XIV Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

The First Apostolic Failure of Jesus

“Jesus came to his hometown”
Mark 6:1-6

Today we find Jesus in Nazareth. Months earlier, his family, concerned about the rumours circulating about him, had gone down to Capernaum, where Jesus had established his new residence, intending (unsuccessfully) to bring him back home. Now it is Jesus himself who takes the initiative to return to his hometown. It was a journey of about fifty kilometres and an ascent of seven hundred metres, so it was not a small walk. Why does he do it? We can think of very human motivations, such as seeing his family, being with friends, spending a few days resting in the environment where he grew up… But there must have been deeper reasons as well, like presenting his new family, the Twelve, and announcing the good news of the Kingdom in his village too. We can imagine that the welcome was friendly and even enthusiastic. Jesus was one of them, certainly well-liked by all. The situation, however, changes radically on the Sabbath day when everyone gathered in the humble synagogue of Nazareth.

Let us also go to Nazareth, not as passive spectators, but seeking to relate to the protagonists in the story. Let us particularly consider the three groups present: the inhabitants of Nazareth, the twelve disciples who accompanied Jesus, and the group of close family members, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the forefront.

From Wonder to Scandal

Jesus had attended that synagogue for thirty years, but this time there was an air of particular expectation. His fame had now spread throughout Galilee, and in his village, everyone was wondering what was happening because they knew Jesus well and could not explain what was being said about him. They knew he had not studied, was not a rabbi: why was he presenting himself with a following of twelve disciples?! He had calloused carpenter’s hands: why now did he lay those hands on the sick and heal them?! He was one of them, of humble origin, from a remote village that promised nothing good: how had he become famous, and his name spread from mouth to mouth?! They knew him well, but they did not recognise him at all in the guise of the “prophet of Nazareth”!

“He began to teach in the synagogue.” As was his custom, the evangelist Luke specifies, placing this episode at the beginning of Jesus’ preaching, as his programmatic discourse (Luke 4:16-30). Luke says in his account that “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him” (v. 20) and that, at his first words, all “were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips” (v. 22). The beginning, therefore, seemed to herald a good reception, as was happening almost everywhere. However, Mark and Matthew (13:54-58) express themselves more cautiously, saying that the people “were astonished.” Indeed, his fellow villagers remained more perplexed than amazed. In the murmuring of the assembly, three comments of doubt and distrust emerge regarding the origin of his words, his wisdom, and his miracles. This is followed by four rhetorical and disdainful questions about his identity, regarding his profession, his mother, his brothers, and his sisters. “Who does he think he is?” they said among themselves. And from wonder, they moved to scandal: “And they took offence at him,” that is, he became a stumbling block for them!

We are faced with a tangle of feelings that is not easy to unravel, a mix of wonder and admiration, jealousy and envy, doubt and suspicion, opposition and contradiction, eventually turning into indignation and rejection. How can we explain this drastic change? If we have the courage to delve into our own hearts, we can understand it. The fellow villagers of Jesus are a mirror reflecting many of our behaviours. How many times have we closed our minds and hearts to an uncomfortable truth, crafting a whole chain of reasoning? How many times have we relied on judgments and prejudices to neutralise a novel message that bothered us? How many times have we thought: “but look who’s talking!”? How many of us willingly accept a “prophetic voice” that questions and challenges us? We accept prophets better when they are dead!

The Disciples’ Dismay and Shock

What must the group of Twelve have experienced? The text does not say, but we can imagine. They too had expectations of Jesus. They were proud of their Master and expected to witness another of his successes. Thus, they were dismayed to see the turn of events. James of Alphaeus and Judas Thaddeus, two cousins of Jesus who knew well the parochialism of their fellow villagers, must have inwardly deplored that Jesus quoted that popular proverb “a prophet is not without honour except in his own town.” The other ten were likely shocked by this first failure of Jesus, right in his own home. A defeat they certainly did not expect. They too must have thought that Jesus should have been more cautious, less forthright, and more accommodating. So, the disciples discover that the mission of Jesus – and their mission – would not be all roses. And who knows if they thought of the prophecy of Ezekiel in today’s first reading (2:2-5): “The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn.” Sometimes we think the prophet is a messenger sent to fail.

We too surely share the apostles’ view. Faced with the opposition and rejection of our world, we wonder if the Church should not be more accommodating on certain matters; if it should not lower the standard of its proposals; if it should not update itself, adapting to the sensibilities of the times. In our apostolic task, are we not also tempted to conform to the “politically correct”?

A Thorn in the Heart

What must have happened in the heart of Mary, the mother of Jesus? Surely a fog of pain and sadness enveloped it. Perhaps the prophecy of Simeon came to her mind: “A sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Luke 2:35). The memory of that Sabbath must have lodged in her heart like a thorn.

