This is “an immediate-continuation” from last week’s text.
If you remember, Jesus had just endeared himself to his hometowns’ people. They loved what he had to say.
I insist that people are fickle. Very fickle. Or, have the propensity to be.
Seemingly, one moment they are “all about you” and in the next moment of time – they could “care less about you!” You no longer matter to them. They can abandon you coldly in a heartbeat! Talk about being “kicked to the curb!”
I tell you, “We are” a fickle bunch.
Jesus’ reputation had preceded him. He had done “all kinds of wonderful signs and healings”…albeit elsewhere. He was on a roll. “Word” was spreading quickly about him.
Now he comes home, to what were his own people.
Expectations are running high…and of course, they would be. This was big stuff! People were pumped!
This was a matter of “home-spun pride!”
In my goofy head, a new sign is erected at the village entrance. Welcome back, Rabbi! And a much smaller sign that reads, “Nazareth— home of Jesus the Healer, par excellent!
The synagogue is SRO – “standing room only!” They were packed in there – like a can of sardines. All the bulletins ran out–thirty minutes ago. People are fanning themselves because of the extreme heat and the stuffiness. There wasn’t room to park all the donkeys outside – and the people were still jamming their way in…
It was beginning to get a little too close in there for comfort, if you know what I mean. The stench was getting stronger.
In terms of Middle-Eastern “mores” of the first century, a man had an obligation first to his family, and then, to his hometown. So, this was going to be good!
There were all kinds of wonderment and expectation. The air was electric and stifling. Excitement was the order for the day.
Is not this Joseph’s son? Was not Joseph one of us? Does not Joseph’s son, then, have a “special bond” with us? He is, and has been one of us!
Should we not be the first beneficiaries of his “gracious actions” which, we are now assuming, will follow his “gracious words?” Signs, wonders, miracles…
If he did “glorious signs and wonders” and “healed all manner of people elsewhere” – shouldn’t he do even more, here, at his former home? This is going to be good. This is worth the wait.
Unfortunately, Jesus had anticipated just such a reaction…and just such “an expectation”…from them. They were gracious enough. But they were also extremely presumptuous…both at the same time.
For whatever reason, Jesus decided to “stir the pot just a little bit.” High expectations (as we know) are easily dashed…
Imagine little Jesus of Nazareth thinking he was actually “some kind of a prophet.” Or worse yet, “more than a prophet…”
Was he now claiming for himself that he was the long awaited Messiah? How can this be?
The kid who cleaned our yards and grazed our animals… He who watered our sheep and who drew water from our wells… The “one” who lived just over there… He should have remained silent. But he did not.
Instead he retold the twin stories of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath – and Elisha and Naaman the Syrian General who happened to be a leper.
Sometimes, people are just more receptive and open elsewhere. Some people are just too “ethnocentric” and think everything is about them.
And the people of Nazareth felt disrespected. How dare he? This young upstart? They were just insulted. It was like he purposefully had riled them up. They felt provoked. They became angrier by the moment. They turn on him. Did he really attack their sincerity and did he really just question their motives?
Where just a few minutes earlier everyone was admiring him – this “hometown-boy-made-good…” now, they were “so enraged” that they wanted to throw him off a cliff.
One gets the sense that the men of Nazareth had done this before. It came to them in their rage (just as naturally) as reaching in the night for a waiting object in a familiar place.
So much for going home! So much for visiting the old stomping ground…So much for people not being fickle and turning on you in a heartbeat!
Can’t you just feel the love?