resigned good jobs and the next thing I did was enroll in college to prepare myself for what was to come; where I discovered -- you can never prepare enough. Because we can’t tell the future. All the education in the world, prayers prayed, and creeds recited can never insure that we won’t have to improvise most of the time. The unpredictability of life will thrust you into situations for which you can never envision. I don’t know of any curriculum in “improvisation.”

You're liable to find yourself in the E. R. surrounded by chaos and dread, without the luxury of “arranging things;” only enough time to improvise beyond the text books. In the laboratory of life, you get blind sided with a swiftness, it’s amazing we function as well as we do. We’re left with our best instincts...hoping to help more than we hurt. There are no crystal balls for being out on the firing line. Just street-sense, and faith in God. But Jesus believed our willingness to commit ourselves to his cause had a lot going for it.

I love those Bibles with a “cure for everything that ails you” in the glossary in the back, called: “For Today and Everyday.” You know those, “When you’re depressed, read Jeremiah. 3:1 remedies?” Or “When business is poor, read Psalm 37.” “When you plan your budget, read Luke 19.” Or “When filing your income tax, read Psalm 55.” Or “When living in sin,” read Matthew 18. I doubt God thinks much of it, but people get hooked on those “How-to-do-it” Bibles -- so they won't have to improvise.

Our Lord’s improvising was dangerous. Once there was a blind man begging to see, so Jesus “spit on his hands and made some mud out of the dirt and rubbed it on his eyes.” Eww! It worked, but he shouldn't have done it on the Sabbath, because those with religious scruples were scandalized. Improvising grace can also be irreligious. Like his first sign in Cana of Galilee, where they ran out of drinks. Jesus turned out to be the “life of the party” because he extemporized wine out of water to save the day. On another occasion, crowds ran out of food. He couldn’t send out an order for 5000 Big Macs. But he borrowed some “loaves and a couple of fish from a kid,” whose mamma had the good sense to prepare a sack lunch. The boy gave what he had to Jesus. And after the blessing, all 5000 experienced the grace of God.

Even God has to improvise. Jesus said, “God is like a king at a banquet, who invited all the proper guests but none of them show up.” So the king “shakes the dust off” his invitations and wings-it. He shocked everybody by inviting society's rejects, the disabled and unwanted. “Come on in, there's enough for all takers. I‘m not wasting a crumb on those who don't want it.”

And then there's Lazarus of Bethany. He's a dead and buried, four-day stinker. “If you'd only been here Lord,” moans his grief-stricken sister, “my brother would not have died.” A truly divine contingency would never let this happen to a friend. But Jesus made up for it by concocting a cockamamie attempt to bring him back alive! So after “Jesus wept,” came forth unwrapping the graveclothes!

God’s grace is always improvised, because it involves faith not sight. Like “playing the stock market,” is risky because you don't know how it’s going to turn out. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Some of the most memorable events have been borne of failure.

Tommy Dorsey, wrote “Precious Lord,” immediately after his wife and baby died in childbirth. Shake off the dust and go on. Historians point out how Napoleon had a technique for success, but no strategy for defeat; which left him unprepared for his Waterloo!

Jesus, on the other hand, provided advice about failure and defeat. It's not the end of the world! Shake off the dust and move on! That doesn’t mean the gospel is like trying to catch a greasy pig. It just means life is capricious. Polls don’t always tell the story. And the wisdom to know when to stand on unshakable convictions and when to accept relativity isn’t easy to come by.

Because the Spirit of God “blows where it wills and we don’t know where it comes from or where It’s going.” It’s not enough to live by grace alone, but what we do when we’re alone with grace. Jesus was always like that; so must anybody crazy enough to lay their life on the gospel-line. So Jesus provided his followers with a sacrament of failure to empower us to carry-on when we fall.

Because those who can’t freely lay down their life, their ideals and values are already compromised. Shake off the dust and go on. Sometimes our highest hopes are destroyed so that we can realize better things. The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of a butterfly. Shake off the dust and go on! Mother Nature knows it. St. Paul did too: “Hard pressed on every side, but not hemmed in; bewildered, but not at wit's end; hunted, but not abandoned to fate; struck down, but not left to die; for in this body, we carry the life that Jesus lives.” (2Corinthians 4:7-12).

Sooner or later we too are going to be called upon to administer God’s grace to somebody, with no guidelines. It has happened before: To twelve raw disciples, preaching the kingdom, “shaking the dust off their feet,” waiting on the Spirit when their words ran out. And then our founder, Roger Williams in old Providence, created some space in the wilderness for freedom. And a stone-cold Galilean in Jerusalem, waited in a “borrowed tomb” for his Father to improvise Easter! It’s happened before. It can happen again. That is our faith.

May God give us the patience to “let the dust settle” on our own failures and successes, knowing that though we may suffer setbacks, God has the last word. And it will sound something like this: “The King of love (our) shepherd is ... Whose goodness faileth never.”

Providence Prayers: (2-21-2010)
O God, the strength of all who seek Thee in every generation, turn our fearful hearts back to Thee, that we may stand as those whose moorings are secure. Teach us to travel light, Lord, like the first followers. We burden ourselves with cumbersome loads and overlook Thy gracious invitation for the heavy-laden to “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” We confess that all of Thy blessings that come to us so clearly marked that even in our most disgruntled moods, compel our thanks. May we handle our blessings in a way that brings people together, and doesn’t separate them.

We pray for those who are finding life too much; those digging out from under Mother Nature’s wrath; others for whom Thy name is a word on a coin – who have no idea that Thou art love, or seen evidence of that love in those around them; those who’ve deemed themselves immune from daily temptations and spend their days and nights looking over their shoulders, for fear of getting caught; those who’ve paid too much for success and yearn to recover a soul lost along the way; the young partying through the night, slipping into a dependence on substance abuse till they lack the will to extricate themselves; those who are expected to be something they’re not.

We are grateful for the commitment expressed through our church; empower us to accept the authority and mission entrusted to us; for the diversity in our ranks and the desire to be faithful stewards of our historical inheritance; save us from easy goals and cautious expectations; replenish our spirits so that we may be a source of nourishment to others; remind us of Thy steadfast love that we may live above the need for praise or the fear of failure. Be the hope of our tomorrows, so we won’t break under the load of our yesterdays. Through Christ our Lord...