"Holy Reciprocity" by Rev. Jillian Hankamer

A sermon for Northminster Church

October 12, 2025

Mark 6: 1-13

            What does it mean that Jesus’ powers to do “mighty works” do not work in his hometown? I know that sounds like a rhetorical question and by now you know that I like to ask open-ended questions in my preaching. But this time it is different. This time I need your help figuring this out because I’ve been wrestling with this story all week.

            For reference, let me read you the problematic verses again, this is Mark 6:5-6,   “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.”^[1] First of all, Mark’s flippancy about Jesus healing some people borders on the comical - as if just that act alone isn’t enough. Which should make us wonder, what did Jesus have planned in Nazareth?

He’s been healing people and driving out demons for the past couple of chapters without a problem, despite people being afraid of him and laughing at him. Now suddenly, his hometown crowd gives him a tough time, doesn’t see him as anything other than Mary’s boy from down the road, and Jesus is powerless? What that says to me is that Jesus only has powers when people believe in him, and that makes me uncomfortable.

It makes me uncomfortable because I’ve watched movies with this plotline, and they’re usually about Santa Claus. You know the ones I mean; Christmas is threatened because of people’s lack of Christmas spirit. Santa worries that as kids grow up, they stop believing in him and his powers ebb. And some big, public action is required to get people to believe again. Santa’s powers are restored and Christmas is saved! But Jesus is not Santa, rejection is an ongoing theme in Mark’s gospel^[1], and talking about “being saved” in the church house comes with a lot of baggage we don’t have time to unpack and still make it work tomorrow.

So midweek, I pivoted. Still unsure what to make of Jesus’ power being dependent on the people around him, I spent a day chasing a rabbit. As it turns out, it was a social work rabbit, echoes of my undergraduate degree, I got just in case this ministry thing didn’t work out. Thankfully, this ministry thing is working out beautifully, and I’ve never really needed my social work training, but I still remember some of the lingo including the concept of self-determination.

Self-determination is exactly what it sounds like - clients have the right to participate in or walk away from any services their social worker offers at any time. This is the cornerstone of good social work practice. It’s so central to the profession that it’s written into the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. And it appears that self-determination is taking place in both of Mark’s pericopes.

First, the people of Nazareth determine that Jesus will always be the boy who played chase with their children and has grown up to look so much like his dad. He’s a nice kid and a decent teacher, and out of respect for his mother, they’ll humor him when he turns up in the synagogue. But it’s quickly clear to them that Jesus would do well to remember his place. He’s just a carpenter after all; with a mother and siblings they all know. Coming home with a boatload of followers doesn’t change that. The people of Nazareth self-determined not to listen to Jesus. It would be best if he walked away. 

Knowing when to walk away also comes into play when Jesus sends out the 12. The disciples are warned that some people won’t be interested in their message, and rather than badgering an unengaged audience, Jesus instructs them to leave and “shake off the dust that is on your feet.” This is an echo of the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah, who talks about shaking the dust from his garment^[1] and is consistent with the Jewish practice of carefully shaking off the feet after returning from a Gentile country because “earth from a foreign country was deemed to be unclean.”^[1] 

It’s also a wise use of the disciples’ energy; we all know the struggle of trying to talk to someone who isn’t listening or doesn’t care. But this is also the point at which the self-determination analogy breaks down because while the disciples and their audience can walk away from each other, especially if situations become dangerous, this is exactly when social workers have to step closer to people.

The Code of Ethics instructs that social workers “may limit clients’ right to self-determination when...clients' actions or potential actions pose a serious, foreseeable, and imminent risk to themselves or others.”^[1] And of course, self-determination is automatically limited when you’re working with children or people in the court system. Thus, my rabbit chasing into social work practice ended.

I spent a little time wondering if the key to this passage is Jesus' humanity and perhaps a touch of performance anxiety. There’s nothing so humbling as a successful adult than returning home and having people remember you only as Mary’s son. You know, James, Joses, Judah, and Simon’s older brother - the one who left a while back to be a “preacher?” Now he’s all grown-up, has followers of his own, and is teaching in the synagogue! Isn’t that sweet, Mary Lou? He’s such a handsome boy, I should introduce him to my granddaughter Susanne!  As the lectionary-based comic strip Agnus Day points out, if Jesus came today, no one would reject him because “everyone would have already known what an overachiever he [is] from his mom’s Facebook feed!”^[1] 

But I quickly realized this line of interpretation is a little too eisegesis - a little too much reading into the text and introducing my own biases and presuppositions. With this in mind, I turned, as I often do, to other ministry friends who’ve preached this passage. I had a fleeting thought that I figured they’d shoot holes in; is the key to this story holy reciprocity?

A two-way street between God and humanity that needs both sides to work? After all, reciprocity is defined as mutual dependence, action or influence, and aren’t both of these passages examples of what to do when people aren’t interested in depending on Jesus?

To my surprise, my preacher friends connected with this idea. It was pointed out that God’s relationship with humanity has been reciprocal since the time of the Israelites. In response to God’s gift of freedom from the holy land, manna in the wilderness, and eventual arrival in the Holy Land, the people were asked to worship and follow YHWH. This didn’t always work out exactly right, but God never abandoned the people, even at their most stubborn. In fact, even after the people turn away from God again and again, God still sends Jesus as one of us to live among us, be us, and give of himself for us.

One friend mentioned the verse from the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” This implies the Eternal depends on our action for a response, almost as if God waits for us so as to be with us, part of our lives, part of us. And as Dr. Molly Marshall reminded my cohort in class last week, God doesn’t form contracts with us; God forms covenants with us. Contracts are a business deal that works to eliminate risk and protect both sides from each other and from loss. Covenants are perhaps a bit riskier, but they are faithful commitments made to build each other up. One is made on the basis of self-interest; the other is made on the basis of relationship.

And all of this comes together for me around the title of this sermon: holy reciprocity, which strikes me as fundamentally different from regular human reciprocity. Human reciprocity is a tit-for-tat. I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine effort to be fair. Whatever that means. Dependence on the other is inherent, but it’s a cautious dependence with one eye always on the other person. Which is fair because humans tend to be shifty.

But holy reciprocity, the kind of reciprocity I believe Jesus practices in Nazareth and then teaches to the disciples is based in covenant, in relationship, in a love we can never earn and extravagant grace. It’s a reciprocity that not only doesn’t require us to keep an eye on Christ to make sure he keeps up his end of the bargain, but one that rests in the surety of the manger, the cross, the table, and the word embodied in Jesus. Dependence is part of this equation, which is tough for us independent, self-sufficient, autonomous, and proud-of-it Baptists and those of you who grew up in other traditions and are now Baptist-adjacent. We don’t much care for being dependent on anything, but the wildest part of this whole thing is that God depends on us.

After a circuitous week, I’ve come to the conclusion that the meaning behind Jesus' inability to do “mighty works in his hometown was holy reciprocity - well, actually, it was the total lack of holy reciprocity. Jesus was there offering the holy part, but the people wouldn’t engage, wouldn’t give the Divine room to work, and weren't able to be dependent on this hometown boy.

But my friends, we can do better. We can be a place where no foot-shaking is required because we engage with and struggle with God’s plan for us on a daily basis. We can be a community that engages in holy reciprocity with God and each other, understanding we are covenant people, not contract people. Together we can be unashamed of our dependence upon our Creator, our need for God to work in us and through us, and sometimes in spite of us.

We serve a relational God who delights in us. Who creates us and then seeks us out so as to be in a relationship with us? Who depends upon us just as we depend upon the Eternal. It’s an astounding gift we’ll never fully reciprocate, but why don’t we give it a try?