The rejection of Jesus in Nazareth

Our Gospel today is about the Rejection of our Lord Jesus Christ in his very own native Nazareth and on a larger scale the whole of Israel. There is a lesson for all of us in this story, because it really happened to our Lord Jesus 2,000 years ago. You can read it in your Bibles in Mark 6:1-6.

“[Jesus] departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. 2 When the Sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!

I3 Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. 4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is no without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” 5 So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. 6 He was amazed at their lack of faith. He went around to the villages in the vicinity teaching.”

The first lesson to come to mind when we read this passage is an age-old quotation that says, “Familiarity Breeds Contempt!” No doubt, the Nazoreans knew who Jesus was… they knew him as a carpenter, who took from his father Joseph who was also a carpenter. Jesus after all has been with them since he was born and then 30-years later, he transforms himself into a teacher like no other, teaching, preaching and healing the sick, things that carpenters are not trained to do.

So in a way, the Nazoreans were all puzzle and asked, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!”? Instead of being happy or elated that one amongst them had great wisdom, they only had contempt for him, perhaps because he was just the son of Mary, a poor Nazorean who married a carpenter.

In short they never expected anything from Jesus but to carve out some wood. In an uncanny sort of way, the Jesus they knew before, they could no longer recognize anymore because he was already different from them. He no longer acted like a Nazorean! He was blessed with wisdom, which unfortunately wasn’t found in Nazareth until they met with Jesus in the synagogue where they were filled with awe!

Jesus was amazed that his fellow Nazoreans didn’t have faith, which brings us to the question, what if this happened to us in our own communities would we fare better than the Nazoreans if a similar situation arises? Perhaps we ought to look at ourselves on how we look at our neighbors or relatives who suddenly comes home after years of absence, then suddenly preaches the Gospel to the family or the community?

How would we react when for instance if a “Habal-habal” or taxi driver suddenly preaches and teaches the scriptures as if he were a priest? Would we ask ourselves how this ordinary man suddenly knows the ways of God when he never went to school, much less schooled in Theology? Would we have only contempt for this man or listen to his words of wisdom?

Perhaps the problem with the world today is that, we all live in a structured life…. Some call it a bureaucracy. The government has its structures; the military has their own, even civic clubs live by the structures to bring order to their organization. In a sort of way, God who is a God of order also left a structure for the only church that he founded, The Holy Catholic Church. Hence we are mandated to follow the norms and structures of the church for it is a way of practicing one’s capacity to obey.

However, we must learn from the Bible that when our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, God himself already put in the basic structure of his church, through is chosen servants Moses. But as our Lord Jesus pointed out to his disciples, he didn’t come to abolish the Law of Moses, but to fulfill it! If this is so, why then do we still have Judaism separated from Christianity? Again the answer to this comes back to the Jews and from the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, “A prophet is no without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”

A sample of fulfilling the law is the Holy Mass which has its origins from Judaism’s Passover Meal with a difference… where the sacrificial lamb is no longer the unblemished lamb, but our Lord Jesus himself who for many passages told his disciples that he is the Lamb of God and in another passage, that he is the Bread of Life, who when you partake in his flesh and blood, you shall have eternal life. Alas, during his Bread of Life discourse, even some of his disciples left him and in a way, the Jews turned their backs on one of their own, who truly was the Son of God who was born within their midst.

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