The rejection at Nazareth

Today is the beginning of the Ordinary Time. Today’s Gospel is a continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel on the beginning of the Galilean ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today we are in Luke 4:21-30.

“21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23 He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’”

“24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers[a] in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”

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Just think of it, when Jesus began his ministry in Galilee, he somehow decided that it was time to visit his native Nazareth, and he somehow knew that he would find a lot of people inside the synagogue. No, he didn’t go to his home in Nazareth like most of us Filipinos do when we come to visit our hometown because he must be in his father’s house at work.

As we learned in last week’s gospel reading, the attendant handed Jesus a scroll of the prophesies of Isaiah and he read that passage fully to the attention of the people inside the synagogue and after reading the contents he returned the scroll and declared, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Upon hearing what Jesus told them, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

Then someone in the crowd recognized Jesus as a Nazorean and said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23 He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” Now it has come to pass that his fellow Nazoreans realized that when the Lord Jesus said “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” They all believed that Jesus blasphemed! Only God or the Son of God would ever say such a thing “This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Then he told the Nazoreans, “But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 there were also many lepers [a] in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

All the more were the people in the synagogue enraged by these words because Israelis were taught they are God’s special people and given countless blessings by God. But this story in their Torah reveals God also gave special blessings to gentiles! So the people inside the synagogue got up to take Jesus and hurl him off the cliff, but at the right moment, Jesus merely walked away from them and no one could stop him for his time has not yet come. It would come in Jerusalem a couple of years later where not only Nazareth rejected his teachings, but the Jews rejected their own.

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