Shake off the dust

Shake the dust off. Coming from Jesus, it may seem to us a shocking statement. “If any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them” (Mark 6:11, NIV). These were his instructions to the Twelve as he sent them out on their first evangelistic campaign.  And yet, I wonder: When is it time to “shake the dust off”? When is enough, enough? When do we finally give up on people as a lost cause?

I suspect that the Church universal has placed too much emphasis on the last part of the verse (“as a testimony against them”) and not enough on its context. In our humanity, we want to abandon to their fate those who we feel have rejected us. But is that really what Jesus meant? He spoke these words immediately after he was himself rejected in his hometown of Nazareth. He did eventually leave, moving on to other towns, but not before he did everything he could. Mark’s Gospel tells us that despite the prevailing air of disbelief, Jesus did heal some people (1:5). Even though Nazareth’s faithlessness greatly inhibited the work of the Kingdom, there were a few who believed – and Jesus met them in their faith.

I don’t think that Jesus gave up on Nazareth. He recognized the reality of their hardheartedness, and he chose not to spend time there which would be more productively spent elsewhere. But notice what he does: He takes his ministry to nearby towns and commissions his disciples to do the same. Essentially, he circumvented the disbelief of Nazareth. He was surrounding them with the Kingdom. We would be wise to emulate his strategy.

Perhaps the sense of what Jesus was communicating is, “Don’t let it get you down.” As The Message translation has this verse, “If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.” The disciples, like Jesus, would face their share of rejection. Some people would believe, some wouldn’t; such is the nature of evangelism. But instead of taking it personally and harboring resentment toward those who don’t believe – as a traditional “testimony against them” interpretation might lead us to do – the Twelve simply moved on to the next town and tried again.

To read this verse as a justification for giving up on people not only violates its context, it goes against the grain of Scripture and the very heart of the Gospel as well. Consider the numerous “lost causes” that God transformed into pillars of the faith: Abram the idol worshiper was called out to father a new, godly nation as Abraham; Jacob the conniving thief wrestled God and was henceforth known as Israel, patriarch of God’s people; Rahab, woman of the streets, risked everything to hide Israel’s spies and is remembered as a direct ancestor of Jesus; Saul, the enemy of the Church and murderer of Christians, encountered Jesus and became Paul the evangelist. All of their stories are recorded for us, to teach us a singular truth: In God’s eyes, there are no lost causes. He will go to any length to salvage and restore humanity, no matter how far fallen; the Incarnation is proof enough of that. God never waves the white flag, as Paul, recipient of God’s relentless pursuit, so eloquently reminds us: “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:7, NLT).

Jesus tells us to shake off the dust – not as a concession for giving up on people, but as an invitation to relinquish the weight of ministering to a broken race. That burden is not ours to bear: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you…for my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light” (Matthew 11:28-29, NLT). In ministry, we must do this daily.

The issue at hand is particularly salient in the youth ministry setting. When we encounter students, many of them are broken and coping as best they are able. They are not the ideal children or model citizens we might want them to be. Yet we must be quick to remember that the icons of our faith – and we ourselves – have a past. Rather than judging these students for what they are not, we must see in them the potential for what God can create. Our role is to help them to encounter Jesus and, through it all, to shake off the dust we accumulate.