The Scandal of Particularity
July 6, 2025 Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 48, Mark 6:1-6a
“The Scandal of Particularity”
Douglas T. King
The wise beyond his years Linus from the comic strip Peanuts, quoting poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, once quipped, “I love humanity. It is people that I can’t stand.” I once saw a bumper stick that read, “Spiritual people I love, it is religious people I hate.”
There is something in human nature that gives us an appreciation for what is distant and vague and conceptual yet when that same thing is brought into clear focus
right before us it is not nearly as appealing. Sure I love all of humanity, except of course when I am stuck in traffic on the 64 or in an overcrowded supermarket aisle at Schnucks, and humans will not get the heck out of my way. And people who have some amorphous spirituality are always easier to idealize rather than those religious types who make commitments to specific traditions and institutions.
I don’t blame us for being that way. Generalities from a vague difference offer us a superficial sheen of perfection that is often lost when we are brought up close with something or someone. Here are two other quotations. The first from Groucho Marx, who with his zany brothers, grew up two blocks from where I used to live in New York,
“I would never belong to any club who would have me as a member.” The second is, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” A tendency of human nature is that what is present before us is often seen as having less value. Only the unattainable is to be highly prized. We can be neurotic creatures, can’t we?
It makes you wonder what Jesus was thinking. One would assume he had a pretty good handle on the quirks and idiosyncrasies we carry and yet here he comes strolling into his hometown and teaching with an authority that would only belong to a messiah. In Luke’s account of this hometown reunion he nearly gets thrown off a cliff after preaching about God’s healing of gentile foreigners, the Widow at Zarephath and Namaan the Syrian. Here, in Mark, we get grumbling and questioning, something of which every preacher is more than quite familiar. They know this guy Jesus. They watched him grow up. They know his family. He is one of them. How could he be anything special? How could anything he has to say be from God? The son of a carpenter? Are you kidding me?
As hard as this can be for us to believe, the reality that escaped those folks in Jesus’ hometown all those years ago and continues to elude us today is that God is not exotic. Yes, God is boundless and beyond anything we can completely comprehend. Yes, God is omnipotent, all powerful and omniscient, all knowing. There are more dimensions to the divine than a human term like infinity even begins to scratch the surface. But God is also omnipresent, everywhere, all the time. God is deeply present in every last atom of creation.
Now here is where it gets a little tricky. We find ourselves walking on the theological tightrope between pantheism and panentheism. Pantheism is the belief that the divine and the universe are one and the same thing, that I can worship God by worshiping the things of creation. A pantheist could choose to worship this bottle of water in my hand as the entirely representative substance of the divine. This is not what I wish to suggest this morning. I am speaking of panentheism, which is the idea that God is so deeply invested in this creation that God is completely present in every part of it but not limited solely to it.
Is God present in this bottle of water in my hand? Certainly, as certainly as God is present in the water in our baptismal font or in the Jordan river all those years ago with John and Jesus. But God is not completely contained within this water or that water or any single element of creation.
It is this tightrope that creates the scandal of particularity. Whenever we take seriously the notion that God is actually present in the reality of this time and place there is a part of our human nature that seeks to pull away. After all, can the son of a carpenter from our own town really be the Son of God?
We consistently run the risk of missing the movement of God in the midst of the ordinary. As those hometown folks could not open themselves up to receive God’s healing power through Jesus, we too can miss out on God’s power in our everyday lives. If God is everywhere, God is here, and out there, and right here inside of us all the time offering us divine blessing. Once we recognize and accept this amazing reality, our hearts and minds are open to receiving the most remarkable gifts from the divine.
When we learn this however, we find ourselves face to face with a second risk. Our first reading this morning was Psalm forty-eight. It serves as a powerful testament
to Jerusalem, the city of God. The psalm extols the power of the city in which God abides. Unfortunately, we have seen the history of destruction wrought throughout countless generations as this city of God has been fought over by competing religious interests. When we open ourselves up to accepting the particularity of God, the reality of God’s power and blessing literally residing in our midst we need to be exceedingly careful as to the purpose of such power and blessing.
On this Fourth of July weekend we celebrate the birth and the many blessings of the United States of America. Many people will speak of how we are a nation chosen and blessed by God, sometimes in language quite similar to how people speak of Jerusalem as the city of God, and the Jews as God’s chosen people. I do believe that we as a nation
have received great blessings from the divine. But God’s particular presence in our midst, God’s blessings and power among us is not a sign of our perfection but rather of our calling.
