Daily Reflection Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

The visit of Jesus to his hometown of Nazareth is found in all three synoptic gospel accounts, Mt 13:54-58, Mk 6:1-6 and today’s reading from Luke 4:16-30 which is by far the fullest account of that visit. It is commonly referred to as, “The rejection at Nazareth.” Matthew simply states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem but does not say how that came to be. After the angel tells Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt with Mary and the newborn Jesus to escape Herod’s wrath, upon Herod’s death Joseph is then told to return to Israel, but Matthew says that he was afraid to return to Bethlehem in Judea because of Herod’s son Archelaus who was ruling there and also because of another warning in a dream. So Matthew says they settled finally in Nazareth. Mark simply says that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee (Mk 1:9) but only Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth, going to Bethlehem only because of the census ordered by the Roman emperor. Matthew explicitly states in Mt 13:54 that Nazareth was Jesus’ hometown as does Luke in his version of the story. Thus, the synoptics are clear that Jesus grew up in Nazareth.

Matthew’s account of the visit to Nazareth is the only place where we are told that Joseph was a carpenter (“Is not this the carpenter’s son?” Mt 13:55). In Mk 6:3 it seems that this question is asked as, “Is this not the carpenter?” making Jesus himself a carpenter. However, other ancient manuscripts of Mark phrase the question the same way as Matthew 13:55. Only Mark’s account of the visit tells us that Jesus’ disciples accompanied him on his visit to Nazareth. Other than that, Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts are virtually identical. They both say he began to teach in the synagogue (Mark saying that it was on the sabbath day). This was no doubt the same synagogue that Jesus had worshiped in his entire hidden life. The people cannot conceive how Jesus, who they knew well along with his entire family (everyone knew everyone else in those ancient towns, knew everything about one another) could now, out of nowhere it must have seemed, have become this incredible preacher and worker of miracles. It simply did not make any sense to them and they completely reject him, either as a fraud or a poser. They resent his new presence as a deception. 

But it is Luke who gives us fascinating details and depth to Jesus’ encounter with the people he grew up with that day. There, Jesus stands in the synagogue on the sabbath to read (as was his custom, says Luke) and he is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Luke simply states that he unrolled the scroll and found the passage he wanted to read. But the prophet Isaiah at sixty-six chapters, the longest of the prophets, was a huge scroll, one very long continuous piece of velum handwritten and deeply treasured by every synagogue that had one. It must have taken Jesus quite some time to unroll it (and he must have needed help) to reach chapter 61 all the way at the end, which Luke basically quotes from (although there is also some of chapter 58 quoted here also.) It was quite a dramatic, lengthy event. 

At the end of it all, Jesus simply returns the scroll, sits down and tells the people that the reading he has just read (which also tells us that Jesus could read, not a common thing in those times) has been fulfilled in their hearing him read it, in effect, claiming before them to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Luke says they all heard him with amazement but also asked themselves, isn’t this just Jesus whom we’ve always known? And then Jesus tells them two stories that will basically contradict the people of Nazareth’s hope that they could latch on to his gravy train, as it were. They thought that his having achieved such fame would also bring them fame and fortune as well. But Jesus told them it was something else entirely. And that made them deeply resentful and furious. They try to kill him by hurling him off the cliff on which Nazareth was built. In what is perhaps the first miracle of Jesus in the Gospels, he simply passes through them and leaves them for good.

The thing we carry from this is Jesus’ telling us that no prophet is without honor except among his own people and in his own house. Are you trying to be a prophet to your own family, to people who know you well? Give it up, says the Lord. Do not try to preach to or convert your own. That is not your role. They know you too well, know your clay feet. Put them in God’s hands. If you cannot trust God to take care of them, then what can you trust God to do at all?