The Offense of Incarnation: 7 July, 2021

Mark 6:1-13

Like Ezekiel, Jesus speaks because God has appointed him to speak. Like Ezekiel he is met by opposition. Here the opposition is not because the home folk do not like what he is saying; on the contrary they note that he speaks well and has the miracles to back up his sermons. The opposition is because . . . home folk prefer not to get their wisdom from hometown boys.

Their offense is in the shock that comes with the mixture of the transcendent and the familiar. Let God be God, but let God not use ordinary, familiar instruments, like the people next door. In a way what we have here is the offense of incarnation. By taking on human flesh the God of Gods does show up among us with a hometown boy, tempted like us in every way. . .

In Mark 6:7–13 Jesus passes on the prophetic authority he has received to the twelve. Like him they will speak truth and perform miracles. Like him, like Ezekiel, and like Paul they will face terrific opposition. They are neither to give in too easily nor too hang on too stubbornly. Their validation (like Jesus’, like Ezekiel’s, like Paul’s) is in the call of God, not in the acclamation of the people who may or may not like what they say, may or may not even like them. –– David Bartlett

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

In this portion of 2 Corinthians Paul is defending his apostleship against preachers who have come to the Corinthian church in his absence, boasting of their own superpowers and deriding his apparent weakness. In his usual studied ambivalence Paul says that he does not want to boast, but if he should boast there are a number of things he might mention. Yet here the main thing he mentions is his weakness. . .

It is almost as though Paul had gotten Ezekiel’s marching orders—to speak truth whatever the cost—but had also received the comfort that God would use his suffering to God’s glory. –– David Bartlett

Ezekiel 2:1-5

Even if we do not read Ezekiel 1 as part of the lection, we cannot preach on chapter 2 without making clear that this commissioning of Isaiah follows upon the astonishing vision he has seen of the majesty of God, so rich and overpowering that it can be described only in the kind of imagery that would put Hollywood’s computer graphics of the Ten Commandments to the test. Of course Ezekiel falls on his face, and of course Ezekiel can stand again only when he is filled by the Spirit. The word to which he responds is the word of the ineffable God.

. . . Ezekiel is to speak a hard word of judgment against a rebellious people. . . even though the odds are that they will refuse his counsel entirely. . . He is to do so because God has called him to do so, and when he has finished, the people of Judah will know “that there has been a prophet among them.” That is Ezekiel’s only comfort. This is as far from instrumental religion as one can get. The prophet serves God because God says to serve. –– David Bartlett

David Bartlett (1941-2017), was an ordained American Baptist minister, Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and Lantz Professor Emeritus of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School.

Homily Service 39, no. 8 (2006): 15-23.