Pentecost 7 B: God’s Partners

Mark 6:1-13 Dear Partner in Preaching, I don’t know about you, but I think it was rather gutsy of Mark to share this story. I mean, he didn’t have to tell his readers about a time when Jesus seems nearly powerless. Some writers might have omitted this story for fear it undermined their larger portrait of Jesus. Not only that, but it stands in such sharp contrast to the previous chapters where Jesus’ power – over illness and evil spirits and even over death itself – seems nearly limitless. No, he didn’t have to tell this story. Or did he? This week we have, on the one hand, two rather discreet stories from Jesus’ ministry that...