This past week we just finished celebrating Independence Day. When we think about Independence Day we often think about a characteristic that we call grit. George Washington is often thought of as having a good amount of grit. Before he spent eight years leading the Continental Army in order to gain independence from the British, he suffered a humiliating surrender and truce at Fort Necessity where he was accused of assassination. This accusation of assassination was brought up again and again in French propaganda; a demoralizing assassination on his own character. But, George Washington learned from his failures, and through a raw sense of grit, moved on to military victory and an honorable image in the nation’s memory.
Grit, of course, is a passion and perseverance toward a long term goal. For George Washington grit was a determination to win independence, no matter how hard or how long the fight. It is fighting, and retreating, and learning from failure, and reformulating a better battle plan, and trying again for years and years until the goal is accomplished.
There is no doubt that George Washington had grit, and many patriots have looked to him for their inspiration as they continually work toward the fulfillment of the dream of freedom for all. But, did you know that grit is also at the heart of the Christian faith? Christian grit, though, has a different source. It is driven by a more eternal source.
Actually, we can see this Christian grit at play in today’s gospel lesson. It all starts out when Jesus visits his hometown in order to minister to the people there.
Jesus enters the synagogue of his hometown and begins to preach. Those who hear him are astounded. They say things like, “Where did this man get all this?” and “What is this wisdom that has been given to him?” and “What deeds of power are being done by his hands!” The people of his hometown are honestly impressed by all that Jesus teaches and the healings that he performs. Then, it all turns sour rather quickly.
It turns sour in the same way that things turn sour when you have hit the homerun, brought the baseball team to the win, are hoisted on the arms of your teammates, and your Aunt Edna pipes up in front of everyone, “Look how wonderful you are! I remember when you would just stand in the outfield picking flowers and allowing the ball to fly over your head.”
“That’s quite enough Aunt Edna! Thanks for coming to see the game.”
This sort of evisceration is precisely what happens to Jesus. One minute those who know him and love him are congratulating him, and the next minute they put Jesus in his place. “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?”
Now, this sentence is much more biting than it may seem on the surface. Jesus came into town, teaching in the synagogue as a Rabbi, a teacher of divine things, but the people of his town are quick to remind him that he is only a carpenter, a day laborer, a simple fix-it man. Like Aunt Edna, they are putting Jesus in his place.
And, to make matters worse, they get very personal very quickly. They call him “the son of Mary” and “brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon,” and they point to more relatives who stand nearby saying, “are not his sisters here with us?”
“The son of Mary.” Do you know who they fail to mention? Joseph! Did you catch the fact that they refuse to call him “the son of Joseph?” That is biting.
Recall that Jesus’ beginnings are rather sketchy. Jesus is conceived before marriage. We know that he was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit, but the townspeople do not know this…or they refuse to believe it. The townspeople consider Jesus illegitimate, and illegitimate people stay in their illegitimate places in society.
The short way to put all of this is that, like Washington’s battle at Fort Necessity, Jesus’ ministry to his own people is a complete failure.
To not be supported by your own people is enough to make most people quit. Again and again we see talented people quit early on because their spouse or friends or parents did not support them in their interests. I once helped a young woman who wanted to go to Tech School, but was discouraged by her family. “Why would you do that? You are not smart.” Like Jesus, she not only lacked support, she was actively taunted by those who should love and support.
With that said, this taunting was not the end of Jesus’ ministry. In fact, it was just the beginning.
Not only did Jesus immediately heal some people of his hometown who were sick after these demoralizing events, but Jesus went further and encouraged his disciples to set out in this same ministry of healing and good news.
Jesus kept going. That is grit. But, it is a particular sort of Christian grit.
What is behind Jesus’ grit? We are given some clues right in the Bible.
First, when Jesus sends the disciples out to do the same ministry as he, Jesus instructs 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.” Now, considering what Jesus just went through, making his disciples depend on the goodwill of others rather than making sure they can support themselves appears to be crazy. But, if you read a little further it will all come into focus.
Jesus says that if the disciples are not accepted by those to whom they are ministering, the disciples are to “shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”
In other words, they are to trust that God will take them wherever they need to go, and they are to trust that God will provide for all their needs.
What if evil gets in the way? What if the disciples are not provided for? What if they are not accepted? What if they are taunted in the way that Jesus was taunted?
Then they are to shake it all off and move on, trusting in God. They are instructed to refuse taking even a single grain of negativity with them as they do God’s work. Not even the dust of the town should remain on their feet.
A part of the wisdom of grit is understanding when what is happening to you is really because of someone else’s sin and is therefore someone else’s problem. When you understand that what is happening is something that you are not able to solve, and that only God can solve it, then you can continue on despite the setback. You cannot solve someone else’s lack of faith. Only God can do that.
The only thing that you can do, and the only thing you are asked to do, is sharing the good news of the kingdom. What happens to it after that is not under your control.
The townspeople of Jesus’ hometown just were not ready to hear the good news. Their lack of faith was their own problem. Their lack of faith would in no way hinder Jesus or his ministry.
And, a person refusing to be hospitable to Jesus’ disciples is that person’s own sin. Their lack empathy and love has nothing to do with the disciples. And, it has no bearing on the continuing importance of the mission of Jesus Christ to God’s people. Certain people’s negativity cannot derail Jesus’ mission.
After-all, Jesus’ mission is to tell the good news of freedom from sin and evil; a freedom that comes from trusting in him.
It is a mission of healing people of all that keeps them down.
It is a mission of releasing people from all that holds them back and keeps them from being the people that God created them to be.
It is a mission of salvation.
It is a mission that has the potential to change the world.
It is a mission that shows the world exactly what God’s heavenly kingdom is all about.
It is a mission of eternal, everlasting love that the world desperately needs.
Jesus has the grit that it takes to overcome the setbacks of stuck up, sinful neighbors and relatives.
In the same way, Jesus gives his followers the gift of a grit that trusts God and is able to move on when the negativity seems to be overbearing.
Jesus says, “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.”
With this special gift of Christian grit, “they went out and proclaimed that all should repent [and] they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”
They have the grit of Jesus Christ, which will not be deterred
from the divine task.
It is a special, heavenly grit that allows Jesus to face death on a cross, to face the sins of the world, to bear them all, to drag them all to the grave so that the world might be forgiven and might be free from all that holds it down and holds it back. Jesus believes in this mission of love so much that nothing, not even death on a cross, and burial in a grave can hold him down.
And that, my friends, is the substance of Christian grit. It is a deep trust that the end goal of saving the world with forgiveness, freedom, and love is the most important thing and nothing or no one will deter us. It is the conviction that the good news of Jesus Christ, that the good news of healing, that the good news of freedom from chains, and that the love of all others, is the answer to the world which has been ravaged by the evil one.
Will evil try to get in the way? Will the accusers and pessimists try to drag the people of God down? Will they try to drag Jesus down? Of course!
But, Jesus Christ has given his followers a gift of grit that can ignore the ways of the evil one and continue on with the mission.
It is a grit that believes evil will not get the last word, in fact; the word of evil can be ignored. It is a grit that believes that death cannot win. It is a grit that trusts God and trusts in God’s mission above all else. It is a grit that defines who we are and gives us meaning and purpose.
It is the grit that can only come from an eternal love which does not give up trying to set everyone free: free from illness, free from sin, free from walking in the wrong ways, free from chaos, free from oppressive people and systems, free from unsupportive relatives and neighbors, free to be the people of God who walk around as if the kingdom of God has come near, because it has.
Jesus has given his followers the gift of a kind of grit that only comes from a faith that trusts in the one who is never held down for good or destroyed; Jesus Christ our Lord.
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