The Rejection at Nazareth

A prophet is not without honor, except in his native place.
Mark 6: 1-6

 He departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. 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! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So, he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Discussion Questions: 

1. In this story Jesus is pre-judged based on his family history as a local. What is your tendency to prejudge others based on perception or appearances rather than on your personal experience of who they are?
2. What keeps you from listening with an open mind, and an open heart to the wisdom another might have to share?
3. What does this story say to you about Faith as a process of “letting go” and the importance of granting freedom to other people and to God?
4.  Where in your life and in the life of the church, do you see the safe, familiar, and predictable as a barrier to recognizing Christ among us?

Biblical Context

Mark 6: 1-6
Mary M. McGlone CSJ

Today’s selection from Mark closes a section of the Gospel (3:7-6:6) and by recounting Jesus’ rejection by his own people, it ends with a failure even more dramatic than the plots the Pharisees and Herodians began to weave against him. Up to this point in the Gospel, we have heard very little of Jesus’ own teaching. Until he told the parable of the sower and the seed, Mark had only told us that Jesus responded to questions and critics and preached the nearness of the kingdom of God. His teaching took place much more through action than words and both his actions and his words demonstrated his unbridled freedom from anything that would constrain the coming of the kingdom of God.

Now Jesus appears in his own hometown. The synagogue in Nazareth is the second synagogue in which Mark tells us that Jesus preached — his first synagogue appearances were in Capernaum, mentioned in Chapters 1 and 3. Mark tells us that Jesus “astonished” the people of Nazareth. The word “astonish” implies that he aroused intense interest but not necessarily any fealty or even real respect. Rather than provoking hope, Jesus’ familiar but challenging presence sparked a series of reservations and questions about him and what made him capable of saying and doing what he did.

It’s notable that his neighbors didn’t ask about the truth or goodness of what he did, but rather about where he got the knowledge, wisdom, and power to do it all. The people of Nazareth knew his background and therefore they thought they knew his limits as well as they knew their own. Their problem was the scandal of the Incarnation. As long as God is far off and awesome, it’s easy to believe and still avoid the responsibility to be godlike. But when God appears as one of us, the expectations for us to be more become too great. The sad truth seems to be that the very people of Nazareth were the first to question whether anything good could come from Nazareth (John 1:46). Their faith was crippled by their limited expectations. Jesus could work no mighty deeds among them.

The scandal of the incarnation is that God enters our history, speaks our language and can be constrained by our lack of faith. The most frightening and exciting truth about it is that God wants to work miracles in and through our own weakness.

“God With Us” in The Other

Reflection
Mark 6: 1-6
Karen Seaborn

My husband often bemoans conventional wisdom’s definition of an expert as “someone who lives 50 miles away and carries a briefcase.” Why spend all that money flying in “experts” when there are experts in our midst? “What is it” he often asks, “that keeps us from seeing the wisdom in those around us.

Perhaps Jesus wonders the same thing in today’s Gospel. What keeps those in Jesus’ hometown from recognizing his wisdom? Must a prophet be someone who lives 50 miles away and carries the Torah?

Sounds silly, but then again, maybe not. Take a moment to consider what has occurred in Mark’s Gospel prior to today’s text. Mark begins with Jesus’ baptism, his subsequent 40 days in the desert, and the beginning of his ministry on the road. Jesus first travels to Capernaum, a small fishing village on the Sea of Galilee, where he preaches in the synagogue; the people are astonished, “for he taught them as one having authority” (1:22). Jesus then travels across the sea, preaching and proclaiming, performing miracles and healing, and his fame quickly spreads. Many people gather around him until the crowds are so great that when a woman touches his cloak, he cannot even identify who, among the many, has touched him. From one shore of the sea to the next, people came to believe because of what they heard, because of what they saw.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus returns home and attends the synagogue of his childhood. In those days, synagogue officials could invite any Jewish man to speak. We can assume, then, that at least one person thought Jesus had something of value to say that day as Mark tells us that Jesus “began to teach.” And when they heard him, the people were, indeed, astonished. They recognized Jesus’ wisdom: “What kind of wisdom has been given to him?” They recognized Jesus’ power: “What mighty deeds have been wrought by his hands?” But then something changes, and the tone of their questions moves from truly seeking to understand, to rhetorical questions that seem destined to lead to a foregone conclusion. “Wait a minute,” I can almost hear them thinking, “we know this guy. We grew up with him. He is the son of Mary, he’s Jesus, for pity sake!”

What happened, I wonder, in the minds of Jesus’ family, friends and neighbors that took them from listening to what Jesus had to say with an open mind and an open heart, to close-mindedly judging him by what they thought they knew about him? Perhaps more importantly, what happens in us that causes our minds and hearts to shut down? What keeps us from listening with an open mind and an open heart to the wisdom another might have to share? God was in their midst. And they simply could not see. What, I wonder, keeps us from seeing the risen Christ? What blind spots keep us, like they kept the family and friends of Jesus, from recognizing the Word of God in our midst? Do we, too, think to ourselves, “wait a minute, we know this person! He’s a Republican, or she’s a Democrat. He’s a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association or she’s against the Second Amendment. He’s black, or she’s white.”

All throughout Galilee, Mark tells us, people recognized that Jesus had something to teach them. While they may not have completely understood, they at least sought to understand. Unlike those in Nazareth, the people from 50 miles away did not judge Jesus based on a pre-conceived notion of who they thought he was.

Imagine our world if we were more open to listening than were those in Jesus’ hometown. What might the world look like if we viewed others as having something of value to teach us? Perhaps a place to start is by simply, though perhaps not easily, recognizing Emmanuel, God with us, in the other.

Reflection excerpt from Give Us this Day: Karen Seaborn holds a Doctor of Ministry in Preaching degree, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Graduate Certificate in Spiritual Direction from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. Prior to her career change, Karen was a registered nurse working in Emergency Medicine and Behavior Health and addictions.