A Homily on Rejection
15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
Mark 16:15-18
When I was reading this last night I saw the last two verses and thought “Man, that’s some wild stuff Jesus said we should be able to do, I can’t do any of that.” So I looked it up. I found an explanation that basically said, “Look at the pronouns.” In the first two verses it uses the pronoun he when it comes to belief. This means that belief is a singular event. Every person who truly believes is saved, every person that doesn’t isn’t. Verse 17, though switches to a plural pronoun. “Those who believe.” This is to show that these signs will accompany us as a body, not an individual. I don’t need to be able to snake-wrangle and drink poison to be a Christian, but there are some who can, just look in the book of Acts and you’ll see all of these signs happening. Just like how we talked about the man Jesus told to get up and walk, these signs are here to show what we as Christians are capable of, not test our faith themselves.
We have been given a gift in our faith. We have become part of a body of believers. A body capable of incredible things, things that shouldn’t be possible. Maybe we haven’t all cast out a demon or two, but that doesn’t mean we can’t each do incredible things in the name of Jesus. Even if we can’t do anything else, we can proclaim him, and that on its own is amazing. We are called to go out to the whole world, all of it, and to preach the gospel. And if the people we share it with don’t believe it then that’s on their heads, and we are called to brush it off and move on. We have been given the power to be vulnerable and accept that we can’t make someone believe what we believe or follow the God we follow. We have also been given the power to bounce back from that almost immediately. Being told no is hard, and can be really frustrating. We’ve all had a door shut on us, a text that went unresponded to, a conversation that was completely forced and one sided that bore no fruit. But we all are still here, so obviously we all got over it and kept proclaiming to the next creation we saw, and the next, and the next.
At this point what I wanted to say was something along the lines of that thing we’ve all heard, or at least that I have, before blitzing or texting a bunch of people, “When they say no it isn’t to you” and that “You can be fearless in your proclamation because they reject Jesus not you, and that’s on them” or even the one about the farmer throwing seeds onto all soil. Which to some degree is true. But that doesn’t explain why after years it still stings every time I get ignored, or see a flyer I just handed out in the trash or on the ground. Maybe I’m wrong on this, but I think the reason is because when they say no, that they are saying no to me and to all of us. They are saying no to as much of me as Jesus is a part of me, and as much of me as is a temple for the Holy Spirit. They are saying no to Jesus, who’s the core of our beings and our salvation. I mean, I take personal offense when a professor doesn’t like my paper, so I don’t see how I’m not supposed to be upset or afraid to keep going when someone says any one of the mean, rude things that I’m sure we’ve all heard plenty of times.
So I think we need to stop using this shield of “When they say no it isn’t to you.” Because all that does is add another layer of separation between me and God, which is the last thing I need. I think instead we should look at it like this.
When they say no to what we preach, they do say no to us, and that is ok. If they weren’t saying no to you, then you aren’t a believer. It also hurts, and that is ok too. Jesus hurt. He died in fact, and he didn’t hate the ones who killed him. He forgave them. So we can forgive someone who doesn’t think that our lunches, or our parties, or our services are worth their two hours. That is the greatest gift we have been given in our faith, the strongest sign we have, the ability to forgive wrongdoing and to continue being open and vulnerable.
About the Author:
Pete Mace is a junior Communications major at Louisiana Tech. He enjoys playing guitar, quoting John Mulaney, and making his friends laugh. He hopes to attend seminary upon graduation.