That thorn still pierces the heart of the Church, which suffers for its persecuted children, for the scandals that tarnish its testimony, for the estrangement of many of its sons and daughters, for the growing rejection of the gospel message…

This thorn is also embedded in our hearts. Our weakness is a cause of sadness, suffering, hindrance, and scandal for us. Like Paul, we too have asked the Lord to free us from this thorn, and he has answered: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (see the second reading, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

Fr. Manuel João Pereira Correia mccj
Verona, July 2024

God among the kitchen pots:
Jesus carpenter, son, brother, neighbour

A commentary on Mk 6, 1-5

Mark shows Jesus as a travelling master, who, after some time in and out of villages and towns near to the Galilee Lake, goes back to Nazareth, where He grew up and where He was not accepted by his neighbours, because He was just one of them. Mark explains this refusal with the well-known sentence: “No prophet has ever been accepted by his own people and at home”. And he concludes saying that Jesus was astonished at their incredulity. It seems to me that Jesus’ experience – his refusal by his own people- is quite common and on my view reflects two errors that very often we make:

1) We imagine God as someone far away from our everyday life.
It happens all the time in history and in all religions; many people think that God has to be looked for in extraordinary events: in wonderful places, big cathedrals, special sanctuaries, in a very important person, over the clouds…. As if God would have nothing to do with what we are and do in our simple and ordinary lives. But Jesus teaches exactly the opposite; He teaches that God becomes one of us (Emmanuel): He is born as a displaced person, works as a carpenter, goes to the synagogue every Saturday, drinks, eats, and makes friends… And in all that He is and acts as the loved Son of the Father.

One way to explain this experience of God’s presence in our ordinary life is the famous sentence by Saint Theresa of Avila: “God is also among the kitchen pots”. That’s it: Do not look for God in extraordinary events but in the simple facts of your everyday life: in the working place, in the family, in friendship, in the honest fight for justice and peace… Certainly also in the simple and sincere prayer (with not so many words or gesticulation)… “Among the kitchen pots”.

2) To let a heavy heart grow in us and become cynics and hard with our neighbours
There’s a saying that goes more or less like this: “the person with les respect within a temple is the one who works in it”… That may happen to all of us with the people we live with: the members of our family or community, co-workers, parish priest… Living near them, we are in danger of seeing only their limits and defects, overlooking the many good deeds that they probably are doing. So far from taking the opportunity of our nearness to love them and understand them, we end up in a hipper-critical attitude that makes it difficult for us to discover the message that God wants to give us through tem, in spite of their limits and defects. God will not come to us in the dress of a perfect person, but in the concrete reality of people around us.

As I meditate on this text form Mark, I pray to the Lord to acquire that humility that makes us able to recognize Jesus in the humble prophet of Nazareth and in the people that live with me and are for me a sign of God’s presence in my concrete reality, with its opportunities and problems, its rights and wrongs, its successes and failures.

Lord, do not allow me to become arrogant or cynic like the people of Nazareth. Let my heart be always open to acknowledge your humble presence around me, in spite of my own limits and the limits of others.
Fr. Antonio Villarino,
Comboni missionary

Mark 6, 1-6

REJECTED BY HIS OWN
by José Antonio Pagola

Jesus isn’t a Temple priest, busy about taking care of and promoting religion. Nor does anyone confuse him with a Teacher of the Law, dedicated to defend the Torah of Moses. The Galilean villagers see in his healing actions and in his words of fire the actions of a prophet moved by God’s Spirit.

Jesus knows that a difficult life of conflict awaits him. The religious leaders will confront him. It’s the destiny of every prophet. He doesn’t yet suspect that he will be rejected precisely by his own people, those who know him best from his childhood.

It seems that Jesus’ rejection in his village of Nazareth was often commented upon by early Christians. Three Gospel writers recount the episode in great detail. According to Mark, Jesus arrives at Nazareth accompanied by his disciples and with the reputation of being a prophetic healer. His neighbors don’t know what to think.

When the Sabbath arrives, Jesus enters into the small village synagogue and «begins to teach». His neighbors and relatives hardly listen to him. Within them all kinds of questions are arising. They know Jesus from childhood: he’s one more neighbor. Where has he learned that surprising message about God’s reign? From whom has he received that power to heal? Mark says that Jesus «had them upset». Why?

Those villagers believe that they know all about Jesus. They have an idea of him from his childhood. Instead of welcoming him as he presents himself before them, they get stuck by the image they have of him. That image keeps them from opening themselves up to the mystery that Jesus contains. They resist discovering that in him the saving God has drawn near.

But there’s something more. To receive him as a prophet means being ready to listen to the message he’s directing to them in God’s name. And this can lead to problems. They have their synagogue, their sacred books and their traditions. They live their religion in peace. Jesus’ prophetic presence can break the tranquility of their village.

We Christians have plenty of different images of Jesus. Not all of them coincide with the image of those who knew Jesus up close and followed him. Each one of us has our own idea of him. This image conditions our way of living our faith. If our image of Jesus is poor, partial or distorted, our faith will be poor, partial or distorted.

Why do we push ourselves so little to know Jesus?

Why does it scandalize us to recall his human features?

Why do we resist confessing that God has been made incarnate in a prophet?

Do we maybe sense that his prophetic life would oblige us to profoundly change our communities and our life?
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf