Beware of one of our own

‘… Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house’  (Mark 6:4)

Mark 6:1-6 (Year B: Trinity+5)

                                      The brow of the hill in Nazareth where Jesus was taken..

Expect rejection then..

There was something different in the way Jesus worked. If only he adapted to the ways of those in authority and if only he worked in a pragmatic way avoiding saying or doing things that, inevitably, would infuriate and antagonise the religious authorities of his day. If only he avoided controversy and saying things that upset or embarrassed ‘his own’, and if only he settled down into a quiet life in Nazareth practicing his trade or occupation and using some spare time to impart words of wisdom in the synagogue.  If only. He could have had an impact way beyond his local community in a way that avoided the terrible outcome of Calvary.  In Luke’s account we are told that Jesus was run out of Nazareth after he taught in Nazareth Luke 4:28-30). He could have been murdered, prematurely, having been led to the brow of the hill overlooking Nazareth where he was to be thrown. Whatever the precise detail, we know that Jesus was not welcome in his home town or village and this lack of welcome may have involved his closest relatives and neighbours. Could we imagine the ‘headlines’ in the Galilee Times: local Nazareth man seriously hurt after incident in Synagogue.

The Gospels, in their account of what Jesus said about the religious authorities, reflect in part the atmosphere of extreme hostility between the newly emerging Jesus movement within and beyond Judaism in the 70s A.D.. Still, they reflect a person who spoke, lived and died in a way that broke with convention and was vehemently opposed by ‘respectable’ persons in authority. Jesus settled not for quiet and for pragmatic adaptation with a view to incremental change. He lived for a disruption in the way people lived. The Kingdom of God’s reign was among us and we did not recognise it in front of our very own eyes. He was telling of, and living from, a vision and reality that challenged some of the very central tenets of doctrine and interpretation.

In the clash between Jesus and the authorities of his day we might easily miss or gloss over at least one crucial detail captured in this story of Jesus’ return to his very own ‘hometown’, Nazareth. Not only did the neighbours in this hometown take ‘offence’ (some translations use the term ‘stumbled’) but his very own ‘family’. Yes, his only family. We are left guessing what exactly this means. There is more than a hint, here, that Jesus’ own family were not happy with his behaviour. After all, earlier in this Gospel we are told that his own family regarded Jesus as ‘mad’ (without putting too fine a point in it).  See Mark 3:21. This ‘family’ could include his mother, his father Joseph if he were still alive (but there is no mention of him during the ‘ministry years’) and his ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ who are among those named here. Are these brother and sisters blood brothers and sisters as we know the term these days or do they refer to a looser relationship based on a wider kinship? Let’s leave that question to the scripture scholars and theologians!

The Gospel of Mark reports the prophetic sentence of Jesus (verse 4)

Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house

The New International Version (UK) version of the Bible puts Jesus’ saying in even more stark contemporary language:

A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.

Expect rejection now...

It is likely that the experience of rejection and exclusion even up to permanent expulsion was the lived experience of many followers of Jesus when the Gospels were transferred from oral tradition to written records. Many disciples, both then and now, will experience the tension and conflict between inhospitable communities or relationships from which they have emerged and the duties of care and covenantal obligation.  There are no blueprints for handling this other than lots of trust and lots of prayer and perseverance and support in the family of Christian believers.

To put it another way: witnesses who challenge the status quo may gain acceptance abroad but not on the home ground. This is an observable trait not only in ancient societies such as those described in the Bible but in our own modern world. Over the ages and in today’s world, how many individuals and groups have been marginalised, hounded, excluded and expelled because they are viewed as a reproach to the ‘way we do things around here’?  The point is more subtly confirmed from my experience and observations on this island of the North Atlantic. If you want to make a point, prove a thesis, proclaim a new insight – go and fetch an outsider be it a famous writer, a famous politician or a famous thinker and get them to give a speech here on this island.  Ironically, what they might say is often no different, essentially, to what is already thought, written and said by others who have grown up and lived here. Yet, having an outsider say it makes all the difference. Everyone or most people applaud. Have ‘one of our own’ say it and there are objections: ‘This voice lacks credibility’, ‘he is only saying that because of political or other ambition’, ‘was not she the person who was fined for speeding last year?’ You get the picture! And Mark captures the point well in this saying of Jesus for which there is no direct Old Testament precedent (even though the saying has an Old Testament ring to it). All four ‘canonical’ gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – report the phrase used in Mark 6:4.

What is it about local communities and societies that welcome, sometimes, the outsider ‘prophet’ but not ‘one of their own’? It is a good question.  Perhaps, in receiving the outsider we do not need to take responsibility when she or he has moved on. The insider is too much a sign of contradiction and reproach. At the same time, we may know the insider much better than others do and, as often happens, ‘familiarity breeds contempt’: we know the negative traits and past histories of the insider and we dwell on these more than the positive. In the non-canonical gospel of St Thomas the equivalent phrase to that in Mark 6:4 used is:

‘No prophet is accepted in his own village’

Sources of offence...

But, what was it that caused people to take offence in Jesus’ teaching? The evangelist Luke in his account of this episode (where he welds together into one a number of stories about Jesus returning to Nazareth) gives a clue. When Jesus stands up in the synagogue and reads from the prophet Isaiah (Luke 4:16-30) and applies this teaching to himself by declaring ‘today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ everyone was pleased with what he said. However, what infuriated the synagogue participants that day is when Jesus questioned their sincerity in really believing the words of Isaiah. A trigger switch was pressed and favourable acclaim turned to extreme hatred and precipitated an effort to kill or seriously injure Jesus. The saying ‘no prophet is accepted’ seems to be the trigger according to Luke’s version of the story. How quickly astonishment and delight turn to hatred and opposition especially when what we say and do appear as a reproach to the way others live and see the world.

Letting loose..

Chapter 6 of Mark’s Gospel represents a new turning point. Having failed in Galilee, Jesus would now head south and take on the territories surrounding Jerusalem and, ultimately, Jerusalem itself. The 12 apostles would begin to play a more significant role from now on as their training intensifies. The key points of the Gospel story as a whole are present in this short passage of Mark (and were outlined in more detail in the first chapter): faith, repentance, healing, following and being sent.

There is a further twist to this episode in the life of Jesus and it is the relationship between trust (faith) and miracles. Some situations seem so intractable and so much beyond hope that the very effort to retrieve the situation seems pointless. But, miracles and do happen (think of the miraculous recovery of European solidarity in the years following the terrible period of 1939-1945). But a miracle in personal relationships, personal health or communal goals is only possible when trust, grounded on practical experience and knowledge, is let loose as to be boundless.