Friday, September 10, 2010
When Jesus had finished the parables, he left those lands. And coming into his own country [Galilee] he taught them in their synagogue.
The residents were astonished by this, and said, "Where has this man come from, and this wisdom, and these mighty works? Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't Mary his mother? And his brothers James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, do they not all live here with us? How, then, does this man have all these things? And they were offended by him.
But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, save in his own land, and in his own house." And he did not perform many great works there, because of their unbelief.
Jesus finally returns to his homeland, almost surely to Nazareth proper. Most Hebrews, living in a world where the truth of Mosaic law was accepted as an integral part of life, had difficulty hearing Christ's teachings. But the people of Nazareth have an additional barrier. They know him and his family, and they see him as a carpenter.
To say the people were "offended" by him does not catch the subtlety of the Greek. The listeners "stumbled" over his words, that is, they had difficulty focusing on his message because they could not overcome their fixed concept of his person. Both the Greek and the concept of this phrase lend themselves to the idea that Christ's identity was a "stumbling block" to the Nazarene's acceptance of his divinity and teaching.
Isn't this just like a small town anywhere? It doesn't matter how right you are, people would rather believe a lie told by a big shot than the truth told by a "little guy". God himself can come as a carpenter -- a blue collar worker -- and people won't listen to him. You have to think that maybe he was trying to tell us something about keeping our minds open.
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