When Jesus returns to his native place, as this Sunday’s Gospel relates, he is a different man than the boy who left. He is especially noteworthy as a healer. He is different from the tribe that helped shape him, that thinks it knows him and has beliefs about who he should be. For the tribe, especially its rulers, Jesus is not keeping his place. “They took offense at him” and he “cured only a few sick people.” Those attempting to limit Jesus’ place in society believe it is their place to do so. Such persons attempt to control common people’s place still.
If we are ‘to the manor born’ then it seems we are entitled to places of honor; to rule with all its rewards. That rule includes arranging place for others. If we are not so born, granting the exception of token individuals deemed worthy, then it seems we are undeserving of place, justified in receiving dishonor; to being ruled with all its penalties. Place is determined, constructed by the ruler class. The ruler class finds supporters in the ruled class. Rule and its supporters seek to control place and thwart communion. We are influenced to believe that women need to stay in their place, Blacks shouldn’t be so uppity, Latinos best stay on their side of the border, Native Americans belong on the reservation, and the LGBTQ crowd needs to stay in the closet. But as Jesus has given witness, our place is not as the master class confines but as the Spirit calls. Like Jesus, whose call was to all humanity, including the master class, we too are healers. We are Solicitor General Donald Verrilli who successfully argued before the Supreme Court that millions of people should retain their place on the health care rolls under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We are Jim Obergefell the winning plaintiff in the federal law that “requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex.” We are Brittany Newsome who knew her place was to scale the South Carolina Statehouse flagpole to take down the Confederate flag. Is it sometimes the case that we reject the healers that surround us because we have rejected the healer that is within us? When we accept our call that the whole world is our place, the people around us might begin to wonder as they did with Jesus, “Where did humanity get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given us? What mighty deeds are wrought by our hands?”
Those of the master class, then and now, persecute humanity into places of subservience. When we emerge, especially as healers, members of the master class lose their place. Such is the case with Franklin Graham who rejects the ACA, same sex marriage, and taking down the Confederate flag (until last week). He is worried: “I believe we’re going to see persecution in this country.” Master class members are willful about the persecution they inflict yet ignorant of its effect on those they rule. The loss of their assumed right to rule and persecute others is experienced as loss of their rights. But it just the loss of their place as masters. Having already placed their faith in rule, Graham and his cohorts thus have little or no place left for faith in Jesus. They have little or no likelihood of being healers. For those of us who do have faith in Jesus and his Way, it is our place to be their healers.
Prayer: Spirit of Healing, I place my trust in your power.
Question: What did it take or what will it take to lay claim to my place as a healer?
July 5 2015 Mark 6:1-6a Fourteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time
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