2nd READING: Mark 6:1-13
SERMON ‘Tall poppies’
Let’s pray: may the words of my mouth,
and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, our
strength and our redeemer. Amen.
Consider the
poppies
of the field …
Their seeds
stir beneath the wasted soil,
Moving,
reaching upwards,
breaking out
and rising -
Rising
towards the sun.
Consider the
poppies
of the field,
scattered
red amidst the swaying,
golden
barley -
tall, red,
bold:
prophets -
singing
songs of praise to the Holy One.
Tall
poppies.
It was one
of those amazing purple-golden hazy late summer evenings.
I was on the
bus, taking the very winding
way home.
Coming
around a corner, a field
filled with gently rippling barley –
shimmering
gold on that already golden evening…
and
scattered throughout,
scarlet
splashes – patches of glorious red poppies.
Breathtaking.
The
landscape, a little like a prophet telling
forth God’s wonders.
The bus
stopped a moment to let me bask in the beauty of it all –
well, to
pick up a couple of passengers,
but why let
facts stand in the way of a
nice story?!
We drove
on.
The golden
barley and the red poppies
fell away
from sight.
I eventually
got home…
still in a
bit of a wonder about the interplay
of colour
and landscape and light and...
sense of
connection and yet mystery of God.
One of those
‘gosh’ moments – a ‘numinous’ moment.
It was years ago, and the picture stays with
me still.
Tall
poppies.
One of those
terms we Aussies use to describe
people who
have been extremely successful in some way:
fame,
fortune, or however success might be
measured at
any particular moment.
Tall poppies:
people
‘outstanding’ in their field, as it were.
The kind of
person who seems to come from out of nowhere –
from humble
beginnings, or difficult background –
who has a
particular talent or idea,
and
sometimes, almost the air of the prophet about them –
though not
always proclaiming the glory of God.
People get
wind of the story and it takes off -
or, in our
age of social media and technology -
the story
goes ‘viral’ and the ‘underdog’ is cheered on,
until,
having succeeded, somehow, the crowds say:
‘enough. You’re getting too big for your boots.
Who do you
think you are, anyway?
We knew you
when you were just a snotty-nosed kid
running
about in nappies.’
Popularity
can be a fickle thing.
Tall
poppies.
One thing
common to both the poppies in the field
and the
poppies who are people is that they’re torn down.
The
poppies are destroyed in the harvest by farmers,
and the
other poppies are destroyed –
knocked back
down to size by a harvest of jealousy or
incredulity or cynicism.
I’m not a
psychologist and I’ve never really
got my head
around why people actually do this:
but it’s a
strange human phenomenon,this
so-called ‘tall poppy syndrome’.
One sad
element arising from it can be found in a comment
made to me
a long while back when I was
working for a family caring for
two young
teenage girls:
they were
great – fun, pretty,
kind and clever but….
one day the
younger of the girls was talking about her school work:
she said she
knew she could do better, a lot better
in fact,
but instead, did what she
needed to in order to be in the middle –
she didn’t
want to be top of the class:
she didn’t
want to ‘stand out’ - that way led
to bullying.
…If you
stand out, expect rejection.
Tall
poppies.
‘Tall poppy
syndrome’.
Jesus knew
what it was to be a tall poppy –
to be different,
to be
acclaimed …
to be
rejected.
In our
passage from the gospel of Mark this morning,
we get a
glimpse of tall poppy syndrome unfolding in Nazareth,
where Jesus
and the disciples have arrived.
Nazareth:
Jesus’ hometown.
He is once
again amongst family, friends – a warm, safe
space of welcome.
The
homecoming of the local boy ‘done good’.
Except that this homecoming is
not as welcoming, not as warm,
and perhaps
not even as safe a space as Jesus and
the disciples may have wished for.
As seemed to
be his usual practice, Jesus went
into the synagogue on the Sabbath,
and he began
to teach.
He read from
the book of the prophet Isaiah and the gathered crowd -
people who
had grown up with him,
people who
had known him all his life were amazed at his gracious words:
they were
astonished.
You can
almost see them looking at Jesus and then at
each other,
eyes slightly popping out of their sockets in surprise.
Wow!
Gosh!
Now there’s a thing!
And then the
questions begin…
But
how?
But
why?...
But…
And the
growing tension and anger:
hang on,
just a darned minute!
And then the statements, the labels,
the rationalisations…accusations.
Who does he think he is, anyway?
Joseph’s
“son”…
something a
bit dubious about that, as I recall.
Well, I
reckon he’s got some cheek to stand up there
and tell us
how we should live our lives!
Instead of wandering about the countryside he should be
at home taking his family responsibilities seriously.
