No prophet is accepted in his home town

I am at the airport again waiting for my flight to take me to St. Martins, New Brunswick in about an hour and a half. I did my scripture reading this morning and didn't really come up with anything to write about. Here is an unfinished blog I meant to write a while ago. The title is interesting in light of the fact that here I am leaving town to give another talk. I have been invited as a speaker pretty much around the globe but rarely in my home town - Hamilton and McMaster University. There had been times when I had this nagging feeling that I was the prophet who was not accepted in my home town! I know this is simply not true. I have been able to make a name for myself within my faculty and have been well supported by many of my colleagues in my academic pursuit. Anyways, this scriptural gleaning is about Jesus being rejected by his siblings and his home town folk. What would be the reason for that?

Luke 4:22-30
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

In this fourth chapter of the gospel of Luke, Jesus had just been tempted by the devil in the wilderness and came through unscathed. He demonstrated that he was full of the Spirit of God (versus 1). He depended on God's word to sustain himself (verse 4). His purpose in life was to glorify God and not himself (versus 8). His total trust in God did not require putting God to the proof (verse 12).

He then returned to Galilee, his home town to teach the town folk on scripture. On one Sabbath day, following his reading of a passage in Isaiah 61:1-2, he made this remarkable claim: "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing!". He basically told them he was the person described in scripture who was God's anointed to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom to those who were imprisoned, to give sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. This is essentially proclaiming himself to be the Messiah because the listeners would have interpreted the scripture this way. (See this bible commentary).

Now here lies the problem of being someone known by these home town folk. Jesus grew up there and everyone knew that he was Joseph's (the carpenter's) son. As amazing as his teaching was, his claim to be the Messiah just simply wouldn't go with their preconceived idea of who he was. Jesus knew what they were thinking. In their head they were thinking of this proverb: "Physician, heal yourself!" which essentially asked for more proof - like reproducing the same amazing miracles that he performed in Capernaum. That's when Jesus replied: "no prophet is accepted in his hometown". Why is it so hard to believe when we already have preconceived idea of who God should be and how He should behave towards mankind?

Jesus further quoted two famous stories in the Old Testament: the story of the prophet Elijah helping a widow in Zarephath during a long famine (1 King 17) and the story of the prophet Elisha healing the leprous Naaman the Syrian (2 King 5). The point of these stories suggested that the Israelites were the unbelieving people even though they were God's chosen people. God used these miracles to demonstrate His power to stir up His own people to return to Him. The apostle Paul explained it this way (Romans 11:11): salvation has come to the gentles in order to cause God's people to become envious - so that they too will return to Him.

The story in the Luke's gospel didn't end that way. Instead of believing that Jesus was the messiah because of the miracles he did in Capernaum, they let their bias take over - to the point of wanting to murder Jesus!

May I always check my preconceived idea about God and Jesus. When I see Jesus at work in me or in the lives of others may it stir up my desire to honour him as my Saviour and Lord.