Hometown Rejection

Dear Friends,

There’s this story about Jesus in the Bible where he travels back to his hometown after being away for some time (Mark 6:1-6). I imagine him chatting with his closest friends as they traveled the dusty roads towards Nazareth. I wonder if he talked up his mom’s cooking and how comfortable the beds were in his childhood home—I mean, as a carpenter, he made them himself. I wonder if there were certain friends he was most excited to see.

I’m not sure what it was like when he got there—the text doesn’t say—but it sure didn’t sound like there was a “welcome home” party thrown in his honor. 

When Saturday rolled around, Jesus and his disciples went to the local place of worship and he taught a message there. Mark doesn’t even include what Jesus said, only the responses from those listening.

There seem to be two different responses: wow and nope.

Wonder, curiosity, open-hearted acceptance 
vs.
Stubborn, hard, closed-hearted indifference

I wonder how long it was for those who might have been open and curious about Jesus and his words, to become influenced and shut down by the haters? How long before their openness and acceptance towards Jesus began closing off as distrust and doubt clouded the room?

The text says they were offended or scandalized that Jesus was representing their town. It didn’t matter what he preached or who he healed or how kind and compassionate he was, they couldn’t see past who they knew him to be. He was the firstborn of Mary—the one born out of wedlock. The mamzer or bastard who didn’t have a father to be known by, only as Mary’s son, spoken out like some embarrassing slur. Jesus had a scandalous beginning making his words and actions untrustworthy and impossible to accept.

Growing up around certain people or situations can sometimes cause a chip on the shoulder that makes people think they have permission to judge more harshly and unkindly. Oftentimes I am the harshest critic of what I know or think I know because familiarity can breed contempt. I wonder if that’s what was happening for Jesus’s hometown? They believed they had nothing left to learn and this closed them off from the expansive and restorative kingdom of God through Jesus. 

They were disinterested in him because God wouldn’t dare work through someone they knew wasn’t worthy.

There was a saying back then—“Nothing good comes from Nazareth.”

This saying seems familiar, doesn’t it? Nothing good comes from that family. Nothing good comes from that area or that community or that trauma or that experience.

Most of the times, God uses the kinds of people who others believe nothing good can come from. 

Jesus chose twelve men to follow him. Some were teenagers and others were more established in careers. They had shady pasts and we know a shady future for some. From the outside, it looked like Jesus chose people that nothing good could come from. Maybe these guys thought the same about themselves. Maybe they believed the lie that nothing good could come from them. 

But friends, the truth of God’s intention for this world, for you, is good. God created all things good and human beings very good. You have been created very good, but sin has marred what God created. It has fractured the good and broken apart the whole. You’ve been fractured and split apart because of those things that have happened to you and the things you have done. Those harmful things were not good, but God still redeems and restores all things for good. I’ve seen this in my own life because God restores all things back to wholeness.

How unfortunate it was for those in Nazareth to miss the good, restorative redemption in their midst. 

Friends, I don’t want to miss the restorative redemption of Christ. I don’t want the chips on my shoulders or my own closed stubbornness to affect other people or influence the way they respond to Jesus. I don’t want anything about me—my words, actions, behavior—anything to come between you and the healing and saving love of Christ. I want relationships restored. I want people healed. I want the good news of God’s love through Jesus to be fully accessible to all people.

And this is good. Very good.

With (love),
Bethany