Illegitimate…
Irresponsible…
Seemingly,
there was a lot of offended muttering,
amidst the
sound of feathers being well and truly ruffled.
And Jesus
looked at them, and he, in turn was
astonished;
astonished
at their unbelief.
He spoke of
prophets not being recognised,
not being
honoured in their home town
and that it
had ever been this way in Israel’s history.
He spoke of
God’s love being wider than they imagined…
And they
were infuriated.
So
infuriated,
so angry that they were prepared to grab him
by the
scruff of the neck and throw him off a cliff.
And, taking
the disciples, he quietly wandered off
to other
villages teaching wherever he went.
And then
sent the disciples out in pairs.
They were to stick their heads above the parapet,
they were to
talk about the good news of the message of God,
and in doing so, to stand out and to be rejected
like tall
poppies.
If you stand
out, expect rejection…
Tall
poppies.
Prophets
–
People with
a message…
Tall poppies
make us uncomfortable.
Down through
the ages prophets have had a reputation
for being a
bit odd,
a bit
prickly,
a bit … challenging.
And the
message of Jesus was
challenging:
so
challenging that as we’ve heard,
the people
in Nazareth took offence -
Jesus
angered them with his message -
the message
to go out and proclaim the reign of God
regardless of cost to self,
regardless
of the bonds of family ties…
To leave
their comfort zones and to live the message
by engaging in
healings and exorcisms,
and by
setting the prisoners and the oppressed free.
To be bearers of the good news of the breaking in
of God’s
reign both in word and deed;
To be and bear good news for the poor even if
it meant
leaving all you’d ever known in order to proclaim it.[1]
And if they
didn’t - didn’t listen, didn’t go -
if they
rejected the news and the mission,
well, as
Jesus reminded them from their holy book,
God would go elsewhere, choose others.
But, why
were they infuriated?
Jesus was
challenging the very structure of society,
and
community, and family.
Saying
uncomfortable things to those who thought of themselves
as chosen,
as special;
who looked
out at the world and perhaps felt they
were a cut
above the rest,
a little bit
better,
and who,
because of that,
perhaps
imagined God’s love being available only to them.
And Jesus was turning that
idea on its head.
He was
almost scandalising them by saying
that God’s
love went beyond their boundaries –
that they
couldn’t ring-fence God in and keep God for themselves.
And in
response, society,
community, and even family,
ultimately rejected the message.
It was just… too much.
And the
message of Jesus is still
challenging… still… infuriating.
Because the
message of the breaking in of God’s reign
is one which
overturns the whole way society currently functions.
The scandal of
the message is that it proclaims
the breaking down of systemic structures of power that reek and creak
and which
are rotten to the core.
It is a
message of liberation of the oppressed,
it is the message that there is another, better way:
it is the message of love –
God’s love
for the world and humanity;
our love for
our neighbour,
and love for
ourselves –
which goes
beyond, which goes deeper,
even than
the way we understand family ties.
In one sense, it
enlarges family to include the whole of
humanity and creation…
The scandal
of the message is about love –
love that
doesn’t create a fence in order to keep people out
but love that breaks down the fence:
a radically inclusive love which
liberates all of us,
taking us beyond our boundaries and way of being.
And it’s the
message, as Jesus’ followers,
that we are
to proclaim and, in doing so,
to expect
rejection:
to be cut
down, like tall poppies.
Tall
poppies: we come
back, full circle.
Who are the
prophets in our midst, I wonder?
I suspect that Prophets come in many shapes and sizes and ages.
Do we listen to the message?
And does the
message offend us – infuriate us?
When we reject certain
people, does that
rejection –
that exclusion from the community of God’s people –
become our version of not honouring folk
as potential
prophets in our midst?
Do we ring-fence God’s love to keep God for ourselves,
to keep God
in, and everyone who we don’t like out?
And if we do so, do we end up closing ourselves off from
new
thoughts, ideas, ways of doing things
which might
open us, and the community we are a part of,
to new and
exciting possibilities?
Tall
poppies.
Poppies are
usually associated with Remembrance Sunday.
Maybe
though, poppies in the context of our bible text this morning
provide us with
another kind of remembering:
poppies seem
to ‘pop’ up all over the place –
whether in
golden barley fields,
or in the
cracks in the pavements.
Perhaps,
when we wander past a patch of poppies,
they might
also serve to remind us to honour
the prophets
who are in our midst, not to cut them down,
and a reminder to keep
ourselves open to the scandal of God’s big love –
which no amount of ring-fencing can
contain. Amen
[1] Bill Loader - http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkPentecost5.htm
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