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Services every Sunday at 7:00 P.M.

"Get Up and Go" 7/5/09 Mark 6: 1-13

In 1968 a young Pentecostal minister would be thrown out of his church because of his sexuality. This rejected young man, Reverend Troy Perry, would go on to found the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Church, now a worldwide denomination. In 1975 another young man rejected by his Baptist denomination, Reverend Frank Scott would go on to found MCC Pittsburgh, MCC Richmond, Virginia, and MCC Bourmoth, England. And there have been many others who were rejected in their hometown and would go on to do amazing things that might not have happened if they hadn't been rejected.

The same is true in our gospel reading for tonight when Jesus is rejected in his hometown of Nazareth. The people in this little village had known Jesus all of his life. They had heard him speak in the synagogue. They had seen and heard about the miracles that he had performed. And then they also had know the ordinary Jesus who was held in Mary’s arms; they had seen him playing in the streets as a young boy; the people had seen him working in the carpenter shop with this father Joseph. They had seen Jesus do the little things that children do and then get in trouble for it. They had seen him be praised for helping a stranger on the street. But now all of a sudden the people can't understand how this ordinary person from Nazareth can be doing all these mighty works. If he had been a famous visiting prophet from another town maybe then they could understand what was going on. But this was just Jesus the man from down the street who they had known all his life. He couldn't be a prophet! And so he calls the disciples together and giving them traveling orders for the road and tells them to get up and go. (Read Litany – “We leave behind”… see below.)

The call of Jesus in our lives means that we have to get up and go. We can't wait for the people to come to us. Rather we are to get out into our communities and by our words and through our actions we are to serve the people around us. Parker Palmer in his book The Company of Strangers says that "evangelism is simple, to love the world in every possible way – to love the world as God did and does." … to love the people who are placed in our lives and on our journey each and everyday. As we get up and go each morning we can begin the day by praying that each person who comes into our lives today we can share the presence of God with them, through what we have experienced of God's love ourselves. We each bare the seed of God's presence in our lives that can change the world a person, a situation, a cause at a time. I pray this week that we might each get up and go. Go to share the love of God in our world. Go to serve our brothers and sisters. Go to live God's life in our world. May our journey be blessed. Amen.

Voice 1: We leave -behind our shirts.

Voice 2: We leave behind all our luxuries.