Gina and I were up north last week visiting Zach, who’s studying at the University of Chicago this summer. On Monday I witnessed two miracles. Zach and I went ahead to Grant Park to hear the symphony and watch the fireworks with an intimate gathering of a million souls – I’m not exaggerating, they estimated a million people! – and even though our cell phones wouldn’t work because everyone was trying to use one, Gina found us in the crowd! Just goes to show, I can’t hide from her anywhere. Not that I ever want to.

The other miracle happened as Zach and I were waiting for the symphony to start. A young woman walked up and started flirting with him. I started to say, “Hey, get away from my boy!” but he handled himself just fine. Not only that, but I learned he’s been hired to tutor people in economics at Sam Houston State. He never offered to tutor me in economics, other than the supply and demand of tuition payments, so I was amazed. The week before that, my son Andrew was telling me about the estate planning work he is assisting at the law firm where he works. And Kara was telling us about some of the infighting in Texas politics to which she is privy, along with her own intelligent commentary. I have been astonished by this sudden, miraculous transformation in our three children.

When did this happen? How did they gain insights and information and expertise so far beyond the pale of my own limited knowledge? Makes me feel so old. I mean, what can I do for them now that they are advising me? Without so much as a “by your leave” I’ve been deposed from the chief role of fatherhood - to be the expert on everything. When did that happen?

It’s hard for us to let our children grow up, you know? We limit them by our own limitations. Or we fail to believe in them so they can believe in themselves. Or we hold their earlier mistakes and immaturities against them.

We do it to each other, too. We limit each other by refusing to forgive. We limit each other by failing to expect the best. We limit each other by refusing to allow people to grow or change or be more than we are. That’s why people often have to escape their families, their hometown, their home church, all their familiar circles, so they can get past their past and become who they really are.

We have this power with each other, to make people more or to make them less by our interactions. I need others to imagine what I might yet become, to encourage my best gifts, to believe in me so I can push the limits of my abilities to their utmost. Yet so often what we do to each other is just the opposite. We discourage with our negativity. We restrict with our low expectations. We limit people to the judgments we’ve already formed about them and levy a life sentence against someone who has disappointed us. As if people could not change. And - we internalize those negative messages so that we limit ourselves in the same way. We are so filled with “I can’t’s.” But most of them are really “I won’t’s.” We escape responsibility for lack of will with the excuse of our inability, so we don’t even have to try.

According to Mark’s story Jesus had already healed a man with an unclean spirit in Capernaum. He healed a leper there, too, then crisscrossed Galilee working one wonder after another in every village and town. Even raised a little girl from the dead. Everyone was amazed by his teachings and his healings. But when Jesus came to Nazareth, his own hometown, they said, “Who does he think he is?” They said, “Where did he get all this? 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 here with us?” (Mark 6:3). Mark says, “They took offense at him.” Mark says “He could do no deed of power there.” Mark says, “He was amazed at their unbelief.”

Jesus said, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” Well, naturally. That’s why preacher’s kids are notorious bad actors – not mine, of course – but how do you hear God speak through the guy who lounges around the house in Bermuda shorts and an old t-shirt and yells at the baseball umpires on TV? So I suppose it was a case of Nazareth not being able to let one of their own children grow up and realize his full potential. Jesus would always be a child to them. Or maybe it was that common human jealousy towards a hometown boy who made good and built a reputation bigger than their village - or their children.

But Mark thinks it was even deeper than that. They weren’t just limiting Jesus. They were limiting God. Writes Susan Fleming McGurgan:

This passage reminds us
that God shares the Gospel with us every day,
even when we are too afraid to hear it.
It reminds us
that God longs to heal us,
even when we are too stubborn to know we are broken.
It reminds us
that God will send us messengers,
even when we are too blind to see them clearly.

