Six. Go with me to mark the Gospel of Mark, chapter six. And you may know that as we are in year b of the lectionary cycle, that is a focus on the gospel of Mark, which is one of my favorite gospels, by the way, not just because it's the shortest, but because he really packs a punch, honestly. Like, when you read Mark, there's just certain things that he says differently than Matthew or Luke or John, of course, which is not one of the synoptics. But nonetheless, he says it in such a way that it just kind of gets you right in the.
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Almost like James. He reminds me of the epistle of James. Has anybody read that one? Boy, you really want to punch to the gut. You know, some of us like that.
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It's like, just give it to me, man. You know? Read Mark. Read James. Okay, let's all stand once you find Mark, chapter six, and we'll just start reading here from verse one.
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Notice these words. This is the word of God. Jesus 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?
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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 with us? And they took offense at him.
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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.
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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.
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They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. Jesus, thank you for your word. We pray now that the same holy spirit who inspired these words would inspire our hearts this morning. As you speak to us. We pray in your name.
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Amen. You can be seated.
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Well, what a passage. And one that upon first reading is a bit shocking, I might say, and maybe even confusing at a certain point. But I don't want to start here in Mark first, but rather go straight back to our Old Testament reading. And, you know, I'm not going to give you a test, but we always should be hearing the word of God because these Old Testament readings actually are going to always correspond in ordinary time or proper time, as we call this season of the church. They're always going to correspond with each other, working off of each other, as it were, I complementing one another.
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And so when we go back to that Ezekiel reading, as you may recall, it's interesting that this is actually Ezekiel's call. And of course, Ezekiel, you may remember, was trained for 30 years to be a priest. So he's actually trained to be a priest. And this would have been kind of from early childhood all the way up to 30 years old. And in jewish society in Israel, in the Old Testament at 30, you would have finally now been able to practice what it is.
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You're in that ordination track, and now you get to practice actually being i