To understand what it means to be particularly chosen and blessed by God as a nation or as individuals we can discover all we need to know by looking at the life and ministry of Jesus, God’s chosen Son. It is never about power or privilege over others, but about being a conduit of God’s loving design for the rest of the world, sometimes even to the point of self-sacrifice.
The scholar, James L. Mays describes the forty-eighth Psalm in this way, “The psalm views the city as a medium through which God can be known. The…holy city is the place
where pilgrims are led to imagine God’s acts…The way in which the psalm speaks of Jerusalem as Zion, the city of David as the city of God, is a way of envisioning the earthly in terms of the heavenly, the temporal in terms of the everlasting. It is language that uncovers the transcendent dimension of the immanent created by the relation of God’s rule to the world.” (Mays, pp189-90)
So to what do all of those fifty cent words add up? Whenever God chooses to work through a person, or a people or a nation, to bless them, it is never about their special worthiness but about bestowing upon them a responsibility to be in service to others in demonstration of God’s love.
It is complicated discussing the United States as being a chosen nation of God, distinctly blessed for God’s purposes in this world. The scandal of particularity can make one anxious. But it is worth doing. We do not want to end up like those hometown folks of Jesus, unable to recognize the blessings of the divine in their midst, missing out on the healing power of God offered to them.
On this Sunday I stand in this pulpit and announce that God has indeed blessed and chosen this nation. May we receive this blessing proudly and recognize that it comes with the responsibility of humble service to the greater world. I stand in this pulpit and proclaim that God has indeed blessed and chosen this congregation, Ladue Chapel. May we receive this blessing proudly and recognize we are called to humble service in this city. I stand in this pulpit and proclaim God has indeed blessed and chosen you and me. May we receive this blessing proudly and humbly seek to share God’s love with each other and with all those who cross our paths.
The divine has blessed and chosen every people, every community, every person in every corner of the world. Let us boldly claim the scandal of God’s particular presence right here in the midst of this nation, this church, within each one of us. We receive this gift not out of our worthiness but in recognition of how God may use us. I believe there will come a day when each and every nation, and community, and person of faith will fully claim their blessedness and chosen-ness to humbly serve God’s purpose and we will find ourselves truly in the midst of the Kingdom of God.
Thanks, be to God. Amen.
Mays, James L., Psalms, from the Interpretation series,
Ed. Patrick D. Miller, John Knox Press, Louisville, 1994.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 48, Mark 6:1-6a
“The Scandal of Particularity”
Douglas T. King
The wise beyond his years Linus from the comic strip Peanuts, quoting poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, once quipped, “I love humanity. It is people that I can’t stand.” I once saw a bumper stick that read, “Spiritual people I love, it is religious people I hate.”
There is something in human nature that gives us an appreciation for what is distant and vague and conceptual yet when that same thing is brought into clear focus
right before us it is not nearly as appealing. Sure I love all of humanity, except of course when I am stuck in traffic on the 64 or in an overcrowded supermarket aisle at Schnucks, and humans will not get the heck out of my way. And people who have some amorphous spirituality are always easier to idealize rather than those religious types who make commitments to specific traditions and institutions.
I don’t blame us for being that way. Generalities from a vague difference offer us a superficial sheen of perfection that is often lost when we are brought up close with something or someone. Here are two other quotations. The first from Groucho Marx, who with his zany brothers, grew up two blocks from where I used to live in New York,
“I would never belong to any club who would have me as a member.” The second is, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” A tendency of human nature is that what is present before us is often seen as having less value. Only the unattainable is to be highly prized. We can be neurotic creatures, can’t we?
It makes you wonder what Jesus was thinking. One would assume he had a pretty good handle on the quirks and idiosyncrasies we carry and yet here he comes strolling into his hometown and teaching with an authority that would only belong to a messiah. In Luke’s account of this hometown reunion he nearly gets thrown off a cliff after preaching about God’s healing of gentile foreigners, the Widow at Zarephath and Namaan the Syrian. Here, in Mark, we get grumbling and questioning, something of which every preacher is more than quite familiar. They know this guy Jesus. They watched him grow up. They know his family. He is one of them. How could he be anything special? How could anything he has to say be from God? The son of a carpenter? Are you kidding me?
As hard as this can be for us to believe, the reality that escaped those folks in Jesus’ hometown all those years ago and continues to elude us today is that God is not exotic. Yes, God is boundless and beyond anything we can completely comprehend. Yes, God is omnipotent, all powerful and omniscient, all knowing. There are more dimensions to the divine than a human term like infinity even begins to scratch the surface. But God is also omnipresent, everywhere, all the time. God is deeply present in every last atom of creation.
