Out Our Way: The Big Nothing or the Big Open

"When Jesus came to his home town, his disciples came with him. On the sabbath he went to the synagogue and began to teach. Many who saw him there were astounded and said, 'Who does he think he is teaching like this? And all these accounts of him healing and doing signs and wonders? Nonsense. He's just a local boy - a working man whose mother and brothers and sisters still live here!' And they became angry at the idea that a mere local carpenter could gain such a following throughout the land. Jesus knew what they were saying and reminded them that no prophet had ever been honored in his own home town, and certainly not by his neighbors or even his own family. Their refusal to accept what God was doing was so great that Jesus was only able to heal a very few. Their hostility towards him and their stubborn refusal to even consider opening their minds was amazing. So Jesus continued his teaching and healing ministry elsewhere." - Mark 6:1-6

Out our way, some one in Helena came up with a bumper sticker that shows the outline of the state of Montana and bears the legend, "There's Nothing Here." Goliath and I have wondered why our state would use such a slogan. "Old Doc" and I puzzled over that one day as we rode to the top of a ridge and surveyed the glorious sight of the " Big Open." I can't look out over the miles of beauty that meets the eye in all directions, the breeze blowing the smell of the sage and swelling the grasslands like waves on the sea, and not be moved. Add to that the meadowlark song - and you have discovered paradise.

Yet I have friends on the other side of the divide who think the "big open" is the big nothing." They assume there is nothing here - and the few times they may have driven on the Hi-Line they have stayed on Highway 2 or ridden Amtrak that runs beside it. They have seen the Sweetgrass Hills in the distance - and the Bear Paws from afar - but they have never actually been there. They have never been in Beaver Creek - they have never seen the view from the top of Tiger Ridge or gotten close to Saddle Butte.

They have never gone Beneath the Streets, or been to the Clack Museum. They have never walked the trail down the hill of the Buffalo Jump and seen the bones from hunts of 2,000 years ago that are now exposed, but remain undisturbed, where they have lain through all that time.

Highway 2 is, I have been told, the busiest two-lane highway in the country - and yet how many people drive along the road and see nothing - believing that there simply can't be anything out our way worth seeing. And so they miss it. They were here and saw nothing.

There is an old saying: "There are none so blind as they who will not see." It is true of folks passing through the Hi-Line and seeing nothing - and also true of those who stand in the presence of God and yet remain unaware.

In this week's text, Jesus found the inability of his friends and neighbors to see what was plain and before their very eyes astounding. By the time he came home to Nazareth, word of the signs and wonders Jesus had performed throughout Galilee and Judea had reached them. Yet when he came among them they did not see the long awaited Christ so many others did - but only a local kid who had been a good carpenter before he went off and began to make a name for himself. A stranger they might accept as the long awaited Messiah - but not one of their own. "Familiarity breeds contempt," and it seems clear most of the folks in Nazareth were unwilling o even consider Jesus might be more than the son of Mary - another local whom everyone knew to be perfectly ordinary.

Like the kid who cries out, "I can't see! I can't see!" and then admits it's because he has eyes closed - so the blindness of the Nazarenes was due primarily to their own prejudice against the idea of a local boy being the long awaited Christ. Prophecies were fulfilled, signs and wonders were done before great crowds of witnesses - and still they refused to see anything. And so they saw nothing. Circular reasoning triumphs again.

Some of you may recall the cartoonist Jules Feiffer who created a characted named Monroe. Monroe was only 5 years old but through some glitch in the system, he was drafted into the Army. And nobody noticed when he arrived for basic training. When he attempted to point out he was only 5, the Drill Instructor argued, "It is not the Army's policy to draft 5 year olds, ergo if you were 5 years old you would not be drafted, ergo you cannot be 5 years old. Now get out off here before I give you extra duties!"

It all made perfect sense if you didn't look at Monroe and see a 5 year old child standing there. Don't look - close your eyes and your mind - and behold, "Nothing there!"

So folks will drive down Highway 2 on their way to somewhere else and never see the Hi-Line. And they will report, "There's nothing there." And for them, sadly, they will be right. For them there IS nothing here for they are blind, So too, like the folks in Nazareth who saw nothing when Christ was right there - they will also be correct. For there is none so blind and they who will not see.