Mat
13:53-58
53 When
Jesus finished telling these stories, he left there, 54 returned to his
hometown, and gave a lecture in the meetinghouse. He made a real hit,
impressing everyone. "We had no idea he was this good!" they said.
"How did he get so wise, get such ability?" 55 But in the next breath
they were cutting him down: "We've known him since he was a kid; he's the
carpenter's son. We know his mother, Mary. We know his brothers James and
Joseph, Simon and Judas. 56 All his sisters live here. Who does he think he
is?" 57 They got their noses all out of joint. 58 But Jesus said, "A
prophet is taken for granted in his hometown and his family." He didn't do
many miracles there because of their hostile indifference.
Food
for thought
It is
said that the weight of what we know, especially what we collectively know,
kills all innovation. What we know of other people is many times lethal to what
we can know about them. Our former education, our former experiences, our past,
our memories is many times our greatest enemy. This is what happened in today's
gospel reading.
Everything
was going on well, until past knowledge came in. The people were getting
impressed, "We had no idea he was this good!" they said. "How
did he get so wise, get such ability?" Then, they remembered Jesus:
"We've known him since he was a kid; he's the carpenter's son. We know his
mother, Mary. We know his brothers James and Joseph, Simon and Judas. All his
sisters live here. Who does he think he is?"
Many of
us are victims of our memories, our past experiences. Our past education, meant
to help us master what is new (as Jesus taught us yesterday), 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. Some of us have grown to old, not in years, but in
ideas. When did you last read a book on anything?
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 what he speaks to us.
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