Now here is where it gets a little tricky. We find ourselves walking on the theological tightrope between pantheism and panentheism. Pantheism is the belief that the divine and the universe are one and the same thing, that I can worship God by worshiping the things of creation. A pantheist could choose to worship this bottle of water in my hand as the entirely representative substance of the divine. This is not what I wish to suggest this morning. I am speaking of panentheism, which is the idea that God is so deeply invested in this creation that God is completely present in every part of it but not limited solely to it.
Is God present in this bottle of water in my hand? Certainly, as certainly as God is present in the water in our baptismal font or in the Jordan river all those years ago with John and Jesus. But God is not completely contained within this water or that water or any single element of creation.
It is this tightrope that creates the scandal of particularity. Whenever we take seriously the notion that God is actually present in the reality of this time and place there is a part of our human nature that seeks to pull away. After all, can the son of a carpenter from our own town really be the Son of God?
We consistently run the risk of missing the movement of God in the midst of the ordinary. As those hometown folks could not open themselves up to receive God’s healing power through Jesus, we too can miss out on God’s power in our everyday lives. If God is everywhere, God is here, and out there, and right here inside of us all the time offering us divine blessing. Once we recognize and accept this amazing reality, our hearts and minds are open to receiving the most remarkable gifts from the divine.
When we learn this however, we find ourselves face to face with a second risk. Our first reading this morning was Psalm forty-eight. It serves as a powerful testament
to Jerusalem, the city of God. The psalm extols the power of the city in which God abides. Unfortunately, we have seen the history of destruction wrought throughout countless generations as this city of God has been fought over by competing religious interests. When we open ourselves up to accepting the particularity of God, the reality of God’s power and blessing literally residing in our midst we need to be exceedingly careful as to the purpose of such power and blessing.
On this Fourth of July weekend we celebrate the birth and the many blessings of the United States of America. Many people will speak of how we are a nation chosen and blessed by God, sometimes in language quite similar to how people speak of Jerusalem as the city of God, and the Jews as God’s chosen people. I do believe that we as a nation
have received great blessings from the divine. But God’s particular presence in our midst, God’s blessings and power among us is not a sign of our perfection but rather of our calling.
To understand what it means to be particularly chosen and blessed by God as a nation or as individuals we can discover all we need to know by looking at the life and ministry of Jesus, God’s chosen Son. It is never about power or privilege over others, but about being a conduit of God’s loving design for the rest of the world, sometimes even to the point of self-sacrifice.
The scholar, James L. Mays describes the forty-eighth Psalm in this way, “The psalm views the city as a medium through which God can be known. The…holy city is the place
where pilgrims are led to imagine God’s acts…The way in which the psalm speaks of Jerusalem as Zion, the city of David as the city of God, is a way of envisioning the earthly in terms of the heavenly, the temporal in terms of the everlasting. It is language that uncovers the transcendent dimension of the immanent created by the relation of God’s rule to the world.” (Mays, pp189-90)
So to what do all of those fifty cent words add up? Whenever God chooses to work through a person, or a people or a nation, to bless them, it is never about their special worthiness but about bestowing upon them a responsibility to be in service to others in demonstration of God’s love.
It is complicated discussing the United States as being a chosen nation of God, distinctly blessed for God’s purposes in this world. The scandal of particularity can make one anxious. But it is worth doing. We do not want to end up like those hometown folks of Jesus, unable to recognize the blessings of the divine in their midst, missing out on the healing power of God offered to them.
On this Sunday I stand in this pulpit and announce that God has indeed blessed and chosen this nation. May we receive this blessing proudly and recognize that it comes with the responsibility of humble service to the greater world. I stand in this pulpit and proclaim that God has indeed blessed and chosen this congregation, Ladue Chapel. May we receive this blessing proudly and recognize we are called to humble service in this city. I stand in this pulpit and proclaim God has indeed blessed and chosen you and me. May we receive this blessing proudly and humbly seek to share God’s love with each other and with all those who cross our paths.
The divine has blessed and chosen every people, every community, every person in every corner of the world. Let us boldly claim the scandal of God’s particular presence right here in the midst of this nation, this church, within each one of us. We receive this gift not out of our worthiness but in recognition of how God may use us. I believe there will come a day when each and every nation, and community, and person of faith will fully claim their blessedness and chosen-ness to humbly serve God’s purpose and we will find ourselves truly in the midst of the Kingdom of God.
Thanks, be to God. Amen.
Mays, James L., Psalms, from the Interpretation series,
Ed. Patrick D. Miller, John Knox Press, Louisville, 1994.
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