That’s exactly the point: familiarity breeds contempt. They know Jesus too well - I mean this is His family, friends and neighbors we’re talking about - that when He comes back to them with rumors of miracles in His wake and saying a bunch of weird stuff about the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom they can’t help but wonder whether He messed up His head somewhere in absentia.
It’s something like this. Imagine for a moment that I’m your friend since childhood and that we’ve been in constant contact with each other for many years, when suddenly I disappear. After an interval of time we meet again, but you find me to be (in your opinion) totally different from what I used to be. You’d be bemused, wouldn’t you?
Patrick, I think it has more to do with rabinnical authority than it does with suspicion of mental illness.
To teach in a synagogue carries with it the suggestion of taking on the role of Rabbi. Rabbis in the Old Testament were formally trained by other Rabbis, from whom they got their authority to teach.
They returned once more to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple area, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approached him and said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?” (Mark 11:27-28)
A Rabbi would often teach in the name of the Rabbi who trained him, thereby indicating his pedigree and authority for doing so.
***At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us *
for doing this?” (John 2:18)
All through the Gospels, Jesus’ authority as a teacher, prophet and king are questioned. Matthew portrays Jesus as a King who establishes a new Kingdom and who transfers power from “The Chair of Moses” to the Chair of Peter, and as he does so, the chief priests are furious and want to kill him. Mark portrays Jesus as the suffering servant, as a slave, and slaves have no authority. Slaves were not even considered to have a geneology, hence Mark’s Gospel omitting a geneology for Jesus.
I think the whole episode of Jesus’ rejection by his own family in his own home town is a representation of how the fulfillment of all Old Testament prohecy - Jesus - was rejected by those to whom God gave the prophecy. The people to whom God gave prophecy ultimately refused to accept it when it was eventually fulfilled.
“His native place” is
literally Jesus’ home town and his own kin, but we have to always remember the
spiritual sense of scripture - how it points to Christ, to our own Christian life, and to our ultimate destiny to beatitude. One of the spiritual senses of this scripture for me, how it points to Christ and to the Church, is that of God the Father being rejected by his adopted son, the nation of Israel. Remember that God the Father stated that the nation of Israel was his son. That’s
son, singular.
So you shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my first-born. Hence I tell you: Let my son go, that he may serve me. (Exodus 4:22-23)
The people of Israel whom God entered into a covenant with, thereby creating a family relationship, ulimately rejected God when God came to be one of them. God dwelled with the Jews in the temple. Israel was God’s son, and he was their God, and they were in a family relationship by virue of having formed a covenant. Covenants form family bonds.
Jesus’ own family rejects his authority to teach, and God’s own son rejects God when God becomes man and walks among them.
**
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” (Mark 6:4)
The prophet Jonah was sent to Ninevah, a non-Hebrew city, and they repented, recognizing the word of God, while the Israelites and Jews whom God calls his “Son” persisted in disobedience and killed the prophets!
And it’s a message to the modern Church. We are God’s covenant family. Rejecting the voice of Christ when it speaks through the Church is like the family in Jesus’ “Native place” rejecting Jesus himself as he taught in their synagogue. It is a warning to us now, and throughout all time, about the authority of the Church, and a reminder of how the Church makes Christ present to us, and a beautiful reminder about the nearness of God who became one of us so that we might always be able to draw near to him in the Scriptures, in the Eucharist, and in his body which is the Church.
It’s a reminder not to be like Jesus’ family who reject the teachings of Christ “
In his native place, among his own kin, and in his own house.”
-Tim-
