Let’s suppose you have some holiday time, and you decide to go down to Washington, D.C. to see the sights.  And you go into the Washington Cathedral; you go in to my favorite place, the Lady Chapel, . . . and suddenly the Holy Spirit of God comes to you and stands quietly beside you, . . . and before your eyes you see the shining reality of Heaven.  You see Jesus walk over to you and tenderly take you by the hand to bring you into the presence of God the Father, and you hear the Father’s voice speaking to you -- you hear the Father’s voice speaking to no one else but you -- and you don’t really hear Him in your head so much as you feel His voice with your heart, and you know a joy above all happiness and a calm beyond all peace.

    You want to stay there all the days of your life, . . . but God the Father gently sends you out.  But as you leave the Cathedral you simply have to tell someone about what you have just seen and heard, and so you stop at a flower vendor’s stall and you tell her.  . . . And she leaves her flowers to go with you to the hot dog vendor who simply must hear this very good news; who simply must know about the nearness of God.  . . . And soon there are thirteen of you.

    “Well,” you think to yourself, “this is wonderful.  I have to go home and give this gift of joy -- this experience of Heaven -- to the people closest to me.”  And so, you return to Morris with your twelve friends, and you all arrive on a Sunday, and without delay you come into this Church and everyone is glad to see you, and everyone wants to hear about what you thought of the Lincoln Memorial of if you got into the Treasury Building, but you say, “Wait!”  . . . And then you tell everyone about how the Word of God is not something you hear with your head, but that it is something you love with your heart; how the Book of Common Prayer is a wonderful thing, but that its prayers must be made with your being and not simply said with the lips; how Heaven is right there . . . all you have to do is turn around and receive it; all you have to do is stop being preoccupied with managing incidentals and give yourself to Jesus!  . . . But your church family becomes restless as you speak, and they begin to back away from you and mutter, “Who made this person the Bishop of North America?”; “Isn’t this the one with the uncle who lives with a woman he’s not married to?  Huh!  Physician, heal thyself!”

    Suppose that happened to you.  How would you feel?  How would you feel if you discovered a simple life-changing truth that gives joy, peace, and health, and you ran home to share it with your community -- with the family which had done so much for you and to whom you now wanted to give something back -- . . . and they belittle you; act as if you’d gotten too big for your britches?  . . . How would you feel?  . . . Well, that very thing happened to Jesus when He brought His vision of God to the people at Nazareth, and we have read Saint Mark’s report of it today.  And however you might think you would feel if the same thing happened to you, one translation of Holy Scripture reports that Jesus was “taken aback by their want of faith.”  . . . And there it is again.  Remember when Jesus was so rudely shaken awake in the boat by His frightened disciples two Sundays ago?  Do you remember how Jesus wondered why a disciple’s life would not be governed by Faith?  And do you remember the advice Jesus gives to Jairus last Sunday when that man is told that his daughter has died?  . . . Jesus says to Jairus, “Do not be controlled by fear, . . . but be governed by Faith.”  . . . And now here it is again today.  We are told that the reaction to the preaching of Jesus by the people among whom He had grown up . . . caused Jesus to be “taken aback by their want of faith.”  So obstinate were the people of Nazareth toward Jesus that He could do no good for them, . . . “except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them.”

    And this is why Saint Mark has preserved in his Gospel the incident of Jesus going home.  Mark has preserved the account as a caution; . . . to caution us not to be wanting in our Faith.  Because, you see, Jesus regularly comes to visit this Community of Faith; . . . Jesus comes to visit us whenever two or three are gathered together in His Name.  Jesus comes to visit us because He has something to say to each one of you:  Jesus has some word of encouragement, perhaps, . . . or some word of forgiveness, . . . or some word of healing, . . . or some word of strength, . . . or perhaps Jesus simply wants to smile at you in friendship.  . . . But you won’t receive any of it, Saint Mark warns; . . . you won’t receive any of it if you’re wanting in Faith.

    And it takes so little to quell faith.  . . . Yesterday was Independence Day; . . . yesterday was the Fourth of July.  And in the quiet of my Study I celebrated Independence Day as I do every year.  I celebrated Independence Day by reading the “Declaration of Independence” from Volume 5 of my World Book Encyclopedia.  And, once again, I was reminded of the astonishing principle of civil government which is the precious soul of our Nation . . . but which no one ever talks about in these present days.  . . . In the second paragraph of the Declaration it says,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . .

And then, in the third paragraph, the Declaration reads,

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men . . .

Do you understand what I have just read to you?  It is the purpose and work of Government to serve the intentions of the Creator; . . . it is the work of Government to serve the intentions of God.  But how does a government serve its Creator when that government forbids public display of the Ten Commandments that define the essential liberties of the human family; and how does a government serve its Creator when it does not nurture Faith by forbidding public and communal prayer at its institutions of learning; and how does a government serve its Creator when it finances and promotes, for medical reasons, the slaughter of its unborn Citizens?  How does the New York State Senate serve its Creator by squabbling over which faction is in charge?  . . . A government which does not serve its Creator; . . . a government whose Faith is so wanting that it does whatever seems right in its own eyes; . . . such a government shall be controlled by its fears which shall quell the Faith of its people, . . . depriving them of their essential liberties by making them slaves to sin.

    . . . Fear can quell Faith, and so can expectations.  There is a tendency to believe that if God is almighty and if God is near . . . then God will do what is expected of Him.  And so Saint Paul tells us his own experience of this.  Paul tells us that he was given “a thorn in the flesh” which he asked God three times to remove, . . . but that God did not give Paul what he wanted.  Instead, God gave Paul grace.  God gave Paul grace and told him, “My grace is sufficient . . ., for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  . . . In other words, when Saint Paul was discomfited by some infirmity or injury, and he asked God to take it away, . . . God did not give Paul the thing he asked for.  Instead, God gave Paul the thing that he needed.  God gave Paul Himself.  God gave Paul grace, just as Jesus gave Himself to the people of Nazareth.  But they thought the gift unworthy . . . because they expected God to give them more.  And because the people of Nazareth were not content with their weakness; because they did not make of themselves a humble offering to God; because their faith in God was conditional . . . the divine power of the Incarnate Word could not give them what they needed.  Jesus was unable to give His own people the joy and peace and health of Heaven, . . . except for a few, who He laid His hands upon and healed.

    Saint Mark has preserved, in his Gospel, the going home of Jesus so that we might not be wanting in our own Faith; so that we remember to allow neither fear nor disappointment to quell our Faith.  Saint Mark has preserved, in his Gospel, the going home of Jesus so that each of you might not become distracted by the temptation to manage incidentals; . . . so that distractions might not quell your Faith.  Saint Mark has preserved, in his Gospel, the going home of Jesus in order that you might hear this very hour the thing which Jesus has come home to this Church to tell you; . . . in order that you might receive, this very hour, the good which Jesus has come to give you.