The rejection of Jesus in his own native land!

This Sunday's Gospel reading is about the Rejection at Nazareth of Jesus, you'll find in Mark 6:1-6. [Jesus] departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. 2When 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 might deeds are wrought by his hands! 3 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 him?" And they took offense at him.

4Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not 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 by their lack of faith. He went around the villages in the vicinity teaching."

From my viewpoint, our Lord Jesus Christ was rejected by the very people who originally knew him as the little boy who grew up in their town, the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary because of contempt. Not because of their low station in life but rather it is because of familiarity. Remember that old saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt?"

This truism still exists today. You may be a big shot in your town or city, the president of a big company or a public official held in high esteem by your peers, but to your family, you're only the father. Often kids disobey their father and hide many things from him because they do not look at him with the same respect as the others in the community. But this all depends on the closeness of the father to his kids.

Actually, only St. John did not have any account about the Rejection of Jesus in Nazareth. While Matthew was similar to Mark's, the Evangelist St. Luke had a different, albeit a more dramatic account of the Rejection in Nazareth. You'll find it in Luke 4:16-30.

16 He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read 17 and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord."

20 Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. 21 He said to them, "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." 22 And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, "Isn't this the son of Joseph?"

23 He said to them, "Surely you will quote me this proverb, 'Physician, cure yourself, and say, 'Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.' 24 And he said, "Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. 25 Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. 26 It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. 27 Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian."

28 When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. 29 They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went away."

These two rejections of Jesus narratives is a sort of prophecy coming from the Messiah himself. The first one is the rejection by his own villagers, when he read the Scripture from the scroll, which actually prophesied him as the Messiah, the long-awaited one. But as he correctly pointed out, "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house." The people of Nazareth couldn't believe their eyes that the Jesus that left their village has returned a very learned man. Surely they must have also heard about his miracles or wondrous works along the Sea of Galilee. But now that he is in their midst, they refused to believe because of their lack of faith.

Perhaps the bigger rejection of Jesus is the rejection of the Jews as a whole. This lack of faith continues to plaque the Jews in Israel today because they still refuse to believe that Jesus Christ who was one of their own is the long-awaited Messiah so 2,000 years hence, the Jews still await the Messiah. What about you, do you also reject Jesus?

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