Long before Jesus, the prophets of Israel wrestled with the hardheartedness and hardheadedness of God’s own people. The people refused to respond to the word of God the prophets heard so sharply. They refused to perceive the approaching disaster the prophets saw so clearly. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel – all of them spoke of it. It mystified them. Why wouldn’t God’s own people hear the Word of God? Mark’s story of prophet Jesus tells the tale. His own peeps couldn’t believe in him because he was one of them. They couldn’t believe anything so good could come out of Nazareth. They knew their own limitations – their faults, their failures, their weaknesses, their compromises, their own lack of faith - so they projected them upon Jesus. They projected them upon God. You see the irony? They couldn’t believe in God because they couldn’t believe in themselves!

It’s a strange story. Jesus comes to his hometown where you think he would be welcomed as a hero. But he is criticized. He is resisted. He is limited. Here is God incarnate, whom the psalmist describes as “the mighty one, God the Lord, (who) speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting…” before (whom) is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around… (who) calls to the heavens above and to the earth below, that he may judge his people... (who owns) the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50). And Mark would speak of this God’s limitations?

But yes, apparently so. Long ago the rabbis observed that God created the world by withdrawing God’s self just far enough for us to exist. The resulting paradox is that God is present everywhere, except that space where God gives us the freedom to choose for ourselves. God respects the boundaries of human freedom and will not force grace and goodness upon us. Says Kirk Kubicek: “Just put your hand at arms length in front of your face for a moment. There. That is how close the reign of God really is.” All that power. All that strength. All that love. That close. All you have to do is invite God into your space. But most of us say, “No. Stay there at arm’s length. Talk to the hand.” We push God out and create our own little hell. And I am wondering, is it because we don’t believe enough in God or is it because we don’t believe enough in ourselves?

Which is to say, we can put limitations on God. We can reduce God to the size of our own confidence and courage and imagination. Why, listen a while and you can actually see the vast, immeasurable God getting smaller and smaller. “We’ve never done it that way before.” “We tried that once and it didn’t work.” “The experts say it can’t be done.” “The future can’t be any better than the past.” “We’re too small.” “We’re too poor.” “We’re too weak.” Before long the almighty God has been reduced to a warm fuzzy feeling who makes no demands and issues no challenges and creates a church which has no voice, no vision, and no power. This puny God is easy to control but is also essentially useless. Might as well sleep in on Sunday or go to the lake, no pressing reason to visit this weenie God of our puny faith. And when such weenie churches die, their epitaph doesn’t say “Christ did great things among them, amazing signs and wonders pointing to the love of a majestic God.” It says: “He could do no deed of power there…. And he was amazed at their unbelief.”

Imagine instead that God who visited the other towns through Christ, where people were open and receptive to the word, where the sick and afflicted, the poor and the outcast, the possessed and addicted were desperate enough to accept healing, where people had the imagination and the courage and the will to attempt great things for a great God. That was the God who turned the world upside down with good news. That was the God who built hospitals and ended slavery and fought for civil rights and faced down dictators and reconciled enemies and raised the dead. That was the God who founded a church set on battering down the gates of hell. That was the God who built this church so many years ago. And that’s the unlimited God we need to believe in now, invite into our midst, hear, and follow.

Sure we’re small. We’re poor. We’re weak. But God isn’t. And I say, even if you don’t believe in yourself, believe in the God who is among you. That God can do great things through you. That God can overcome your addictions, heal your wounds, help you forgive, renew your spirit, fill you with courage, give you abilities you never knew you had. That God can turn your “I can’t” and your “I won’t” into “Let’s do it together.” That God will amaze you. My people, my friends, come to this table today and take heart, take into your heart the one who loved you so much he laid down his life for you, believe in the one who believed in you this much, take hold of the God who would take hold of you, and let go of all your excuses. If you do, great things will happen. Wonders beyond your wildest dreams. Any you will do them because Christ will do them through you. Amen. May we pray?

O Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. Come among us and teach us. Live among us and lead us. Work your wonders again. And we will be your people, and you will be our God. Amen.