Immediately after three accounts of impressive healings, and
just before an account of Jesus' sending out his twelve disciples on their own
mission forays, the Gospel According to Mark offers a brief report of Jesus' disappointing visit
to his home town (which Mark curiously does not identify). Matthew and Luke
both report the same incident in their gospels, but those accounts offer somewhat different
details and emphasis. According to Mark's brief
account, Jesus led his disciples to his home town, where on the Sabbath,
he began teaching in the synagogue. Many
who heard him were "astounded." (verse 2). Although the phrasing recalls the earlier
astonishment in Capernaum that Jesus taught "as one with authority, and not
as the scribes," here the astonishment in Jesus' hometown seems to have
been of a different character.
Immediately, the listeners began asking questions about his
credentials. "Where did this man
get all this! What is this wisdom that
has been given to him? What deeds of
power are being done by his hands!" That seems odd. Why would Jesus' former neighbors refer to him as "this
man"? Why would they ask such
questions, if they had heard about Jesus' earlier miracles and expected
something similar to happen in their midst?
The Gospel According to Luke describes the crowd in Nazareth as
admiring Jesus, at least at first.
"And all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words
that came from his mouth. Is this not
Joseph's son?" (Luke, 4:22). Mark
does not report anyone in his home town speaking well of Jesus or praising his
public speaking ability. What does Mark
think was on the minds of the synagogue congregation?
The words Mark attributes to the listeners are fairly
ambiguous. The ancient Greek written
language contained no punctuation marks, and so we should remember that all the
punctuation marks in modern English translations of the Bible have been inserted by
the translators. In this passage, the
text gives very different impressions, depending on which punctuation marks are
used. For example, "What deeds of
power have been done by his hands?" may sound like a simple request for information, while "What deeds of power have been done by his hands!" may sound like an exclamation of praise. Moreover, the comments could have been laced
with sarcasm, which is hard to suggest, with any kind of punctuation. "What deeds of power are being done by his hands?" "What's with this guy?" and "Where did he get that?" or "Who does he think he is?" would not be sincere requests
for information at all; they would be expressions of annoyance or
disbelief. Mark reports that "they
took offense at him." Why would the
crowd have responded to Jesus with such unprovoked hostility?
A possible hint might be hidden in verse 3 of Mark's
account: "'Is not this the
carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon,
and are not his sisters here with us?' And they took offense at him." Some ancient manuscripts render the opening
part of that sentence as, "the son of the carpenter and of
Mary..." Luke and Matthew both
include references to a father (Matthew 13:53-58; Luke 4:16-30). But most ancient manuscripts of Mark contain
no reference to Joseph. In biblical
Galilee, identifying any man as the "son of" his mother was very
unusual, since the usual formula for a full name in one's home town would be
"[name], son of [father's name]."
It is possible that the omission of a reference to "the son of Joseph the carpenter" is simply an
accidental drafting or copying mistake.
After all, in the days before printing presses, all books were copied by
hand.
Perhaps,
though, the unusual reference to Jesus as "the carpenter, the son of Mary
and the brother of James..." does not really reflect any accidental
omission of something like "the son
of Joseph the carpenter, ..."
Perhaps the phrasing reflects instead a local sense of scandal about the
circumstances of Jesus' birth. Maybe the
villagers' failure to acknowledge Jesus as the son of Joseph was intended as an
insult, because it was widely suspected that Mary had become pregnant before
her marriage to Joseph. Even if
the listeners in the crowd were not suspicious about Jesus' parentage, they may
have been highly skeptical about the reports from other towns that Jesus was a
prophet, or perhaps even the Messiah. How could Jesus be someone so special? They had watched him grow up. How could a mere carpenter, who had even once
been reported to be crazy (see Mark Chapter 3), and who didn't even have legitimate parentage, have
done the mighty deeds that people claimed he had done? How could such a man ever be taken seriously
as a prophet or possible Messiah? If
that was their thinking, what did the people in Jesus' home town miss, by
refusing to give him a chance?
Do
you find individuals or groups whose background is so distasteful or
disreputable that you cannot imagine them actually doing or saying something
admirable? Can you think of a politician
you cannot trust, on any subject? Are
there reports of wonderful accomplishments attributed to particular individuals
that you dismiss out-of-hand as totally unbelievable? Why do we tend to
"type-cast" people?
Are
there individuals you have known for a long time, whom you could not imagine becoming
a famous athlete, a movie star, or a Nobel Prize winner? Would it feel embarrassing or irritating to
learn that a younger brother or sister, or someone you had once trained for
their job, had been chosen for a great honor, rather than you?
Mark
reports in verse 5 that Jesus "could do no deed of power there, except
that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them." Was it really not possible for Jesus to do any "deed of power" there,
because of the people's lack of faith?
Why does Mark say that Jesus was "amazed" at their
unbelief? Wouldn't he have been able to
predict their reaction, having known them all for so long?
In
all events, Jesus did not linger, but immediately set off teaching "among
the villages." (Verse 6). He also
called the twelve together and began to send them out, two by two. He instructed them to go to individual
houses, rather than synagogues, and whenever rejected, simply to "shake
the dust" of that place off their feet.
In what ways could his own reaction to rejection in his hometown help
prepare the disciples to deal with the possibility of rejection? If he could use his own experience of
rejection by old neighbors to help train his disciples, was his visit to his
home town really a failure? In what ways
should modern disciples expect to deal with rejection (and even failure) in
ministry? How can we avoid becoming
timid, in the face of experiences of rejection and embarrassing failures? How might we use our own experiences of
rejection or failure to help others?
