This is surely Joseph's son!

Luke 4:21-30

Jesus began to speak in the synagogue: ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’ And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips. They said, ‘This is Joseph’s son, surely?’

  But he replied, ‘No doubt you will quote me the saying, “Physician, heal yourself” and tell me, “We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own countryside.”’ And he went on, ‘I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.

  ‘There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.’

  When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.

Food for thought!

Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel entitled “You Can’t Go Home Again”. The book is about a man named George Webber. He is an author who has written a successful book about his hometown. When he returns home, he expects to receive a hero’s welcome. Instead, he is driven out of town by his own friends and family. They feel betrayed by what he has written about them in his book. Webber is shaken by their reaction to his work and leaves his hometown behind to go find himself. George Webber discovered that those who know you best tend to respect you the least.     

 

Our text finds Jesus returning to Nazareth. He is going home again. Our Lord’s return to His hometown does not go the way one might expect it to. After all, Jesus is something of a celebrity by this time. He has been going around the countryside preaching, teaching, healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead and controlling the forces of nature. He has proven that there is something very special and very different about Him.

As the people of Nazareth heard the message Jesus was preaching, they rejected His message because they thought they knew everything there was to know about Him. He had grown up among them and was one of their own. Then, they started to ridicule Jesus: ‘This is Joseph’s son, surely?’ These people did what all people do when they cannot understand someone. They resorted to ridicule! Ridicule is the final refuge of a small mind!

Familiarity breeds contempt!

Jesus reminded the people the proverb, "no prophet is ever accepted in his own country." This is the same thing as saying, Familiarity breeds contempt. It is common everywhere. Because you know that person, you don't take what they tell you serious. God can and does use anybody He chooses to speak to us. As He used Joseph's son, He can use your husband, wife, children, neighbours, pastor, etc. So don't reject the message because of the messenger.

It is said that the weight of what we know, especially what we collectively know, kills all we can know. What we ALREADY know  is many times lethal to what we can get to know. Our former education, our former experiences, our past, our memories can turn out to be our greatest enemy. This is what happened in today's gospel reading.

Many of us are victims of our memories, our past experiences. Our past education, meant to help us master what is new, can be completely at odds with learning new things. This is why the more we grow old the harder we learn. Or as they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Indeed, familiarity breeds contempt of newness.

What happened to Jesus in today's gospel is a lesson to us. In any church service the congregation preaches more than half the sermon. The congregation brings an atmosphere with it. That atmosphere is either a barrier through which the preacher's word cannot penetrate; or else it is such an expectancy that even the poorest sermon becomes a living flame.

Again, we should not judge a man by his background and his family connections, but by what he is. Many a message has been killed stone dead, not because there was anything wrong with it; but because the minds of the hearers were so prejudiced against the messenger that it never had a chance.

When we meet together to listen to the word of God, we must come with eager expectancy, and must think, not of the man who speaks, but of the Spirit who speaks through the man.